Page:Isaiah Bowman - Desert Trails of Atacama (1924).pdf/95



The coastal desert of Chile and Peru was the field of action of one of the two greatest wars in the last hundred years of South American history. Its land battles involved a type of desert marching remindful of the campaigns of Alexander in Asia, and the fighting was notoriously desperate; its sea battles engaged, among others, steel-clad vessels of the kind first used in our Civil War; Lima, the capital of Peru, was occupied by Chilean troops for three years (1881-1883); one of the articles of the treaty involved the question of a plebiscite whose delayed settlement was the chief objective of the Tacna- Arica Conference held at Washington in 1922 and now sub- mitted to the arbitration of the President of the United States. By the terms of the Treaty of Ancon, which closed the war, Peru lost control of all of her rich possessions in the desert south of the Rio Sama (latitude 18° S.}.. Among the fourteen articles of the treaty, six relate specifically to the guano de- posits of the region, one to the nitrate deposits of Tarapaca, while an eighth refers to the territory in which these deposits occur. Tarapacé was ceded outright to Chile. The Lobos Is- lands, off the coast of Peru, were to be administered by Chile until one million tons of guano were extracted, when they were to be returned to Peru. Bolivia lost all of her maritime terri- tory and became a landlocked state.

The causes of the War of the Pacific may be understood better by appreciating the fact that Peru based her terri- torial claim upon early treaties and royal decrees, while the claim of Chile was based upon effective occupation and development and allegations of lack of good faith on the part of Peru and Bolivia. The two claims are separated by a long period and are incommensurable; their settlement would not have been a difficult matter for a calm tribunal; but with a great stake—the rich nitrate fields—in the hazard, war was

53