page_title: Treaty of Defensive Alliance (Bolivia–Peru)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Treaty of Defensive Alliance (Bolivia–Peru) / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Caricaturas chilenas de la Guerra del Pacífico - Patricio Ibarra Cifuentes: "A través de esta caricatura dada a la luz el 22 de noviembre de 1879, El Barbero denuncia la intervención a favor de Perú y Bolivia por parte de la república Argentina. El presidente Nicolás Avellaneda sujetándose en el lado de la balanza donde se encuentran los aliados (Hilarión Daza y Mariano Ignacio Prado), lamenta que pese a sus intentos por favorecerles, no es suficiente para revertir la situación a su favor debido al peso impuesto por las balas del ministro Domingo Santa María. La figura del jefe de gabinete es colocada por sobre la de otros personajes chilenos civiles importantes de la Guerra del Pacífico, tales como el propio presidente Aníbal Pinto o el ministro Rafael Sotomayor."
context_page_description: The Treaty of Defensive Alliance was a secret defense pact between Bolivia and Peru. Signed in the Peruvian capital, Lima, on February 6, 1873, the document was composed of eleven central articles, outlining its necessity and stipulations, and one additional article that ordered the treaty to be kept secret until decided otherwise 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 South America's tense political environment, made all the more precarious by a global economic depression. The system of mutual defense established between Bolivia and Peru sought to protect their national security and the regional balance of power by containing Chilean 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.
context_section_description: 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, informed the Peruvian Council of Ministers of the Bolivian government's willingness to negotiate. Three months later, on 6 February 1873, the Secret Treaty of Alliance between Peru and Bolivia was signed in Lima. Four days after the signing of the treaty, in a secret session, the Peruvian Chamber of Deputies asked the executive to purchase naval armaments.
  Economic interests were involved in the defensive alliance. On 18 January 1873, the Ley del Estanco (Monopoly Law) on nitrate, or saltpeter, exports was promulgated, marking Peru's first attempt to build a nitrate monopoly. However, practical difficulties in establishing the monopoly proved insurmountable, and the project was shelved. In The Peruvian Government and the Nitrate Trade, 1873–1879, Miller and Greenhill state that "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 (nitrate fields) of Tarapaca to secure revenue from guano and nitrate. However, Peruvian nitrate had to compete with Bolivian nitrate, produced by Chilean capitalists.
  On February 6, 1873, a few days after the signing of the Estanco, the Peruvian Senate approved the secret treaty. The parliamentary proceedings, however, have since disappeared. Peruvian historian Jorge Basadre asserts that the two projects were unrelated to each other, but Hugo Pereira Plascencia has found several items of evidence to the contrary. For example, he cites the 1873 writings of Italian author Pietro Perolari–Malmignati, stating that the Peruvian interest in defending its nitrate monopoly against the Chilean production in Bolivia was the main cause of the secret treaty. Perolari-Malmignati also wrote that the Peruvian foreign minister, José de la Riva-Agüero, informed Joaquín Godoy, the Chilean foreign minister in Lima, about negotiations with Bolivia to expand the Estanco in Bolivia.
  To strengthen the alliance against Chile, Peru sought to incorporate Argentina, which was then involved in a territorial dispute with Chile over Patagonia, the Strait of Magellan, and Tierra del Fuego, into the alliance, and it sent a diplomat, Manuel Irigoyen Larrea (not to be confused with Argentine Minister Bernardo de Irigoyen), to Buenos Aires. Bolivia did not have a minister in Argentina and so was also represented by Manuel Irigoyen.
  On 24 September 1873, the Argentine Chamber of Deputies approved the signing of the treaty and additional military funds of $6,000,000. The Argentine government, under President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Foreign Affairs Minister Carlos Tejedor, still required the approval of the Argentine Senate.
  Though they all pursued the alliance, the three countries had different aims. Argentina and Peru were far more concerned about a possible hostile reaction from Brazil and feared a Brazilian-Chilean axis. Bolivia and Argentina failed to reach an agreement in the Chaco and Tarija territorial disputes. Therefore, Argentina asked to dismiss the 1866 Bolivia-Chile Treaty as casus foederis, instead offering Peru an Argentina-Peru an alliance against Chile to protect Peru against a Chilean-Bolivian alliance.
  On 28 September 1873, the matter was discussed in the Argentine Senate, postponed until 1 May 1874, and then finally approved if certain declarations were added. However, the proposed changes were rejected by Baptista.
  Brazil ordered its ministers in Peru and Argentina to investigate a rumored Peruvian-Argentine-Bolivian alliance, especially with regards to any implications such an alliance would have for Brazil and its strained relations with Argentina. Peru discreetly assured Brazil that the treaty would not affect its interests and delivered a copy of the treaty to
caption: Caricature published on 22 November 1879 in the Chilean magazine "El Barbero". The dictator of Bolivia, Hilarion Daza (left); the president of Peru, Mariano Ignacio Prado (second from left); and the president of Argentina, Nicolas Avellaneda (top) put themselves on the scales to act as a counterbalance against Chilean military supremacy, represented by a cannonball put on the other side by Chilean Foreign Minister Domingo Santa Maria, who was considered the mastermind of the Chilean government.[11]:394
  Avellaneda says: "I can't get it. Don Domingo's cannonballs are really heavy!"
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