The account reports that Chile removed roughly 45,000 books from Peru's Biblioteca Nacional during the war. A competing claim holds that some Peruvians sold material in an effort to keep it away from Chilean forces, so the exact circumstances remain contested. Interior Minister José Manuel Balmaceda was then questioned in the Chilean Congress by Augusto Matte Pérez about the propriety and humiliation of sending Peruvian cultural assets to Chile. The episode made cultural property a domestic political issue inside the victorious state and introduces Balmaceda before the discussion of his presidency and the civil war.
Notable Point · 2:10:55-2:12:33
The war's disputed removal of Peru's library collections
The removal of roughly 45,000 books from Peru's national library remains contested and was questioned inside Chile's own Congress.