Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Hero of the Breña campaign and President of the Republic between 1886-1890 and 1894-1895 . He is the son of Domingo Cáceres Oré and Justa Dorregaray Cueva. He was born in Ayacucho on November 10, 1833 and died in his retirement in Ancón on October 10, 1923. He joined the army, abandoning his studies, captivated by the personality of Ramón Castilla during his revolution against the government of Echenique (1854) and was part of the battalion “Ayacucho” led by General Fermín del Castillo, participating in the battle of La Palma and achieving his promotion to second lieutenant in 1855. Already as a graduate and effective lieutenant he defended the Castilian regime against the revolution of Manuel Ignacio de Vivanco and was in the following confrontations:Yumina (August 1857), Bellavista (January 1858) and assault of Arequipa (March 1858). He was promoted to captain in merit of his services and participated in the campaign against Ecuador (1859-1860); due to some war injuries he was sent to France as an assistant to the Peruvian delegation headed by Pedro Gálvez Egúsquiza, to undergo various medical treatments. Upon his return (1862) he formed the staff of the "Pichincha No. 3" battalion in Huancayo, organized his recruits and moved with him to Lima while he was promoted to graduate sergeant major (1863). He censured the regime of Juan Antonio Pezet for his weak attitude towards the Spanish Squadron and, having protested the signing of the Vivanco-Pareja treaty (January 1865), he was arrested and banished to Chile; Along with other exiles, he managed to disembark in Moliendo and was able to join the revolution of Colonel Mariano Ignacio Prado that began in Arequipa.
Accession of Andrés Avelino Cáceres
He was quickly promoted to effective sergeant major and graduated lieutenant colonel (April 1865), participating in Prado's victory against the Pezet government in Lima (November 1865) and in the final defeat of the Spanish Squadron in the battle of Callao ( May 2, 1866). He retired from the army when the revolution of José Balta triumphed and he dedicated himself to agriculture in his native land (1868-1872) , collaborating however to defeat the revolution of the Gutiérrez brothers, who tried to ignore the victory of the civilian Manuel Pardo to assume the presidency of the Republic. Therefore, at his request, he assumed command of the "Zepita" battalion and repressed, shortly after, a mutiny of its own members, which earned him promotion to effective colonel (November 1872). Commanding the same battalion, he continued to defend the Pardo regime and contributed to the defeat of the revolution started in Moquegua by Nicolás de Piérola in the battle of Alto de los Ángeles (December 1874).
The War with Chile
In January 1875 he assumed the prefecture of Cuzco, a position in which he was surprised by the start of the war with Chile (April 1879) . At the head of his battalion he was assigned to the second division in the extreme south of the country. He participated in the battles of San Francisco (November 19, 1879) and Tarapacá (November 27, 1879), where his risky attack allowed the Peruvian victory . He then was sent to watch the coasts of Tacna and Ilo, until participating in the battle of Alto de la Alianza (May 26, 1880) to define the future situation of Tacna, which, finally, remained in enemy hands. Arriving in Lima, he was appointed commander general of the fifth division of the Army of the Center and went to Huaral to direct the practices of the reservists. He participated in the battles of San Juan (January 13, 1881) and Miradores (January 15, 1881) which meant Peruvian defeats and the subsequent occupation of the capital by Chilean troops. It is worth mentioning that during these confrontations he was wounded and requested medical attention at the outpatient post installed in the San Carlos cloister; he then went to the Jesuit convent of San Pedro to evade the enemy until he was named political and military chief of the central departments, establishing his military headquarters in Matucana (April 26, 1881). From there he promoted an incessant campaign of harassment of the invader, was promoted to the high class of general (August 1881) and declined the presidency of the nation, supporting the appointment of Francisco García Calderón as president of the Magdalena government and the authority of the vice president. Lizard Montero. At the same time, he organizes the so-called Breña campaign in the central highlands, becoming the hero of the Resistance and becoming known as the "Wizard of the Andes" . In the battle of Pucará (February 5, 1882) he went out to meet the invaders and achieved his first great victory; the Chileans, then, climb the mountain range with a vengeful spirit and take possession of the city of Huancayo, being forced to abandon it before the cacerista victories in Marcavalle and Pucara II. Meanwhile, by order of Andrés Avelino Cáceres, Juan Gastó wins in Concepción (July 9, 1882). The last great battle took place in Huamachuco (July 10, 1883) where Leoncio Prado was captured, who would later be shot in his bed by order of Chilean officers (July 15) . Despite this defeat, Cáceres thought that it was possible to defeat and expel the enemy if he was forced to fight in the mountains, a territory not dominated by the adversary. For this reason, he opposed the declaration of Miguel Iglesias to sign peace under any conditions and never accepted the terms of the Treaty of Ancón (October 20, 1883) that formally ended the Pacific War.
End of the War and start in the politics of Andrés Avelino Cáceres
Publicly declared an enemy of Iglesias, he opposed his government (1883-1886), until after a bloody civil war he reached the presidency of the Republic for the first time to lay the foundations for the National Reconstruction (1886-1890). During his government he had to settle the problem of the debt with the English creditors that amounted to 51 million pounds sterling, when the total income of Peru only reached 8 million soles. The country was bankrupt. In this way the controversial Grace contract (1889) was concluded, which meant the delivery, to the English creditors, of the usufruct of the railways of Peru for 66 years and the right to exploit 3 million tons of guano, which passed to form the Peruvian Corporation; all this in exchange for the cancellation of the debt and a large loan. The signing of the aforementioned contract produced serious denunciations and protests by the written press and by the majority of the congressmen of the time. On the other hand, without many resources, little could be done from the government:there was concern about public instruction, passing a law in this regard in 1888 and, in the area of acquisitions, the "Lima" gunboat was bought, the first unit of the new squad of Peru.
At the end of his mandate, Andrés Avelino Cáceres was appointed plenipotentiary minister in England and France. Upon his return (1894) he stood for the general elections and became president of the republic for the second time (1894-1895) ; His victory, however, is not accepted by the alliance of civilistas and democrats and, after a bloody civil war, he is forced to resign so as not to use the army against the popular montoneras led by Nicolás de Piérola. He traveled to Buenos Aires (1895-1899) and on his return he lived in Tacna and Arica. As head of the Democratic Party he had interference in national politics during the so-called Aristocratic Republic. He was plenipotentiary minister in Italy (1905-1909) and Germany (1911-1914) and, again in Peru, he presided over the party convention that in 1915 appointed José Pardo as a candidate for the presidency of the Republic; however, since 1918 he conspired against this ruler and supported the coup d'etat of Augusto B. Leguía (July 4, 1919) . The National Assembly, by law No. 4009 of November 10, 1919, in recognition of his brilliant conduct of the Breña campaign, conferred the rank of Marshal of Peru, assigning him an annual income. His death and his burial on October 10, 1923 gave rise to a whole day of national mourning. He was married to Antonia Moreno, who died in 1916. His valuable testimonies of the war were transmitted to his daughter, Zoila Aurora, and to Commander Julio C. Guerrero. The first made them known in The Breña campaign (1927) and the second used those testimonies to publish The war between Peru and Chile (Madrid, 1924) and Memories of General Cáceres (Berlin, 1924 and Lima, 1973) .