Alejandro San Francisco's second volume on the 1891 Revolution is an extremely welcome sequel to his earlier work. For decades Balmaceda and his fall from power has attracted scholars, yet few have approached the topic with such skill and wisdom as this author. While the second volume concentrates on the military aspect of the war, it is not just another account of the various battles; the author also describes how civilian politicians became divided over the issues raised by Balmaceda. When it became clear that the legislators could not resolve their differences, they went beyond the halls of the congress to the army's barracks and the fleet's wardrooms to find new allies. In the process, the armed forces became politicised and the politics of Chile became militarised.

As we know, Balmaceda not only insisted that the budget authorised for 1890 could be used for the year 1891, he also set the manpower levels of the army and navy, thereby allowing both to exist. Normally, the legislature had to approve these measures. Balmaceda, however, refused to call the congress into session, fearing that it would hold both bills hostage until he acknowledged that Chile had evolved into a de facto parliamentary system in which the legislature, not the president, wielded the political power.

Considering the refusal of the congress to pass a budget or authorise the existence of the military as a threat to the integrity of the nation and to the maintenance of public order, Balmaceda unilaterally implemented both measures. He acted so recklessly because he did not expect the army, whose salaries he increased by 50 per cent, to challenge him; the navy, he apparently felt, did not matter. In fact, it did. Balmaceda's misplaced confidence and highly developed sense of egotism, which the author likened to Louis XIV, proved catastrophic. The navy's participation proved crucial: the rebel fleet transported the mutineers north, to Iquique, which became the seat of the insurgency. Here, thanks to Estanislao del Canto and German military advisor Emil Körner, the anti-Balmaceda forces amassed, equipped and trained an army. Without a fleet, Balmaceda's forces could not attack Iquique; they could only wait for the mutineers to attack.

The loyalist military suffered from certain fatal flaws: the rebels possessed superior small arms and more motivated troops than Balmaceda's forces, and worse, the generals leading the presidential forces lacked imagination and constantly bickered with each other. These generals refused to follow an order by Balmaceda that, if obeyed, would have given them numerical superiority on the battlefield. Thus, despite Balmaceda's attempts to placate his troops, many of his press-ganged soldiers and not a few of his officers turned their coats rather than die protecting the Moneda.

The 1891 Revolution proved extraordinarily bloody. Balmaceda's agents, employing torture and the lash, brutalised his domestic foes, including ordering the summary execution, at Los Cañas, of various upper-class youngsters playing at war. The victorious congressional forces, which defeated the presidential army at Concón and Placilla, responded in kind, looting the homes and offices of the loyalists, killing more than a few and forcing the rest to flee. Balmaceda, anxious to avoid a humiliating trial, took his own life. The victorious ‘congressionalists’ deliberately selected Admiral Jorge Montt, the commander of the rebel fleet, to lead the new parliamentary government, in no small part because the mariner, unlike General del Canto, had neither the aspirations nor the mentality to be an autocratic president. Clearly, the victors wanted the military to return to their barracks and stop debating politics. Within a few years, amnesty laws pardoned all those whom the victors had excoriated.

Alejandro San Francisco's book is extraordinarily well researched, using a rich variety of primary sources as its basis. The book, moreover, contains a series of contemporary photographs that enhance its value. Unlike other scholars, the author has explained how Chile's supposedly apolitical armed forces became enmeshed in their nation's political life, debating those ideas which heretofore were considered the purview of civilians. This is an essential work for everyone interested in Chilean history.