The wars of the peoples were therefore civil conflicts; the quarrels of generals ambitious of hegemony. United in independence, united during the colonial period, the new nations were divided, and stood aside at the suggestion of these warriors; as Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, in the name of Santa-Cruz or Gamarra, Castilla or Flores. The national conscience was roughly shaped upon the field of battle. The generals imposed arbitrary limits upon the peoples; they are the creators in American history; they impress the crowds by their pomp and pageantry; by military displays as brilliant as the gaudy processions of the Catholic cult; by magnificent escorts and decorations and forms of etiquette; they call themselves Regenerators, Restorers, Protectors. {88} This first period is troublous, but full of colour, energy, and violence. The individual acquires an extraordinary prestige, as in the time of the Tuscan Renaissance, the French Terror, or the English Revolution. The rude and bloodstained hand of the _caudillo_ forces the amorphous masses into durable moulds. South America is ruled by ignorant soldiers: the evolution of her republics must therefore be uncertain. There is, therefore, no history properly so called, for it has no continuity; there is a perpetual _ricorso_ brought about by successive revolutions; the same men appear with the same promises and the same methods. The political comedy is repeated periodically: a revolution, a dictator, a programme of national restoration. Anarchy and militarism are the universal forms of political development. As in European revolutions, anarchy leads to dictatorship; and this provokes immediate counter-revolution. From spontaneous disorder we pass to a formidable tutelage. The example of France is repeated on a new stage; the anarchy of the Convention announces the autocracy of Bonaparte. The dictators, like the kings of feudalism, defeat the local _caciques_, the provincial generals; thus did Porfirio Diaz, Garcia Moreno, Guzman-Blanco, &c. And revolution follows revolution until the advent of the destined tyrant, who dominates the life of the nation for twenty or thirty years. Material progress is the work of the autocracy; as witness the rule of Rosas, Guzman-Blanco, Portales, and Diaz. The great _caudillos_ will have nothing to do with abstractions; their realistic minds urge them to encourage commerce and industry, immigration and agriculture. By imposing long periods of peace they favour the development of economic forces.