Jose de San Martin (South American Revolutionary) liberated his native Argentina as well as the southern half of South America from Spanish rule early in the nineteenth century. With an army rarely numbering more than ten thousand, San Martin exploited surprise attacks over terrain considered to be impassable and fused alliances with fellow liberators and mercenaries to free half a continent from European control. As one of the few military leaders of his time with no political ambitions, San Martin proved to be a selfless professional soldier interested only in his continent’s freedom.
San Martin moved to Spain eight years after his birth, on Feb- ruary 25, 1778, to an aristocratic Spanish army officer in the northeastern Argentine town of Yapeyu. Although he entered the Spanish army as a teenager and advanced to the rank of lieutenant colonel during his service against Napoleon’s forces in the Peninsular War, his loyalty and sympathies remained with his South American birthplace.
In 1811, San Marlin, disillusioned by Spain’s absolute monarchy, resigned his commission and sailed to Buenos Aires. He immediately joined the Argentine independence mQvement and assisted in forming a pro-revolutionary group known as the Logia Lautaro. In 1813-14, San Marlin established a training base in western Argentina, near Mendoza, and conducted limited operations against the Spanish occupiers. Spain’s presence in Argentina was limited, and the rebels faced little opposition when they declared their independence on July 9, 1816.
San Martin realized that while declaring independence had been relatively easy, maintaining it would be next to impossible as long as Spain garrisoned a strong army in neighboring Chile and Peru. To ensure the freedom of his nation, San Martin set out to liberate other South American countries. In early 1817, San Martin led an army of three thousand infantrymen, seven thousand cavalrymen, and twenty-one artillery pieces in an incredible crossing of the previously considered impassable 13,700-foot-high Andes into Chile. On February 12, he completely surprised and routed the Spanish defenders of Chacabuco and occupied the capital city of Santiago on February 15. The Spanish counterattacked from Peru over the next year, but combined Argentine-Chilean forces ultimately defeated them at the Battle of Maipu on April 5, 1818.
San Martin declined the leadership of the new Chilean government, recommending instead his fellow revolutionary soldier Bernardo O’Higgins for the position. While the revolutionaries now controlled Argentina and Chile, their positions remained tenuous because of the continued Spanish occupation of Peru and Spanish control of the seas surrounding South America.
For two years San Martin, assisted by former English sailor Thomas Cochrane [98], built up the Chilean navy. Cochrane soon swept the Spanish ships from Chilean waters and began a campaign of bombarding Peruvian shore defenses. In early 1820, Cochrane blockaded the remaining Spanish fleet in the Peruvian port of Callao, which allowed San Martin’s invasion fleet to set sail.
After a series of successful battles, San Martin entered Lima and declared Peruvian independence on July 28, 1821. During the next few months, San Martin defeated isolated garrisons, but the bulk of the Spanish army withdrew into the Peruvian highlands and developed defense positions. San Martin, recognizing that his army was too weak to successfully attack the Spanish, proposed an alliance with fellow liberator Simon Bolivar [12], who had successfully freed Colombia from Spanish control and was currendy operating in Ecuador.
The two great South American liberators, San Martin and Bolivar, met at Guayaquil, Ecuador, on July 26-27, 1822. Their private conferences included no witnesses and yielded no records. Apparently, though, the two generals did not agree on how to remove the Spanish from the Peruvian highlands or how to direct the political future of South America. Either in disgust or in recognition of the fact that a successful revolution could have but one leader, San Martin resigned from his official and unofficial duties, turned his forces over to Bolivar, and returned to Buenos Aires.
After the death of his wife in 1824, San Martin and his daughter sailed to France, where, except for one brief return visit to South America in 1829, he lived for the next twenty-eight years. He died peacefully in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, on August 17, 1850, at age seventy-two.
Described as stoic and humorless, San Martin possessed tremendous abilities in tactics, strategy, administration, and leadership, gaining him great victories with minimal friendly casualties. In combat he avoided costly direct attacks and usually began with a feint at his enemy’s strength, followed by a flanking movement that enveloped the opposing force.
San Martin’s selfless service, with no ambition for personal, financial, or political gain, remains unique among influential leaders. His only apparent objective was the liberation of South America from the Spanish. Desiring no place in the new government, he proposed an enlightened, limited monarchy, with a descendant of the pre-Colombian Inca royal family occupying a mostly symbolic throne.
San Martin willingly stepped down and turned his army over to Bolivar when that appeared to be the best course of action for the revolution. Bolivar, whose overall military influence may have been greater, remains honored today as “the Liberator.” Yet San Martin surely is the most honorable and the greatest patriot of South America for giving up his command to Bolivar in the best interest of his homeland.