Who won the Battle of Arica?

Chile won. Its infantry stormed the forts and the Morro de Arica on 7 June 1880, and the port passed into Chilean hands.

What did Bolognesi say before the Battle of Arica?

Asked to surrender, Colonel Francisco Bolognesi replied that he had sacred duties to fulfill and would fulfill them until the last cartridge was spent.

How long did the storming of the Morro de Arica take?

The final assault on the summit lasted about 55 minutes, according to Chilean army accounts.

Did Alfonso Ugarte jump from the Morro?

Peruvian tradition says he rode off the cliff with the flag. Chilean army historian Rodrigo Arredondo disputes this, saying his body was identified on the summit.

Why is 7 June important in Peru and Chile?

Peru celebrates it as Flag Day in memory of Arica's defenders, and the Chilean army as the Day of the Glories of the Infantry.

Battle of Arica, 1880: the storming of the Morro and the last cartridge

Location map of Arica and the coast of southern Peru and northern Chile, drawn for this article. Location map: Natural Earth data (public domain)

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Arica?

At dawn on 7 June 1880, during the War of the Pacific, Chilean infantry under Colonel Pedro Lagos stormed the fortified port of Arica, then in Peru, and its great headland, the Morro. The Peruvian commander, Colonel Francisco Bolognesi, had refused to surrender, promising to fight until the last cartridge was spent. The forts fell to bayonet attacks, and the final assault on the summit took about 55 minutes. Bolognesi was killed, and he is honored in Peru as a national hero, while Chile's army celebrates the day as the glory of its infantry.¹

The War of the Pacific, fought from 1879 to 1884, pitted Chile against Peru and Bolivia. After Chile won the Battle of Tacna in 1880, Bolivia left the war, leaving Peru to fight on alone. The fortified port of Arica was now the last Peruvian stronghold in a region already in Chilean hands.²

The fortress on the Morro

Arica was not an easy prize. Three forts guarded the low ground north of the town and three more stood on the Morro, the huge rocky headland that rises over the harbor. The approaches were sown with mines designed by a Peruvian engineer to explode under the first pressure, according to the account of the Chilean veterans' association UNOFAR. The Chilean commander in chief, General Manuel Baquedano, gave the planning and conduct of the attack to Colonel Pedro Lagos.³

On the morning of 5 June the Chilean envoy, Major Juan José de la Cruz Salvo, called on Colonel Francisco Bolognesi to surrender the town and spare useless bloodshed. Bolognesi consulted his officers, who backed his refusal. His answer, as the National Library of Peru records it, is still repeated across Peru: "I have sacred duties to fulfill, and I will fulfill them until the last cartridge is spent". In Arica, Peruvians still mark 5 June as the day of "the answer".⁴

How many men?

The numbers vary. Rodrigo Arredondo, head of the general archive of the Chilean army, gives more than 4,500 Chileans in the whole operation, of whom about 1,800 of the 3rd and 4th Line Regiments attacked the Morro's defenses and 800 of the Lautaro Regiment advanced along the shore. He puts the Peruvians at close to 2,000. Bolognesi could have hoped for reinforcements, Arredondo adds, but the defeat at Tacna, the poor logistics and political tension with the government left him isolated.⁵

The assault

Lagos moved his troops into position at night in darkness and silence, while units not taking part kept bonfires burning elsewhere to mislead the defenders. At dawn on 7 June the attack began on Fort Ciudadela. Chilean infantry reached the foot of the walls and tore open the sandbags with their curved knives, the corvos, and their bayonets. Captain Tristán Chacón of the 3rd Line was mortally wounded at the fort's gate, and on the Peruvian side Colonel Justo Arias Aragüés of the Granaderos de Tacna battalion distinguished himself in the defense.⁶

The 4th Line then took the East Fort and stormed up the Morro itself. Bolognesi was killed in the fighting on the summit. The final assault on the top, Arredondo confirms, lasted about 55 minutes, after which the Chilean flag flew over the Morro. The Peruvian monitor Manco Cápac, in the harbor, was sunk. In February, off Arica, one of her shells had killed Manuel Thomson, the new Chilean captain of the Huáscar, the Peruvian monitor taken at Angamos. A telegram signed by Lynch and received in Santiago the next day read: "Arica stormed and taken at the bayonet. All the forts in our hands".⁷ › Battle of Angamos, 1879

Legends of the Morro

Few battles in South America carry as many legends. Peruvian tradition tells that Colonel Alfonso Ugarte, seeing the defenders cornered, rode his horse off the Morro with the flag so that the enemy could not take it. Arredondo rejects the story of a suicide, saying witnesses identified Ugarte's body on the summit esplanade. He also dismisses the tale that Chilean troops climbed the sea cliff, which was impossible under fire, and the famous "devil's punch" of brandy and gunpowder, which he traces to a 20th-century novel. Whether wounded Peruvians were killed after the fight he leaves open: both commands made such accusations. An Argentine volunteer on the Peruvian side, Roque Sáenz Peña, survived and later became president of Argentina.⁸

A contested memory

The Treaty of Ancón of 1883 left Tacna and Arica under Chilean administration for ten years, to be followed by a plebiscite that was never held. The Treaty of Lima of 1929 finally gave Tacna to Peru and Arica to Chile. In between, the historian Gabriel Cid has shown, the anniversary of 7 June became a battleground of memory in Arica itself. Until about 1908 it belonged to the town's Peruvian majority, who held requiem masses and pilgrimages to the Morro, a crowd of some 2,000 in 1908. Then the Chilean authorities took the date over as part of their campaign to make the frontier Chilean.⁹

Both countries still keep the day. Peru celebrates 7 June as its Flag Day, created by decree in 1924, and in 1951 named Bolognesi patron of its army. Chile's army observes it as the Day of the Glories of the Infantry, and since 2013 it has been a public holiday in the Arica region.¹⁰