San Martin, behind the screen of the Andes, and only a hundred and fifty miles from Santiago, was forging a thunderbolt destined to shatter into fragments the edifice which Abascal had been so skilfully constructing through seven laborious years. The story of how the silent Argentine gathered and equipped the "Army of the Andes" has already been told … his marvellous march over the cloud-high passes, the descent into the plain of Aconcagua made so suddenly that the Spanish forces could not hurry up to bar his way, the prompt advance over the low transverse range which forms-the northern boundary of the plain where Santiago stands, and the overwhelming victory in the gorge of Chacabuco against the pick of the Spanish veterans, who confidently stood to the attack, never dreaming until San Martin was right upon them that his main body had had time to reach the spot. The Spanish authorities at Madrid and Lima had made the irretrievable mistake of underestimating the efficiency of his army. They thought the troops in Chile amply able to take care of any four thousand men the patriots could get together, but San Martin's army was differently provided and organised than the undisciplined masses which had been routed at Huaqui, Vilcapugio, and Rancagua. The Spanish generals were not so much surprised at his crossing the Andes as at finding the troops which reached the Chilean plains to be well furnished with artillery, cavalry, and ammunition, perfectly ready for an aggressive campaign, and a match man for man for any force that could be brought against them.
The royalists lost twelve hundred of their best men at Chacabuco; only a thousand escaped from the field to fly in disorder toward Santiago.
--
Thomas Cleland Dawson, in The South American republics (1904), Vol. 2, p. 168Jose de San Martin
» Jose de San Martin - all quotes »
When I left the University of Santo Tomas, I had but a smattering of Spanish. My friends made sport of me. What keen mortification did I suffer at my ignorance! One day, no longer able to stand the jeerings of my friends, I made up my mind to learn Spanish. I purchased a dozen good novels and began to read. I did not spend hours over a grammar, but just kept on reading, taking care to remember the idioms. In the meantime my library grew. At the end of three years my knowledge of Spanish and of literature in general was far beyond that of my friends. It was then my turn to laugh!
Epifanio de los Santos
San Martin with his host of hardy gauchos and Chilean exiles assumed full control of the capital. He summoned an assembly of notables who promptly and unanimously elected him "Governor of Chile with plenary powers." But this was not what the far-sighted and patriotic soldier wanted. He realised that Chile could never give that unquestioning support so vital to the success of his cherished campaign against Peru so long as any stranger, even himself, governed by force. San Martin peremptorily declined the honour, but intimated that he would be glad to see his staunch friend, O'Higgins, selected dictator, and accordingly the enemy of the Carreras was placed at the head of the new Chilean government.
Jose de San Martin
When you sing in English and Spanish, it's two completely different forms of expression and . . . even the people who don't speak Spanish love to hear me sing in Spanish.
Gloria Estefan
José de San Martín … was an enigmatic figure — a revolutionary and a conservative, a professional soldier and an intellectual, a taciturn man who nevertheless was able to inspire the peoples of South America to follow his armies and accept his battle strategies. One of the great leaders in the wars for independence, he was a pivotal force in the liberation of Chile and Peru from Spanish rule.
Jose de San Martin
Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require "several hundred thousand troops." But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.
Al Gore
San Martin, Jose de
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