It all starts after the Pacific War between Chile, Perú and Bolivia. The three armies followed the french model of army (as did most of South America because of the prestige of the Napoleonic Wars), but after the Franco-Prussian War, goverments realized that the Prussian Method was better (or so they said). However, not all countries realized this, and also they couldn’t get german influence at first. Other got it from second-hand (chile sent a military mission to adoctrine Colombia’s military in Prussian Tradition and they use german and chilean marchs).