History of South America

Andrés Avelino Cáceres, The marshal who never gave up

The material compiles the biography of the Ayacucho hero and little-known aspects of the military. The Ministry of Defense and Telefónica publish a book on “El brujo de los Andes”.

....When Colonel Cáceres loaded his bayonet on the pampas in front of Redoubt No. 1, the battle of Miraflores had begun more than an hour ago. While he was leading the Jauja battalion, a shot fractured his femur, but the brave Ayacucho did not flinch. After the first clash he remade his troops, he came out of the national trenches again and crossed no man's land. The Paucarpata and the Concepción collided steel in hand-to-hand combat with the Chileans of the III Division commanded by Pedro Lagos. The sun at that time marked three in the afternoon. The southern bullets of one ounce of lead sought the chest of the Peruvian chief. One of them finally crashed against his spyglass, while the hero had him glued to the face. His aides believed him dead, but it took more than one shot to finish off the caudillo. The citizen-soldiers, the urban militias that joined the regular army to face the enemy at the gates of Lima, saw the magnitude of the sacrifice and they They threw themselves into the thick of the battle. The men of that redoubt, grouped in battalion No. 2, were merchants and office workers from the city, Italian migrants and students from the Guadalupe school. Under the command of Colonel Cáceres they achieved the feat of seizing four Krupp guns. But it wasn't enough.

“At last the redoubts were taken at bayonet point. They were full of corpses, the dead bodies of unhappy adolescents, mostly business employees, distinguished men and students”, refers a text by Clemente Markham in the book “Cáceres”, edited by the Permanent Commission of Army History of the Peru- about the last moments of the battle.
COLLECTION. For lovers of military history in particular, and the history of Peru in general, the publication is a compilation of the entire biography of whoever was, after the War of the Pacific, President of the Republic. another more difficult and painful struggle has begun, the struggle to overcome the consequences of the disaster”, the book collects the words of Cáceres Dorregaray on October 30, 1887, when the stage of National Reconstruction began. The book, made in collaboration with the Ministry of Defense and the Fundación Telefónica, reconstructs little-known aspects of the military leader, in an edition that also compiles numerous photographs from the time of the conflict, combined with illustrations and paintings that place the reader at the exact moment in history in which the hero had an active participation.
WITCH. A separate mention deserves the section dedicated to the Breña Campaign, in which Colonel Cáceres earned the nickname "El Brujo de los Andes", defeating the expeditionary forces that were looking for him in successive consecutive battles with just hours apart in time. Marcavalle, Pucará and Concepción. Finally, the feat closes with the battle of Huamachuco, where all resistance ends. The book explores the places, towns and villages through which Cáceres and his troops moved, putting the occupying forces against the wall, and provides little-known data of each area, and even photographs rescued from personal files. These same files also serve as a source to follow the political career of the soldier. In his first government (1886-1890), Cáceres formed the Constitutional Party as part of an era we know as the Second Militarism. History is also not unrelated to the Civil War that pitted Cáceres against Nicolás de Piérola, who during the War of the Pacific was hierarchically the direct head of the military.
MARSHAL ANDRÉS AVELINO CÁCERES THE DATA The rank of marshal was given to him by President Augusto B. Leguía. There is a mosaic in the Society of Founders of Independence that reflects that moment. The premises of the Society were actually the house that Leguía was going to give to Cáceres in recognition of his services, but he died before it was finished.
SOURCE:Book on “El sorcerer of the Andes”. Published by the Ministry of Defense and Telefónica.