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Show Passage Over Andes Great Military Feat The trip across the Andes from Santiago or Valparaiso, Chile, to -Buenos Aires costs almost as much as a steamer passage from one of the South American ports to Europe, and serious political consequences have resulted. re-sulted. The Argentine is In much closer touch with Hie European continent than its neighbor, Chile, nnd, although the Argentine boundary is only seven hours from Santiago, the man in the streets in Chile looks upon the- wide pnmpa beyond the Andes as a distant foreign country. The narrow-gauged cogwheel track climbs out of the green Chilean valley up to the pass, following the course of the Aconcagua river. From the train window we can see the cflmino de los Andes wending its way among the lofty peaks. In older times this was the only route through the mountains, and it was over this narrow path thai Gen. Jose de San Martin, the Hannibal Hanni-bal of the Andes, marched his -army to the dicisive battle of Chacabuco in 1S1T that freed Chile from the Spanish yoke. Military writers rank this achievement achieve-ment with Hannibal's and Napoleon's march over the Alps, but when one reflects re-flects that the pass of Little St. Bernard Ber-nard that Hannibal used and the pass of Great St. Bernard that Napoleon used are only half as high as the Uspallala pass that San Martin had to negotiate, one Is inclined to rate his performance even higher. Moreover, San Martin was fighting for right and freedom, whereas Hannibal Han-nibal and Napoleon were waging wars of conquest, and were not seeking such impersonal ends as was the great Argentine Ar-gentine leader, whose achievement is one of the greatest in the history of democracy. Dr. Max Jordan in Berliner Ber-liner Tageblatt (Living Age). |