My fists are furious, they will destroy the like of Conchaga and Gagh and Jack!
OS@M@
New Member
I will fight pastries!
OS@M@
New Member
OS@M@
New Member
I will fight guano! I will fight Sarek too!
The dry climate of the Peruvian and Bolivian coasts had permitted the accumulation and preservation of vast amounts of high-quality nitrate deposits such as guano and saltpeter.
In the 1840s, the discovery of the use of guano as a fertilizer and saltpeter as a key ingredient in explosives made the Atacama desert strategically and economically valuable. Bolivia, Chile and Peru suddenly found themselves sitting on the largest reserves of a resource that the world needed. During the Chincha Islands War (1864–1866), Spain, under Queen Isabella II, attempted to use an incident involving Spanish citizens in Peru to dominate the guano-rich Chincha Islands and re-establish Spanish influence over an area that they had previously controlled with the Viceroyalty of Peru.
Peru and Chile signed a defensive and offensive alliance against Spain in December 5, 1865. Together, with the minor aid of Bolivia and Ecuador (who had previously had an inconclusive war with Peru from 1858 to 1860), they forced the Spanish to withdraw after achieving victories at Papudo, Abtao, and Callao. Chile, however, had to endure terrible losses after the bombardment of Valparaiso by the Spanish fleet on 31 March 1866.
While during this time Peru and Chile enjoyed an alliance based on mutual interests, a conflict between Bolivia and Chile developed because no permanent borders had been established between both nations. Claiming their borders according to the uti possidetis principle, Bolivia and Chile disagreed on whether the territory of Charcas, originally part of the Viceroyalty of Peru and, later, part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, had access to the sea.
Eventually, the two countries negotiated the Boundary Treaty of 1866 (commonly referred to as the "Treaty of Mutual Benefits") that established the 24th parallel south as their mutual boundary and entitled Chile and Bolivia equal rights to share the tax revenue on mineral exports from the territory between the 23rd and 25th parallels, which comprised a large part of the Atacama Desert. In 1872, Peru began to get involved in the dispute when it attempted to use its naval power to help Bolivia obtain a definite boundary.