The deposition by Buenos Aires of her viceroy on the 25th of May, 1810, was shortly followed by the advance of an Argentine army into Bolivia, and the forces which the Spanish authorities at Potosi and Charcas had been able to collect were defeated at Suipacha, near the southern border of the plateau. All the cities of Bolivia fell into the hands of the patriots, while the villages rose in revolt against their Spanish tyrants. The Buenos Aireans wished to subject the Bolivian provinces to a centralised government and rule them from the capital on the Plate, but every town in Upper Peru had its ambitious Creole leaders who wished to control their own country. These disagreements had much to do with the crushing defeat which the Argentine army shortly suffered at Huaqui on the southern shore of Lake Titicaca. The projected triumphal advance through Cuzco and Lower Peru to Lima was turned into a precipitate retreat through La Paz, Oruro, and Potosi into the Argentine. Alone the Bolivian patriots were not strong enough to prevent the re-establishment of the Spanish authority in the cities along the main route. But in the villages and the outlying cities like Cochabamba and Santa Cruz the insurgent bands kept up a desperate resistance. The main body of the victorious Spanish army pursued the fleeing Argentines into their own territory, only to be defeated by General Belgrano in the battle of Tucuman--a victory which probably saved Buenos Aires from capture and the South American revolution from extinction. In 1813 the Argentines again invaded Bolivia, but they had not proceeded far beyond Potosi when they were met and routed in the battles of Villapugio and Ayohuma. The Bolivian patriots were once more left to their own resources, and their country subjected to the most awful devastations. Though unable to concert a general plan of action or to assemble one large army, nevertheless they had courage to die in battle or on the scaffold. The most famous leaders in the south were Camargo and Padilla, whose daring forays helped prevent the Spaniards from advancing into the Argentine, while Arenales at Santa Cruz and other patriot leaders farther north continually threatened the line of communication to Titicaca, Cuzco, and Lima. [Illustration: BALSAS ON LAKE TITICACA.]