almost all their veterans and even their former commander, Cayetano Ameller, and this unit, composed of raw recruits, quickly scattered before it met the enemy. The 'Ferdinand VII' battalion followed, after a feeble resistance. By one o'clock the viceroy had been wounded and made prisoner, along with many of his officers. Even though Valdés’ division was still fighting to the right of his front, the battle was a victory for independentists. Independentist casualties, according to Sucre, were 370 killed and 609 wounded, and the royalists lost about 1800 dead and 700 wounded. With the remnants of his division, Valdés managed to retreat to the hill held by his rearguard, where he joined 200 cavalrymen who had gathered around general Canterac and some scattered soldiers from royalist divisions, whose fleeing and demoralized men shot and killed their own officers, who were trying to regroup them). The now heavily reduced force had no hope of defeating the independentist army. With the main body of the royal army destroyed and the viceroy himself in the hands of his enemies, royalist leaders surrendered. Capitulation of Ayacucho With Viceroy de la Serna seriously injured, the agreement between the two sides was negotiated by royalist commander Canterac and general Sucre. Canterac wrote: The principal terms of the agreement were: The royalist army under command of viceroy La Serna agreed to end hostilities. Remaining royalist soldiers were to remain in the Callao fortresses. The Peruvian republic should pay the debt to the countries that gave military contributions to the independence movement. In Lima, Bolívar summoned the Congress of Panama, on 7 December, to unite the new independent countries. The project was ratified by Gran Colombia only. Four years later, due to the personal ambitions of many of its generals and the absence of a united vision that foresaw South America as a single nation, Gran Colombia would end up splitting into the countries that exist today in South America, frustrating Bolívar's dream of union. Conspiracy theories about the Battle of Ayacucho Spanish historian Juan Carlos Losada calls the surrender of the royalists the "Ayacucho betrayal" He says that the result of the battle had already been agreed between opposing commanders, arguing that Juan Antonio Monet was responsible for the agreement: "the main characters kept a deep pact of silence and, therefore, we can only speculate, although with little risk of being wrong" (Page 254). He argues that