forts on the part of the United States to mediate in the struggle
were blocked by the dogged refusal of Chile to abate its demands for
annexation. Early in 1881 its army entered Lima in triumph, and the war
was over.

For a while the victors treated the Peruvians and their capital city
shamefully. The Chilean soldiers stripped the national library of
its contents, tore up the lamp-posts in the streets, carried away
the benches in the parks, and even shipped off the local menagerie to
Santiago! What they did not remove or destroy was disposed of by the
rabble of Lima itself. But in two years so utterly chaotic did the
conditions in the hapless country become that Chile at length had to set
up a government in order to conclude a peace. It was not until October
20, 1883, that the treaty was signed at Lima and ratified later at
Ancon. Peru was forced to cede Tarapaca outright and to agree that Tacna
and Arica should be held by Chile for ten years. At the expiration of
this period the inhabitants of the two provinces were to be allowed to
choose by vote the country to which they would prefer to belong, and the
nation that won the election was to pay the loser 10,000,000 pesos.
In April, 1884, Bolivia, also, entered into an arrangement with Chile,
according to which a portion of its seacoast should be ceded absolutely
and the remainder should be occupied by Chile until a more definite
understanding on the matter could be reached.

Chile emerged from the war not only triumphant over its northern rivals
but dominant on the west coast of South America. Important developments
in Chilean national policy followed. To maintain its vantage and to
guard against reprisals, the victorious state had to keep in military
readiness on land and sea. It therefore looked to Prussia for a pattern
for its army and to Great Britain for a model for its navy.

Peru had suffered cruelly from the war. Its territorial losses deprived
it of an opportunity to satisfy its foreign creditors through a grant
of concessions. The public treasury, too, was empty, and many a private
fortune had melted away. Not until a military hand stronger than its
competitors managed to secure a firm grip on affairs did Peru begin once
more its toilsome journey toward material betterment.

Bolivia, on its part, had emerged from the struggle practically a
landlocked country. Though bereft of access to the sea except by
permission of its neighbors, it had, however, not endu