Founders of Nations

6b. Argentina & San Martin Part 2

• Matthew Grace • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Last time San Martin had just replaced and then helped train Manuel Belgrano and then had helped get Martin Guemes put in charge of the defense of the north. These two figures would play pivotal roles in the revolution. Meanwhile, San Martin had seemingly gone off to retire far from the action. But we know that is not what he meant to do. Upon arriving in Cuyo, in late 1814, he began to construct an army that would come to be known as the Army of the Andes that he meant to use to free South America from Spanish dominion.

His overriding concern at this point, which was also one of Buenos Aires’ concerns was Peru, the stronghold of Spanish military power in South America. Buenos Aires wanted to continue sending forces through Upper Peru to get to Peru proper(remember upper peru was a province all it’s own) but San Martin had been there and seen that was not going to be feasible. The geography of the area and the people there were both difficult to deal with and in his eyes, when put together they made attacks there folly. This notion would be justified by what happened there as time after time Buenos Aires sent armies north only to see them defeated.

Buenos Aires was busy with Montevideo, at this point, and the fighting near the capital, which is only natural, but extraordinary was what was needed. San Martin was certain that if Peru fell all of South America would be able to quickly free itself of the Spanish.


So he devised a plan to gather his men and elephants and cross the Alps to take the fight directly to the Romans... oh no wait he decided to gather his men and cavalry and cross the Andes into Chile and from there sail a force up the Pacific coast and invade Peru from its mostly undefended Pacific coast. The central government in Buenos Aires, meanwhile  was already on to its 4th iteration and was having all kinds of trouble not just with nearby royalists but with many provinces just wanting to be free to run their own affairs. The capital was trying to enforce it's will on them as well.


So here was his first step. Get the governorship of Cuyo and get over the Alps that separated Cuyo from Chile. But first he needed an army... there was a small force in Cuyo and it’s capital city of Mendoza but it was not big enough nor trained and equipped to make any sort of attack. With Buenos Aires sometimes willing sometimes apathetic but almost always impotent in areas outside the capital, he was not able to trust that they would send much.  Almost all the resources that weren’t going to the aforementioned things were usually sent to the army of the north and into upper peru where they were inevitably wasted against the defenses there.


So how is one to get an army when the overlords aren’t willing to get you what you need? Make your own of course! San Martin set about developing his province into a modern and successful one. He introduced many modernizing reforms including criminal justice reform, modern hospitals being built, modern agricultural methods being put in place, corruption fought against; he basically did what we talked about Charlemagne doing to Western Europe back in the Andorra episode. And before long the people of Cuyo were amazed at how this strict disciplinarian had turned their province into a much better place to live.


At one point in 1815, a new leader came to the fore in Buenos Aires and was trying to find a way to get rid of San Martin because he saw him as a threat to his own power. Well San Martin feigned illness and asked to be temporarily relieved so he could get well. When the new temporary governor was announced in Mendoza the people there went ballistic calling for San Martin or a split from Buenos Aires. And so he was quickly brought back and from that point on no one dared to try to move him from his place.


At this point though another problem emerged, the free Chileans whom he was counting on to help him get to Peru were defeated by the Spanish and Chile was put back under colonial rule. Chileans patriots and refugees now streamed across the Andes into Cuyo.


Now that seems like it would be a good thing but the two main leaders of the Chileans had been rivals in Chile and were now bringing that division into San Martin's province. The one, O’Higgins, was willing to submit his people to San Martin as refugees in Cuyo while the other, Carrera,  wanted to basically run his own Chilean government and military inside Cuyo.


After a short time, Carrera tried to subvert San Martin and so San Martin had he, his brother and leadership, arrested and sent East. O’Higgins was open to a combined army crossing back into Chile with San Martin at its head and in general the two had similar ideas on South American independence and government so they became close allies from here on.


So San Martin is building up Cuyo's infrastructure and economy while also building a coalition with Chilean freedom fighters. The third step in his plan was to leverage his new booming province and the good will of the people to do what France had done during it’s revolution which was to transform the whole place into a war economy with everything centered around creating and then maintaining this new army as it did it's work. He did a lot of different things, one of which was freeing around 1,500 slaves and setting them up as his main infantry arm. His people bought in and carried the load without much serious push back. 


In the middle of 1816, a new leader came into power in Buenos Aires and was finally willing to sit down with San Martin and talk about things. He agreed to supply the final pieces of the puzzle that were needed, namely weapons that couldn't be produced in Cuyo and the last of the supplies he would need and prepared to set off in early 1817 over the Andes. 


Over the Andes

In Early January a great feast was held for 3 days in Mendoza, the pep rally to beat all pep rallys. The people were elated to see all their hard work pay off, and I'm sure to have a break from the difficulty of providing all those resources.  Around 4,000 men and 8,000 horses and mules were ready to do the thing.


Now came what was universally considered the most dangerous part of the whole expedition. Getting the men, supplies, and animals across the andes. On January 9, 1817, two units were sent across, one to the north and one to the south of the planned area for the main crossing. They were sent in hopes of getting the Spanish to commit to moving outside the area of the main army's crossing. It seemed to work as on the 18th  when the main army began marching through the mountains they did not face much of any opposition...from the Spanish. The mountains, however, were another matter all together though. 


The paths that were chosen for the march were meant to stay away from any prying eyes and garrisons that might have been along the regular paths through the mountains. So the army was subjected to extreme cold and rugged paths that meant a treacherous crossing. The paths were almost all so thin that they required marching soldiers marching 1by1 and there were parts where the paths were only big enough for you to walk one foot in front of another. This went on for about 3 weeks as the army slowly made it's way up and down and through the mountains.


When the army finally reached the other side it's estimated that somewhere around 1/5 of the army was missing or confirmed dead and over half the animals were gone. But the majority of the Army had made it and without Spanish intervention. This march would become the South American version of Hannibal crossing the Alps. If you ask people in Argentina or Chile who San Martin you'll hear about the man that lead his army across the Andes.


Just a few days after getting through all that they found the Spanish who had come running from San Martin's distractions and had a force of around 1,500 men that were supposed to slow down San Martin's advance.  Instead, San Martin had his forces mount a dawn attack that took the Spanish by surprise. The combined army of Chileans and Argentines ended up having some troubles with the flanking cavalry detachment getting slowed down by the geography and the main force lead by O'Higgins attacking early. This lead to a few moments where the battle was up in the air, O'Higgins men began to retreat and San Martin had to personally lead a charge of the mounted cavalry into the center of the Spanish force, this slapped O'Higgins men back into the fight and the flanking cavalry arrived soon after in the Spanish rear catching the Spanish in a double envelopment (a big circle of enemies all around you). The Spanish all either died or surrendered. 


There was much jubilation and it was thought that Chile was now free. San Martin and his forces got a little too excited and failed to pursue the rest of the Spanish army that had not been at the battle. That army moved south and would prove to be a thorn in the new Chilean government's side for the better part of a decade though the main threat was quelled about a year after the Andes' crossing by the combined forces of Chile and Argentina.


Soon after all this, O'Higgins was made the leader of the new Chilean government and most of the Spanish in the south were finally defeated, San Martin traveled back to Buenos Aires to try to secure support for the final naval invasion of Peru.  By this time though the Argentina was in a full scale civil war and so was in no position to send him to Peru and was, instead calling for the Army of the Andes to recross the Andes and come to Buenos Aires to join the fight. Over the course of the year San Martin was told to bring his army home, then to keep it there, then to move it to Upper Peru, he was promised support and then told none was coming and he tried to resign 4 times in protest. On February 1, 1820, the Buenos Aires government forces were defeated by the Federalists (wanting states rights to act as small countries on their own) and the government fell. 


With Argentina's government now fallen, San Martin wrote a letter to his army asking them to elect a leader for their army which would now fight in the name of the people of Argentina instead of any government.  This is the point where the traditional telling of Argentina's war for independence ends as far as San Martin is concerned. From this point on he would be working as a free army under the care of the Chilean government and look to them for support in finally ending the Spanish threat to South America in Peru. The Chilean government, headed by O'Higgins, pushed hard to come up with the funding, men, and material to see the Plan Continental through. 


Peru was a different animal than Chile and Argentina. First, it had a lot more peninsulars than most places, because of it's important. This meant there wasn't a big group of creoles waiting to get some power back. Second, the Spanish force here was much bigger and that combined with San Martin having to field a smaller army than he desired meant this would not be a straightforward campaign like the others had been. 


The combined army arrived in Peru and was able to force the Spanish to withdraw into the interior of the country but the army was not strong enough to confront and defeat the Spanish in open battle. So there were effectively two Perus, the interior run by the Spanish Viceroy, and the coastal areas run by Independent Peru, which then made San Martin "Protector of Peru" investing in him all the powers of the state until the Spanish could be defeated.


San Martin though was in a bind, he was unable to to face the Spanish in a pitched battle and with Buenos Aires still involved in it's civil war and now Chile having internal problems as well. There was little in the way of help coming from outside Peru and Peru itself was just not ready to field a big enough army to do the deed.


It's at this crucial juncture that we meet the other famous man, Simon Bolivar, who is seen as the Liberator of the nothern half of South America. San Martin was looking for serious help militarily to finish off the Spanish but Bolivar was unable or unwilling(depending on which country's historians you listen to) to send a big enough army to help. With little hope for achieving the final defeat of the Spanish in Peru, San Martin called for Congress to meet in Peru and resigned his commission as Protector. 


Peru would eventually get to the point where they had to beg Bolivar to come help them defeat the Spanish and he did. Again, depending on which country's historians you listen to Bolivar was finally able to free up his troops or Bolivar just never wanted to share the glory with San Martin and so waited until he left to move in to help. Whatever the reason Peru was finally fully liberated.  


Chile we will see about again later when we do that episode. 

Argentina would continue on in bloody civil war with the federalists and unitarians with San Martin being alternately begged to come back and help and told if he came back he would be hanged. So while he did make two trips back towards Argentina he eventually ended up back in Europe where he saw out his final days encouraging the Argentine's to stop the infighting. 


San Martin moved back to Chile then to Argentina but eventually took his daughter, wife having died a few years earlier, to Europe to get her education. He lived out the rest of his days there, attempting to come back but poisonous Argentine politics keeping him from doing so. 


And that's where we leave things today. San Martin, the one who crossed the Andes and refused to get involved in factional infighting among the revolutionaries. From my interviews with Argentines this last thing really seems to be what makes him most beloved. He was a liberator and never overly political and so people can get behind him no matter which side of things they stand on today.


I'll be doing my what did I learn from San Martin section after we wrap things up here. If you enjoyed today's show please share with your friends or leave me a nice note and review on whichever podcast app you use. The network I talked about last week is starting to come together and hopefully by the new year will have a website and other things to tell you about. 


The question I'm thinking about this week is how to avoid this problem that befell San Martin, he stuck to his guns, ideologically, not willing to give in to people who were trying to pull him away from his Plan Continental, and that lead to it coming to fruition but it also lead him to a place where he ended up without enough allies to be able to see it finished by his own hand. So what do you think San Martin might have done differently? Was there anything realistically that could have been done to avoid that situation and still get to Peru before the Spanish got their act together and started reconquering the revolting colonies? Tell me what you think on twitter @FoundersNations or on reddit, facebook, instagram, tiktok, or the website lang4life.com/founders where there is a chat feature at the bottom right of the page.


I am about at the end of my countries that I have been able to get interviews for in the As so I'm likely going to need a little more time before I get back to our next A country, because of San Martin's big impact on Peru and Chile I am also considering them as options for the next episode. That'll be our first sworay out of alphabetical order if that happens. Oh the excitement! If you would like to support the show or have more input on it please head over to the patreon page and send us a few dollaroos. Or you can always message me and just send a one-time gift over paypal or venmo or whatever other app you use. 


I'll move into the "what did I learn" now, hope to hear from you about our question this week and hope to see you next time on Founders of Nations!


What did I learn from San Martin?

Well I think he did a great job of not trying to hold onto power, like Cincinnatus and then George Washington these men are renowned for their ability to take total power and then when the time for that was finished to lay it down. This is a serious test of what one claims to stand for. And as usual, we aren't going to be facing that question often, but we will be facing similar questions. Anywhere that we hold power over others, at home, at work, wherever...how are we going to use that power? Are we going to become intoxicated by it and do everything we can to keep it like we normally see in history or will we stay strong to our ideals and use the power for it's correct purpose? Will we use our power over our kids to satisfy ourselves(screaming, anger, or just giving them a screen to keep them busy) or will we use it as it's rightfully meant to be used as a tool to help shape them into what they need to be?


Another thing I will try to put into practice from San Martin is an ability to try to win people over to my cause. This is something he did with mixed effect. With the normal people and his army he was often able to win them over through his actions; but when it came to the politicians he seemed to have a very hard time doing what needed to be done to win them over. Imagine how much easier this story would have been if Argentina would have been won over by San Martin to totally unite in fighting the Spanish instead of getting into a Civil War. Now was there something he could have done to unite them?  Possibly not but this is also a weak point of mine and something I am working on because I feel like I find myself in these kinds of binds myself. I sometimes feel like I have a great idea that gets to the heart of things! But I struggle to get the people needed onboard to work on it with me.


Finally, that perseverance again, San Martin had a long term goal and he stayed committed to it all the way to the end. He wanted the Spanish gone from South America and he fought through years long delays, betrayals, fighting allies, the mountains, the seas, and the Spanish to make sure it was done. Was he personally able to see it through to end it like he wanted? No. But he must have been certain at that point that Bolivar would finish the job. This perseverance is what will hopefully get me through many things, one of them this podcast which is supposed to include all 200ish nations in the world.