Battle of Maipú

Battle context

The Battle of Maipú, fought near Santiago on 5 April 1818, was the decisive engagement of the Chilean War of Independence. Patriot forces under Argentine general José de San Martín, with roughly 5,000 troops, faced a Spanish royalist army of equal size commanded by General Mariano Osorio. The outcome was not a near thing: the royalists suffered approximately 2,000 casualties against the Patriots' 1,000, a disparity reflecting the completeness of the Patriot victory. San Martín's forces effectively destroyed the Spanish army in the field, removing the primary royalist military capacity in the region. The battle completed the independence of the core area of Chile from Spanish domination, securing the political and territorial gains of the independence movement in a way that earlier campaigns had not. Control of the Chilean heartland around Santiago was no longer contested, and the Spanish position in Chile did not recover from the defeat.