{ "slug": "ayacucho", "title": "Battle of Ayacucho", "status": "draft", "era": "1775–1815", "date_text": "9 December 1824", "start": "1824-12-09", "end": "1824-12-09", "war": "Spanish American wars of independence", "cdb90_war": "LATIN AMERICAN WARS OF INDEPENDENCE", "place": { "name": "Pampa de la Quinua (Pampa de Ayacucho), near Quinua, Huamanga, Ayacucho, Peru", "lat": -13.0425, "lon": -74.1317, "wikidata": "Q934157" }, "lede": "On 9 December 1824 Sucre's outnumbered patriot army broke the viceroy's royalist army as it came down from Condorcunca onto the plain of Ayacucho. The viceroy was captured, and the capitulation signed that evening ended Spanish rule in Peru and, effectively, in South America.", "result": "Decisive patriot victory; capitulation of the royalist army", "result_cdb90": "attacker loss", "belligerents": [ { "role": "attacker", "name": "Royal Army of Peru (Ejército Real del Perú)", "commanders": [ "Viceroy José de la Serna", "Lieutenant-General José de Canterac", "Field Marshal Jerónimo Valdés", "Field Marshal Juan Antonio Monet", "Field Marshal Alejandro González Villalobos" ], "strength": { "value": 9310, "low": 6906, "high": 9310, "source": "s4" }, "casualties": { "value": 3500, "low": 2100, "high": 3500, "source": "s4" } }, { "role": "defender", "name": "United Liberating Army of Peru (Ejército Unido Libertador del Perú): Colombian, Peruvian, Argentine and Chilean troops", "commanders": [ "General Antonio José de Sucre", "Grand Marshal José de La Mar", "General José María Córdova", "General Jacinto Lara", "General William Miller", "General Agustín Gamarra (chief of staff)" ], "strength": { "value": 5780, "low": 5780, "high": 6000, "source": "s4" }, "casualties": { "value": 979, "low": 979, "high": 979, "source": "s4" } } ], "sections": { "background": "By 1824 Peru was the last great royalist stronghold in South America. The royalists under Viceroy José de la Serna had beaten the patriots in 1823 at Torata, Moquegua and Zepita, and the mutiny of the Callao garrison in February 1824 handed the fortress back to the king. But the royalist cause was divided. The liberal revolution of 1820 in Spain had cut off reinforcements, and in 1824 General Pedro Antonio de Olañeta rebelled in Upper Peru, drawing off Valdés's division to fight him.\n\nSimón Bolívar exploited the split. He reviewed some 9,000 men near Pasco on 2 August and beat Canterac at Junín on 6 August, then left the army in the south to his lieutenant Antonio José de Sucre. La Serna brought Valdés back from Upper Peru and marched from Cuzco against Sucre, working round his flank to cut him off from Lima.\n\nWhat followed was a campaign of manoeuvre in the high Andes. Twice Sucre offered battle and twice the viceroy declined, trying instead to turn his flank. On 3 December Valdés caught the patriot rearguard at Corpahuaico, costing Sucre more than 300 men, his ammunition train and one of his two guns. The patriots retreated to the village of Quinua, while Indians of Huanta, raised against them, killed stragglers and sick. The royalists, hardly less worn and reduced to eating their horses, marched parallel along the ridges and on the afternoon of 8 December occupied the heights of Condorcunca, overlooking Sucre's camp. Neither army could stay long. Miller says the patriots could not have fed themselves five days more; the royalist officers, according to Miller and García Camba, were eager to attack.", "forces": "Sucre's United Liberating Army was small but seasoned. His right was General José María Córdova's division of four Colombian battalions (Bogotá, Caracas, Voltígeros, Pichincha). His left was General José de La Mar's Peruvian division (the Peruvian Legion and line battalions 1 to 3). General Jacinto Lara held the reserve with three more Colombian battalions (Vargas, Vencedor, Rifles). General William Miller commanded the cavalry: the Húsares de Junín, the Granaderos and Húsares of Colombia and the Granaderos de los Andes. The army had a single four-pounder. Spanish Wikipedia estimates about 4,000 Colombians, 1,500–2,000 Peruvians, a few hundred Chileans and under 100 men from the Río de la Plata.\n\nThe viceroy's Royal Army of Peru had three divisions of infantry: Valdés's vanguard of four battalions, Monet's five and Villalobos's five, with Valentín Ferraz's cavalry and eleven guns. Canterac was chief of staff. This was a royalist army, not a Spanish one. García Camba says it was made up almost entirely of Peruvian Indians, with many prisoners and deserters taken from the patriots, and that Europeans of all ranks numbered little over 500. Among the prisoners afterwards, Spanish Wikipedia counts 1,512 Americans to 751 'Spaniards', a word then used loosely. Miller met prisoners who had served under him before being captured and made to fight. The royalists' strength was their cavalry and guns; their weakness was a mountain position from which neither could come down quickly.", "course": "**8 December, evening.** A royalist light battalion came down from Condorcunca and skirmished with a patriot one at the foot of the hill, with pauses in which officers of both sides talked; Brigadier Tur met his brother, a lieutenant-colonel in Sucre's army. In the night Sucre sent two battalion bands and a company to play and fire near the foot of the ridge, to keep the royalists from descending in the dark.\n\n**The plan.** The plain, Miller says, was nearly square, about a league round, with deep ravines on both flanks and a ravine 200 yards deep partly dividing it. Canterac's orders, as García Camba gives them, were for Valdés to swing round by the north, take a small house on the patriot left and turn that flank; Monet's division to come down in the centre, cross the ravine and support him; and on the left Villalobos to bring seven guns down by mule, assemble them and attack Sucre's right once Valdés was engaged. The cavalry was to follow down a narrow path.\n\n**About 9–10 am.** The royalist columns began to wind down the slope, the viceroy on foot at their head. Sucre rode along his line, telling his men, in Miller's version, that the fate of South America depended on that day. When the royalists placed five guns at the foot of the hill, Sucre sent skirmishers against them, and the battle began.\n\n**The royalist left breaks.** On the left, Colonel Rubín de Celis, claiming special orders from Canterac, threw his battalion forward before the rest of the line was ready. Sucre ordered Córdova's division, with Miller's cavalry, to charge. Miller says Córdova dismounted, killed his horse so that he had no means of escape, and led his four columns forward with the words 'Adelante, con paso de vencedores' ('onwards, with the step of conquerors'). Sucre says his columns marched with arms at the trail to within a hundred paces before firing. Rubín de Celis's battalion was destroyed, the Colombian cavalry under Colonel Silva cut up the San Carlos squadron and the skirmishers, and the seven guns were taken before they could be readied.\n\n**Monet and the cavalry.** Canterac ordered Monet to cross the ravine and himself led the two Gerona battalions to the left. Sucre sent cavalry and two of Lara's battalions against Monet's first brigade before it could form; Monet was wounded and three battalion commanders were killed, and the second brigade came over the ravine in disorder. Only a few royalist squadrons reached the plain. They charged and were stopped by the Colombian lancers, who met them standing firm with levelled lances, under fire from the patriot infantry. The viceroy rode in among the broken troops to rally them, received six wounds and was captured on the slopes of Condorcunca.\n\n**Valdés.** On the patriot left Valdés had driven back two of La Mar's battalions and the Vargas battalion sent to help them, and two of his battalions crossed the ravine in pursuit. Miller led the Húsares de Junín against them, Vargas and the Peruvian Legion counter-attacked, and La Mar's rallied division followed. Then fresh troops from the victorious patriot centre fell on Valdés, and his men broke and scattered too, many throwing away their arms. Miller says the action lasted an hour; by about 1 pm, García Camba says, the royalist army was fleeing in all directions, and La Mar's and Lara's divisions were on the heights.\n\n**Evening.** Before sunset Canterac asked for terms and rode down to Sucre's tent, where the capitulation was agreed on the field.", "aftermath": "Sucre reported 1,800 royalist dead and 700 wounded; his own army lost 979 killed and wounded. In the capitulation signed by Canterac and Sucre on 9 December, the royalists gave up all Peru as far as the Desaguadero, its garrisons and stores, and the fortress of Callao, to be handed over within twenty days. Any member of the royal army might go home at Peru's expense, on condition of not fighting again in America, or join Peru's service in his own rank. Officers kept their swords and uniforms, and all officers taken in the battle were freed at once.\n\nThe war did not quite end that day. Callao and Chiloé held out until 1826, and Olañeta fought on in Upper Peru until he was killed at Tumusla in April 1825. Sucre entered Upper Peru, which declared its independence in August 1825 as Bolivia, with Sucre as its first president. Peru made him Grand Marshal of Ayacucho; Córdova, aged 25, was made a general of division on the field.\n\nThe defeat was bitter in Spain. Officers returning from Peru, the 'ayacuchos', were accused of treason; the historian Juan Carlos Losada has argued that the result was arranged beforehand, but García Camba rejected any betrayal, and the heavy casualties tell against it. In Peru the battle is ambiguous too: José de la Riva-Agüero called it a civil war between Peruvians, each side aided by foreigners, yet since 1928 9 December has been the Day of the Peruvian Army.", "wargaming": "Ayacucho is a compact battle: about 15,000 men on a plain a league round, decided in an hour or so. It fits a single table at one unit per battalion and squadron, or a skirmish-scale game for Córdova's charge or Valdés's flank fight.\n\nThe terrain is the whole game. The royalists start on a steep mountainside above the plain; infantry can come down in files and form columns at the foot, but cavalry must be led down in single file and guns brought down by mule and assembled before they can fire. A descent rule that feeds royalist units onto the plain a few at a time, with a delay for artillery, recreates the battle's central problem. Ravines on both flanks, the deep ravine across part of the plain and the small house on the patriot left complete the map.\n\nThe patriot player is outnumbered, with one gun, but fights on open ground with good cavalry, and must judge the moment to strike, as Sucre did, before the royalists are formed. The royalist player must decide whether to attack at all. Miller thought the patriots could not have held their position five days longer for want of food, so waiting on the heights is a strong what-if. Others are Rubín de Celis holding his attack until Valdés had turned the flank, the cavalry finding a better path down, or Valdés's attack being supported in time by Monet." }, "images": [ { "file": "File:Batalla de Ayacucho by Martín Tovar y Tovar (1827 - 1902).jpg", "kind": "painting", "caption": "The Battle of Ayacucho, by the Venezuelan painter Martín Tovar y Tovar.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Batalla_de_Ayacucho_by_Mart%C3%ADn_Tovar_y_Tovar_%281827_-_1902%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Batalla_de_Ayacucho_by_Mart%C3%ADn_Tovar_y_Tovar_%281827_-_1902%29.jpg/960px-Batalla_de_Ayacucho_by_Mart%C3%ADn_Tovar_y_Tovar_%281827_-_1902%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Batalla_de_Ayacucho_by_Mart%C3%ADn_Tovar_y_Tovar_(1827_-_1902).jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Martín Tovar y Tovar", "credit": "Martin Tovar y Tovar", "width": 2048 }, { "file": "File:CroquisAyacucho.JPG", "kind": "map", "caption": "Sketch map of the battle of Ayacucho, with the plain between Quinua and the heights of Condorcunca.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/CroquisAyacucho.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/CroquisAyacucho.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CroquisAyacucho.JPG", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Mariano Torrente", "credit": "Historia de la Revolución Hispanoamericana", "width": 656 }, { "file": "File:Paso de Vencedores por Francisco Antonio Cano.jpg", "kind": "painting", "caption": "'Paso de vencedores': Córdova leading his division forward on foot, by Francisco Antonio Cano.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Paso_de_Vencedores_por_Francisco_Antonio_Cano.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Paso_de_Vencedores_por_Francisco_Antonio_Cano.jpg/960px-Paso_de_Vencedores_por_Francisco_Antonio_Cano.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paso_de_Vencedores_por_Francisco_Antonio_Cano.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "Francisco Antonio Cano", "credit": "Escuela Militar de Cadetes", "width": 7334 }, { "file": "File:Jose de la Serna 1.jpg", "kind": "portrait", "caption": "José de la Serna, the last viceroy of Peru, wounded and captured at Ayacucho.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Jose_de_la_Serna_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Jose_de_la_Serna_1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jose_de_la_Serna_1.jpg", "licence": "CC BY-SA 3.0", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0", "artist": "Unknown artist Unknown artist", "credit": "Fortaleza Real Felipe. Foto historico/Foto historico, 19 August 2012", "width": 800 }, { "file": "File:Sucre1.jpg", "kind": "portrait", "caption": "Antonio José de Sucre, the patriot commander at Ayacucho (Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú).", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Sucre1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Sucre1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sucre1.jpg", "licence": "Public domain", "licence_url": "", "artist": "anonymous", "credit": "Own work , 1999 (foto)", "width": 454 }, { "file": "File:Lugar actual de la Batalla de Ayacucho.jpg", "kind": "photo", "caption": "The Pampa de Ayacucho today, looking towards Condorcunca from the patriot side.", "url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Lugar_actual_de_la_Batalla_de_Ayacucho.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original", "thumb": "https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Lugar_actual_de_la_Batalla_de_Ayacucho.jpg/960px-Lugar_actual_de_la_Batalla_de_Ayacucho.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail", "page": "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lugar_actual_de_la_Batalla_de_Ayacucho.jpg", "licence": "CC BY-SA 2.0", "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0", "artist": "Randal Sheppard", "credit": "Flickr : Site of the Battle of Ayacucho where Peru finally won its independence. Near Quinua, Ayacucho, Peru", "width": 4320 } ], "sources": [ { "id": "s1", "title": "Battle of Ayacucho", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ayacucho", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s2", "title": "Batalla de Ayacucho (Spanish Wikipedia)", "url": "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batalla_de_Ayacucho", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s3", "title": "John Miller, Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Republic of Peru, vol. II, 2nd edn (London: Longman, 1829), ch. XXV", "url": "https://archive.org/details/memoirsofgeneral02milliala", "kind": "primary" }, { "id": "s4", "title": "Andrés García Camba, Memorias del general García Camba para la historia de las armas españolas en el Perú, vol. II (Madrid: Editorial América, c. 1916), with appendices printing the capitulation and Sucre's dispatch of 11 December 1824", "url": "https://archive.org/details/memoriasdelgener02garc", "kind": "primary" }, { "id": "s5", "title": "Guillermo A. Sherwell, Antonio José de Sucre (Washington: Byron S. Adams, 1924), chs. X–XI", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Antonio_Jose_de_Sucre/SHEAJS/10*.html", "kind": "book" }, { "id": "s6", "title": "Battle of Ayacucho (EBSCO Research Starters, Douglas Campbell, 2019)", "url": "https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/military-history-and-science/battle-ayacucho", "kind": "web" }, { "id": "s7", "title": "Capitulation of Ayacucho", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitulation_of_Ayacucho", "kind": "web" } ], "cdb90": [ 155 ], "order": 80, "url": "https://battles.georgewyrd.com/ayacucho/", "oob": [], "oob_lwtv": [], "scenarios": [], "orbat": null, "orbat_lwtv": null, "reading": { "prose": [], "history": [], "fiction": [], "poetry": [] }, "reading_lwtv": { "prose": [], "poetry": [] }, "photos": [], "photos_kind": "photographs", "newspapers": null }