Arthur Wellesley, future 1st Duke of Wellington, was born on 1 May 1769 in Dublin, Ireland, the fourth son of Anglo-Irish Protestant aristocrat Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington, and the Hon. Anne Hill-Trevor, eldest daughter the 1st Viscount Dungannon.
Until he became a military man, Wellington was bone idle. His mother despaired when he did so poorly at Eton, declaring “I don’t know what I shall do with my awkward son Arthur.” In desperation she sent him to the French Royal Academy of Equitation in Angers when he was sixteen, where he suddenly shone as an equestrian.
Clearly lacking an academic bent but being a skilled horseman who could speak French, Wellington was perfect for the Army. His eldest brother asked a family friend, the Duke of Rutland (then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) to help get young Arthur a commission. Rutland came through, and on 7 March 1787 Wellington was gazetted as an ensign in the 73rd Regiment of Foot.
Wellington thrived in the active rules and structure o the military. By that October he was given the role of aide-de-camp to the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 3rd Earl Temple. Before the year was out he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the new 76th Regiment in Dublin. He was also elected as a Member of Parliament for Trim in the Irish House of Commons in 1788, and served both as an MP and a soldier for the next few years. He was promoted to captain in January of 1791, and transferred to the 58th Regiment of Foot, where he saw much more of civilian life than he saw fighting.
In spite of his improvement, he was still a younger son without much serious prospect in life, so when he offered for the hand of Kitty Pakenham in 1793 her brother, Thomas, Lord Longford. Devastated and angry, Wellington decided to prove himself in the military, and for the first time in his life, he buckled down to serious work.
After his proposal was rejected, Wellington shelled out the cash to become a major by purchase in the 33rd Regiment, and borrowed money from his elder brother to buy a lieutenant-colonelcy in the same regiment just a few months afterward. In summer of 1794 Wellington was sent out to the Netherlands with the rest of his unit to support the Duke of York’s planned invasion of France.
In Flanders, the young Wellington finally got his first taste of war at the at the Battle of Boxtel on 15 September. It was a disaster, with the British army hounded out of the United Provinces and forced to retreat to unoccupied Germany, but the ordeal taught Wellington many things – mainly what NOT to do. “He understood that the failure of the campaign was due in part to the faults of the leaders and the poor organisation at headquarters.” Wellington also learned it was vital, absolutely vital, to secure supply lines if you wanted to win a war.
When the now-battle-hardened Wellington returned to the UK in March of 1795 he once again stood as the MP from Trim, and was once more voted in. Meanwhile, the military powers were trying to decided where to send the 33rd Regiment next. There was an attempt to send them to the West Indies, but storms forced the ships to return. While the sea-sick soldiers sought succor (say that 10 times fast!), it was decided that they should ship out to India.
In the summer of 1796 Wellington, now promoted o colonel, set sail with his regiment for Calcutta. They arrived in Febuary of 1797. There, the young commander fought in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War broke out in 1798 under the orders of the newest Governor-General of India – his eldest brother Richard, Lord Mornington. Wellington proved to be not only brave in battle, but an able planner. He was given more and more responsibilities, all of which he met with elan. An English victory secured Wellington the position of Governor of Seringapatam and Mysore.
Although Wellington suffered greatly from the tropical climate and diseases, he did well in India. He was promoted to brigadier-general in the summer of 1801 and did his best to restore peace in Mysore. For one thing, he had any soldiers that were caught pillaging or committing atrocities flogged, or even hanged. As govenor, he reformed the “tax and justice systems in his province to maintain order and prevent bribery … [and] hunted down the mercenary and self-proclaimed ‘King’ Dhoondiah Waugh.” However, once the bandit-king was killed, Welling took responsibility for providing for Dhoondiah’s orphaned son.
Wellington was again promoted, this time to major-general 1802. He remained at Mysore until November of that year, after which he was sent to command an army in the second war against the Maratha Empire in the Punjabi region of Northern India. It was in that war that Wellington really made a name for himself as a commander. Not only did his tactics win several decisive battles, he won the loyalty of his men by fighting WITH them rather than ‘leading from the rear’.
In September 1805 Wellington, now in his 30s and weakened by the Indian climate, returned to England. He soon received word that Kitty Pakenham’s family had reconsidered his proposal, and were willing to allow her to marry a rich war hero. The couple were duly wed in Dublin on 10 April 1806, but her family should have said no – they turned out to make each other miserable. “They lived apart for most of the time and occupied separate rooms in the house when they were together … Kitty grew depressed, while Wellesley pursued other sexual and romantic partners.” The one source of happiness in the union were their two sons, Arthur and Charles.
As a newlywed Wellington took a period of extended leave from active military duty for his health’s sake, and during that time returned to politics. He was elected as a Tory MP for Rye in January 1806, and as the MP for Newport on the Isle of Wight in 1807. Shortly thereafter became a father for the first time, when his son, Arthur Richard Wellesley, was born on 3 Febuary 1806. Not long after Arthur’s birth Wellington was also appointed to serve as Chief Secretary for Ireland, under the Duke of Richmond. In his home country of Ireland, “he gave a verbal promise that the remaining Penal Laws would be enforced with great moderation, perhaps an indication of his later willingness to support Catholic Emancipation.”
Peace did not thrill major general, though. In the spring of 1807 he decided to join the British expedition to Denmark. He shucked off his political offices, impregnated his wife for a second time, and took command an infantry brigade. Wellington’s brigade fought in the Second Battle of Copenhagen and in the Battle of Køge in August, where the British won a tremendous victory.
With new laurels to crown him, Wellington returned to England, where his wife was coming near to her second delivery. They had another son, Charles, on 16 January 1808. To increase Wellington’s happiness, he received a promotion to lieutenant general on 25 April. Just a few months later Wellington and his troops were ordered to sail for Portugal, where they were to take part in the Peninsular Campaign.
In Portugal, Wellington’s forces defeated Napoleon’s commanders at the Battle of Roliça and the Battle of Vimeiro. Wellington saw that the Portuguese were the best allies Britain could possibly have against the French. With this in mind, he “submitted a memorandum to Lord Castlereagh on the defence of Portugal. He stressed its mountainous frontiers and advocated Lisbon as the main base because the Royal Navy could help to defend it. Castlereagh and the cabinet approved the memo, appointed him head of all British forces in Portugal.”
Wellington, backed by the war office and the Portuguese, took to the offensive. On 12 May 1809 he crossed the Douro river in a broad daylight and drove out the French troops that had been occupying the city of Porto. He then advanced into Spain, and on 27 July defeated the French at the Battle of Talavera. The French forces massed for retaliation and to retake Portugal, but Wellington blacked them “by the construction of his massive earthworks, the Lines of Torres Vedras, which had been assembled in complete secrecy and had flanks guarded by the Royal Navy. The baffled and starving French invasion forces retreated after six months.”
Wellington stood his ground for two years, with a combined army of British and Portuguese soldiers. He and his troops inched forward by narrow victories against Napoleon’s best generals, until 22 July 1812, when he was able to claim a decisive victory at the Battle of Salamanca, where he famously defeated “40,000 Frenchmen in 40 minutes”. Madrid was now under English control, and the former slacker “was created Earl of Wellington and then Marquess of Wellington and given command of all Allied armies in Spain” as a reward for his capable leadership.
Alas for Wellington, he was unable to enjoy his success. The French rallied, and foiled his siege at the fortress of Burgos, to the tune of over 2,000 British casualties. Napoleon also pulled his troops out of southern Spain, and sent them for Wellington. Vastly outnumbered and outgunned, Wellington and his army retreated back to Portugal.
Having been thwarted at Burgos, Wellington came up with an alternative plan. First, he struck against the French line of communications, before moving his troops through countryside north of Burgos and deeper into French-occupied Spain.He also secured his supply lines while simultaneously cutting off the French, forcing Napoleon’s men to abandon Madrid and Burgos or starve to death. “Continuing to outflank the French lines, Wellington caught up with and smashed the army of King Joseph Bonaparte in the Battle of Vitoria” on 21 June 1813. Wellington “personally led a column against the French centre” and sealed his fame in the UK.
Although the Battle of Vitoria got Wellington another promotion – this time to field marshal general – it also caused him immense frustration. His troops broke ranks to loot the abandoned French supply wagons rather than following orders to pursue the fleeing enemy. Wellington was enraged by their lack of discipline, and sent a famous dispatch to Earl Bathurst declaring, “We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”
Wellington went on to secure hard-fought and costly victories at Pamplona, Pyrenees, Bidassoa and Nivelle. With the French army in retreat, he pushed into southern France, defeating Napoleon’s armies at the Nive and Orthez. Wellington’s final battle of the war was against his rival Marshal Soult at Toulouse. Soult and his soldiers put up such a fierce resistance that the Allied troops lost more than 4,600 men. In the end, though, Soult could not win – news came that Napoleon had abdicated in early April 1814. Out of respect for Soult, Wellington called a ceasefire and allowed the French forces to evacuate Toulouse unmolested.
After Napoleon’s initial surrender, Wellington was idolized and nearly worship as the avatar of Aries by the British public. The crown was no less pleased with him, creating him the 1st Duke of Wellington as well as giving him £500,000 in prize money and the estate of Stratfield Saye in Hampshire. That summer, Wellington was also appointed as ambassador to the restored Bourbon court of Louis XVIII. Moreover, he replaced Lord Castlereagh as the UK’s representitive at the Congress of Vienna in February 1815, where he “strongly advocated allowing France to keep its place in the European balance of power.”
Yet even before the delegates could finish their peacemaking in Vienna, Napoleon escaped Elba and returned to France for what would be known as The 100 Days. Wellington was called upon once more to fight the French, being sent post-haste to Belgium to take command combined forces of Britain and it’s allies in concert with the Prussian forces of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. In this campaign Wellington would have to do what he had never done before – face Napoleon himself in battle.
The initial victories went to the French, but on 18 June 1815 Wellington and Napoleon went head-to-head at the Battle of Waterloo … and Wellington won it by a whisker. As the Iron Duke himself said, Waterloo was “a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.” He also repeatedly gave credit to the Prussian forces and von Blücher for saving the day, credit which later British historians would gloss over. He also knew just what he had been up against in Napoleon. When asked to name the greatest general of his era, he decisively exclaimed, “In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon”.
The victory at Waterloo was the final icing on Wellington’s cake. He was made commander in chief of occupied France, where he wisely “opposed a punitive peace, organized loans to rescue French finances, and advised withdrawal of the occupying troops after three years. For these policies he won the gratitude of the peace congress, returning home in 1818 with the batons (symbol of field marshal) of six foreign countries.”
He would serve the government for several years as a diplomat, when he would gain an international reputation for honesty and just-dealings. He was also the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 22 January 1828 to 16 November 1830, and again briefly from 14 November 1834 to 10 December 1834. His policies were very conservative and (in hindsight) often prejudiced, but he always made his choices from what he believed to be a moral standpoint and in what he thought were the best interests of Great Britain.
He finally retired from politics 1846, spending his twilight years living with his friend and fellow widower, Charles Arbuthnot, at Apsley House. The renown war hero died on 14 September 1852 at Walmer Castle, to the dismay of the nation. His body was taken by railway to London, where he was given the last heraldic state funeral to be held in Britain on 18 November. He was interred next to his fellow war hero Lord Nelson in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Honestly, Wellington might not have liked having such a fuss made over him. His maxim, oft repeated, was the saying, “I am but a man.” Maybe so – but the record shows that he was man unlike many others in valor and strategy.