José de San Martín

In 1817 San Martín took an army of about five thousand men, with mules, cannon and supplies, across passes of the Andes more than four thousand metres high, and fell on the Spanish forces in Chile from a direction they thought impossible.

Having freed three countries, he met Bolívar at Guayaquil, resigned his command rather than fight a civil war over who should rule, and sailed for Europe. He died in Boulogne-sur-Mer at seventy-two and was brought home nearly thirty years later.