Treaty of Defensive Alliance (Bolivia–Peru)

The Treaty of Defensive Alliance was a secret defense pact between the South American countries of Bolivia and Peru signed in the Peruvian capital of Lima on February 6, 1873. The document was composed of eleven central articles, outlining its necessity and stipulations, and one additional article that ordered to keep the treaty secret until it was deemed necessary by both contracting parties. The signatory states were represented by the Peruvian Minister of Foreign Affairs, José de la Riva-Agüero y Looz Corswaren, and the Bolivian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in Peru, Juan de la Cruz Benavente.

Ongoing border disputes between Bolivia and Chile worsened the region's tense political environment, made all the more precarious by a global economic depression, and served as the setting for the treaty's negotiation and signing. The system of mutual defense established between Bolivia and Peru sought to protect their national security and the regional balance of power by containing Chile's expansionism, which was fueled by its economic ambitions over the mineral resources of the Atacama Desert. The pact's stated intentions were to guarantee the integrity, independence, and sovereignty of the contracting parties.

To further secure the alliance from Chile, Peru sought, in vain, the adhesion of Argentina into the defense pact. Due to its own border disputes with Chile, Argentina's attachment to the alliance seemed inevitable. However, territorial disagreements between Bolivia and Argentina, as well as the possible interference of Brazil in favor of Chile, obstructed negotiations. Argentina's possible inclusion into the Peru-Bolivia pact was, nonetheless, enough of a perceived threat that, in 1881, Chile ensured it would not fight a two-front war by settling its borders with Argentina, in the process giving up substantial territorial aspirations in Patagonia.

In 1879, amid Peru's mediation of the diplomatic crisis caused by Bolivia's challenge to its boundary treaty with Chile and Chile's military occupation of Antofagasta (in Bolivia's Litoral Department), the mutual defense treaty became a subject of contention and one of the causes for the start of the War of the Pacific. Ever since then, the treaty's usefulness, intentions, level of secrecy by the time hostilities broke out in 1879, and defensive nature have been subjected to debate by historians, political analysts, and politicians.

Background
At the beginning of the 1870s the relations between Bolivia and Chile were strained because of the, for both sides, unsatisfactory Border Treaty of 1866. Furthermore, in August 1872 Quintin Quevedo, a Bolivian diplomat, follower of 1871 toppled president Mariano Melgarejo, started an expedition from Valparaiso against the Bolivian Government, allegedly with the connivance of the Chilean authority. Peru, at that time having naval supremacy in the South Pacific, sent the Huáscar and Chalaco warships to the Bolivian coast and told the Chilean Government that Peru would not accept foreign intervention in Bolivia.

History
In early November 1872 the Bolivian Assembly authorized the government to negotiate and ratify a Peruvian alliance. A few days later, the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister José de la Riva Agüero disclosed in the Council of Minister the will of the Bolivian Government and three months later, on 6 February 1873, a Secret Treaty of Alliance between Peru and Bolivia was signed in Lima. Four days after the signing of the treaty the Peruvian Chamber of Deputies asked the executive in a secret session to purchase naval armaments.

Besides the geopolitical Peruvian interest to control the South Pacific Coast, there was also an economic interest. On 18 January 1873 there was promulgated in Peru a Monopoly Law over Nitrate Export, to become effective in 2 months. But the difficulties in the way of establishing the monopoly would prove insurmountable and the project was shelved. Miller and Greenhill state in The Peruvian Government and the Nitrate Trade, 1873-1879: ''This development was doubly significant. it was the first Peruvian attempt to run public policy through a privately owned institution. It also clearly suggested that the estanco, now successfully delayed, was still a future possibility'' In fact, in 1875 Peru's government expropriated the salitreras of Tarapaca in order to secure revenue from guano and nitrate by means of a Peruvian Saltpeter Monopoly. But the nitrate from Peru had to compete with nitrate from Bolivia produced by Chilean capitalists.

On February 6, 1873, a few days after the signing of the "Estanco", the first attempt to build a Peruvian Saltpeter Monopoly, the Peruvian senate approved the secret treaty; the parliamentary proceedings have disappeared since then. Peruvian historian Jorge Basadre asserts that the two projects were unrelated to each other, but Hugo Pereira Plascencia has contributed several items of evidences to the contrary: in 1873 the Italian author Pietro Perolari–Malmignati cited the Peruvian interest in defending its saltpeter monopoly against the Chilean production in Bolivia as the main cause of the secret treaty, and also said that the Peruvian Foreign Minister, José de la Riva-Agüero, informed the Chilean Minister in Lima, Joaquín Godoy, about negotiations with Bolivia to expand the estanco in Bolivia.

In order to strengthen the alliance against Chile, Peru sought to bring Argentina, involved in a territorial dispute with Chile over Patagonia, the Strait of Magellan, and Tierra del Fuego, into the alliance, and sent Manuel Irigoyen Larrea (not to be confused with the Argentine Minister Bernardo de Irigoyen) to Buenos Aires. Bolivia didn't have a Minister in Argentina, hence she was also represented by M. Irigoyen. On 24 September 1873 the Argentine Chamber of Deputies approved the signing of the treaty and additional military funds for $6,000,000. The Argentine Government, under President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Carlos Tejedor as Foreign Affairs Minister, still required the approval of the Argentine Senate.

But the three countries had different aims at stake: Argentina and Peru were much concerned about the possible hostile reaction of Brazil and feared a Brazil-Chile axis. Bolivia and Argentina didn't reach an agreement in the Chaco und Tarija territorial disputes. Hence, Argentina asked to dismiss the 1866 Bolivia-Chile Treaty as casus foederis and offered to Peru an Argentina-Peru alliance against Chile (to protect Peru against a Chile-Bolivia Pact ).

On 28 September 1873 the matter was discussed in the Argentine Senate and the decision postponed until 1 May 1874 and apparently also approved it requiring that it should be completed by the addition of certain declarations. These changes were resisted by Bolivian Foreign Affairs Minister Baptista.

Brazil ordered its Ministers in Peru and Argentina to investigate a rumored Peru-Argentina-Bolivia alliance regarding any implications such an alliance might have for Brazil and its strained relations to Argentina. Peru discreetly assured Brazil that the treaty did not affect its interest and delivered a copy of the treaty to the Brazilian Minister. Moreover, in order to quiet Brazil, Peruvian President Manuel Pardo asked Argentina and Bolivia to introduce a new clause into the Protocol, complementary to the Treaty, making it clear that the Secret Treaty was not aimed at Brazil but at Chile:
 * The Alliance will not deal with questions which for political or territorial reasons may arise between the Confederation and the Empire of Brazil, but will only treat of the boundary questions between the Argentine Republic, Bolivia and Chile, and the other questions that may arise between the contracting counties.



In this state of the affairs two things happened which completely modified the situation: on 6 August 1874 Bolivia and Chile signed a new Boundary Treaty and on December 26, 1874, the recently built ironclad Cochrane arrived in Valparaíso. It threw the balance of South Pacific power towards Chile. From that moment Peru realized the potentiality of the Patagonian conflict in which she did not wish to become involved and aware of Argentina's opposition to involvement in the West Coast politics (except for Chile), Peru instructed her Minister in Argentina to cease all efforts to get Argentina to join her secret pact. These events and the replacing of D. Sarmiento by Nicolas Avellaneda as President of Argentina put an end, for the moment, to the project of the Bolivia-Peru-Argentina alliance against Chile.

In 1875 and 1877, when the Argentina-Chile territorial dispute flared up anew, it was Argentina that sought to join the pact, but Peru refused diplomatically. In October 1875 the Peruvian Foreign Minister wrote to his Minister in Buenos Aires regarding the Argentine proposals:
 * I have pointed out to you how desirable it would be to delay the Protocol of adherence ...This is a matter which must be carried through with great care, since it is to our interest that the Argentine Government should not believe that we are hanging back, in consideration of the difficulties raised over the Patagonian question

After the official disclosure of the pact and prior to the Chilean declaration of war, during the Peruvian mediation, Chile asked Peru to declare itself neutral. Peru attempted to stall while it mobilized, neither accepting nor rejecting Chilean demands. However, when Chile declared war on Peru, the Peruvian government subsequently declared the casus foederis for its alliance with Bolivia.

At the beginning of the War of the Pacific, in 1879, the Peruvian Government instructed its Minister in Buenos Aires Aníbal Víctor de la Torre to offer the Chilean territories between the 24°S and 27°S to Argentina if Argentina entered the war. Later, the offer was made again by the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Irigoyen in Buenos Aires, who met President Avellaneda and Foreign Minister Montes de Oca. But it was refused by Argentina, because of lack of a powerful navy, as they said.

During the USS Lackawanna (1862) Peace Conference in October 1880, Chile asked, among others, to abrogate the secret pact. The conference failed.

On 23 July 1881 Chile and Argentina signed the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina and put an end to Peruvian hopes that Argentina would enter the war.

Interpretation of the Treaty
While historians agree about most of the hard facts of the history of the pact, that is not the case of the content and interpretation of the treaty. Both sides agree that the treaty was oriented against Chile but differ in how much Chile knew about the existence, content, and validity of the Treaty.

The Peruvian historian Jorge Basadre asserts that it was a defensive alliance signed to protect the salitreras of Tarapaca, neighbor of the Bolivian salitreras in Antofagasta. The alliance, states Basadre, was a step further to creating a Lima-La Paz-Buenos Aires axis in order to guarantee the peace and stability of the American frontiers, also to prevent a Chilean-Bolivian Pact, that would cede Antofagasta and Tarapaca to Chile and Arica and Moquegua to Bolivia. He thinks that it could have been thought to impede the use of Bolivian territories by Nicolás de Piérola to conspire against the Government of Peru. Basadre denies any economic interests over the Bolivian salitreras, at least in 1873. He argues that the 1873 Nitrate Monopoly Law was an initiative of the legislative and not of the executive and he pleads that in 1875 as Peru began to buy licenses over Bolivian salitreras, Peru had dismissed to bring Argentina into the axis. On the other hand, Hugo Pereira Plascencia has contributed several items of evidences to the contrary: in 1873 the Italian author Pietro Perolari–Malmignati cited the Peruvian interest in defending its saltpeter monopoly against the Chilean production in Bolivia as the main cause of the secret treaty, and also said that the Peruvian Foreign Minister, José de la Riva-Agüero informed the Chilean Minister in Lima, Joaquín Godoy, about negotiations with Bolivia to expand the estanco in Bolivia.

Some Peruvian historians consider the treaty legitimate, harmless and a mistake because it gave Chile a pretext for the war, and that the Peruvian bargaining in Buenos Aires were just a defensive provision.

On the other hand, Chilean historian Gonzalo Bulnes analyzes the content and the historical context of the treaty and deduces that, Peru and Chile having no common borders, the only territorial conflict that could have arisen was one between Bolivia and Chile and therefore Peru could remain neutral without failing in her Treaty obligations in opposition to Bolivia which was tied to Peru through the (art. VIII) restriction of the right celebrating Treaties affecting Boundaries, "or other territorial arrangements", without previous knowledge of the ally. He points out that the Bolivia-Chile dispute about the territories between 23°S and 24°S wouldn't change Peru's neighborhood, for in any case an intermediate Bolivian zone would remain between her frontiers and those of Chile, including the ports of Tocopilla and Cobija.

Rather than analyze semantically the text of the treaty Bulnes' argument rests mainly upon private and diplomatic correspondence, and politician speeches before, during and after war. Many of the information is gathered from the "Godoy papers", documents of the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Ministry, that fell into Chilean hands during the Occupation of Lima

Bulnes sees the pact as part of Peruvian move that would oblige Chile in 1873 to submit to arbitration what ever suited them (Peru, Argentina and Bolivia), and when that had been effected it would leave them with the domination of the Pacific and with the territory in dispute occupied by Bolivia: "Since Chile, according to Peru, had this aspiration [to seize Bolivian Antofagasta], it was convenient for Bolivia to take advantage of Chile's lack of maritime forces and of the fact that Peru was in condition to impede the mobilization of troops in defense of the disputed territory. Moreover, she would have to move quickly because Chile was having two ironclads constructed in England.

Such was the idea, The means of carrying it out the following.

Bolivia was to declare that she would not respect the treaty of 1866, then in force, and should occupy the territory over which she claimed to have rights, that is to say, the salitre zone. Chile naturally would not accept the outrage and would declare war. It was necessary that the initiative of the break should come from Chile. After requesting England to embargo the Chilean ships in construction in the name of neutrality, Peru and Argentina would come into action with their fleets. I mention Argentina because the cooperation of that country formed part of Pardo's plan. ... The advantage to each of them was clear enough. Bolivia would expand three degrees on the coast; Argentina would take possession of all our eastern territories to whatever point she liked; Peru would make Bolivia pay her with the salitre region."

- Gonzalo Bulnes

Among others, Bulnes cited, a letter from the Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister Riva Agüero to his Minister in Bolivia La Torre: "So, then, what Bolivia, ought to do is to waste no more time in time-killing discussions that conduce to nothing ... [and should] by adopting some other measure conducive to the same end: always however so arranging matters that it is not Bolivia that breaks off relations but Chile that is obliged to do so. Relations once broken off and a state of war once declared, Chile could not obtain possession of her ironclads, and lacking force with which advantageously to attack, would find herself in the necessity of accepting the mediation of Peru, which could in case of necessity be converted into an armed mediation – if the forces of that republic sought to occupy Mejillones and Caracoles ..."

- Peruvian Foreign Affairs Minister José de la Riva Agüero

Peruvian historian Alejandro Reyes Flores in "Relaciones Internaconales en el Pacífico Sur" wrote:


 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" | Peru, with the treaty, sought to protect its rich nitrate fields in Tarapaca, but not only that, it sought to impede the competition of the Bolivian saltpeter produced by Chilean and British investors. ... Peru sought to oust Chileans from the Atacama Desert. The treaty is evidence of that.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" | (Orig. Spanish:) El Perú, con el tratado, buscaba que resguardar sus ricas salitreras de Tarapacá; pero no sólo ello, sino apuntaba también, a impedir la competencia del salitre boliviano que se encontraba en poder de los capitales chilenos y británicos. ... Aspiraba el Perú a desalojar a los chilenos del desierto de Atacama. El tratado es una evidencia de ello.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Alejandro Reyes Flores in "Relaciones Internaconales en el Pacífico Sur", page 110
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Alejandro Reyes Flores in "Relaciones Internaconales en el Pacífico Sur", page 110
 * }

Gonzalo Bulnes, states:

Peruvian historian Jorge Basadre wrote (Cap. 1, pág. 8):
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" | The synthesis of the Secret Treaty was this: opportunity: the disarmed condition of Chile; the pretext to produce conflict: Bolivia; the profit of the business: Patagonia and the salitre.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" | (Orig. Spanish:) La síntesis del tratado secreto es: oportunidad: la condición desarmada de Chile; el pretexto para producir el conflicto: Bolivia; la ganancia del negocio: Patagonia y el salitre.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|
 * }

Basadre explained the targets and means of the alliance:
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |Peru's diplomatics efforts by the Bolivian Foreign Office were oriented to used the last time before the arrival of the Chilean frigates in order to finish the unnerving dispute over the 1866 treaty and that Bolivia terminates it in order to replace it by a more convenient or to initiate, after the breakdown of the negotiations, an Argentine-Peru mediation.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |(Orig. Spanish:) La gestión diplomática peruana en 1873 ante la Cancillería de Bolivia fue en el sentido de que aprovechara los momentos anteriores a la llegada de los blindados chilenos para terminar las fatigosas disputas sobre el tratado de 1866 y de que lo denunciase para sustituirlo por un arreglo más conveniente, o bien para dar lugar, con la ruptura de las negociaciones, a la mediación del Perú y la Argentina.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|
 * }

Basadre had reproduced in Cap. 1, pág. 6 the editorial published in the eve of the secret treaty's approbation in Peruvian senate:
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |The alliance created a Lima-La Paz axis with a view to create a Lima-La Paz-Buenos Aires axis, in order to have a tool to guarantee peace and stability within the American frontiers and defending the continental balance as [the Peruvian newspaper] "La Patria" had advocated in Lima.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |(Orig. Spanish:) La alianza al crear el eje Lima-La Paz con ánimo de convertirlo en un eje Lima-La Paz-Buenos Aires, pretendió forjar un instrumento para garantizar la paz y la estabilidad en las fronteras americanas buscando la defensa del equilibrio continental como había propugnado "La Patria" de Lima.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Jorge Basadre, Chap. 1, page 8
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Jorge Basadre, Chap. 1, page 8
 * }

Pedro Yrigoyen, Peruvian embassador in Spain and son of the Peruvian Foreign Minister at the beginning of the War on Chile, explains the reasons of the treaty
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |Peru, according to the journalist, had the right to ask the abrogation of the 1866 treaty. Chilean annexation of Atacama (as well as Patagonia) had an enormous transcendence and led to severe complications against the Hispanic American family. Peru, defending Bolivia, itself, and the right, had to lead a coalition of all the nations interested to reduce Chile to the limits it wanted to trangress, against of the utis possidetis in the Pacific [coast]. The continental peace should be based in the continental balance.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |(Orig. Spanish:) El Perú, según este articulista, tenía derecho para pedir la reconsideración del tratado de 1866. La anexión de Atacama a Chile (así como también la de Patagonia) envolvía una trascendencia muy vasta y conducía a complicaciones muy graves contra la familia hispanoamericana. El Perú defendiendo a Bolivia, a sí mismo y al Derecho, debía presidir la coalición de todos los Estados interesados para reducir a Chile al límite que quería sobrepasar, en agravio general del uti possidetis en el Pacífico. La paz continental debía basarse en el equilibrio continental.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Jorge Basadre, Chap. 1 page 6
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Jorge Basadre, Chap. 1 page 6
 * }

Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, former Peruvian Foreign minister under Juan Velasco Alvarado describes the plan to follow:
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |The Peruvian Government was so deeply convinced that the alliance had to be perfected with the adhesion of Argentina before the arrival of the Chilean frigates, in order to demand pacifically to Chile the arbitration of the [Chilean] territorial claims, that as soon as the observations of [Argentine] Foreign minister Tejedor, Lima responded so ...
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |(Orig. Spanish:) Tan profundamente convencido estaba el gobierno peruano de la necesidad que había de perfeccionar la adhesión de la Argentina al Tratado de alianza Peru-boliviano, antes de que recibiera Chile sus blindados, a fin de poderle exigir a este país pacíficamente el sometimiento al arbitraje de sus pretensiones territoriales, que, apenas fueron recibidas en Lima las observaciones formuladas por el Canciller Tejedor, se correspondió a ellas en los siguientes términos...
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|es:Pedro Yrigoyen,
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|es:Pedro Yrigoyen,
 * }


 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |The plan of Peru's Government, on condition that Argentina joint the alliance, was this: "to intervene with our good services in case of breach and to propose that the dispute were brought to arbitration. If the good offices weren't accepted, then let them understand that we were mediators and that we were bound by a treaty and therefore we had to help them by force in case they don't accept the arbitration.
 * style="width: 50%; padding: 2em; vertical-align: top;" |(Orig. Spanish:) El plan que el gobierno peruano proponía, sobre la base de la triple alianza, era este: "interponer nuestros buenos oficios si las cosas llegaran a un rompimiento, y proponer que los puntos cuestionados se sometan a un arbitraje. Si los buenos oficios no fuesen aceptados, entonces hacerles comprenderque asumimos el carácter de mediadores y que ligados como nos hallábamos, por un tratado, tendríamos que ayudar con nuestra fuerza si no se accedía a sujetarse a un arbitraje.
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Edgardo Mercado Jarrín,
 * }
 * colspan=2 style="text-align:right; vertical-align: top;"|Edgardo Mercado Jarrín,
 * }

Secrecy
It is still a matter of dispute in the Chilean historiography, to what extent the Chilean government or some Chilean politicians were informed about the treaty. Sergio Villalobos asserts that the treaty wasn't properly known in Chile until 1879. But Chilean historian Mario Barros in his Historia diplomática de Chile, 1541-1938 states that the treaty was known from the very beginning.

Consequences
One of the first consequences of the treaty was to bring together Brazil and Chile. As soon as the first rumors appeared about the new Peru-Bolivia-Argentina axis, they generated a closer cooperation between two states in conflict with some of the states in the axis. Brazil saw Argentina as a potential foe.

According to Basadre, Peru neglected her military because of an excessive trust in the treaty. As Antonio de Lavalle questioned Peruvian President Manuel Pardo about the new Chilean ironclads being built in Great Britain, Pardo answered that he also had two ironclads named "Bolivia" and "Buenos Aires", in reference to the axis.

Bolivia, counting on its military alliance with Peru, challenged Chile with a violation of the 1874 Boundary Treaty.

After its disclosure the treaty had a shocking impact on the Chilean public opinion, and therefore the treaty blocked any attempt of Peruvian mediation, sincere or not.