February 14, 1879 · Bolivian coast (Atacama) Theater

When Bolivia tried to impose a new tax on the Chilean-owned nitrate company at Antofagasta — violating an 1874 treaty — and then moved to confiscate it, Chile landed troops and seized the port without a shot. The city's population was largely Chilean, and it fell into Chilean hands instantly.

May 21, 1879 · Pacific Ocean off Iquique Theater

Blockading Iquique, the old wooden Chilean corvette Esmeralda was cornered by Peru's powerful ironclad Huáscar. When Grau rammed the Esmeralda, her captain Arturo Prat leapt aboard the enemy ironclad sword in hand, calling on his men to follow, and was cut down. The Esmeralda was rammed three times and sank with her colours flying. Grau chivalrously rescued survivors and returned Prat's effects to his widow.

October 8, 1879 · Pacific Ocean off Mejillones Theater

For five months the Huáscar under Admiral Grau had terrorised the Chilean coast, raiding ports and capturing transports. At Angamos a Chilean squadron finally trapped the ironclad in a pincer; a shell struck the Huáscar's conning tower and killed Grau instantly, and after a desperate fight the crippled ship was boarded and captured before her crew could scuttle her.

November 2, 1879 · Tarapacá coast, Peru Theater

Now that it commanded the sea, Chile launched the war's first great amphibious operation, landing its army under fire on the beaches and cliffs of Pisagua and fighting its way up the heights against the defenders. It was a pioneering combined naval-and-land assault.

November 19, 1879 · Tarapacá desert, Peru Theater

The Chileans dug in on the hill of San Francisco around a vital water source and beat off the uncoordinated assaults of a larger allied Peruvian-Bolivian army parched for water in the waterless desert. Allied cohesion broke down and the Bolivian units began to withdraw from the campaign.

November 27, 1879 · Tarapacá desert, Peru Theater

A Chilean column pursuing the retreating Peruvians into the Tarapacá ravine was surprised and badly beaten by a Peruvian counterattack, in which the resourceful Cáceres distinguished himself. It was Peru's finest land victory of the war.

May 26, 1880 · Tacna, southern Peru Theater

On the plateau above Tacna, Baquedano's Chilean army made a costly frontal assault on the entrenched combined Peruvian-Bolivian force and broke it decisively in the war's largest land battle to that point. The allied army was destroyed as a fighting force.

June 7, 1880 · Arica, southern Peru Theater

The Chileans assaulted the fortified headland of the Morro de Arica, where Colonel Bolognesi had vowed to resist 'to the last cartridge.' In a furious dawn attack the Chileans stormed the heights in under an hour; Bolognesi was killed, and much of the garrison died in the assault or leaping from the cliffs.

January 13, 1881 · Approaches to Lima, Peru Theater

In the campaign to take the Peruvian capital, Baquedano's army stormed the fortified defensive lines at Chorrillos south of Lima, overrunning Piérola's improvised army of conscripts and reservists in a bloody day of fighting. The resort town was sacked and burned in the aftermath.

January 15, 1881 · Outskirts of Lima, Peru Theater

When a truce around Lima broke down, the Chileans assaulted the last defensive line at Miraflores and broke through, scattering the remnants of Peru's army. Two days later the Chilean army marched into Lima and occupied the capital of Peru.

July 10, 1883 · Northern Peruvian Andes Theater

In the high Andes, Cáceres's guerrilla army — the 'Breñeros' who had waged a brilliant mountain resistance for two years — came close to victory at Huamachuco before running out of ammunition and being routed by the Chileans, who executed many prisoners afterward.