Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (c. 1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an
Anglo-Irish British Army soldier and statesman, widely
considered one of the leading military and political figures of the first half 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.
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.
Early life and marriage
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 as the family had been granted lands to the south of Wells around a settlement still
known today as Wellesley Farm.
Wellington was born The Honourable Arthur Wesley, the fourth son of Garrett Wellesley, first earl of Mornington, and
Anne, the eldest daughter of Arthur Hill, viscount Dungannon, at 24 Upper Merrion Street, Dublin,[1] opposite what was then the Royal College of Science (now government buildings).
He spent most of his childhood at Dangan Castle 5km north of Summerhill on the Trim road. He was the third of five surviving sons
of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington. His date of birth is the
first of May 1769. (His baptismal font was donated to St. Nahi's Church, Dundrum, in
1914.) His biographers follow the contemporary newspaper evidence in ascribing it to 1 May
1769.[2] His family changed
the spelling of their surname to Wellesley, which his oldest brother considered the ancient and proper spelling, in
1798.
He came from a titled English Protestant family long settled in Ireland. His father was the Earl of Mornington, 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.
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, Wesley 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 minimized 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 successes, 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 grown old 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 family owned seat 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, and was present at the
Battle of Boxtel. He remarked later that "At least I learned what not to do, and
that is 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,
Tipoo 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 Maratha War of
1803, Wellesley commanded the outnumbered British army at Assaye and Argaum, and stormed the fortress at Gawilghur. On one occasion, he outgalloped
the Mysore soldiers pursuing him and avoided being killed. (In fact, he had 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 is usually credited with
popularising the custom of daily bathing in his own country.[citation needed] 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 would 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.
Later military campaigns
Reenacters of the 33rd Regiment of Foot Wellingtons Redcoats who fought in the Napoleonic Wars between 1812 - 1815 here showing
the standard line 8th Company
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 had not 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 was not 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 men to 26,000.
Quickly reinforced, Wellesley took the offensive in April 1809. First, 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. 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 Busaco, 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, drove them
out of Portugal, except for a small garrison at Almeida, which was placed under siege.
In 1811, Masséna returned toward 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. Almeida fell, but the French retained the twin 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 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 converged 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. (Marshall 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 drew his supplies from Santander (on Spain's north coast), rather than from Portugal. 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 French in battle at
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. Wellington, in his official after-battle report, furiously and famously called them "the scum of the earth, enlisted only
for drink".
A few months later, in 1814, after taking the small fortresses of Pamplona and San Sebastián, Wellington invaded France and
laid siege to Toulouse, occupied by the French army under Marshal Soult. The
siege was brought to an end once news arrived of Napoleon's surrender. 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 did not 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.
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 at Quatre Bras, compelling the British 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 titanic Battle of Waterloo.
After an all-day fight, with the Anglo-Allies standing firm under merciless French shelling, the Prussian Army under Bluceher
arrived. The French Imperial Guard was then dramatically repulsed by British volley fire,
and Napoleon's army routed in panic. Since the battle, debate has raged about whether or not the day was won due to the arrival
of the Prussian Army or whether the French were already at such a great disadvantage the outcome would have been the same.
Extensive analysis has proven the latter and that the Prussians only really served to "mop up" the French Army. On
22 June, the French Emperor abdicated once again, and was transported by the British to distant
St Helena. The battle of Waterloo was instantly canonized as one of The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
Wellington as soldier
Most of Wellington's battles were tactically defensive; he held a strong position and defeated the attackers by a volley from
infantry delayed until it would have maximum possible effect, and followed up with an infantry charge in counterattack. When
possible, as at Bussaco and at Waterloo,
he deployed his troops on the far slope of a hill, so they could be repositioned or committed as reserves out of sight and out of
artillery shot of the enemy. These deployed troops were in line formation, as would be expected for defensive tactics, while the
attackers might be in column formation. Keeping formed bodies of troops out of the line of sight of the enemy was common practice
for all armies. He was perhaps more adept at using concealment and surprise than other generals.
He could be very aggressive. In his Indian battles, he frequently attacked at unfavourable odds (he was outnumbered seven to
one at Assaye), because he believed that the show of British morale would cow his more
brittle, less disciplined Indian opponents. His river crossing at Oporto was a
breathtaking gamble, but he quickly learned that dash and daring were too chancy against regular French troops. Only after years
of patience, when he had achieved both moral and material ascendancy over the French army (in 1813), did he engage in another
aggressive campaign, one which thrust them out of Spain.
He could be very cautious. Although he held the battlefield after the Battle of Talavera, he was compelled to make a strategic
retreat back to Portugal. If Marmont had not tried to pen in his army at Salamanca
and destroy it, he would have been compelled to retreat there also; and afterwards he preferred the political prize of Madrid to
pursuing the defeated army, now under Bertrand Clausel. 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.
All his sieges were successful, with the exception of Burgos. 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 did not 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 Britain 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.
He did not encounter Napoleon before 1815, and Waterloo did not show either of
their tactics at their best. Napoleon had no time or room for grand manoeuvres, and Wellington's hastily gathered forces were not
capable of them.[3]
Later life
The Duke of Wellington in 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 only relented and moved in 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 did not fire. Honour was saved and Winchilsea subsequently
wrote Wellington an apology.[4] In the House of Lords, facing stiff opposition, Wellington spoke for Catholic emancipation, giving one of the
best speeches of his career[5]. 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, and eventually the bill was
passed after the Whigs threatened to have the House of Lords packed with their own followers if it were not. Though it 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. Unfortunately 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. He died 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 Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson.
Legacy
