On 24 May 1822 a patriot army under Antonio José de Sucre defeated the Spanish royalists of General Melchor Aymerich on the slopes of the Pichincha volcano above Quito. The capitulation was agreed the next day, ending Spanish rule in today's Ecuador. On the same date in 1941, the British battlecruiser HMS Hood blew up in the Denmark Strait.
From Guayaquil to the Andes
Guayaquil declared its independence on 9 October 1820. According to the historian Jaime E. Rodríguez O., it could not, with its limited resources, drive the Spanish from the highland provinces of the Audiencia, or Kingdom, of Quito, and in 1821 Bolívar sent General Antonio José de Sucre there. Cevallos also has Sucre arriving in Guayaquil with troops from Colombia.1
José de San Martín sent a division from Piura under Colonel Andrés de Santa Cruz. It joined Sucre's Albion, Paya and Yaguachi battalions at Saraguro in February 1822, on the 9th according to Restrepo and Cevallos, who put the united force at 1,700 men fit for service, 400 of them mounted. The royalists abandoned Cuenca without a fight on 20 February.2
The sources size the army differently. Rodríguez gives three thousand, including local forces, Colombians, and Argentinians, Chileans and Peruvians from San Martín's army. Pedro Fermín Cevallos, in his history of Ecuador, gives some three thousand including a few auxiliaries, against a Spanish army of two thousand. José Manuel Restrepo, in his history of the Colombian revolution, counts more than 2,500 men in Sucre's division when it left Cuenca.3
A night march above Quito
The royalists held the village of Machachi and the passes of Jalupana and La Viudita, and Sucre went round them by a march on their left flank, over the frozen slopes of Cotopaxi. His report says the army set out on the 13th and reached the valley of Chillo, four leagues from the capital, on the 17th; Restrepo and Cevallos date the arrival to 16 May. Sucre's men then slipped past the royalist posts on the hill of Puengasí, on the 20th by Sucre's report and on 21 May by Restrepo's, and offered battle on the plain of Turubamba, which the royalists declined; Sucre placed his division at Chillogallo.4
After challenging them again on the 22nd and 23rd, Sucre reported, he resolved to march by night to the common north of the city, "que es mejor terreno y que nos ponía entre Quito y Pasto", which is better ground and which put us between Quito and Pasto (our translation). Restrepo and Cevallos give the same aim of cutting Quito off from Pasto.5
Cevallos and the historian Carlos Landázuri, quoted in a councillor's speech reported by Quito's municipality, date the climb to the night of 23 May. A rough path slowed the march, and Sucre, Restrepo and Cevallos all place the army on the heights that command Quito at eight in the morning. Rodríguez instead dates the battle 23-24 May and has the patriots reach the heights west of Quito on the evening of the 23rd.6
Battle on the slopes
Sucre writes that the light company of the Paya battalion, sent to scout the approaches while the troops rested, ran into the whole Spanish division at half past nine; Restrepo and Cevallos also put the first shots at half past nine. In Sucre's account the Trujillo battalion of the Peruvian division under Santa Cruz and two companies of Yaguachi under Colonel Morales took up the fight, with the rest of the infantry under General Mires following, until the cartridges of those two corps were spent and they had to fall back. Restrepo has the Paya light company and the Trujillo battalion fight until their ammunition ran out; two battalions under General Mires and Colonel Morales relieved them and in turn had to fall back for want of ammunition. Cevallos describes two such phases, the second after two companies of Yaguachi under Morales and the rest of the infantry under Mires came up.7
The royalists pressed forward, and the Paya battalion, ordered to charge with the bayonet, won back the lost ground. Cevallos gives the bayonet charge to the column that had been falling back. Three companies of the Aragón battalion worked round the patriot left through the woods and were already on the crest when three companies of Albion, delayed with the ammunition train, came up and routed them.8
Sucre described the end in his report: Colonel Córdova, ordered to relieve Paya with the two companies of the Magdalena, "cargó con un denuedo admirable, y desordenado el enemigo y derrotado, la victoria coronó á las doce día á los soldados de la libertad". In English: he charged with admirable courage, and with the enemy thrown into disorder and routed, victory crowned the soldiers of liberty at twelve noon (our translation). Córdova, reinforced, pursued the royalists into the city and drove their remnants into the fort on the Panecillo hill.9
Four wounds
Among his wounded officers Sucre listed Lieutenant Calderón, "que habiendo recibido consecutivamente cuatro heridas, jamás quiso retirarse del combate. Probablemente morirá": who, having received four wounds one after another, never would withdraw from the fight. He will probably die (our translation). Cevallos names him as Lieutenant Abdón Calderón, son of the Francisco Calderón whom Sámano had shot.10
Capitulation and the count
Sucre sent his horsemen after the royalist cavalry; Restrepo and Cevallos write that few of them reached Pasto.11
To spare the blood that taking the fort would cost, Sucre summoned General Aymerich to surrender through his aide O'Leary. "El general Aymerich ofreció entregarse por una capitulación, que fué convenida y ratificada al siguiente día", Sucre reported: General Aymerich offered to surrender by a capitulation, which was agreed and ratified the following day (our translation). Restrepo dates the agreement to 25 May, and Cevallos writes that the capitulations were signed the next day. By Sucre's report the patriots occupied the city and its forts on the afternoon of the 25th.12
Sucre reported four hundred enemy dead and two hundred of his own on the battlefield, 190 Spanish and 140 patriot wounded, and 1,100 prisoners from the ranks, 160 officers, 14 guns and 1,700 muskets taken. Restrepo and Cevallos give the same figures.13
Quito joins Colombia
Restrepo writes that Spanish rule in the country ended on 25 May, and Cevallos speaks of independence recovered; Quito's municipality calls Pichincha the battle that sealed the independence of the territories of Ecuador from the Spanish crown. Bolívar, in Pasto, proclaimed: "¡Colombianos! Ya toda vuestra hermosa patria es libre", Colombians! Now all your beautiful country is free (our translation).14
Accounts of how Quito joined Colombia differ. Cevallos writes that on the 29th Quito drew up its act of independence, declaring the old Kingdom of Quito an integral part of the Republic of Colombia; Restrepo, that Quito's authorities and notables had already signed an act joining the territory to Colombia when Bolívar entered the city on 16 June. Not everyone was pleased: Rodríguez and Cevallos both quote a broadside put up in Quito that read "The last day of despotism and the first of the same thing".15
Also on 24 May
In 1941 the battlecruiser HMS Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales intercepted the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland. In the despatch of Admiral Sir John Tovey, whose times are "zone minus 2", Hood was straddled again at 0600: "there was a huge explosion between the after funnel and the mainmast and the ship sank in 3 or 4 minutes"; Royal Museums Greenwich also describes a huge explosion. Churchill told the Commons that a shell penetrated one of her magazines and she blew up, "leaving only very few survivors"; Royal Museums Greenwich gives her complement as 1,418 crewmen, of whom three survived.16
