San Martín: Argentine Soldier, American Hero by John Lynch
Yale University Press, £25
AS THE Hugo Chávez-inspired Bolívarian revolution continues to sweep across the frontiers of Latin America, the English-speaking world is becoming ever more familiar with that great liberator Simón Bolívar. But we are still rather less knowledgeable about another key revolutionary hero of independence, the hombre necesario or “indispensable one”, José Francisco de San Martín. Now John Lynch in this timely book on San Martín delivers a rich portrait of the man and his place in the history of Latin America.
By using previously unexamined evidence, as well as documented sources, Lynch meticulously weaves together the different stages of his life starting with his birth in Yapeyu, a small city in eastern Argentina, in 1778. At the age of six, San Martín moved with his family back to Spain where he was enrolled in the Seminario de los Nobles, a school for the sons of the Spanish nobility and military leaders. In his first battle at the age of 13, his regiment was taken prisoner while trying to defend a Spanish port in North Africa, but he continued serving in the Spanish army for another 16 years.
Witty, seamless and unflaggingly informed, Lynch explains how San Martín’s loyalty changed when he began to hear the news of revolts against Spanish rule in his homeland, Argentina. When he arrived there in 1812, he found a military campaign that lacked a coherent strategy and an army ill-equipped for battle. San Martín responded by creating a highly trained corps of mounted grenadiers. Such was his popularity among ordinary soldiers that he was soon made commander of the whole Argentinian army. Lynch explores the new ethos that underpinned the revived military system as well as examining the economic and social dimensions of independence.
In January 1817 San Martín departed with a freshly inspired army to cross the Andes mountains. Lynch makes clear that this was the most daring military campaign San Martín had ever undertaken, and many men and horses died along the way. Nevertheless, when they reached Chacabuco in Chile in February, they comprehensively defeated the Spanish army. When he was offered the position of governor of Chile, he refused and instead marched on to meet the Spanish at the battle of Maipu.
Both revolutionary and conservative, San Martín is an arrestingly complex figure in Lynch’s narrative. After he emerged victorious at Maipu, ending Spanish domination of Chile, San Martín was offered extreme wealth and privilege but declined as this was never his motivation. Written with elegance, strength and charm, this book should be read not only by those with an interest in Latin America but by all our politicians – who desperately need a lesson in the morality of purpose.
Enrico Tortolano
