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"Boys, the enemy has boarded us! Follow me, we shall not surrender while I live!"

A naval officer and trained lawyer, Arturo Prat commanded the ageing wooden corvette Esmeralda on the blockade of Iquique when she was cornered by Peru's ironclad Huáscar. Refusing to strike his colours against an enemy that outclassed his ship in every way, Prat kept fighting until the Huáscar rammed the Esmeralda — and then, in an act of desperate valour, leapt onto the deck of the enemy ironclad, sword in hand, calling on his men to follow, and was shot down almost at once. His sacrifice, and the sinking of the Esmeralda with her flag flying, transformed a lost battle into Chile's founding heroic legend. Prat became the supreme national hero, his name given to ships, streets, and squares across Chile, and May 21 became the country's Navy Day. His chivalrous enemy Grau returned his sword and personal effects to his widow.

"To Lima, and let nothing stop us."

The soldier who conquered Peru on land, Manuel Baquedano rose to command Chile's army after the naval victory at Angamos opened the coast to invasion. A cavalryman by training and an aggressive, straightforward commander, he won the war's decisive land battles — smashing the allied army at Tacna, storming the Morro de Arica, and driving through the fortified lines of Chorrillos and Miraflores to capture Lima itself in January 1881. His campaigns, though often bloody frontal affairs, delivered total victory, and he returned to Chile a national hero. He later served briefly as provisional president during the 1891 civil war. His mounted statue stands at the centre of Santiago, and the plaza around it — long the symbolic heart of the capital — bears his name.

"Close on the Huáscar and do not let her go."

As captain of the ironclad Cochrane, Juan José Latorre was the tactical victor of the decisive naval battle of Angamos, closing on Admiral Grau's Huáscar and pounding her with accurate fire until the Peruvian ironclad — the terror of the Chilean coast — was crippled and captured. It was the blow that won Chile command of the sea and, with it, the war. A highly professional officer, Latorre embodied the technical excellence of the Chilean navy that proved decisive against a materially comparable enemy. He remained a leading naval figure for the rest of his life, and warships of the Chilean navy have borne his name into the modern era.

"Order shall be kept in Lima, by mildness if possible and by force if not."

Of Irish descent and a former officer of Britain's Royal Navy, Patricio Lynch — nicknamed 'the Red Prince' after service in China — led the destructive raiding expedition up the Peruvian coast in 1880 that burned haciendas and levied ruinous contributions to cripple Peru's economy and will. After the fall of Lima he became the Chilean political and military chief of the occupation, governing the defeated country for nearly three years. As governor he combined firmness against the guerrillas of the sierra with efforts to restore order and administration, directing the long counter-insurgency campaign that finally broke Cáceres's resistance and brought Peru to terms. A capable and controversial figure, he is remembered as one of Chile's ablest commanders of the war.

"It is not the ship that is defeated, but fortune that abandons it."

The 'Gentleman of the Seas' was Peru's — and arguably the war's — greatest hero. Commanding the ironclad Huáscar, Grau single-handedly dominated the Pacific for five months after Iquique, raiding Chilean ports, capturing troopships, and evading whole squadrons in a campaign that pinned Chile's invasion in place. His chivalry became as famous as his seamanship: after sinking the Esmeralda he rescued her survivors and sent Arturo Prat's sword and letters home to Prat's widow with a note of condolence. At Angamos in October 1879 a Chilean squadron finally trapped the Huáscar, and a shell struck the conning tower, killing Grau instantly. His death and the loss of his ship handed Chile command of the sea. Revered in Peru as the 'Peruvian of the Millennium,' Grau is honoured on both sides of the old conflict as a model of gallantry.

"I have sacred duties to fulfil, and I will fulfil them until I burn the last cartridge."

An ageing artillery officer of Italian descent, Francisco Bolognesi commanded the small garrison holding the fortress headland of the Morro de Arica in June 1880. Summoned to surrender against hopeless odds, he gave the reply that made him immortal — that he would fight to the last cartridge — and led the doomed defence in person. When the Chileans stormed the Morro at dawn on June 7, the fighting was short and merciless; Bolognesi was killed at his post, and much of the garrison died with him. His defiant stand made him the great symbol of Peruvian military honour and sacrifice, declared the patron of the Peruvian army, and 'to the last cartridge' entered the language as the motto of a hopeless fight held to the end.

"While there is a mountain in Peru, there will be resistance."

The 'Wizard of the Andes' was the soul of Peru's refusal to accept defeat. After the fall of Lima, Cáceres withdrew into the high sierra and for two years waged a brilliant guerrilla campaign — the resistance of the Breñeros — recruiting Quechua-speaking Indian communities, using the altitude and terrain against the invaders, and repeatedly ambushing and exhausting the Chilean columns sent to destroy him. He came within a hair of victory at Huamachuco in 1883 before running out of ammunition and being routed. Embittered by the peace Peru was forced to sign, Cáceres led a revolt against the government that made it and twice became President of Peru. He is remembered as the great national hero of resistance, the general who kept the war alive in the mountains long after the cities had fallen.

"Bolivia will not be robbed of its coast without a fight."

The Bolivian dictator whose actions helped ignite the war, Hilarión Daza had seized power in a coup and, in 1878, imposed the disputed tax on the Chilean nitrate company and then moved to confiscate it — the spark that brought Chile's occupation of the coast and the outbreak of war. He led Bolivia's army into the field, but his campaign was marked by hesitation and failure. Most notoriously, during the Tarapacá campaign he halted his army at Camarones and turned back rather than march to join the Peruvians, a decision widely seen as abandoning his allies. Overthrown in a coup while still at the front in late 1879, Daza went into long exile, his name a byword in Bolivia for the catastrophe of the war. Returning years later, he was assassinated on his arrival, in murky circumstances, in 1894.

"Lima will be defended to the last."

A fiery civilian caudillo, Nicolás de Piérola seized power in Peru in the chaos of 1879 amid the disasters of the war, proclaiming himself Supreme Chief. It fell to him to organise the desperate last defence of Lima, throwing together an army of clerks, students, and conscripts to hold the lines at Chorrillos and Miraflores against Baquedano's veterans. The improvised defence was crushed and Lima fell in January 1881, after which Piérola's authority collapsed and he left the country, his rule discredited by defeat. Yet he remained a towering figure in Peruvian politics and returned to win the presidency again in 1895, this time presiding over a period of reform and reconstruction. He is remembered as one of the most charismatic and divisive figures of 19th-century Peru.