a capitulation without battle would have been undoubtedly judged as treason, but defeat allowed the losing commanders to retain their honour. The theory assumes that liberal-minded commanders in the royalist army preferred an independentist victory to the triumph of an absolutist authoritarian Spain. In the conspiracy-minded atmosphere of the time, several commanders were accused of belonging to the Freemasons, as were independentist leaders, and certainly did not sympathise with king Ferdinand VII's ideas, considering him a tyrannical absolutist monarch. Spanish commander Andrés García Camba says in his memoirs that returning Spanish officers, latter known as "ayacuchos", were unjustly accused of betrayal upon their arrival to Spain, being told by one general, in an accusatory manner, "sirs, in this case we suffered a Masonic defeat"; the veterans replied - "it was lost, my general, in the way battles are lost". Aftermath After the victory at Ayacucho, following strict orders from Bolívar, general Sucre entered Upper Peru (today's Bolivia) on 25 February 1825. Besides having orders to immediately install an independent administration, he was to giving an appearance of legality to a process that Upper Peruvians themselves had already started. Royalist general Pedro Antonio Olañeta stayed in Potosí, where by January he received the "Union" Infantry Battalion coming from Puno under the command of colonel . Olañeta then summoned a war council, which agreed to continue the resistance in the name of Ferdinand VII. Next, Olañeta sent to the Cotagaita fortress the "Chichas" Battalion under colonel Medinacelli, and Valdez to Chuquisaca with the "Union" Infantry Battalion and loyalist militias. Olañeta himself marched toward Vitichi with 60,000 pieces of gold from the coinage factory in Potosí. But for the Spanish military personnel in Upper Peru, it was too little too late, as all-out guerrilla warfare had raged in this part of the continent since 1821. However, in Cochabamba the First Battalion of the "Ferdinand VII" Infantry Regiment, led by colonel José Martínez, rebelled and sided with the independence movement, to be followed later by the Second Battalion of the "Ferdinand VII" Infantry Regiment in Vallegrande, resulting in the forced resignation of Brigadier Francisco Aguilera on 12 February. Royalist colonel José Manuel Mercado occupied Santa Cruz de la Sierra on 14 February, as Chayanta stayed in the hands of lieutenant colonel , with the "Santa Victoria" (Holy Victory) cavalry squadrons and the "Dragones Americanos" (American Dragoons), and in Chuquisaca the "Dragones de la Frontera"