“COMPARTIR LAS SATISFACCIONES DEL TRIUNFO O LAS DESVENTURAS DE LA DERROTA”: PERÚ Y BOLIVIA EN LOS ALBORES DE LA GUERRA DEL PACÍFICO (1847-1878)^*

Our research analyzes the government relations between Peru and Bolivia in the years prior the beginning of the war against Chile, in 1879. It argues that their bilateral affairs, presented as close and linked to a common past, are opposed to evidence that refers to recurrent armed tensions derived from the conditions imposed in the commercial treaties signed between 1847 and 1878. Subordinating Bolivia to an iron control of its import and export trade, during the period under study Peru intervened in Bolivian domestic political and financial affairs, transforming make the country a functional ally to contain the Chilean advance on the Atacama Desert. The conversion of Chile into a common enemy allowed Peru to extend the intervention process over the nitrate industry to Bolivian reserves, and to claim, a few months before the war, the extension of its southern limit from of the review of the legal antecedents of the colonial uti possidetis.