Qualla: Battle of Cachiri https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of Cachiri https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri Battle of Cachiri: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri/ Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Tolra, writing in the war diary of Spain's 5th Division, recorded what he saw on the road from Cachiri to Cacota on February 22, 1816: "There has never been a more horrible scene." Republican dead and abandoned supplies littered the mountain track for kilometers, the wreckage of an army that had disintegrated in a single afternoon. The Battle of Cachiri, fought across two fog-choked days on a high Andean paramo in what is now Colombia's Santander Department, destroyed the Army of the North, collapsed the northern defenses of South America's first independent republic, and opened the road to Bogota for the Spanish reconquest. It also taught a young colonel named Francisco de Paula Santander lessons about war that he would carry to eventual victory three years later.

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/k/4/battle-of-cachiri-wp/d3k4-battle-of-cachiri-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Cachiri: An Empire Strikes Back https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri/ The United Provinces of New Granada had declared independence from Spain in 1811, and by 1815 controlled much of present-day Colombia. But Napoleon's defeat in Europe freed King Ferdinand VII to turn his attention to the colonies, and in 1815 he dispatched General Pablo Morillo w...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/k/4/battle-of-cachiri-wp/d3k4-battle-of-cachiri-an-empire-strikes-back.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Cachiri: The Trap That Caught the Wrong Army https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri/ Bad intelligence compounded the republicans' problems. After Chire, Ricaurte reported that Calzada had only 400 troops in poor condition. The real number was closer to 2,000. General Rafael Urdaneta, relying on this faulty estimate, gathered 1,000 men to intercept Calzada at the ...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/k/4/battle-of-cachiri-wp/d3k4-battle-of-cachiri-the-trap-that-caught-the-wrong-army.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Cachiri: Two Days on the Paramo https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri/ Rovira positioned his 2,000 infantry and 80 cavalry in three defensive lines on the Paramo de Cachiri, guarding the road to Bucaramanga and the Socorro province beyond. Santander, his second-in-command, protested the plan, arguing that novice troops mostly armed with lances rathe...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/k/4/battle-of-cachiri-wp/d3k4-battle-of-cachiri-two-days-on-the-paramo.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Cachiri: The Road from Cachiri https://qualla.com/battle-of-cachiri/ The collapse came fast. When the Santafe Battalion's commanding officer was killed by converging musket and artillery fire, his troops abandoned their trench. The Tunja Battalion behind them was supposed to fill the gap but withdrew instead. A third battalion followed, and the re...

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]]> Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/3/k/4/battle-of-cachiri-wp/d3k4-battle-of-cachiri-the-road-from-cachiri.mp3 0:06 5 full