Battle of Pisagua

Date	November 2, 1879
Location	Port of Pisagua, Peru (Chile since 1884) 19°35′56″S 70°12′54″W / 19.599°S 70.215°W / -19.599; -70.215
Result	Chilean victory

Belligerents

Chile

Peru

Bolivia

Commanders and leaders

Gen. Erasmo Escala

Gen. Juan Buendia

Strength

Available: ~8,890
In Pisagua: 4,890-5,000

1,141 (924 bolivian and 217 peruvian)

Casualties and losses

56 dead
124 wounded

210 casualties

The Battle of Pisagua ("Desembarco y combate de Pisagua"), was a landing operation of the War of the Pacific, fought on November 2, 1879, between Chile and the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru. The Chilean army commanded by Erasmo Escala, supported by the Chilean Fleet, launched an amphibious assault on the port of Pisagua and successfully drove the defending Bolivian-Peruvian forces, led by Gen. Juan Buendia, back from the shore. They established a beachhead that allowed an initial force of about 1,000 Chilean soldiers in two assault waves to disembark onto Bolivian territory at Pisagua in Tarapacá Department. This region was the principal territory in dispute.

This action marked the beginning of the Tarapacá Campaign, the first stage of the terrestrial phase of the War of the Pacific, which ended with Chilean control of the Tarapacá and of the exportation of saltpetre. This vast territory has never been returned to Bolivia and Peru; it was annexed in perpetuity to Chile by the Treaty of Ancon, signed in 1884.

War was declared in April 1879, among the nations of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. The War resulted in the loss of not only valuable mining areas in Bolivia, but the loss of Bolivia's access to the Pacific. Peru also lost a large piece of her southern mining region.

The three nations recognized the strategic importance of the sea for access to the contested territory. Control of the coast and adjacent seas was the principal objective from the beginning of hostilities, and the war first developed almost entirely on the sea. The land operations theatre was an arid desert along the coast and the adjacent saltpeter-mining areas inland. The mining region comprised the westernmost part of Bolivia, including that nation's entire seacoast, and a substantial part of southern Peru. Control of the sea and the coast would give a decisive logistic advantage in the forthcoming land battles. Hence, when Chile gained military control of the sea along the coast with the victory at Angamos (Battle of Angamos) on October 8, 1879, a landing operation became imminent as a beginning of the terrestrial campaign to secure the Tarapacá. At the time the Allies (Bolivia and Peru) had north of the Chilean city of Antofagasta, three strongholds in the province, Tacna (today the southernmost Peruvian coastal city, on the Chilean border), Arica (a coastal town on the then Bolivian coast, and today the northernmost Chilean city, on the Peruvian border), the town of Pisagua (then the Bolivian coast), and Iquique (south of Pisagua and originally on the Bolivian coast). The Chilean command deemed it obvious that the landing had to isolate and interrupt communications between these two important Allied emplacements. After a reconnaissance made by a commission formed by General Luis Arteaga, Baldomero Dublé Almeyda, José Velásquez and Emilio Gana, the port of Pisagua, located 500 km north of Antofagasta, and was selected as the site for an amphibious landing operation, because its bay was suitable for landing troops and supplies.

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Wikipedia