Peru met the blow as best she could. Her army, which had deteriorated during the long inactivity, went into line with forebodings of disaster. The troops under the red, white, and red disputed every foot of ground between the capital and the sea, fighting fiercely at Chorillos, Miraflores, and San Juan, but they could not beat back the enemy; they were defeated and routed, and Christmas day saw the Chileans in Lima.
But the Peruvian army had not yet yielded, although the enemy had taken possession of the capital; the troops had withdrawn to the north, and from there they continued to wage war. Several attempts were made by the United States to bring about a peace, overtures to arbitrate were frequently advanced; but to all Chile turned a deaf ear, and insisted that the demands made in 1880, that the nitrate provinces be surrendered, must be met before the troops would be withdrawn.
For three years this desperate, one-sided struggle continued, and then Peru, compelled to purchase peace at any price or lose her individuality as a nation, made the best terms she could. Bolivia yielded all her rights on the seacoast, and Chile secured the port of Antofogasta forever. Peru yielded the province of Tarapacá, and by the final treaty, signed in 1884, she gave to Chile for a term of years the provinces of Arica and Tacna, it being agreed that in 1893 a vote of the people should be taken, to determine to what power they wished ultimately to belong.
Thus the land of the Incas emerged from its second overwhelming defeat—the first at the hands of Pizarro’s forces; the second at the hands of the Chileans.
CHAPTER XXIII. AN APPEAL TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The dawn of the twentieth century found Peru recovering from the financial depression which had followed the war, but still far from the position which she had held before 1879. It also found her knocking at the door of the great republic of the north, and asking that a protecting arm be extended below the equator, and that certain promises made years before be fulfilled.
In the whirl that marked the last days of the nineteen-hundredth term, the land of the Incas had been lost temporarily from view. Peru’s ancient enemy, Spain, had occupied the central position, and at the hands of the vigorous northern country had received even a more bitter defeat than that given her on the west coast of South America when the countries there had wrested their independence. The Philippine Islands had changed in their allegiance, so had Porto Rico, Guam, Tutuila, and Hawaii, and Cuba had become independent.