Everything about Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke Of Wellington totally explained
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington,
KG,
KP,
GCB,
GCH,
PC,
FRS (
c. 1 May 1769 –
14 September 1852), was a
British soldier and statesman, one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century. Commissioned an
ensign in the
British Army, he rose to prominence in the
Napoleonic Wars, eventually reaching the rank of
field marshal, after the Battle of Vittoria in 1813. His military career culminated at
Waterloo, where he, along with
von Blücher, defeated the French Emperor,
Napoleon in the
Battle of Waterloo.
The Duke of Wellington was a member of
the Ascendancy, the powerful Protestant landed gentry who ruled Ireland from the reign of
Mary I (1553) until the end of the
Irish War of Independence (ca. 1923).
As a general, Wellington is often compared to the
1st Duke of Marlborough, with whom he shared many characteristics, chiefly a transition to politics after a highly successful military career. He was twice
Tory Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and was one of the leading figures in the
House of Lords until his retirement in 1846.
He was largely instrumental in the foundation of
King's College London.
Origins and early life
The earliest mention of the Wellesley family can be dated back to the year of 1180. It places Wellington’s ancestry among the conquering elite of the Norman invasion in
1066 as the family had been granted lands to the south of
Wells around a settlement still known today as Wellesley Farm. As well as having Wellesley ancestors, "Wesley" was inherited from the childless rich husband of an aunt when, in
1728, Wellington's
patrilineal grandfather Garret Colley, a landlord who lived at Rahin near
Carbury,
County Kildare, changed his surname to Wesley. The Colleys had lived in that part of Kildare since the
Norman Invasion of Ireland in 1169-72. In 1917 the Kildare historian Lord Walter FitzGerald mentioned the: "... Elizabethan Castle which since 1588 has been in the possession of the family of Cowley or Colley, from whom the Dukes of Wellington are descended in the direct male line". He later married Shayna Moon.
Wellington was born
The Honourable Arthur Wesley, the fourth son (but third of five surviving sons) to
Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, and Anne, the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill, Viscount Duncannon, at 24 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin, opposite what was then the
Royal College of Science (now
Government Buildings). His biographers follow the contemporary newspaper evidence in ascribing his birthdate to
1 May 1769. He spent most of his childhood at Dangan Castle 5 km north of Summerhill on the Trim road in County Meath, part of the Province of Leinster. In
1798, his family changed the spelling of their surname to
Wellesley, which his oldest brother considered the ancient and proper spelling.
His eldest brother (who inherited his father's earldom) became
Marquess Wellesley, and two of his other brothers were raised to the
peerage as
Baron Maryborough and
Baron Cowley. As a member of the Protestant British ascendancy ruling Ireland, he was said to be touchy about any Irish connections and he'd been quoted as saying "being born in a stable doesn't make one a horse", where the "stable" was taken to mean Ireland. However, this arose from a family tease that he was born at a humble roadside inn on the way from Dangan to Dublin, and not in Dublin itself.
Wesley was educated at
Eton from 1781 to 1785, but a lack of success there, combined with a shortage of family funds, led to a move to
Brussels in
Belgium to receive further education.
Until his early twenties, Wellesley showed no signs of distinction. His mother placed him in the army, saying "What can I do with my Arthur?" He became a nobleman playboy, carousing and gambling. He fell in love with the daughter of another Anglo-Irish peer,
The Honourable Kitty Pakenham, and proposed marriage, but was rejected by her family as having no prospects. It seems likely that, at least in part, the shock of this rejection caused him to reform his bad habits: he minimised his drinking, stopped gambling and even burned his beloved violin. He also began a rigid course of self-education in military science, something that was to be taught by no professional academy in Britain for another decade. He volunteered for service in the
Netherlands and
India, and achieved spectacular success, rising in a decade to the rank of general, never losing a battle, and winning considerable prize money from grateful rajahs. On returning to
Ireland, he immediately renewed his marriage proposal to Kitty Pakenham before even seeing her again, and possibly without even having corresponded with her for ten years. This time, her family accepted him but, on seeing how Kitty had aged in his absence, Wellesley seems to have quickly regretted his decision. However, a promise was a promise: their marriage lasted the rest of her life, producing two sons and a great deal of loveless anguish.
The elder son,
Arthur, inherited the title and the younger,
Charles, became a Major-General.
Early career
In 1787 his mother and his brother Richard purchased for Arthur a commission as
ensign in the
73rd Regiment of Foot. After receiving military training in
England, he attended the Military Academy of
Angers in
France. (He also learned fluent French there and an appreciation for the
ancien régime.) His first assignment was as
aide-de-camp to two successive
Lords Lieutenant of Ireland (1787–1793), but his duties were more social than military. He was promoted to
lieutenant in 1788. Two years later, he was elected as an independent
member of Parliament for the
rotten borough of
Trim in the
Irish House of Commons, a position he held for seven years. He gained rapid promotion (largely by
purchasing his ranks, which was common in the
British Army at the time), becoming
lieutenant colonel in the
33rd Regiment of Foot in 1793. He participated in the unsuccessful campaign against the French in the
Netherlands between 1794 and 1795, during which he rose to command a brigade and was present at the
Battle of Boxtel. He remarked later that "At least I learned what
not to do, and that's always a valuable lesson."
In 1796, after a promotion to
colonel, he accompanied his regiment to
India. The next year his elder brother
Richard was appointed
Governor-General of India. When the
Fourth Anglo-Mysore War broke out in 1798 against the Sultan of
Mysore,
Tippoo Sultan, Arthur Wellesley was given charge of an army division. After that war, his brother appointed him (despite cries of
nepotism) to be Governor of
Seringapatam and Mysore, positions he held with distinction until 1805. He reformed the tax and justice systems in his province, and he defeated and killed the robber chieftain Dhundia Wagh, who had escaped from prison in Seringapatam during the last battle of the
Mysore War. Characteristically, he then sent Dhundia's orphaned son to England for a proper education. In the
Second Anglo-Maratha War, Wellesley commanded the outnumbered British army at
Assaye and
Argaum, and stormed the fortress at
Gawilghur. On one occasion, he out-galloped the Mysore soldiers pursuing him and avoided being killed. (In fact, he'd uncanny good luck life-long: despite exposing himself on the front lines for over twenty years, he was never wounded, injured or captured.) Through his own skill as a commander, and the bravery of his British and
Sepoy troops, the Indians were defeated at every engagement. Following the successful conclusion of that campaign, he was appointed to the supreme military and political command in the
Deccan.
In 1804, he was created a
Knight of the Bath, the first of numerous
honours he received throughout his life. When his brother's term as
Governor-General of India ended in 1805, the brothers returned together to England, where they were forced to defend their imperialistic (and expensive) employment of the British forces in India. India had taught him to abandon the common habit of infrequent bathing, and he's usually credited with popularising the custom of daily bathing in his own country. More importantly, campaigning in the arid reaches of Central India gave Wellesley thorough practice in
logistics, while dealing with cautious-to-commit Indian allies taught him
diplomacy. Both skills would prove invaluable in the future fighting in
Portugal and
Spain.
Wellesley served in the abortive
Anglo-Russian expedition to north Germany in 1805. After
Austerlitz, the forces went home having accomplished nothing. Junior command in an
expedition to
Denmark in 1807 led to Wellesley's promotion to
lieutenant general. Meanwhile, he was elected
Tory member of Parliament for
Rye for six months in 1806. A year later, he was elected MP for
Newport on the
Isle of Wight, a constituency he'd represent for two years. He served as
Chief Secretary for Ireland for two years. In April 1807, he became a
privy counsellor. However his political life came to an abrupt halt when he sailed to Europe to participate in the action against French forces in
Iberia.
Peninsular War
It was in the following turbulent years that Wellesley won his place in history. Since 1789,
France had been embroiled in the
French Revolution.
Napoleon seized its government in 1799, and reached the heights of power in Europe, eventually ordering the
invasion of Spain and Portugal in 1807. The next year, Wellesley was preparing to command an expedition to Venezuela in collaboration with Latin American patriot
Francisco de Miranda, when the Spanish
revolt began the
Peninsular War and he was sent to Portugal instead. Wellesley defeated the French at the
Battle of Roliça and the
Battle of Vimeiro in 1808. Unfortunately, he was superseded in command immediately after the latter battle.
General Dalrymple insisted on associating the available government minister (Wellesley) with the controversial
Convention of Sintra, which stipulated that the British
Royal Navy would transport the
French army out of
Lisbon with all their loot. Wellesley was recalled to Britain to face a Court of Enquiry. He had agreed to sign the preliminary Armistice, but hadn't signed the Convention, and was cleared.
Meanwhile, Napoleon himself entered Spain with his veteran troops to put down the revolt, and the new commander of the British forces in the Peninsula,
Sir John Moore, died during the
Battle of Corunna, January 1809.
Although the war wasn't going particularly well, it was the one place where the British and the
Portuguese (their oldest ally) had managed to put up a fight against France and her allies. (Compare it to the disastrous
Walcheren expedition, which was typical of the mismanaged British operations of the time.) Wellesley submitted a memorandum to
Lord Castlereagh on the defence of
Portugal, stressing its mountainous frontiers and advocating Lisbon as the main base because the
Royal Navy could make it impregnable. Castlereagh and the cabinet approved the memo, and appointed him head of all British forces in Portugal, raising their number from 10,000 to 26,000 men.
Quickly reinforced, Wellesley took the offensive in April 1809. In the
Second Battle of Porto, he crossed the
Douro river in a brilliant daylight
coup de main, and routed the French troops in
Porto. He then joined with a Spanish army under
Cuesta in operations against Madrid. They meant to attack
Marshal Victor, but Napoleon's brother, King
Joseph Bonaparte, reinforced Victor first, and the French attacked and lost at the
Battle of Talavera. For this, the winner was
ennobled as
Viscount Wellington of Talavera and of Wellington. With
Marshal Soult threatening their rear, the British were compelled to retreat to Portugal. Deprived of the supplies promised by the Spanish throughout the campaign and not told of Soult's movement, Wellington never again relied on Spanish promises or resources.
In 1810, a newly enlarged French army under Marshal
André Masséna invaded Portugal. British opinion both at home and in the army was uniformly gloomy – they must evacuate Portugal. But Wellington first slowed the French down at
Buçaco, then blocked them from taking the Lisbon peninsula by his magnificently constructed earthworks, the
Lines of Torres Vedras, brilliantly assembled in complete secrecy, and with flanks guarded by the Royal Navy. The baffled and starving French
invasion forces retreated after six months. Wellington followed and, in several skirmishes and the
Battle of Sabugal, drove them out of Portugal, except for a small garrison at
Almeida, which was placed under siege.
In 1811, Masséna returned towards Portugal to relieve Almeida, but Wellington narrowly defeated the French at the battle of
Fuentes de Oñoro. Meanwhile, Wellington's subordinate,
Viscount Beresford, fought Soult's 'Army of the South' to a bloody standstill at the
Battle of Albuera. In May, Wellington was promoted to
general for his services. The French abandoned
Almeida, but retained the twin Spanish fortresses of
Ciudad Rodrigo and
Badajoz, the 'Keys' guarding the roads through the mountain passes into Portugal.
In 1812, Wellington finally captured
Ciudad Rodrigo by pouncing as the French went into winter quarters and storming it before they could react. Moving south quickly, he besieged the fortress of Badajoz for a month and captured it in one bloody night. The
Storming of Badajoz is famous as the only time he ever lost his composure in public, breaking down and crying at the sight of British dead in the breaches.
His army now was a British force reinforced in all divisions by units of the resurgent Portuguese army, rebuilt by Beresford. Campaigning in Spain, he routed the French at the
Battle of Salamanca, taking brilliant advantage of a minor French mispositioning. (This was the first time a French army of 50,000 had been routed since 1799.) The victory liberated the Spanish capital of
Madrid. As reward, he was created
Earl and then
Marquess of Wellington and given command of all Allied armies in Spain.
He attempted to take the vital fortress of
Burgos, which linked Madrid to France, but failed due to a lack of siege equipment. The French meanwhile abandoned
Andalusia, and combined those troops with their other armies to put the British forces into a precarious position. Wellington skilfully withdrew his army and, joining with the smaller corps commanded by
Rowland Hill, retreated to Portugal. (Marshal Soult actually held a numerical advantage over Wellington in November, but hesitated to attack, so fearful had he become of the British commander.) Still, the victory at Salamanca had forced the French to withdraw from southern Spain, and the temporary loss of Madrid irreparably damaged the prestige of the pro-French puppet government.
In 1813, Wellington led a new offensive, against the French line of communications. He struck through the hills north of Burgos, and unexpectedly switched his supply line from Portugal to
Santander on Spain's north coast. He personally led a small force in a feint against the French centre, while the main army (commanded by
Sir Thomas Graham) looped around the French right, leading to the French abandoning Madrid and Burgos. Continuing to outflank the French lines, Wellington caught up with and smashed the army of King
Joseph Bonaparte in the
Battle of Vitoria, for which he was promoted to
field marshal. However, the British troops broke discipline to loot the abandoned French wagons instead of pursuing the beaten foe. This gross abandonment of discipline caused an enraged Wellington to write in a dispatch to
Earl Bathurst, "We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers".
After taking the small fortresses of
Pamplona and
San Sebastián, and winning the battles of the
Pyrenees,
Bidassoa and
Nivelle over Soult's reorganized French army, Wellington invaded southern France. After success at the
Battle of the Nive, he isolated the fortress of
Bayonne and defeated Soult at the battles of
Orthez and
Toulouse. Immediately after Soult evacuated the latter city, news arrived of Napoleon's defeat and abdication. Napoleon was later exiled to the island of
Elba.
Hailed as the conquering hero, Wellington was created
Duke of Wellington, a title still held by his descendants. (Since he didn't return to England until the Peninsular War was over, he was awarded all his patents of nobility in a unique ceremony lasting a full day.) He was soon appointed ambassador to France, then took
Lord Castlereagh's place as First Plenipotentiary to the
Congress of Vienna, where he strongly advocated allowing France to keep its place in the European balance of power. On
2 January 1815, the title of his Knighthood of the Bath was converted to
Knight Grand Cross upon the expansion of that order.
Battle of Waterloo
On
26 February 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France. Regaining control of the country by May, he faced a renewed alliance against him. Wellington left Vienna for what became known as the
Waterloo Campaign. He arrived in
Belgium to take command of the British-German army and their allied Dutch-Belgians, all stationed alongside the
Prussian forces of
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The French invaded Belgium, defeated the Prussians at
Ligny, and fought an indecisive battle with Wellington at the
Battle of Quatre Bras. These events compelled the Anglo-Allied army to retreat to a ridge on the Brussels road, just south of the small town of
Waterloo. Two days later, on
18 June, came the famous
Battle of Waterloo. After an all-day fight, with the Anglo-Allies standing firm against French shelling and cavalry charges, the Prussian Army under Blücher arrived, some of them reinforcing the left of Wellington's line and other engaging the French right flank at Plancenoit. The French
Imperial Guard was then dramatically repulsed by British volley fire, and Napoleon's army routed in panic.
Although Wellington's army held off the French attacks for several hours before Blucher's arrival, there's still debate about whether the Allied victory would have been so crushing had it not been for the arrival of the Prussian Army. It should also be remembered that a third of Napoleon's army, under Marshal Grouchy, were engaged against the Prussians at Wavre some miles to the east. Considering these factors, and the fact that around a third of Wellington's army were German, one German historian in the 1990s went so far as to describe Waterloo as a "German Victory". On
22 June, the French Emperor abdicated once again, and was transported by the British to distant
St Helena. The battle of Waterloo was canonized within a generation as one of
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
When he finally encountered Napoleon in 1815, Wellington commanded an Anglo-German-Netherlandish army consisting of a mere 25,000 troops trained to British standards—the rest were poorly trained soldiers taken from Dutch and Nassau forces (some had even fought for Napoleon before). (Many of the best British troops had been sent to America, to finally end the
War of 1812 there.)
Much fuss is made about Napoleon's decision to send 33,000 troops under Marshal Grouchy to intercept the Prussians, but—having defeated Blucher at Ligny on the 16th of June and forced the Allies to retreat in divergent directions—Napoleon was strategically sound, knowing himself unable to beat the combined Allied forces on one battlefield. Wellington's comparable strategic gamble was to leave 17,000 troops plus artillery at Hal, north-west of the Mont Saint Jean. The potential benefits of this decision were not only protection against Napoleon's attempt to turn his right flank, but to provide Wellington with a reserve with which to fight again the following day should the action on the 18th of June prove inconclusive.
Napoleon's tactics have been criticised as lacking in the brilliance he exhibited earlier in his career, but given the forces arrayed against him (not to mention the Russians and Austrians mobilising in the east) the choices confronting him, and his responses to them, were brutally clear. Having defeated the Prussians at Ligny on the 16th of June, and having compelled Wellington's forces to retreat to maintain contact with the Prussians, Napoleon's aim was simple and indispensable if he was to have any chance of victory and the possibility of a peace with Austria and Russia—keep the Prussians and the Allies from joining on the same battlefield.
Napoleon couldn't attack Wellington's right flank, partly because of the rearguard stationed at Hal, and ultimately because his wish was to divide Wellington and Blücher rather than drive them together. His plan was simple but effective—to pin Wellington's right with overwhelming cannon fire and an attack on
Hougoumont, drawing reinforcements away from Wellington's centre-left position, then shatter this position with an all-out infantry assault in the column formation which had always been so successful with other European armies earlier in Napoleon's career.
In fact Hougoumont held out, only modestly reinforced by Wellington, and the great infantry attack by the French was destroyed by Allied cavalry, albeit in poorly controlled charges which resulted in many losses to themselves and to Napoleon's Polish lancers. Napoleon's only option now was an all-out assault on the Allied centre, leaving no effective force for the Prussians to make contact with. Wellington's reorganising of his line was taken as the prelude to retreat, and now waves of French cavalry attacked the Allies, driving them into scattered defensive groupings ('squares') at which point a combined attack by French infantry and artillery, firing point-blank into the squares, would probably have caused the desired devastation.
At this point Napoleon was inferior as tactician to his undoubted genius as strategist - coordination of the various branches of the French army at Waterloo was haphazard throughout, and at this moment decisively lacking. The squares held out, the spaces between them protected by what remained of the Allied cavalry, and gradually the French cavalry assault, obliged to charge uphill through muddy terrain criss-crossed by sunken roads, petered out. The Prussians were now driving in Napoleon's outposts, and whatever had happened to Grouchy's force of thirty thousand (defeat, or the ever-present fear of treason in the ranks), it was now clear that the Prussians had fought their way through to the battlefield and were about to make a decisive contribution.
Napoleon made one last attempt to smash Wellington's centre before his two enemies could achieve any kind of linkage, and at about six in the evening the farmhouse of La Haye Sainte, linch-pin of the Allied front, was finally taken. Once again, Wellington redrew the remnants of his front and prepared for the final assault, now knowing that the dark uniforms visible in the distance were the forces of Blücher rather than Grouchy. Napoleon now sent forward the Imperial Guard, always held in reserve to provide the killer blow in any battle, branching out in a two-pronged attack to finish off what Napoleon believed to be an Allied army on the point of annihilation. Wellington had prepared, in effect, a large-scale ambush for the possibly over-confident Guard, who ran into surprise counter-attacks and crossfire from British infantry as steady and well-disciplined as ever, hidden behind slopes or in what was left of the crops on this most agricultural of battlefields. Unprepared, and perhaps demoralised by the French failure to carry the day, the Guard faltered and then retreated, an event unthinkable in Napoleonic warfare, and one which triggered instant French panic.
Wellington finally ordered an advance of the Allied line as the Prussians were driving in the French positions to the east, and what remained of the French army abandoned the field in disorder. Wellington and Blücher met at the inn of La Belle Alliance, on the north-south road which bisected the battlefield, and it was agreed that the relatively rested Prussians should pursue the retreating French army back to France.
In spite of many later attempts, some of them made to him in person, to suggest that by his own military standards Waterloo had been a bit of a mess, Wellington always maintained that his strategy had been clear from the beginning - to hold his position against everything that Napoleon could throw at it, and when the moment was right, to counter-attack the positions of the French with the aim of ending the battle, a strategy which he'd achieved beyond any point of dispute (having only agreed to make a stand on the Mont Saint Jean on condition that the Prussians would march west to link up with him, and only receiving information late in the day that the Prussians were in fact making inroads on the French right). Waterloo may not have been a 'good' battle, but it's difficult to resist the conclusion that it was a great one.
Later life
Politics beckoned once again in 1819, when Wellington was appointed
Master-General of the Ordnance in the
Tory government of
Lord Liverpool. In 1827, he was appointed
Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. Along with
Robert Peel, Wellington became one of the rising stars of the Tory party, and in 1828 he became
Prime Minister.
During his first seven months as Prime Minister he chose not to live in the official residence at
10 Downing Street, finding it too small. He relented and moved in only because his own home,
Apsley House, required extensive renovations.
As Prime Minister, Wellington was the picture of the arch-conservative, fearing that the anarchy of the
French Revolution would spread to England. Oddly enough, the highlight of his term was
Catholic Emancipation, the granting of almost full civil rights to Catholics in the United Kingdom. The change was forced by the landslide
by-election win of
Daniel O'Connell, an Irish Catholic proponent of emancipation, who was elected despite not being legally allowed to sit in Parliament.
Lord Winchilsea (George Finch-Hatton, the 10th earl) accused the Duke of having "treacherously plotted the destruction of the Protestant constitution". Wellington responded by immediately challenging Winchilsea to a
duel. On
March 21,
1829, Wellington and Winchilsea met on
Battersea fields. When it came time to fire, the Duke took aim, Winchilsea kept his arm down, the Duke deliberately changed aim and fired wide to the right, and Winchilsea didn't fire. Honour was saved and Winchilsea subsequently wrote Wellington an apology. In the
House of Lords, facing stiff opposition, Wellington spoke for Catholic emancipation, giving one of the best speeches of his career. He had grown up in Ireland, and later governed it, so he knew firsthand of the misery of the Catholic communities there. The
Catholic Relief Act 1829 was passed with a majority of 105. Many of the Tories voted against the Act, and it passed only with the help of the
Whigs.
The epithet "
Iron Duke" originates from his period of Prime Minister, during which he experienced an extremely high degree of personal and political unpopularity. His residence at Apsley House was the constant target of window-smashers and iron shutters were installed to mitigate the damage. It was this, rather than his characteristic resolute constitution, that earned him the epithet of "The Iron Duke".
Wellington's government fell in 1830. In the summer and autumn of that year, a wave of riots (the
Swing Riots) swept the country. The Whigs had been out of power for all but a few years since the 1770s, and saw political reform in response to the unrest as the key to their return. Wellington stuck to the Tory policy of no reform and no expansion of the
franchise, and as a result lost a vote of no confidence on
15 November 1830. He was replaced as Prime Minister by
Earl Grey.
The Whigs introduced the first
Reform Act, but Wellington and the Tories worked to prevent its passage. The bill passed in the
House of Commons, but was defeated in the
House of Lords. An election followed in direct response, and the Whigs were returned with an even larger majority. A second Reform Act was introduced, and defeated in the same way, and another wave of near insurrection swept the country. During this time, Wellington was greeted by a hostile reaction from the crowds at the opening of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The Whig Government fell in 1832, but Wellington was unable to form a Tory Government – amongst other reasons because of a run on the Bank of England – leaving King William IV no choice but to restore
Earl Grey to the premiership. Eventually the bill passed the House of Lords after the King threatened to fill that House with newly-created Whig peers if it were not. Though the Bill passed, Wellington was never reconciled to the change; when Parliament first met after the first election under the widened franchise, Wellington is reported to have said "I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life."
During this time Wellington was gradually superseded as leader of the Tories by
Robert Peel. When the Tories were brought back to power in 1834, Wellington declined to become prime minister, and Peel was selected instead. However, Peel was in Italy, and for three weeks in November and December 1834, Wellington acted as a caretaker, taking the responsibilities of Prime Minister and most of the other ministries. In Peel's first cabinet (1834–1835), Wellington became
Foreign Secretary, while in the second (1841–1846) he was a
Minister without Portfolio and
Leader of the House of Lords.
Wellington retired from political life in 1846, although he remained
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, and returned briefly to the spotlight in 1848 when he helped organize a military force to protect London during that year of European revolution. The Tory Party had split over the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, with Wellington and most of the former Cabinet still supporting
Robert Peel, but most of the MPs supporting the new leader Lord Derby. Early in 1852 Wellington gave Derby's first government its nickname by shouting "Who? Who?" as the list of inexperienced Cabinet Ministers was read out in the House of Lords.
Wellington died later in 1852 at
Walmer Castle (his honorary residence as
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, which he enjoyed and at which he hosted
Queen Victoria). Although in life he hated travelling by rail, his body was then taken by train to
London, where he was given a
state funeral – one of only a handful of British subjects to be honoured in that way (other examples are
Nelson and
Churchill) – and was buried in a
sarcophagus of
luxulyanite in
St Paul's Cathedral next to
Lord Nelson.
Personality
Traits
Wellington set a gruelling pace of work. He rose early – he "couldn't bear to lie in" once awake – and usually slept for six hours or less. Even when he returned to civilian life after 1815, he slept in a camp bed, reflecting his lack of regard for creature comforts. General
Miguel de Álava complained that Wellington said so often that the army would march "at daybreak" and dine on "cold meat", that he began to dread the two phrases. While on campaign, he seldom ate anything between breakfast and dinner. During the retreat to Portugal in 1811, he subsisted (to the despair of his staff, who dined with him) entirely on "cold meat and bread". He was however renowned for the excellent quality of the wine he drank and served, often drinking a bottle with his dinner – not a great quantity by the standards of his day.
Never much of a gourmet, he frequently drove his chef to frustration by his abstemious ways and general lack of interest in food, even eating a rotten egg on one occasion without realising it.
Although by no means ostentatious, the Duke was well-known for his fine sartorial taste (which, as mentioned above, helped earn him the nickname of "The Beau"). He was particularly fond of trousers – which were only just entering the gentleman's wardrobe during his life time. On one occasion the Duke was turned away from
Almack's Assembly Rooms (a popular haunt of high society) for wearing trousers rather than the more conventional knee-
breeches. Despite his luminary status, he quietly left without a word of protest.
He was very partial to high-technology and mechanical gadgets, being one of the first British soldiers to employ
shrapnel shells and
congreve rockets (although he was disappointed with the latter, as they'd very poor guidance devices). He also employed a full time officer to
decrypt intercepted French messages. On the other hand, although meticulously organized, his supply trains comprised pack mules and ox carts (with ungreased axles) (plus cargo boats if rivers could be used).
He was most insistent that he not be interrupted during shaving (possibly because his unusually rapid growth of facial hair required him to shave twice a day).
He rarely showed emotion before his intellectual or social inferiors. However, Álava was a witness to the following scene. Just before the
Battle of Salamanca, Wellington was eating a chicken leg while observing the manoeuvres of the French army though a
spyglass. He spotted an overextension in the French left flank, and realizing that he could launch a successful attack there, threw the drumstick in the air and shouted
"Les français sont perdus!" ("The French are lost!"). Also, after the
Battle of Toulouse, when an aide brought him news of Napoleon's abdication, he spun around on his heels, clicking his fingers in a sort of impromptu
flamenco dance.
Despite his famous stern countenance and iron-handed discipline, Wellesley deeply cared for his men; he refused to pursue the French after the battles of Porto and Salamanca, because of the inevitable cost to his army in pursuing a broken enemy through rough terrain. In addition, the only times he ever showed grief in public was over the lives of his men: after the disastrously costly storming of Badajoz, he cried at the sight of British dead in the breaches. In this context, his famous letter after the
Battle of Vitoria calling them the 'scum of the earth' can be seen to be fuelled as much by disappointment at their breaking ranks as by anger.
As a soldier
Wellington has often been portrayed as a defensive general, even though many, perhaps most, of his battles were offensive (Argaum, Assaye, Oporto, Salamanca, Toulouse, Vitoria). But for most of the Peninsular War, where he earned his fame, his troops lacked either the numbers or the training for an attack. Also, the Iberian peninsula provides some of the best defensive ground in the world, and he wasn't slow to take advantage of it.
Much of Wellesley's tactics were dictated by politics, supply, or finance: being merely a general in the field, he'd to deal with the vagaries of an unstable government at home; the Portuguese government; various Spanish Juntas, guerrilleros, and warlords. Also, the problem of supply in the barren peninsula was a dire one: the French didn't bother to deal with it, and simply looted whatever supplies they needed; Wellesley, needing the goodwill of the populace, was required to bring in his supplies from elsewhere (especially wheat from America) and transport them to his troops in the field. This supply line was his ever-present Achilles' heel, and often he was forced to either retreat or assume a defensive position when his line of supply was threatened.
In his defensive battles, he showed an understanding of defensive tactics almost unmatched: he, almost alone of Napoleonic commanders, realised the use of a reverse slope in a defensive battle, and made use of them whenever he could, to conceal his numbers and protect his men from artillery. Still, he rarely missed an opportunity to counterattack, and many French columns found themselves cut up by musket volleys, then attacked with bayonets.
Wellesley could be very aggressive: his river crossing at
Oporto was a breathtaking gamble; only the mistake of a subordinate officer allowed any of Soult's army to escape. On the attack also, he showed a clear understanding of tactics and terrain: at the
Battle of Vitoria, he led a massive, well-coordinated attack in four columns from three directions, almost destroying the French army.
Still, he'd to be very cautious: at the Lines of Torres Vedras, when Massena's army was attempting to besiege Lisbon, and being besieged in turn, Wellesley often stood on a parapet, surveying the French army with a telescope, muttering: "I could whip them, but it would take 10,000 men, and as this is the only army England has, it behoves me to take care of it."
Since the total number of French troops in Spain always heavily outnumbered the available number of British and Portuguese troops, it was always possible for the French command to abandon some region, as they did after
Salamanca, in order to concentrate a larger army than the British; Wellington was therefore always cautious during his incursions into Spain, with the great exception of the last.
In the campaign leading up to the
Battle of Vitoria, he was cut off from his supply line to Lisbon, so he re-established it on the north coast of Spain, throwing the French front-line troops back upon their reserves.
All his sieges were successful, with the exception of the
Siege of Burgos, probably his worst defeat. Most of these were in India, against Indian armies of worse training, arms, and morale than the French; he may have been overconfident at Burgos. Wellington had to retake the frontier fortresses (like
Almeida) several times, because the French were equally successful in capturing them from the Allied garrisons. Also, he didn't have the time for lengthy,
Vauban-style sieges, because the French would have been able to gather up relieving forces. Hence, his brief and bloody, though successful, assaults on Ciudad Rodrigo and on Badajoz.
He disliked his cavalry commanders. He wrote a famous letter on
July 18,
1812, accusing the cavalry of being unable to manoeuvre except on
Wimbledon Common, and of always charging in a body, instead of forming in two lines – one to charge and one as a reserve. Of course, until 1815, he was denied the talents of the brilliant
Henry Paget because of the family feud between them.
He acted as his own head of intelligence, and closely supervised both the supplying and the payment of his troops.
Much of his energy was diverted to political aims: shoring up his support in the British and Spanish governments, lobbying for his choice of officers, and cultivating the cooperation of the Portuguese and Spanish populations. While the French army alienated the latter by seizing their food and shooting anyone who resisted them, Wellington imported most of his food from abroad, paid cash for what he needed locally, and exercised strict discipline over his troops, regularly hanging men for looting, rape, murder, or desecration of religious sites. The locals repaid him with obedience, enlistment and information on French movements. In particular, the
guerrilleros (partisans) operated in fairly close cooperation with British troops against the French, especially in their attacks on French couriers, and the passing of the captured French dispatches to Wellington.
Legacy
In 1838 a proposal to build a statue of Wellington resulted in the building of a giant statue of him on his horse Copenhagen, placed above the
Arch at
Constitution Hill in London directly outside
Apsley House, his former London home. Completed in 1846, the enormous scale of the 40 ton, high monument resulted in its removal in 1883, and the following year it was transported to
Aldershot where it still stands near the Royal Garrison Church.
The capital city of
New Zealand is named
Wellington in honour of Wellington. The city has a private preparatory school named
Wellesley College and a private club,
Wellesley Club. The city of
Auckland, New Zealand, has a central city road named Wellesley Street after Arthur Wellesley.
Mount Wellington, which overlooks
Hobart, the capital of the state of
Tasmania,
Australia is named after Wellesley.
Beef Wellington gets its name from the general and prime minister. Ironically his favourite meat was mutton.
HMS Iron Duke, named after Wellington, was the flagship of
Admiral Sir John Jellicoe at the
Battle of Jutland in
World War I.
Wellington Street in
Ottawa,
Canada is named after Wellington. It is the street upon which the
Parliament Buildings, Canada's seat of government are located.
Wellington Square in the
Adelaide suburb of
North Adelaide,
South Australia, is named after Wellington, for the reason that he's credited with securing the passage of the South Australia Foundation Act through the
British House of Lords.
Wellington County in
Ontario,
Canada is named after Wellington. It is the county surrounding the city of
Guelph,
Ontario.
The village of
Wellington, a community located in
Prince Edward County, Ontario, is also named after Wellington.
The town of
Wellington in the
Nilgiri Hills district of
Tamil Nadu, is the home of the
Wellington Cantonment, a prestigious Indian military establishment, and college. It is near
Coonoor on the
Nilgiri Mountain Railway.
Wellington's likeness appears on the beer labels of the beer brewed by
Wellington Brewery in
Guelph,
Ontario, as well as having a beer named "Iron Duke Strong Ale" in his honour.
Wellington College, Berkshire, UK, was built in memory of the Great Duke, under the orders of Queen Victoria. To this day, all the boarding houses are named after the generals who fought alongside him at the
Battle of Waterloo, including
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher,
Viscount Beresford,
Sir Thomas Picton,
Baron Lynedoch, and the
Prince of Orange. As recently as May 4th, 2007, the school held a memorial service for the Iron Duke at
St Paul's Cathedral, London, to commemorate his birthday.
The
Wellington Testimonial was erected in the
Phoenix Park,
Dublin from public subscriptions, and the obelisk and plinth are still a major feature of the park.
Wellington Road is in the
Ballsbridge area of Dublin.
Queen Street in
Glasgow,
Scotland has a statue of Wellington astride a horse. It is often "defaced" by the placing of a traffic cone on Wellington's head.
A statue of Wellington by the sculptor
Carlo Marochetti stands in Woodhouse Moor park in
Leeds,
England. His boots have been painted red, presumably by local students.
Titles, honours and styles
Peerage of the United Kingdom
- Baron Douro, of Wellington (4 September 1809)
- Viscount Wellington (of Talavera and of Wellington) (4 September 1809)
- Earl of Wellington (28 February 1812)
- Marquess of Wellington (3 October 1812)
- Marquess Douro (11 May 1814)
- Duke of Wellington (11 May 1814)
His brother
William selected the name Wellington for its similarity to the family surname of Wellesley, which derives from the village of
Wellesley, not far from that of
Wellington.
British and Irish honours
Knight of the Bath (1804)
Privy Councillor of Great Britain (8 April 1807)
Privy Councillor of Ireland (28 April 1807)
Knight of the Garter (4 March 1813)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (1815)
Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire (1820)
Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (1829)
Peninsular Cross medal with nine bars for all campaigns – the only one so issued. Displayed at Apsley House along with a Waterloo Medal.
Fellow of the Royal Society (1847)
Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1834–1852)
The Duke of Wellington stood as godfather to Queen Victoria's seventh child, Prince Arthur, in 1850. Prince Arthur was also born on the first of May; and as a toddler, young Arthur was encouraged to remind people that the Duke of Wellington was his godfather.
International
Conde de Vimeiro (18 October 1811, Portugal)
Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo (January 1812, Spain)
Grandee of the First Class (January 1812, Spain)
Marquês de Torres Vedras (August 1812, Portugal)
Duque da Vitória (Duke of the Victory) (18 December 1812, Portugal)
Knight of the Golden Fleece (1812, Spain)
Prins van Waterloo (18 July 1815, The Netherlands)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Hanover (1816, Hanover)
Field Marshal batons from 12 countries
Styles
In the United Kingdom
The Hon. Arthur Wesley (birth–7 March 1787)
Ensign The Hon. Arthur Wesley (7 March 1787–25 December 1787)
Lieutenant The Hon. Arthur Wesley (25 December 1787–30 June 1791)
Captain The Hon. Arthur Wesley (30 June 1791–30 April 1793)
Major The Hon. Arthur Wesley (30 April 1793–30 September 1793)
Lieutenant-Colonel The Hon. Arthur Wesley (30 September 1793–3 May 1796)
Colonel The Hon. Arthur Wesley (3 May 1796–19 May 1798)
Colonel The Hon. Arthur Wellesley (19 May 1798–29 April 1802)
Major-General The Hon. Arthur Wellesley (29 April 1802–1 September 1804)
Major-General The Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, KB (1 September 1804–8 April 1807)
Major-General The Rt Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, KB (8 April 1807–25 April 1808)
Lieutenant-General The Rt Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley, KB (25 April 1808–4 September 1809)
Lieutenant-General The Rt Hon. The Viscount Wellington, KB, PC (4 September 1809–May 1811)
General The Rt Hon. The Viscount Wellington, KB, PC (May 1811–28 February 1812)
General The Rt Hon. The Earl of Wellington, KB, PC (28 February 1812–3 October 1812)
General The Most Hon. The Marquess of Wellington, KB, PC (3 October 1812–4 March 1813)
General The Most Hon. The Marquess of Wellington, KG, KB, PC (4 March 1813–21 June 1813)
Field Marshal The Most Hon. The Marquess of Wellington, KG, KB, PC (21 June 1813–11 May 1814)
Field Marshal His Grace The Duke of Wellington, KG, KB, PC (11 May 1814–2 January 1815)
Field Marshal His Grace The Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, PC (2 January 1815–14 September 1852)
Field Marshal His Grace The Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC (1816–14 September 1852)
Field Marshal His Grace The Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (1847–14 September 1852)
In the Netherlands
His Highness The Prince of Waterloo (18 July 1815–14 September 1852)
Arms
Wellington's arms were given an Augmentation of Honour of the union badge of the United Kingdom to commemorate his services. He bore, Quarterly, I and IV gules, a cross argent, in each quarter five plates of the same; II and III, Or, a lion rampant gules, armed and langued azure. For augmentation, an inescutcheon charged with the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick combined, being the union badge of the United Kingdom.
Nicknames
Apart from giving his name to "Wellington boots", the Duke of Wellington also had several nicknames.
The "Iron Duke", possibly after an incident in 1830 in which he installed metal shutters to prevent rioters breaking windows at Apsley House
Officers under his command called him "The Beau", as he was a fine dresser, or "The Peer" after he was made a Viscount.
Regular soldiers under his command called him "Old Nosey" or "Old Hookey", on account of his prominent, aquiline nose.
Spanish and Portuguese troops called him "the Eagle" and "Douro" respectively.
Dubious quotations
Wellington was at a ball in Brussels the night before the Battle of Quatre Bras, when an aide brought the news that the French army had invaded Belgium more than 18 hours earlier. He retired to a back room and supposedly said "Napoleon has humbugged me!" This may be true. However, he's next supposed to have unrolled a map, and placed a finger on the ridge below Waterloo, saying "And we'll have to fight him here!", which is less likely. However, when the British position at Quatre Bras became untenable after the Prussian retreat from Ligne, Wellington withdrew directly to the Waterloo position, which is absolutely the best defensive position between Quatre Bras and Brussels, where the French were headed. Inspecting the ground, Wellington said to his 5th Division commander “It may surprise you to know Picton, that I spied this ground a year ago and I’ve since kept it in my pocket.” He must have known about it. Bounded on the right by the town of Braine l’ Alleud and an unfordable creek, the centre protected by stout farm buildings, walled gardens and châteaux, the left protected by the same, with the whole shielded by a long ridge line and sunken roads that allowed both protection and swift lateral movement, the ground allowed Wellington’s qualitatively and numerically inferior army to win the day.
As a member of the Protestant Anglo-Irish 'squirearchy' ruling Ireland, he was touchy about his Irish origins. When in later life an enthusiastic fellow countryman commended him as a famous Irishman, he replied "Being born in a stable doesn't make one a horse." There is some dispute as to whether or not this alleged remark was ever made. His most authoritative biographer, Elizabeth Longford, doesn't record it, nor does Christopher Hibbert. Others suggest it was a comment made about Wellesley by a member of the English aristocracy, or a comment actually made by an Anglo-Irish poet.
The epigram "the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton" was never uttered by Wellington (it was invented by a French journalist), and couldn't have been. He remembered his days at Eton as lonely and unhappy, his only sport being solitary leaps across a local brook, and he almost never visited the school in later years despite being its most famous alumnus.
The exclamation "Publish and be damned!" is attributed to Wellington, as what he said after the courtesan Harriette Wilson threatened to publish her memoirs and his letters if he didn't supply her financial demands.
Wellington's 1828–1830 Government
The Duke of Wellington – First Lord of the Treasury and Leader of the House of Lords
Lord Lyndhurst – Lord Chancellor
Lord Bathurst – Lord President of the Council
Lord Ellenborough – Lord Privy Seal
Robert Peel – Secretary of State for the Home Department and Leader of the House of Commons
Lord Dudley – Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
William Huskisson – Secretary of State for War and the Colonies
Henry Goulburn – Chancellor of the Exchequer
Charles Grant – President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer of the Navy
Lord Melville – President of the Board of Control
John Charles Herries – Master of the Mint
Lord Aberdeen – Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Lord Palmerston – Secretary at War
Changes
May–June, 1828 – Sir George Murray succeeded Huskisson as Colonial Secretary. Lord Aberdeen succeeded Lord Dudley as Foreign Secretary. Aberdeen's successor at the Duchy of Lancaster wasn't in the cabinet. William Vesey-FitzGerald succeeded Grant as President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer of the Navy. Lord Palmerston left the Cabinet. His successor as Secretary at War wasn't in the cabinet.
September, 1828 – Lord Melville became First Lord of the Admiralty. He was succeeded as President of the Board of Control by Lord Ellenborough, who also remained Lord Privy Seal
June, 1829 – Lord Rosslyn succeeded Lord Ellenborough as Lord Privy Seal. Ellenborough remained at the Board of Control.
Wellington's 1834 Caretaker Government
The Duke of Wellington – First Lord of the Treasury, Secretary of State for the Home Department, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies and Leader of the House of Lords
Lord Lyndhurst – Lord Chancellor
Lord Denham – Chancellor of the Exchequer
Other offices were in commission.Further Information
Get more info on 'Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke Of Wellington'.
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