by Tom Anderson
With that bitter divide in the Germanies still festering, with France having escaped far worse potential fates, and with a general sigh of relief as her bleeding peoples settled down to rebuild their shattered nations, Europe entered the period later known as the Watchful Peace.
Map: Europe in the Year 1809
Chapter #82: Tarnished Silver
“…the theme that naturally lends itself to the Third Platinean War is one of betrayal. The British and Americans felt betrayed by a traditional ally when the Meridians perpetrated the Cherry Incident… the British more so when the war drew away Royal Navy forces and therefore ultimately permitted the invasion of Britain by the French. The Spanish in exile, the Empire of New Spain (or, as it was known at the time, the Empire of the Indies) felt betrayed that the Meridians had chosen to advocate their republican ideology rather than geographic patriotism, and had not welcomed the exilic Empire as a fellow Hispanophone power based in the Americas… the indigenous peoples of South America felt betrayed by the course of the war… but of course the greatest betrayal of all was that felt by the people of the United Provinces themselves, and it is that betrayal whose repercussions still shake the world today…”
- Manuel Arturo Fajado, On War (English translation, 1933)
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From: “The Third Platinean War” by Dr Thierry Gaston de Connarceux (1945 – English translation 1948)—
…the battle at Valdivia in October 1806 was the turning point for the war, though that significance was at first not obvious. Admiral Ramírez had torn the heart out of Admiral Byng’s fleet only to be ambushed in turn by Admiral Harrison, leading to the destruction of the bulk of the Meridian Armada. Though the Anglo-Americans had lost almost a third of their forces, once the dust had settled it became clear that they now had an overwhelming advantage over the Meridians. Even more importantly, the army that General Hector Fernández had landed in Acapulco in July was now cut off from resupply.
Though history has judged him harshly, not least in his own homeland, Fernández was a thinking general and not a man to be blinded by orthodox tactical doctrine. Like most fighting men of the Americas, he had eagerly lapped up correspondence from Europe detailing the ongoing war there and the breakthroughs that were being made. Some did not apply to the Americas – steam technology was still a long way off, and besides, its applications to the mountainous theatres of the present war were questionable – but others could provide a definite edge.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Fernández was sceptical of the advantages of the Republican French approach of the mass march, the hammer blow of the column through the enemy lines and then driving through via the Guerre d’éclair strategy to ‘hold the heart’, the enemy capital, after which it was assumed the enemy would crumble. Fernández verbally attacked the proponents of this so-called Boulanger Doctrine in the Meridian Army, pointing out that it had been devised by Frenchmen, who had overthrown a strongly centralised kingdom to replace it with an even more centralised republic. “It may indeed be the case that if one were to take Paris then the French state would disintegrate,” he wrote prophetically, “but it does not follow that the same notion may be applied to any capital of any kingdom.” The argument raged through the early 1800s at the Meridian Officers’ Academy at Valparaíso. Fernández’s primary opponent of similar rank was General Luis Jaime Ayala Santa Cruz, who typified the more general current of francophilia running through the U.P. establishment at the time.
Ayala had pointed out that the Boulanger Doctrine had been successful in the defeat of Spain in 1802, only for Fernández to retort that Spain had already been weakened by the civil war between the Felipistas and Carlistas. In any case, he added, the very existence of the Empire of the Indies in exile was evidence against the Doctrine, which implied that all the forces of a nation would surrender themselves once the capital and the central institutions were held. Ayala countered that, as Madrid had already been burned and the Felipistas soon evacuated to Cadiz, the French conquest of the capital did not truly fulfil the Doctrine. Fernández then drew attention to the Rape of Rome, a perfect case of the Doctrine being applied with the capital of the Papal States being taken and its leader killed, yet the result had dramatically backfired. Against this Ayala argued that the case was scarcely typical. The Pope’s murder had sent shockwaves through the UPSA, which remained strongly Catholic. Still, there had been a growing divide between the Spanish-influenced Vatican and the UPSA ever since the latter’s independence and Spanish-mandated Papal criticism of Meridian-appointed archbishops. Jansenism had been growing there ever since.
Ultimately, the Jansenist heresy would profit from the Papacy’s difficulties, for though Henry Benedict Stuart was quick to become Pope Urban IX, the destruction of Rome and the Vatican’s infrastructure meant that Catholics across Europe, never mind the wider world, were cut off from Papal missives and other centralised control. Even those bishops in distant climes who simply tried to govern as they hoped the Pope might advise them to deal with global events, were he able, ultimately fell into Jansenist practices by definition, in theory. Ayala, of course, argued that this was a religious rather than national expression of the powerful effects of taking the capital and controlling or destroying its bureaucracy, while Fernández rejected such a view. The two generals were far from the only ones to debate the virtues and vices of Jacobin Republicanism in the UPSA prior to the war, but their dialogues are perhaps the most celebrated.
This background is important in understanding the outcome of the war. Ayala was a natural member of the Partido Solidaridad, while Fernández tended towards the (then unnamed and amorphous) conservative opposition. While President-General Castelli naturally favoured Ayala for the invasion operation, Ayala had made political enemies inside the Partido Solidaridad for his outspoken support for closer ties with Portugal as a natural ally against the exilic Spaniards. The bulk of the Party saw Portugal as an enemy and her colony of Brazil as natural grounds for expansion; Portugal might have helped the UPSA gain independence, but now the Party was in control and no conservative monarchist power could be anything other than a foe, sooner or later. For that reason, somewhat paradoxically, Ayala was relegated to domestic operations (chiefly raising new regiments and organising the militias) while Fernández, an enemy of the Party altogether, was placed in command of the invasion of Mexico. Though President Castelli grudgingly acknowledged Fernández’s tactical abilities (the general had first achieved fame as a young lieutenant in the Second Platinean War when he had taken a Spanish regimental colonel prisoner almost single-handedly), he did insist on giving Fernández a watchdog in the form of Lieutenant-General Paolo Carlos Rojaz, who made Ayala look like a moderate in his devotion to Jacobin principles.
This somewhat dysfunctional command team was given 15,000 troops in the first wave descending on Acapulco, after which any further reinforcements could not arrive thanks to Ramírez’s fleet being sunk at Valdivia. Fernández’s initial reaction was one of caution. Though he had grudgingly agreed to a broadly Boulangiste strategy when planning the invasion, aiming at the City of Mexico, he now believed that, deprived of more than half the troops he had expected to have, this tactic would not work. With them, he would have had a chance to take and hold territory while driving at the heart, allowing a fall-back position if his initial spearhead was defeated before the City. Now, such a move would be an all-or-nothing gamble, and it would be safer to seek to establish control over Acapulco and its environs, creating a defensible base which could be expanded later when reinforcements could be brought.
Rojaz argued that there was little chance of reinforcements arriving for the remainder of the war, given how the Armada had been gutted and, even if it somehow acquired more ships, the British and Americans still ruled the waves. While General Pichegru continued to enjoy successes against Bernardo O’Higgins in New Granada, the idea of bringing troops to Mexico overland after a successful conquest of Guatemala was no less absurd than it was pointless, given t
hat the point of this attack was to attempt to force a collapse that would make that very conquest possible. Therefore, Rojaz said, the only choice was to take the gamble.
It is at this point, Fernández’s enemies have written in their histories, that the general dithered and lost the initiative, handing victory to the exilic Spanish. This claim is worth examining in more detail. It is not true that Fernández did nothing. As he had said, he took control of Acapulco – being greeted with flowers and parades by the locals, who knew which side their bread was buttered – and then sought to use this as a weapon against the Spanish. Fernández knew that Acapulco was the source of much of the former Viceroyalty of New Spain’s wealth, thanks to the Manila galleons arriving there from the Philippines bringing Asian products such as spices and porcelain. If he could hold the port, he could try to bankrupt the Spanish Infantes.
In November Fernández indeed captured one of the biannual Manila galleons via an ingenious strategy which relied upon making it appear everything was as normal until the ship was safely in dock and could be boarded. He claimed its valuable cargo for the UPSA and sent the ship south to Lima, with one of his own men in command and flying a false flag (prophetically, some might say). At this point, however, the Infantes simply redirected future trade to Manzanillo and Fernández’s trump card had expired. Though the financial blow to the fledgeling Empire had been struck, it was not enough to bring it down. Rojaz won the argument, and in February the army marched once more on the City of Mexico. By this point, however, the Emperor Charles and his ministers had had time to plan a response…
Initially Fernández was somewhat surprised to find his army being once more welcomed as liberators in the towns of Chilpancingo and Iguala. Rojaz suggested the exiles must be ruling harshly, or else be weak enough that the local people were confident they would not win and thus sweep through to punish them for their welcome. Fernández was more sceptical, but was lulled into a false sense of security. This was helped along by the fact that the two generals had agreed to forego a French-style la maraude in favour of a slower and more traditional method of resupply, given the need for their small force to win hearts and minds.
Then, on April 1st, the Meridian army enjoyed a similar welcome in the city of Cuernavaca, sitting just south of the more mountainous terrain around the City of Mexico. The Meridians were treated to a feast by the locals… only to be awoken late that night to find that a good number of their men were sick, poisoned. Only a handful died, but most of the rest were in no shape to fight. Of course, hours later the Infante Antonio, self-styled King of Mexico, arrived with local-born general Joaquín de Iturbide and a force six thousand strong.
Despite their sickness and the surprise attack, the Meridians won the ensuing engagement. The bulk of the forces the Kingdom of Mexico could field had gone into the Nuevo Ejército and been sent to New Granada to assist O’Higgins along with the Infante Gabriel. Also, Rojaz and Fernández remained competent generals. Though the Mexicans were not annihilated, they were forced to retreat and rumours soon abounded that the City of Mexico was hastily being evacuated.
Recognising an opportunity might be slipping through their fingertips, Rojaz urged the Meridians on. Only a cursory attempt to punish the locals for their betrayal was made due to time constraints. Cuernavaca was put to torch, but the flames were hastily set and were extinguished by local firefighters as soon as the Meridians had left. Fernández allowed la maraude to commence to speed up their attack, acknowledging that the betrayal of the Cuernavacans revealed that he could no longer trust the locals.
On April 12th the Meridian force, having climbed the mountains, descended into the Vale of Mexico, the land which the Aztecs had named the Anahuac. They found a city in panic, still halfway through evacuation. The City of Mexico sat on an island in Lake Texcoco, joined to the mainland by only a handful of bridges, and clearly the evacuation attempts had swiftly bottlenecked.
Seizing this opportunity, Fernández had Rojaz take control of most of the bridges to prevent further people fleeing. He then seized one to move the bulk of his army over, holding the heart after all, an irony after all his old debate positions. The Meridians marched to the old Palacio de Virrey (now the Emperor’s palace) off the Plaza de Armas, seeking to seize the exilic rulers if they still dwelt there, and control of the means of government if they did not.
It was at this point, according to the memoirs of Juan Julio Rivadeneira, the celebrated diarist and one of the few soldiers to escape the cataclysm thanks to his being a strong swimmer, that Fernández began to smell a rat. The city seemed rather quiet to say its evacuation had still been in a panicked, early stage, and there was no sign of any government personnel. It remains unclear if Fernández actually grew suspicious enough to order a retreat, but in any case it was too late; Emperor Charles’ chosen men lit off the gunpowder caches that had been concealed many weeks before.
Only then was the scale of King Antonio’s plan grasped: the Infantes had never intended to defend their capital, instead evacuating the bulk of its population beforehand and leaving only enough volunteers to grant the illusion of a chaotic city halfway through its population fleeing. The poisoning and attack at Cuernavaca had simply been to dissuade suspicions about the trap. Now it closed.
In ancient times the Aztecs had used light wooden bridges which could be swung aside to turn Tenochtitlan into a fortress protected by Lake Texcoco as its moat. The later Spanish-built bridges were far more sturdy, yet now gunpowder caches brought them crashing down into the waters of the lake. While the Aztec plan had been to keep invaders out, Antonio’s strategy kept them in – while more caches exploded and set the city alight, the Meridian army trapped inside it.
The chosen men who had lit the fuses were all at least passable swimmers, knew the quickest route to the coast of the island, and dressed lightly. At least half of them made it out of the conflagration. The Meridians were… not so lucky. Many of their men were recruited from far inland provinces of the UPSA and had never seen large bodies of water before their voyage on the waves to Acapulco. Others were well acquainted enough, but panicked and were unable to find their way out of the burning city, while still others managed that but could not remove their heavy armour in time, and burned or sank. Only a handful of men survived, Rivadeneira among them. Both generals perished, possibly in the initial explosion beneath the Palacio de Virrey.
It is easy in retrospect to criticise them for failing to discern this strategy, but it seemed an inexplicable act at the time in many ways. The City of Mexico was a hugely rich, storied place filled with grand houses and palaces built during an architectural craze in the latter half of the last century. To throw all that on the fire just to beat an army of fifteen thousand seemed madness, and from most points of view it was. Yet Antonio and Charles saw it as the only option to permit the secure foundation of their dynasty. In many ways this was an establishing moment for the Empire of New Spain, brutally hammering home the fact that it existed primarily to serve its ruling dynasty’s ambitions and the needs of its people came decidedly second.
The failure of the invasion of Mexico meant that the UPSA’s chief attempt to quickly end the war had failed. Furthermore, it had been the acquisition of ships for the operation that had ultimately caused the Cherry Massacre. Now President-General Castelli found himself facing American troops under General Andrew Clinton marching up the River Plate and besieging Buenos Aires. As the city began to starve throughout early 1807, Castelli remained in the city rather than the capital of Córdoba and tried to rally the people against the British and Americans. The President promised a swift victory over the Spanish in New Granada. Pichegru indeed continued to advance against the retreating O’Higgins, yet the Meridian attack came to a halt in June 1807 when Pichegru finally reached the New Granadine capital of Santa Fé de Bogotá.
There, on June 13th, Pichegru besieged O’Higgins’ outnumbered forces in the city, yet O’Higgins dug in and held on for a week. This was long enough for the I
nfante Gabriel’s Nuevo Ejército to arrive as relief. The “New Army” of the exilic Spaniards attacked Pichegru’s besieging forces and forced a narrow victory on the battlefield. Pichegru, from royalist French stock, did not much care for the Jacobin doctrine and thus saw nothing amiss in withdrawing from Santa Fé in order to fight another day. The Meridians withdrew in good order to San Martín and attempts by the Spanish to harry their heels were beaten back.
At this point, despite these setbacks, things still narrowly favoured the Meridians. The Anglo-American blockade/siege of Buenos Aires still had a lot of holes in it, and rationing together with the charismatic Castelli rallying the locals kept the major city afloat. Though the British and Americans continued to raid and burn coastal towns, attempts to land and hold territory were generally beaten back by General Ayala’s disciplined militiamen. Furthermore, Ayala came to the same conclusion as Rojaz and withdrew from Peru the troops that had been intended as reinforcements for Acapulco. Instead he used them to put out fires and stamp down when, for example, the British attempted a descent on Cape San Antonio as part of a strategy to outflank the Meridians holding Buenos Aires against them. Ayala threw the British back into the sea, benefiting from a military culture which had always emphasised the UPSA would never again be humiliated by foreign troops landing in the Plate basin.