Qualla: Battle of Tacna https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Tacna https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna Battle of Tacna: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. Artillery shells buried themselves in sand and refused to explode. It was 26 May 1880, and the opening cannonade of the Battle of Tacna had already revealed the absurdity that often underlies organized violence: two armies had dragged dozens of cannons across the Atacama only to watch their projectiles vanish harmlessly into the ground. What followed, once the infantry closed to forty meters and the killing became personal, was anything but harmless. By nightfall, the combined armies of Peru and Bolivia lay broken on the Intiorko plateau, and Bolivia's role in the War of the Pacific was over.

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Tacna: Saltpeter and Secret Treaties https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. The War of the Pacific began over something unglamorous: bird droppings and mineral deposits. Saltpeter -- sodium nitrate, essential for fertilizer and explosives -- lay in vast quantities beneath the Atacama Desert, in territory disputed between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. A secre...

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-saltpeter-and-secret-treaties.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Tacna: The Plateau Above Tacna https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. Bolivian President Narciso Campero assumed command of the allied forces at Tacna on 19 April 1880. He had roughly 10,000 men and thirty-one cannons, including six Krupp breech-loaders and six Gatling guns. Disease was already thinning the ranks -- infectious illness spread throug...

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-the-plateau-above-tacna.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Tacna: Forty Meters Apart https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. After the futile artillery exchange, Chilean Colonel Santiago Amengual led his division against the allied left flank around 10 a.m. The fighting compressed into an intimate horror. Opposing soldiers fired at each other from distances no greater than forty meters -- close enough ...

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-forty-meters-apart.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Tacna: The Cost of a Plateau https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. Chile counted 2,200 casualties. The allies lost between 3,500 and 5,000. The Bolivian Colorados Battalion, which chose to fight to the end rather than retreat, was reduced to 293 survivors. The Aroma Battalion -- also called the Amarillos -- lost 388 soldiers under the same grim ...

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-the-cost-of-a-plateau.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Tacna: A Monument on the Hill https://qualla.com/battle-of-tacna/ Photo credit Jorge Chata, CC BY-SA 2.5. Today the Intiorko plateau sits quietly above the modern city of Tacna, in Peru's southernmost department. A monument marks the battlefield where three nations collided over mineral wealth and national pride. The battle is remembered differently depending on which side of the bor...

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Image: Jorge Chata | CC BY-SA 2.5

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/k/y/1/battle-of-tacna-wp/6ky1-battle-of-tacna-a-monument-on-the-hill.mp3 0:06 6 full