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Wargaming the Battle of Maipo 5 Apr 1818
Posted 23 Jan 2012
Setting: Maipo, South of Santiago, Chile; 5 Apr 1818
Historical Situation
Since 1810 the Spanish colonies in South America had embraced open revolution against Spain. The United Provinces of the South ( Argentina and Uruguay ) had actually achieved independence by 1815, but their war against the Royalist forces in the northern territories of Argentina and Bolivia had been unsuccessful. After the defeat of a Patriot army at the battle of Sipe Sipe ( or Viluma ), the only thing preventing the royalists from regaining control of the River Plate was the guerrilla warfare done by the Gauchos, but the future appeared uncertain.
Back in 1812 a creole career military officer had return to South America after serving Spain in the wars against Napoleon. He was abandoning a promising career in the Spanish military after being promoted for his role as ADC to Coupigny during the battle of Bailen, his new objective was to return to his native land and lead contribute to the Patriot efforts.
By 1817 San Martin had realized that Buenos Aires attempts to defeat the Royalists forces in the north were ill conceived and that the way to achieve this would be to cross the Andes and liberate Chile and from there initiate an amphibious operation to Peru, the heart or the Royalist presence.
With this in mind San Martin gathered an Army and crossed into Chile in early 1817, defeating the opposing forces in Chacabuco. However after the initial victory he had to return to Buenos Aires to secure further resources for the campaign.
While San Martin was in Buenos Aires the war in Chile became more complicated due to the arrival of the “expedicionarios” reinforcements from Peru, which included veteran peninsular units.
Now in 1818, with San Martin back in Chile, Royalist and Patriots forces were moving towards each other once again.
The Royalists took first blood when on March 19th the Royalist Brigadier Jose Ordonez, a skillful Spanish commander that had been a comrade of San Martin in the peninsular war, convinced the Royalist general, Mariano Osorio, to initiate a night offensive on the Patriot army that had besieged them in the city of Talca.
The Patriot army was maneuvering to prepare themselves for the attack, alerted by spies, but they were caught before they could deploy, this was the battle of Cancha Rayada. The Patriot army routed from the field but calm and ordered performance by Las Heras insured that the main body of the army retreated in good order preventing a total defeat, nevertheless panic spread among the Patriots and morale was very low.
A few weeks later San Martin had managed to regroup a good portion of the patriot army and was now ready to face Osorio’s army that was moving towards Chile.
O’Higgins was left in Santiago with some troops fortifying the city in case disaster should occur and the main body of the army left with the Argentine general to face the enemy at a valley close to the river Maipo.
Some of San Martin officers were not very convinced with facing the army that had surprised them at Cancha Rayada in a set piece battle in open terrain; Brayer a French officer in Patriot service requested to be excused and San Martin dismissed him declaring: “The last drummer in the army has more courage than your generalship, you may leave then but you should know that in the next hours the fate of Chile will be decided.”
The troops deploy on the field by around 11:30AM.
The Royalists deployed the Grenadier and Cazadores companies together with 4pdr guns and the Frontier Dragoons on the left flank under command of Primo de Rivera while the fusilier companies and the 8 pdr guns were deployed in the centered, anchored on the elite Burgos battalion and with their light dragoons securing their right flank.
San Martin deployed Las Heras division with 3 infantry batallions, Blanco Encalada’s horse artillery and the horse grenadiers to his right facing Primo de Rivera, and Rudecindo Alvarado with another 3 infantry batallions in the center supported by de la Plaza 8pdr Andes artillery and Brogono’s 4pdr artillery in support with the patriot light cavalry protecting their flank, but he also deployed Hilarion de La Quintana’s division in reserve with another 3 infantry batallions.
The armies were roughly similar in numbers since although the Patriots presented more battalions most of these were understrengthed not reaching 400 men each while the royalist expedicionarios batallions were at full strength of 1000 each.
And so one of the bloodiest battles in the war of Independence was about to begin.
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