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Liberation! |
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Liberation! |
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In the first three decades of the 19th century, a series of campaigns were fought in South America that ended Spain's empire there. Spain's control of its overseas provinces was total, in both political and mercantile matters, but the revolutions in America and France at the end of the 18th century showed the peoples of South America the possibilities of taking control of their own destinies. Spain's grip on its colonies began to slip as it became caught up in the schemes of Napoleon, and revolutionary juntas began to take control of some of the colonies, and plan the liberation of others. However, as the tide of war in Europe turned against Napoleon, Spain was able to devote more attention to its troubled colonies, and sent more troops to quell rebellion.
As the Napoleonic Wars came to an end, two figures rose to prominence in South America who were to be instrumental in the defeat of Spain; José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar. Through a series of campaigns between 1812 and 1826, they would liberate Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and the bastion of Spanish South America, Peru.
These campaigns offer an interesting diversion for the wargamer. The forces are small, the setting different and it's a chance to use your Napoleonic figures for something else. The problem with gaming this period are that there seems to be little in the way of useful, English language sources that cover things in any detail. I hope that by setting up this page, what information there is can be centralised. I originally conceived this page as a guide to gaming the wars using 'Principles of War' (although see below), but am happy for it to be used to cover any rules or types of gaming, as long as they are linked to the Wars of Liberation.
This section covers notes on wargaming the South American Wars of Liberation using different rules sets.
This section contains details of some of the main battles of these wars. For each battle I hope to be able to include a synopsis of events, an order of battle and a scenario. Initially these scenarios will be for 'Principles of War', but scenarios for other rules are also welcome.
Chris Johnson has provided these uniform notes. At present they only cover the Royalist forces.
As with most projects I undertake, I have found the bare minimum of information needed to start gaming, and left any detailed research until last. This explains why this section is so short of information, as I haven't really found any. These are things that I have made use of:
September 2003: I have not paid much attention to this site, or my Liberation! armies, for a couple of years now. Indeed, before that, although I have assembled lots of data, and bought a pile of figures, I have actually managed very little in the way of actual games. Two refights of Chacabuco show that the scenario still needs work in order to get the right 'feel', and a refight of Pichincha suffered by being imbalanced in favour of the Patriots. But the new edition of 'Principles of War' has inspired me to have another look at them. I tried Pichincha again, and although the inbalance was still there, some of it was down to a failure to convert teh scenario between rules editions. I have started looking at redoing the 'Principles of War' orders of battle, and trying a one unit to one unit mapping. Although this will make for small games, it should make for a more accurate simulation. Stay tuned for further updates ...
October 2005: Purchase of the 'Liberators!' guide for wargamers has renewed my interest in this period. Over the last couple of years I have tried a few games using the second edition of 'Principles of War' and, whilst the games were as entertaining as ever, I still feel that the rules don't really do this period justice. I am currently looking at alternative rules sets, preferably ones that make use of the figures and basing I am already using.
