La guerra de la independencia: Arriving in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata; San Martin and his companions were faced with a colonial government in disarray.
Not quite revolutionary, and not quite loyalist; attempting to form a new United Provinces; factional infighting so preoccupied them that they proved ineffective not only in subjugating outlying provinces, but barely securing their external borders.
To be sure, there was much pride in the repulsion of two British invasions a couple of years earlier; which, it could be said was the primary trigger for self-determination; but beyond that, the local government struggled to define its purpose or its capacity to lead the rest of the colony.
