Civil war
When January 1, 1891 arrived, the president published a decree in the Diario Oficial to the effect that the budget of 1890 would be considered the official budget for 1891. This act was illegal and exceeded the authority of executive power. In response to the action of President Balmaceda, the vice-president of the Senate, Waldo Silva, and the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Ramón Barros Luco, issued a proclamation appointing Captain Jorge Montt as commander of the Navy, and stating that the Navy could not recognize the authority of Balmaceda so long as he did not administer public affairs in accordance with the constitutional law of Chile. The majority of the members of the chambers sided with this movement, and signed an Act of Deposition of President Balmaceda, triggering a constitutional crisis. On 7 January Waldo Silva, Barros Luco, and a number of senators and deputies embarked on the Chilean warship "Blanco Encalada," accompanied by the "Esmeralda" and "O'Higgins" and other vessels, and sailed out of Valparaiso harbor and proceeded northwards to Tarapacá to organize armed resistance against the president, launching the civil war.
Balmaceda had the loyalty of the Army in the Civil War, but the Navy supported Congress against Balmaceda.
This act in defiance of Congress was not the only issue that brought about the revolution. Balmaceda had alienated the aristocratic classes of Chile with his personal vanity and ambition and soon after his election was irreconcilably at odds with the majority of the national representatives. The oligarchy composed of the great landowners had always been an important factor in the political life of the republic; when President Balmaceda found himself outside this circle he endeavored to govern without their support, and to bring into the administration a group of people outside the inner circles of political power, whom he could easily control. Clerical influence also turned against him as a result of his radically secular ideas about government.
On 23 May 1891, London Times correspondent in Chile Maurice Hervey alleged British intervention as having been key to the overthrow of Balmaceda, writing, "Beyond the possibility of contradiction, the instigators, the wire-pullers, the financial supporters of the so called revolution were and are the English or Anglo Chilean owners of the nitrate deposits of the Tarapacá."
