The Story of Wellington

“Vera amicitia sempiterna est”

Foreword

In this, the last of a trio of volumes dealing with three great contemporary men of action, I have attempted to tell the story, in its main lines, of the crowded life of Wellington. The narrative provides as substantial a view of Wellington as is possible within the limits of my space, but I hope that readers of my book will be so interested that they will go on to the perusal of its companions, for the careers of Napoleon, Nelson, and Wellington should be studied together. They are the three sides of a triangle of which Napoleon is the base.

The Duke’s career, when compared to the others, is “a plain, unvarnished tale,” not altogether devoid of romance, certainly not of adventure, but lacking in many of the qualities which have endeared less notable men. It would be obviously untrue to state that Wellington lacked humanity, but he was certainly deficient in that attractive personal magnetism so evident in Nelson. Speaking broadly, he did not repose that confidence in his subordinates which was one of the great sea-captain’s most marked characteristics, and he often said hard things of the men under him. Nelson is “the darling Hero of England”; Wellington will always be known as the Iron Duke. If it ever became the fashion to canonize military and naval men, Nelson’s nimbus would be of rosemary, Wellington’s of steel. The mob never broke the windows of Merton Place, but it shattered every exposed pane in Apsley House. The incident arose from his conscientious opposition to reform, and occurred in 1831, sixteen years after the battle of Waterloo. A little over a decade later, an immense mob cheered him as he proceeded up Constitution Hill. His acknowledgment was to point to the iron shutters of his house when he reached Hyde Park Corner. They had been put up after the bombardment by brickbats, and were never taken down during his lifetime.

In a way, Wellington is the typical John Bull of our fancy. He gloried in an open-air life, he enjoyed sport, he was a man wedded to duty, stern and uncompromising once his mind was made up. We love to imagine that the average Briton displays the same characteristics, although we know at heart that he does not do so, and that the secret of our material success as a nation is our extraordinary power of absorption, of “setting our sail to every passing breeze,” of compromising provided we get the best of the bargain.

This is how the Duke appeared to a foreigner, the Duchesse de Dino, Talleyrand’s niece: “He has a very exact memory, and never quotes incorrectly. He forgets nothing, and exaggerates nothing, and if his conversation is a little dry and military, it attracts by its fairness and perfect propriety. His tone is excellent, and no woman has ever to be on her guard against the turn that the conversation may take.” In later years Wellington’s memory failed somewhat. He was invariably precise, always a soldier, and never given to what is generally known as small talk. In a word, he commanded.

A more intimate and less familiar view of Wellington is afforded us in the diary of Benjamin Robert Haydon, who painted the Duke’s portrait at Walmer Castle in the autumn of 1839. During breakfast, he tells us, “six dear, healthy, noisy children were brought to the windows. ‘Let them in,’ said the Duke, and in they came, and rushed over to him, saying, ‘How d’ye do, Duke? How d’ye do, Duke?’ One boy, young Grey, roared, ‘I want some tea, Duke!’ ‘You shall have it if you promise not to slop it over me, as you did yesterday.’ Toast and tea were then in demand. Three got on one side, and three on the other, and he hugged ’em all. Tea was poured out, and I saw little Grey try to slop it over the Duke’s frock coat. Sir Astley [Cooper] said, ‘You did not expect to see this.’

“They all then rushed out on the leads, by the cannon, and after breakfast I saw the Duke romping with the whole of them, and one of them gave his Grace a tremendous thump. I went round to my bedroom. The children came to the window, and a dear little black-eyed girl began romping. I put my head out and said, ‘I’ll catch you.’ Just as I did this the Duke, who did not see me, put his head out at the door close to my room, No. 10, which leads to the leads, and said, ‘I’ll catch ye! Ha, ha, I’ve got ye!’ at which they all ran away. He looked at them and laughed and went in.”

That is a very human picture of the grim warrior when the sword had been put aside for ever and the smoke of battle was cleared. “I hit his grand, upright, manly expression,” Haydon adds. “He looked like an eagle of the gods who had put on human shape, and had got silvery with age and service.... His colour was fresh. All the portraits are too pale.... ’Twas a noble head. I saw nothing of that peculiar expression of mouth the sculptors give him, bordering on simpering. His colour was beautiful and fleshy, his lips compressed and energetic.”

From this passive scene in the evening of his days let us turn to the more stirring days of the storming of Badajoz for our final portrait of the Duke, for it is in the field that we like to remember him. The glimpse is afforded us by Robert Blakeney, one of the boy heroes of the Peninsular War. “I galloped off,” he writes, “to where Lord Wellington had taken his station: this was easily discerned by means of two fireballs shot out from the fortress at the commencement of the attack, which continued to burn brilliantly along the water-cut which divided the 3rd from the other divisions. Near the end of this channel, behind a rising mound, were Lord Wellington and his personal staff, screened from the enemy’s direct fire, but within range of shells. One of his staff sat down by his side with a candle to enable the general to read and write all his communications and orders relative to the passing events. I stood not far from his lordship. But due respect prevented any of us bystanders from approaching so near as to enable us to ascertain the import of the reports which he was continually receiving; yet it was very evident that the information which they conveyed was far from flattering; and the recall on the bugles was again and again repeated. But about half-past eleven o’clock an officer rode up at full speed on a horse covered with foam, and announced the joyful tidings that General Picton had made a lodgment within the castle by escalade, and had withdrawn the troops from the trenches to enable him to maintain his dearly purchased hold. Lord Wellington was evidently delighted, but exclaimed, ‘What! abandon the trenches?’ and ordered two regiments of the 5th Division instantly to replace those withdrawn. I waited to hear no more, but, admiring the prompt genius which immediately provided for every contingency, I mounted my horse.”

I shall not attempt to enumerate the lengthy list of authorities I have consulted in writing this volume, but special mention must be made of Professor Oman’s monumental “History of the Peninsular War,” which corrects Napier in many important points. Four volumes have now been published, and I am under obligation to the eminent scholar whose name appears on the title-pages for his kindness in allowing me to use without reserve the labour of many years. The “Cambridge Modern History” (vol. ix.), Rose’s “Napoleon,” Croker’s “Correspondence and Diaries,” Siborne’s “Waterloo Letters,” the “Lives” of Wellington by Sir Herbert Maxwell, W. H. Maxwell, Gleig, Hooper, Yonge, and many others have been laid under contribution, as well as contemporary works by soldiers who fought with the Iron Duke. As I have endeavoured to let Wellington speak for himself whenever possible, Gurwood’s “Dispatches” have been frequently consulted, and for sidelights I have had access to a large number of volumes of correspondence, autobiography, and biography in which he plays a part, however insignificant.

Finally, I must express the hope that my readers, as they progress over the field which I have endeavoured to open up to them, will share the love of the strong, silent Man of Duty which has grown upon me as I have become more intimate with the story of his life.

Northwood, Middlesex.

CHAPTER I

The Fool of the Family

(1769–93)

“I don’t know what I shall do with my awkward son Arthur.”

Gathering clouds, dark and ominous, obscured the political horizon in the year 1769. The habitués of London coffee-houses discussed one of three things—“The Letters of Junius,” the most remarkable series of political exposures ever penned; the election of the notorious John Wilkes for Middlesex; and the rebellious conduct of the North American colonists. On the other side of the Channel the Duc de Choiseul was skilfully planning ways and means of fanning into a fierce outburst the flames of discontent now flickering in the West. To heap coals of fire on the country which, during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), had enforced her claims to Canada and India, would be a triumph worthy of the statesman who had banished the Jesuits from the hereditary possessions of Louis XV.

Had the people who lived in those stirring times been gifted with the power of penetrating the future, their eyes would have turned in the eventful year of 1769 from the larger stages to the comparatively insignificant islands of Corsica and Ireland, for the former was the birthplace of Napoleon and the latter of Wellington, and both were born in 1769.

There are other remarkable coincidences connected with the childhood of Napoleon and Wellington. Their respective fathers were easy-going, unpractical men, their mothers were women of marked force of character, left widows early in life with large families. In addition, the hero of Austerlitz was the fourth child of Letizia Bonaparte, his conqueror at Waterloo the fourth son of the Countess of Mornington.

A certain amount of obscurity is associated with their juvenile days. Although the date of the entrance into the world of “the little Corporal” is now fairly well established, it was long before historians ceased to discuss it. There is still much uncertainty as to that of Wellington. The Duke was always vague on the point, and celebrated his birthday on the 1st May, which is the day following that on which he was baptized at St Peter’s, Dublin, presuming the parish register to be correct.1 Lady Mornington announced that Arthur was a Mayday boy, but her nurse as stoutly maintained that the event took place on the 6th March. Dangan Castle, West Meath, and Mornington House, Marion Street, Dublin, contest the honour of being his birthplace. The witness for the country home is the afore-mentioned nurse; a prescription of the physician who attended Lady Mornington about the period was sent to a chemist in Ireland’s capital, and attests the claim of the town mansion. The matter is not of prime importance, but serves to show the somewhat casual habits of a less practical generation than our own. The real family name of the Westleys, Wesleys, or Wellesleys—the different forms were all used—was Colley or Cowley, but the Duke’s grandfather inherited the estates of his kinsman, Garret Wesley, on condition that he assumed that surname. He became Baron Mornington in 1747. It was the son of this fortunate individual, also a Garret, who was created the first Earl of Mornington in the year previous to his marriage to the eldest daughter of Viscount Dungannon. They became the parents of the future Duke of Wellington as well as of several other children.

Of Arthur Wellesley’s scholastic career little can be ascertained with certainty. We know that he spent a little while at a preparatory school in Chelsea, then a very different place from what it is now, and that he and his eldest brother, Lord Wellesley, who had succeeded his father on his sire’s death in 1781, were at the same house at Eton. Unfortunately the two rooms which they occupied are now demolished. While it would be incorrect to call Arthur a dull boy, he certainly displayed little interest in learning. Indeed, his mother was so cynical regarding his ability, or want of it, that she called him “the fool of the family.”

The dictum that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton may have been true so far as other officers were concerned, but the younger Wellesley showed not the slightest interest in games. He preferred the fiddle to cricket, for he inherited his father’s passion for music. “I was a player on the violin once myself, sir,” he mentioned to an acquaintance in after years, “but I soon found that fiddling and soldiering didn’t agree—so I gave it up, sir! I gave it up!” He was a great admirer of Handel’s compositions.

One precious anecdote regarding his life at the famous public school has been spared to posterity, and appropriately enough it is a record of his first serious fight—not with a sword, but with fisticuffs. Robert Smith, brother of Sydney Smith, the witty divine and essayist, happened to be bathing in the river when Wellesley was passing. Prompted by some evil or jocular spirit the latter picked up a handful of small stones and began to pelt his fellow student. Smith yelled that he would thrash him if he did not stop. Wellesley defiantly dared him to do so. The enraged “Bobus” promptly waded out and accepted the challenge, which he regretted before many rounds had been fought.

Although Wellesley was by no means of a pugnacious disposition, a second fight, in which he was not victorious, took place during a holiday spent at the Welsh home of his maternal grandfather, Lord Dungannon. His opponent was a young blacksmith, named Hughes, who lived to hear of the mighty exploits of the Iron Duke. He was never tired of telling how he once conquered the vanquisher of Napoleon. It was his one title to fame.

After leaving Eton, Wellesley was taken to Brussels in 1784 by his mother, who found the many attractions of London society a heavy tax on a slender purse, for she had removed to the Metropolis on the death of her husband. As her son seemed to take little or no interest in anything but the army, and as that service was then considered a desirable alternative to the Church for the fool of the family, Lady Mornington accepted the offer of some friends to provide for his military education. Whatever ability her fourth son displayed seems to have been less obvious to her than to others, as frequently happens. “They are all,” she writes with reference to her family, “I think, endowed with excellent abilities except Arthur, and he would probably not be wanting, if only there was more energy in his nature; but he is so wanting in this respect, that I really do not know what to do with him.” However, the youth whom she described as being “food for powder and nothing more” was packed across the frontier to Angers. She herself returned to London in 1785, Wellesley proceeding to the quaint old town associated with King John of England. Here he had his first encounter with the French, and there is a celebrated picture showing him in conversation with the Marquis of Pignerol.

Pignerol, who presided over an Academy, not exclusively devoted to the training of would-be soldiers as some writers have assumed, was an engineer officer, and did his best to initiate the Irish lad into some of the mysteries of the science of war. As his pupil only remained at Angers for about twelve months, he cannot have learned more than the rudiments, but he assimilated French with comparative ease. Unlike Napoleon, who was never happier than when he was poring over military books at Brienne, Wellesley enjoyed much good society. He made the acquaintance of the Duc de Brissac, who seems to have been a delightful foster-father of the scholars, for he frequently entertained them at his château. The Duc de Praslin, the Abbé Siéyès, later one of the French Consuls, D’Archambault, Talleyrand’s brother, Jaucourt, who afterwards became Secretary for Foreign Affairs under Louis XVIII, were all on his visiting list. It is quite probable that among his schoolmates was Chateaubriand, destined to fill an honoured place in the world of letters, but of this, said the Duke, he was not absolutely certain.

The British army was not then the skilfully organised fighting-machine it has since become. Entrance into its ranks as an officer was not difficult, provided one had financial support and influence. This explains the rapid promotion of Wellesley. At the age of seventeen he began his military career as an ensign in a Foot regiment, his gazette being dated the 7th March 1787. Nine months later he was promoted lieutenant into the 76th. By successive steps he rose to be captain (1791), major (1793), lieutenant-colonel (1793), and colonel (1796). A colonel at twenty-seven is beyond the dreams of mortal men to-day, and this advancement contrasts oddly with the slow progress of Nelson, Wellesley’s great naval contemporary, who had to depend upon his own unaided merits for promotion. In 1793, six years following his first appointment, he was placed in command of the 33rd Foot, after having experience of the cavalry by serving in both the 12th and 18th Light Dragoons.

A little influence went a long way in those casual times; there was nothing so valuable as “a friend at court.” Unlike many aristocratic nobodies who secured high position, Wellesley afterwards proved his worth, but he scarcely would have ascended the military ladder with such astonishing quickness had not his brother Richard held office under the younger Pitt. Lord Westmorland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, also took a fancy to him and made him one of his aides-de-camp.

In 1790, when he was still in his twenty-first year, he entered the Irish House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Trim, County Meath, a “pocket borough” of the Wellesley family. We are told by Sir Jonah Barrington, who made his acquaintance some three years later, that the young soldier “was then ruddy-faced and juvenile in appearance, and popular enough among the young men of his age and station. His address was unpolished; he occasionally spoke in Parliament, but not successfully, and never on important subjects; and evinced no promise of that unparalleled celebrity and splendour which he has since reached, and whereto intrepidity and decision, good luck, and great military science have justly combined to elevate him.” The same authority then proceeds to introduce us to Lord Castlereagh, and adds: “At the period to which I allude, I feel confident nobody could have predicted that one of those young gentlemen would become the most celebrated English general of his era, and the other one of the most mischievous statesmen and unfortunate ministers that has ever appeared in modern Europe.2 However, it is observable that to the personal intimacy and reciprocal friendship of those two individuals they mutually owed the extent of their respective elevation and celebrity: Sir Arthur Wellesley never would have had the chief command in Spain but for the ministerial manœuvring and aid of Lord Castlereagh; and Lord Castlereagh never could have stood his ground as a minister, but for Lord Wellington’s successes.”

Another contemporary tells quite a different story of Wellesley’s ability, and as he also heard him in 1793 it is printed here in order that the reader may not be prejudiced by Barrington’s opinion. So much is determined by the point-of-view of the witness. The occasion was a debate on the perennial question of the Roman Catholics. Captain Wellesley’s remarks, we are told, “were terse and pertinent, his delivery fluent, and his manner unembarrassed.” Gleig, who was intimately acquainted with the Duke, says that he “seems to have spoken but rarely, and never at any length. His votes were of course given in support of the party to which he belonged, but otherwise he entered very little into the business of the House.” He mentions but one incident connected with this period, namely, Wellesley’s attachment to the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, an acknowledged Society beauty and a daughter of Baron Longford. His Lordship, possessing a keen eye for the practical affairs of life, objected to the match on the score of lack of money, but there is little doubt that the couple came to a mutual understanding.

That Wellesley took more than a casual interest in his military duties is evident, and if he did not display the inherent genius of Napoleon he certainly went about his duties in a highly commendable and workmanlike manner. For instance, he had scarcely donned the uniform of his first regiment before he entered into calculations regarding the weight of the accoutrements, ammunition, and other paraphernalia carried by a private when in marching order. For this purpose he ordered a soldier to be weighed both with and without his trappings.

“I wished,” he says, “to have some measure of the power of the individual man compared with the weight he was to carry and the work he was expected to do. I was not so young as not to know that since I had undertaken a profession I had better endeavour to understand it.” He adds, “It must always be kept in mind that the power of the greatest armies depends upon what the individual soldier is capable of doing and bearing,” a maxim which still holds good, notwithstanding the many changes effected in the course of a century and a quarter. However excellent the gun, it is the man behind it which determines the issue.

It was not until 1794 that Wellesley underwent the hardships of active service. Before that phase of his career is detailed we must make a hasty and general survey of the wide and scattered field of action. The occasion was the second year of the great strife which occupied the attention of Europe, with little intermittance, for over twenty years. The gauntlet had been flung down by France in 1792, when war was declared against the Holy Roman Empire, with which Prussia made common cause. The campaign was an eye-opener to all Europe, for although the Prussians and Austrians began well they did not follow up their advantages, particularly when the road to Châlons and Paris lay open to the former. At Valmy the Prussians were defeated, and subsequently withdrew across the frontier in a deplorable condition of dearth and disease. Dumouriez then invaded Flanders, and was victorious over the Austrians at Jemappes, a success followed by the fall of Mons, Malines, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and Namur, while smaller towns, such as Tournay, Ostend, and Bruges welcomed the victorious troops with open arms as the heralds of a new era.

In Savoy the scanty Sardinian forces were routed by Montesquiou, and the country annexed, as was Nice by Anselme. With the dawning of 1793 Belgium shared a similar fate, and the occupation of Dutch territory was decided on. This latter was an extremely foolish move, as events soon proved.

England and Holland became involved in the second month of the new year, when the French Convention announced hostile intentions to both Powers. Previous to this, Great Britain had maintained a strict neutrality. She now commenced proceedings by sending 10,000 troops to Holland under the incompetent Duke of York, where they united with a similar force of Hessians and Hanoverians, whose expenses were met by English gold, a plentiful supply of which also found its way into the coffers of other Powers. The Island Kingdom and Russia had already allied themselves, although the Czarina’s designs on Poland precluded immediate co-operation, and during the next few months Sardinia, Spain, Naples, Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, and Portugal joined in mutual support.

Dumouriez duly appeared on Dutch territory, but was compelled to retreat on Flanders by the defeat of the general engaged in besieging Maestricht. On resuming offensive operations he himself lost the battle of Neerwinden. Within a fortnight the French had abandoned all their conquests in Belgium, which again passed into the possession of Austria. Dumouriez took refuge in the camp of the Imperialists after negotiating with Coburg, the commander of the “White Coats,” to place the frontier fortresses into his hands and to unite the two armies. Neither arrangement was carried through, for the defeated general found it more prudent to fly the country.3 Mayence, on the Rhine, was invested by the Prussians, to whom it eventually capitulated, and Valenciennes and Condé were successfully besieged by the Austrians and British. All three fortresses fell during July 1793.