“I Resolved to Attack Them”: the Chilean Cavalry Charge that Opened the Land Campaign of the Pacific War

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“Recognised these, we resolved to attack them.” With those words, Colonel José Francisco Vergara recorded the instant that his forces arrived at the Salitrera office in Germania, inside Iquique. The idea was to seize the place, and also “occupy the camp that was evicting the Peruvian forces, stinging his rear and going to extinguish the fire that they had put in their supplies and buildings of that important office,” the same officer noted in hi…