'"^f^fi/ffS IJOOM 
 
 
 
 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Class 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
THE 
 
 ^afe (maee (magazine BiBtavg 
 
 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON 
 
 BY 
 
 GENERAL LORD ROBERTS, V.C 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD FREDERICK HAMILTON AND SIR DOUGLAS STRAIGHT 
 
 EDITORS OF THE " PALL MALL MAGAZINE " 
 
OF -HE 
 
 UNIVERS/TY 
 
 OF 
 
GENERAL SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY, K.P,, 1803. 
 
THE RISE 
 
 OF 
 
 WELLINGTON 
 
 BY 
 
 GENERAL LORD ROBERTS, V.C. 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS AND PLANS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 1895 
 
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 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, Limited, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 When the proposal for a series of republications in 
 book form of some of the more important articles and 
 short stories appearing in the pages of the Pall Mall 
 Magazine was first made to us by Mr. R. B. Marston, 
 we accepted it without hesitation, perceiving at once 
 that an admirable medium would thus be provided by 
 which much valuable literary matter might be made 
 known to an even wider circle of the public than 
 the readers of the periodical of which we have the 
 conduct. Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley's graphic 
 and analytical papers on the " Decline and Fall of 
 Napoleon," which constitute the first volume of 
 the Pall Mall Magazine Library, achieved, as 
 we are able to say from personal knowledge, a 
 very remarkable success not only in England 
 and America, but on the Continent ; especially in 
 Paris, where they were translated and published in 
 book form. Much the same may be said with regard 
 to General Lord Roberts' valuable and instructive 
 articles on the " Rise of Wellington," which found 
 
 213650 
 
INTRO D UCTION., 
 
 especial favour with military readers in all branches 
 of the Service, and we have reason to think that the 
 collection of these into a single and handy volume 
 will meet with the general approval of military men, 
 and might form a valuable text-book for military 
 students. The articles commenced by Viscount 
 Wolseley and continued by Lord Roberts are now 
 being followed in the pages of the Pall Mall 
 Magazine by Lieut-General Sir Evelyn Wood's 
 papers on" Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign," and 
 we hope from time to time to be able to secure other 
 able military writers as contributors to deal with 
 subjects having an equal historical interest. We 
 conclude by saying that the Publishers have our 
 hearty sympathy and will have our lively co-operation 
 in the publication of the Pall Mall Magazine 
 Library, and so far as lies in our power we shall 
 endeavour to assist them in making each successive 
 volume such as to entitle it to a foremost place in 
 the literature of the day. 
 
 Frederick Hamilton. 
 Douglas Straight. 
 
 Editors Pall Mall Magazine. 
 
 1 8, Charing Cross Road. 
 March, 1895. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 General Sir Arthur Wellesley, K.P. frontispiece. 
 
 Tippoo Sultan 8 
 
 Plan of the Attack upon the North West 
 
 Angle of Seringapatam lo 
 
 Lord Harris 14 
 
 General Lake 20 
 
 Plan of the Battle of Assaye . . . .25. 
 Battle of Assaye .... To face page 32 
 
 Major-General Baird 43 
 
 Sir Hew Dalrymple .54 
 
 Lieutenant-General the Hon. John Hope . . 59 
 
 Colonel George Murray 67 
 
 Sir John Moore 71 
 
 Battle of Talavera . To face page 76 
 
 Major-General Beresford 78 
 
 Lord Castlereagh . . . . . . .83 
 
 Plan of Massena's Retreat. Combat of Sabugal, 
 
 1811 z^ 
 
 The Storming of Badajoz . To face page 96 
 
 General Lord Hill, G.C.B. . . . . .97 
 
 h 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Plan of the Passage of the Nive. Battle of 
 
 St. Pierre 105 
 
 Map of Spain and Portugal . . . . no, in 
 
 Wellington 126 
 
 England's Hope, 181 5 . . . To face page 128 
 H.R.H. Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, 
 
 F.-M., Commander-in-Chief . , . .142 
 
 Field-Marshal von Blucher 145 
 
 Plan of The Field of Waterloo . . . .158 
 
 The Marquess of Anglesey 162 
 
 Facsimile of Portion of Despatch Written from 
 Waterloo to Lord Bathurst the Day after 
 
 the Battle 167, 168 
 
 Napoleon's Flight from Waterloo To face page . 176 
 Napoleon 187 
 
(■ 
 
 THE 
 
 RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 " The foremost quality in a general is that he shall 
 have a cool head, which receives just impressions of 
 things ; which is never confused, nor allows itself to 
 be dazzled or thrown off its balance by good or bad 
 news." — Napoleon. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The military career of Wellington naturally divides 
 itself into three periods — the Indian period, the 
 Peninsular period, and the period during which he 
 commanded the Allied Forces in the N^therlands^,,^ 
 terminating in the battle of Waterloo\iI propos^;^ 
 therefore, in three chapters, relating in turn to each oi 
 these period s/jDriefly to describe the principal inci- 
 dents of this great soldier's life, and to show how the 
 experience he gained first in the East, and afterwards 
 in South- Western Europe, so developed his natural 
 
 B 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 talents and administrative capacity that he was 
 finally able to meet and overthrow the French 
 Emperor, whose genius for war had up to that date 
 been regarded as absolutely unrivalled. / 
 / Arthur Wellesley, the fourth son ofthe first Earl of 
 Mornington, was born in 1769, and was educated first 
 at a private school in Chelsea, and subsequently for 
 a short time at Eton, whence he was removed to a 
 military college at Angers, in France, presided over 
 by an engineer oflficer, the Marquis of Pignerol. 
 Being looked upon as the dunce of the family, and 
 described by his mother as being *' food for powder 
 and nothing more," it was determined, according to 
 the custom of those days, to provide him with a 
 livelihood in the army, and at the age of seventeen he 
 obtained an ensigricy in the 41st Foot. His family 
 interest being powerful, he was rapidly promoted, 
 becoming a lieutenant after nine months' service as 
 ensign, a captain after three-and-a-half years' service 
 as lieutenant, a major after less than two years' 
 service as captain, a lieutenant-colonel after five 
 months' service as major, and a colonel at the age of 
 twenty-seven, after less than three years' service as 
 lieutenant-colonel. He was attached to the cavalry 
 as well as the infantry, being transferred from the 
 4i.st Foot to the 12th Light Dragoons, thence to the 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 76th Foot, the 1 8th Light Dragoons, and finally to 
 the 33 rd Foot, of which he obtained the command 
 in 1793. 
 /^ While stationed at home he sat in the Irish House 
 of Commons as member for Trim, and was also for 
 some time aide-de-camp to the Lord-Lieutenant of 
 Ireland. 
 
 \^^ In 1794 he accompanied his regiment to Antwerp, 
 where it joined the force under the command of the 
 Duke of York, and took part in the movement on 
 Breda, and the engagement at Boxtel, a village on 
 the river Dommel. On this occasion Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Wellesley behaved with conspicuous judg- 
 ment and gallantry — so much so, in fact, that he 
 attracted the favourable notice of General Dundas, 
 who afterwards entrusted him with the duty of 
 covering the retreat of the British army. This retreat 
 was conducted under great difficulties by. Count 
 Walmoden, a Hanoverian general, to whom the Duke 
 of York had handed over his command ; and after 
 suffering the most grievous hardships and privations 
 during the winter of 1794-95, the troops reached 
 Bremen and re-embarked for England early in 1795. 
 This first experience of field service was, no doubt, 
 extremely valuable to Wellington in after years. It 
 must have taught him that soldiers even of the best 
 
 B 2 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 quality, well drilled, disciplined and equipped, cannot 
 hope to be successful unless proper arrangements are 
 made for their supply and transport ; and unless those 
 who direct the operations have formed some definite 
 plan of action, and have sufficient zeal and profes- 
 sional knowledge to carry it out. If the French 
 generals had taken full advantage of the opportunities 
 which the incapacity of the English and German com- 
 manders threw in their way, the British force must 
 have been annihilated. As it was, Wellington con- 
 sidered it " a marvel that any one belonging to the 
 force escaped." 
 
 On its return to England Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Wellesley's regiment was quartered at Warley, while 
 he proceeded on leave to Ireland. Apparently dis- 
 gusted at the mismanagement of the troops em- 
 ployed in the Low Countries, he made up his mind 
 to leave the army, and in June 1795 applied to 
 Lord Camden, then Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, for 
 a civil post under the Irish Government. He wrote : 
 "You will probably be surprised at my desiring a 
 civil instead of a military office. It is certainly a 
 departure from the line which I prefer ; but I see the 
 manner in which the military offices are filled, and I 
 don't wish to ask you for that which I know you' 
 cannot give me." This application was unsuccessful ; 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 and in the autumn of the same year Wellesley's 
 regiment was ordered to join in an expedition directed 
 against the French settlements in the West Indies. 
 The ships in which the troops embarked were driven 
 back by stress of weather to Spithead, and the 
 proposed operations being abandoned, the 33rd Foot 
 was landed and quartered at Poole. A few months 
 later the regiment was ordered to India, and arrived 
 in Calcutta in February 1797. Shortly after Colonel 
 Wellesley had reached India, the Governor-General, 
 Sir John Shore, offered him the command of an 
 expedition which was intended for the capture of 
 Manilla ; and, all the necessary arrangements being 
 complete, the troops embarked and proceeded as far 
 as Penang. Owing, however, to apprehensions of 
 danger within India itself, the force was recalled, and 
 Colonel Wellesley returned to Calcutta, whence he 
 started early in 1798 on a visit to Lord Hobart, 
 the Governor of Madras. Two months later Lord 
 Mornington, Wellesley's eldest brother, replaced Sir 
 John Shore as Governor-General, and at once took 
 into consideration the critical state of affairs in 
 Mysore, where Tippoo Sultan, the son of Hyder 
 Ali, continued his late father's fanatical animosity 
 towards the English, and had allied himself with the 
 French Republic, hoping for its aid in attacking 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the East India Company's possessions in Southern 
 India. 
 
 The first step to be taken by the Governor-General 
 was to secure the friendship, or at any rate the 
 neutrality, of the Nizam, and for this purpose it was 
 essential to re-establish British influence at that ruler's 
 court, and induce him to consent to the disbandment 
 of a portion of his troops which had become formid- 
 able owing to its being officered by Frenchmen. This 
 precautionary measure was successfully accomplished, 
 and a fresh treaty of alliance was entered into be- 
 tween the Nizam and the Government of India in 
 1798 ; the French officers in the Nizam's service were 
 dismissed and sent home ; the force to which they 
 belonged was broken up, and a subsidiary force, 6000 
 strong, under British officers, took its place. While 
 all this was going on Wellesley had been sent with 
 his regiment from Calcutta to Madras, and on his 
 arrival at the capital of the Southern Presidency, he 
 undertook, in communication with Lord Clive, the 
 Governor, and General Harris, the Commander-in- 
 Chief, to organise the commissariat, transport, and 
 ordnance train needed for an advance upon Seringa- 
 patam. Feeling that the presence of the Governor- 
 General would stimulate the local authorities to the 
 exertions required to bring the campaign against 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 7 
 
 Tippoo Sultan to a successful issue, he induced his 
 brother to transfer temporarily the headquarters of 
 the Government of India from Fort William to Fort 
 St. George. 
 
 The army of the Carnatic was assembled at Vellore 
 early in 1799, and on February nth it began its 
 marches towards Seringapatam, being joined a week 
 later by the Hyderabad subsidiary force under British 
 officers, as well as a contingent of the Nizam's cavalry. 
 The 33 rd Foot was attached to this force, which 
 numbered altogether about 16,000 men, and Colonel 
 Wellesley was appointed to its command. 
 
 Simultaneously with the advance of the Madras 
 army, a Bombay corps commanded by General Stuart 
 was landed at Cannanore, and moved up the Western 
 Ghauts to a point named Sedasir, where it was 
 attacked by Tippoo. Tippoo was repulsed with some 
 loss, and retired to the vicinity of Seringapatam, 
 whence, after a short halt, he marched eastward for 
 about twenty miles, and came into contact with 
 General Harris's troops at Mellavelly. Being there 
 defeated for the second time, he withdrew into 
 Seringapatam, in front of which place he threw up a 
 line of field intrenchments. General Harris resolved 
 to make a night attack on these defences, and the 
 operation was entrusted to Colonel Wellesley and 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Colonel Shaw. The latter's attack was successful ; 
 but owing to inadequate reconnaissance, as well as the 
 darkness of the night, and the thickness of the jungle, 
 Wellesley entirely failed in his object, and lost twelve 
 
 
 TIPPOO SULTAN. 
 
 grenadiers of the 33rd, whom Tippoo made prisoners 
 and tortured to death by causing nails to be hammered 
 into their skulls. The next morning, however, Tippoo's 
 intrenchments were carried without difficulty, and 
 shortly afterwards Seringapatam was invested by 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 General Harris, who meanwhile had been reinforced by 
 General Stuart's column. On May 7th, 1799, the city 
 was taken by assault, the command on this occasion 
 being given to Major-General Baird, and the reserve 
 in the trenches being placed in charge of Colonel 
 Wellesley. The garrison fought with remarkable 
 obstinacy, and in the course of the struggle Tippoo 
 Sultan was killed in front of one of the city gates. 
 The treasure captured in Seringapatam was valued at 
 about ;£■ 1, 200,000 sterling, and Colonel Wellesley's 
 share of it amounted to ;^7000 in money and ^1200 
 in jewels. Two days after the assault. Colonel 
 Wellesley was ordered to relieve General Baird as 
 Governor of Seringapatam — a favour which, whether 
 he owed it to his own merits, or to his being the brother 
 of the Governor-General, was not unnaturally resented 
 by the officer whom he superseded. After serving on 
 a mixed commission appointed to report on the future 
 government of Tippoo's dominions, Colonel Wellesley 
 was invested with supreme civil and military control 
 over the province and capital of Mysore, and in this 
 capacity exhibited administrative abilities of a very 
 high order. In May 1800, the Governor- General 
 nominated Colonel Wellesley to the command of an 
 expedition which it was proposed to send to Batavia 
 with a view to inducing the Dutch to cede the 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. ii 
 
 island of Java to the English. This offer he declined 
 after consulting the Governor of Madras. His reason 
 for doing so was that he considered it a more impor- 
 tant work to put a stop to the depredations of the 
 noted freebooter, Dhoondiah Waugh, who had been 
 seized and imprisoned by Tippoo, but regaining his 
 liberty on the fall of Seringapatam, had established 
 himself with a large following of about 40,000 men in 
 the Mahratta terrftory, between Goa and the western 
 frontier of Mysore. A British force was accordingly 
 assembled on the Tumbudra river, and the troops 
 being divided into three columns, a vigorous effort 
 was made to surround the band of marauders, and 
 capture its chief. After a series of long and rapid 
 marches through an arid and difficult country, 
 Wellesley came in contact with the main body of the 
 enemy at Manauli, a small fort about fifty miles east 
 of Belgaum, and after a cavalry skirmish pursued it 
 for a hundred and fifty miles to Konagull on the 
 Tumbudra, where, on September loth, he again 
 attacked with his cavaliy. This engagement was 
 decisive, Dhoondiah being killed, and his followers 
 completely broken up and dispersed. 
 
 Colonel Wellesley had declined the command of 
 the proposed expedition to Batavia when it was first 
 offered him, but on his return to Mysore after Dhoon- 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 diah Waugh had been disposed of, he received orders 
 to proceed to Trincomalee, where the force originally 
 intended for the annexation of Java was still being 
 collected. At this period the attention of the Govern- 
 ment, both at home and in India, was fixed on Egypt, 
 which had been occupied by the French with the 
 object of converting it into a base of operations against 
 the British possessions in the East. The idea of 
 annexing Java had not been entirely abandoned, but 
 the Government of India was inclined to think that 
 it might be more advantageous either to capture 
 Mauritius, then a French colony, or to despatch an 
 Indian contingent to the Red Sea, where it might co- 
 operate with the force which was being prepared by 
 the home authorities for the purpose of driving the 
 French out of Egypt. The question was decided by 
 the receipt of a despatch from His Majesty's Ministers, 
 ordering the Government of India to send 3000 men 
 to Egypt ; and Wellesley, who on his arrival at Trin- 
 comalee was apprised of this order, at once arranged 
 on his own responsibility for the troops assembled at 
 that port to sail for Bombay, notwithstanding strong 
 remonstrance from the Governor of Ceylon. When 
 called to account for acting in this matter without the 
 sanction of the Governor-General, Wellesley justified 
 himself on the ground that the movement from Trin- 
 
THE WDIAN- PERIOD. 13 
 
 comalee to Bombay would greatly expedite the 
 arrival of the force at its ultimate destination, Bombay 
 being the only port at which the requisite provisions 
 and stores were obtainable, and where the transports 
 could procure an adequate supply of fresh water before 
 starting on the voyage to Kosseir in the Red Sea. 
 
 On reaching Bombay, Colonel Wellesley received 
 the unwelcome news that the Government of India 
 had appointed Major-General Baird to command the 
 expedition, and that his own position would be that 
 of second in command ; the Governor-General ex- 
 plaining to him in a very kind letter that the number 
 of troops employed had rendered it necessary to 
 appoint a general officer to the chief command, and 
 giving him the option of returning to Mysore if he 
 objected to serve under General Baird. Wellesley 
 was bitterly disappointed at being, as he conceived, 
 unfairly superseded, though the officer appointed to 
 the command was much senior to himself, and he 
 expressed his indignation in very forcible terms to 
 his brother Henry. Still, he was disinclined to avail 
 himself of the Governor-General's permission to return 
 to Mysore, and he only did so because a severe attack 
 ■of illness prevented him from accompanying the expe- 
 dition. 
 
 On his recovery, in May 1801, Wellesley resumed 
 
14 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the government of Mysore, and for nearly two years 
 occupied himself with the civil and military adminis- 
 tration of that province. 
 
 j In April 1802, at the age of thirty-three, and after 
 ^ fifteen years' service, he became a Major-General, his 
 
 LORD HARRIS. 
 
 promotion having been strongly urged upon His 
 Royal Highness the Duke of York by his brother 
 the Governor-General, who himself two years before 
 had been raised to an Irish marquisate, with the 
 title of the Marquis Wellesley. 
 
-THE INDIAN PERIOD. 15 
 
 About this time the evacuation of Egypt by the 
 French had reHeved the Government of India from 
 the fear of external attack, and it seemed a fitting 
 opportunity to extend the- influence of the East India 
 Company over the Mahratta confederacy, which at the 
 beginning of the century was extremely powerful, and, 
 if its members had acted in unison, might have 
 seriously endangered our ascendency in the East. 
 The nominal head of the confederacy was the Peshwa, 
 Bajee Rao, whose capital was Poona ; its principal 
 members were Sindhia, Holkar, the Raja of Berar, 
 and the Gaekwar of Baroda. Of these Sindhia was 
 the most formidable, possessing a numerous army 
 with strong artillery and well-equipped cavalry. In a 
 semi-independent position, but still owing allegiance to 
 Sindhia, there was a force commanded by the French 
 adventurer Perron, numbering 30,000 infantry and 
 8000 cavalry, with 250 guns. This force, which was 
 to a great extent officered by Frenchmen, occupied 
 the important strongholds of Agra, Delhi, and Aligarh, 
 and dominated the rich country between the Jumna 
 and Ganges. The Raja of Berar was master of a 
 large extent of territory to the north of the Nizam's 
 dominions, stretching from Cuttack on the east to 
 Ellichpore on the west. Nagpore was the Raja's 
 capital, and his army consisted of about 20,000 
 
1 6 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 disciplined cavalry and 10,000 infantry. Holkar's 
 possessions lay between those of Sindhia on the east 
 and the Bombay Presidency on the west. His army, 
 composed chiefly of cavalry, and, like Sindhia's, com- 
 manded by French officers, numbered about 80,000 
 men. Holkar and Sindhia, however, were extremely 
 jealous of each other ; and the former, thinking that 
 the latter exercised undue influence at the Peshwa's 
 court, crossed the Nerbudda in 1802, marched upon 
 Poona, and defeated the combined forces of the Peshwa 
 and Sindhia. Bajee Rao fled from his capital and 
 sought refuge in British territory at Bassein, where he 
 threw himself upon the protection of the East India 
 Company. Taking advantage of this occurrence, the 
 Governor-General at the close of 1802 entered into 
 a treaty with the Peshwa, known as the treaty of 
 Bassein, which stipulated that the British Government 
 should reinstate Bajee Rao at Poona, and guard him 
 against the aggression' of the rival Mahratta states, 
 while he on his part should be entirely guided in his 
 foreign policy by the Government of India, should 
 employ no Europeans hostile to the British, and should 
 assign territory sufficient to meet the cost of a sub- 
 sidiary force similar to that maintained by the Nizam, 
 and exclusively commanded by British officers. The 
 Governor-General hoped to be able to carry this treaty 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 17 
 
 into effect without provoking the open hostility of the 
 Native States more or less directly concerned. The 
 provisions of the treaty, however, were so opposed to 
 the interests of the principal Mahratta chiefs, especially 
 those of Sindhia and the Raja of Berar, that Lord 
 Wellesley could not but recognise the strong probability 
 of their endeavouring by force or intrigue to recover 
 their ascendency at Poona, or to obtain compensation 
 in some other direction. To guard against such a con- 
 tingency, the Governor-General determined to mobilise 
 a portion of the army of each Presidency, and so to 
 distribute the troops at his disposal as to bring effec- 
 tive pressure to bear on the states likely to oppose 
 his policy. In November 1802 a force of 19,000 men, 
 drawn from the Madras army, was concentrated at 
 Hurryhur, on the north-west frontier of Mysore, and 
 shortly afterwards orders were given for a division 
 from Bombay, about 7000 strong, to be in readiness to 
 operate in the direction of Surat and Broach. A force 
 was collected at Calcutta for the occupation of the pro- 
 vince of Cuttack ; and General Lake, the Commander- 
 in-Chief in India, was to be prepared to advance from 
 Cawnpore with 14,000 men against Perron's army hold- 
 ing Delhi, Agra, and the North- West Provinces. Three 
 reserve corps were also to be formed, for the purpose of 
 covering the possessions of the British and their Allies. 
 
 C 
 
r8 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 The first of these corps was to hold Poona and support 
 the Peshwa's authority, the second was to take up a 
 position on the river Kistna for the protection of the 
 Nizam's territory, and the third was to be established 
 at Mirzapore and Benares for the defence of the 
 Ganges valley. Such a dissemination of force might 
 under other circumstances have led to disaster, but, 
 owing to the mutual jealousy of the Mahratta chiefs, 
 combined action on their part was hardly to be appre- 
 hended, and the results of Lord Wellesley's bold and 
 comprehensive scheme fully answered his expecta- 
 tions. 
 
 In February 1803 Major-General Wellesley, who 
 was then at Seringapatam, received instructions to 
 occupy Poona and reinstate Bajee Rao. Proceeding 
 at once to Huriyhur, he assumed command of about 
 10,600 of the Madras troops assembled at that place ; 
 and the Nizam's contingent numbering 8400 men, 
 under Colonel Stevenson, was also placed under his 
 orders, and directed to join him on the march. 
 Leaving Hurryhur on March 9th, he effected a 
 junction with Stevenson's troops on April 15th; and 
 three days later he received news that Amrat Rao, 
 whom Holkar had entrusted with the Peshwa's 
 authority on the latter escaping to Bassein, intended 
 to burn Poona before retiring from that city on the 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 19 
 
 approach of the British force. Wellesley determined, 
 if possible, to save the city from destruction ; and, 
 escorted by a cavalry detachment only 400 strong, he 
 reached Poona by a forced march, in which he covered 
 not less than sixty miles in thirty hours. Amrat Rao 
 was taken by surprise and precipitately withdrew, 
 after sending a submissive message to the British 
 commander ; and Poona was occupied, without oppo- 
 sition, on April 20th. Bajee Rao was replaced on 
 the mtisnud on May 13th, and the British force 
 remained at his capital for some months, during 
 which General Wellesley organised a pontoon train, 
 repaired his ordnance carriages, provided dep6ts and 
 magazines for the supply of his troops, and brought 
 his transport and commissariat services into a 
 thoroughly efficient state. In the meantime Holkar 
 had retired to Indore, but Sindhia and the Raja of 
 Berar had assumed a threatening attitude, and 
 collected a large army at Burhanpur, on the river 
 Taptee, near the Nizam's northern frontier. It 
 became evident from the movement of their troops 
 that, as soon as the rains were over and the rivers 
 fordable, these Mahratta chiefs intended either to 
 invade the Nizam's territory or to operate against the 
 British in the direction of Poona. Towards the end 
 of June the Governor-General conferred full military 
 
 C 2 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 and political powers on General Lake in Northern 
 India and on Major- General Wellesley in the Deccan, 
 and authorised them to take such action with regard 
 to Holkar, Sindhia, and the Berar Raja as might be 
 necessary to maintain the treaty of Bassein and to 
 
 GENERAL LAKE. 
 
 protect the rights and interests of the Government of 
 India and its Allies. Wellesley at once called upon 
 Sindhia and the Raja of Berar to prove their friendly 
 intentions by withdrawing their troops from Bur- 
 hanpur to the stations where they were usually 
 quartered. He warned them that should^they decline 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 2i 
 
 to do so he would attack them ; and, as a preliminary 
 to decisive action, he moved his force from Poona 
 towards Ahmednagar, a fort and city at that time 
 held by Sindhia. The Mahratta chiefs refused to 
 withdraw unless the British force and the Nizam's 
 contingent also retired to their ordinary cantonments. 
 Wellesley accordingly declared war, and proceeded to 
 attack Ahmednagar, which after a siege was captured, 
 with slight loss, on the nth August. The possession 
 of this place greatly facilitated the offensive opera- 
 tions which Wellesley had in view, as it furnished an 
 advanced base covering his main line of communica- 
 tion with Poona and Bombay, guarded the western 
 portion of Hyderabad, and prevented the Mahratta 
 chiefs from receiving any assistance from Southern 
 India. Advancing from Ahmednagar on the 17th 
 August Wellesley crossed the Godavery, and reached 
 Aurungabad on the 24th of the same month ; and 
 early in September Stevenson seized Jalna, an im- 
 portant fort on the Mahratta frontier. 
 
 On the 2 1 St September Stevenson's force joined the 
 main body, and arrangements were made to attack 
 the united forces of Sindhia and the Raja of Berar on 
 the 24th. Owing, however, to defective information 
 as to the disposition of the enemy's troops, Wellesley 
 ordered Stevenson to move by a different road from 
 
^2 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 that taken by the force under his own immediate 
 command, so that on the 23rd he alone encountered 
 the Mahratta army strongly posted behind the river 
 Kaitna, with its left supported by the village of 
 Assaye and its front defended by 128 guns. The 
 Mahrattas numbered 50,000, while Wellesley's force 
 consisted of 1500 British and about 6500 Native 
 soldiers, with only 17 guns. The troops, cavalry 
 horses, and gun bullocks were greatly fatigued by a 
 march of twenty-four miles ; but, after a rapid recon- 
 naissance, Wellesley resolved on what he called 
 " the desperate -expedient " of at once attacking the 
 enemy. The Mahrattas were drawn up in a long 
 line with their infantry and artillery on the left and 
 their cavalry on the right, a detachment of the latter 
 being posted in front of the Kaitna in order to 
 observe the movements of the British force. Welles- 
 ley decided to engage the left, and to do so he had to 
 march along the enemy's front and to cross the 
 Kaitna by a ford within easy range of the extreme 
 left of the Mahratta position. On perceiving the 
 object of this movement the French officers in com- 
 mand of the Mahratta infantry and artillery changed 
 front with admirable precision, so as to bring their 
 line parallel to that of the British infantry. The 
 latter, after crossing the ford, was drawn up in two 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 23 
 
 lines, supported in rear by the 19th Light Dragoons 
 and the regular Native cavalry, and covered on its 
 left flank by the Mysore and Peshwa's irregular 
 cavalry. The General's intention was to push for- 
 ward his left and thus penetrate the centre of the 
 enemy's line. By some mistake, however, the officer 
 commanding the piquets, which were upon the right, 
 led immediately up to the village of Assaye, and this 
 advance was followed by the 74th Foot in the second 
 line, which had been ordered to support the piquets. 
 The result was a serious break in both the infantry 
 lines, and severe loss to the piquets and the 74th 
 Regiment. Matters became so critical that the 
 British and Native cavalry had to charge into the 
 Mahratta batteries in order to extricate what was left 
 of their infantry in this part of the field. On the left 
 the 78th Foot and the Sepoy battalions advanced 
 with the utmost gallantry, and, after firing only two 
 rounds, engaged the enemy with the bayonet. The 
 Mahratta infantry at last gave way, abandoning 
 their guns, and our Sepoys pursued the fugitives up 
 to the nulla or ravine which ran along the rear of the 
 position. A number of Mahratta gunners sheltered 
 themselves beneath their guns, and, as soon as the 
 tide of battle had passed them, they rose up, and, 
 turning their pieces round, began to fire on the rear of 
 
24 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON: 
 
 the British force. Wellesley averted .this danger by 
 placing himself at the head of the 78th Regiment and 
 the 7th Native Cavalry, and, by a vigorous charge, 
 again made himself master of the enemy's artillery. 
 This final charge decided the fortune of the day : the 
 Mahrattas broke, and fled in all directions: 1200 of 
 the enemy were killed on the field of battle, and 800 
 more during the pursuit ; and 98 guns, with a large 
 amount of ammunition and stores, were captured. 
 Unfortunately the pursuit was not carried out so 
 promptly and effectually as Wellesley desired, for our 
 regular cavalry had lost its cohesion, owing to the 
 necessity for employing it to extricate the piquets and 
 the 74th Foot in their premature attack on the village 
 of Assaye. On the British side the loss was ex- 
 tremely heavy, amounting in killed and wounded to 
 43 British officers, 540 non-commissioned officers and 
 soldiers, 36 Native officers, and 1238 non-com- 
 missioned officers and soldiers.* Wellesley f himself 
 
 * Every officer of the 74th Highlanders present with the 
 regiment was either killed or wounded, except Quartermaster 
 James Grant, who, when he saw so many of his friends fall in 
 the battle, resolved to share their fate, and, though a non- 
 combatant, joined the ranks and fought to the termination of 
 the action. 
 
 t Colin Campbell, brigade-major to General Wellesley, writ- 
 ing about Assaye, said : " The General was in the thick of the 
 action the whole time, and had a horse killed under him. No 
 
26 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 had one horse shot and a second piked under him. 
 It was an infantry battle won almost entirely by the 
 use of the bayonet. The regular cavalry played a 
 secondary, but useful, part in the action, while the 
 irregular cavalry did little more than protect the left 
 flank from Sindhia's horsemen. The troops seriously 
 engaged were outnumbered by ten to one, and lost 
 more than a third of their total. The next day 
 Stevenson's force arrived in time to join in the 
 pursuit of the scattered Mahratta army, after which it 
 was ordered by Wellesley to march north of the 
 Taptee and lay siege to Burhanpur and Asirgarh ; 
 Wellesley himself undertaking to cover Stevenson 
 while thus employed, to protect the lines of com- 
 munication, and to defend the frontiers of the Nizam 
 and the Peshwa. As a striking instance of Native 
 duplicity, it may be mentioned that both these chiefs, 
 who owed everything they possessed to the Govern- 
 ment of India, did their utmost to thwart the opera- 
 tions of the British commander. The Nizam's officials 
 refused to accommodate our wounded in the fort of 
 
 man could have shown a better example to the troops than he 
 did. I never saw a man so cool and collected as he was, 
 though, I can assure you, till our troops got orders to advance, 
 the fate of the day seemed doubtful ; and, if the numerous 
 cavalry of the enemy had done their duty, I hardly think it 
 possible that we could have succeeded." 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 27 
 
 Dowlatabad ; and the conduct of the Peshwa was 
 even more unfriendly, as he not only neglected to 
 furnish the supplies which he had promised, but 
 intrigued with Sindhia and the Raja of Berar 
 against us. 
 
 While these events were taking place in the 
 Deccan, equal activity had been displayed on our 
 north-west frontier and in the neighbourhood of 
 Cuttack. On the 7th August General Lake started 
 from Cawnpore with 14,000 men, and after defeating 
 Perron's troops before Aligarh, besieged and captured 
 that stronghold. Perron thereupon signed an agree- 
 ment not to fight again against the British, and was 
 allowed to withdraw to Chandernagore, where he 
 embarked for France, taking with him the enormous 
 wealth which he had amassed in Sindhia's service. 
 He was succeeded in command of Sindhia's troops 
 by another Frenchman, named Bourquien, who 
 retreated to a strong position covering Delhi, from 
 which he was driven by General Lake with a loss of 
 6'^ guns and 3000 men, the British casualties being 
 only 400 killed and wounded. Delhi fell into the 
 conqueror's hands, and the Mogul emperor. Shah 
 Alum, was replaced on the throne, and became a 
 pensioner of the East India Company. Bourquien 
 and the French officers serving under him made 
 
28 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 terms with General Lake, and were permitted to 
 leave the country ; and the Mahratta troops, thus 
 deprived of their leaders, fell back on Agra, where, 
 on the loth October, they were again defeated and 
 dispersed. The Agra garrison shortly afterwards 
 surrendered, and the British force occupied the fort, 
 which contained a large dep6t of stores, 164 guns, 
 and 28 lakhs of treasure. Sindhia, with surprising 
 obstinacy, determined to continue the struggle, and 
 formed a fresh corps about 16,000 strong with 70 
 guns, out of the remains of Perron's regiments, 
 supplemented by fourteen of the best battalions of 
 his own army. This corps was attacked by Lake at 
 Laswarrie, near Agra, on the ist November ; 5000 of 
 the Mahratta troops were killed or wounded ; and 
 the whole of Sindhia's guns, baggage, and stores 
 fell into the hands of the British. 
 
 On the eastern side of the Peninsula the district of 
 Cuttack, forming part of the Raja of Berar's territory, 
 was occupied without much opposition by a column 
 under Colonel Harcourt ; and on the western side 
 Colonel Woodington, acting under General Wei- 
 lesley's orders, besieged the fort of Broach, which 
 belonged to Sindhia, and took it by assault on the 
 29th August. Thus assailed on the north, south, and 
 west, Sindhia endeavoured to gain time by proposing 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 29 
 
 an armistice, in which the Raja of Berar was not 
 included ; and this was agreed to early in November 
 by General Wellesley, who considered it would be ad- 
 vantageous to break up the alliance existing between 
 the two Mahratta chiefs and to continue the war against 
 the Raja of Berar. While negotiations were going on 
 between Wellesley and Sindhia, Colonel Stevenson 
 was directed to march from Asirgarh, which had 
 recently been captured, towards the Raja of Berar's 
 territory, and to lay siege to the fort of Gawilgarh. 
 Wellesley intended to cover and support Stevenson's 
 operations with his own force ; but on approaching 
 Gawilgarh he received information that Sindhia, 
 contrary to his agreement, had united his troops with 
 those of the Raja, and taken up a position threatening 
 the line of advance. Effecting a junction with 
 Stevenson's column, Wellesley moved in the direction 
 of the enemy, and on the 29th of November, after a 
 march of twenty -six miles, found the Mahratta army 
 drawn up in front of the village of Argaum. 
 Although it was late in the day, Wellesley decided 
 to attack, and drew up his troops in two lines, 
 the infantry in front, the regular cavalry in the second 
 line supporting the right, and the irregular cavalry 
 on the left. The British force numbered about 14,000, 
 exclusive of 4000 irregular horse ; and the Mahratta 
 
30 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 force, consisting chiefly of cavalry, numbered 40,000. 
 When the first line came under the enemy's guns, 
 three of the Sepoy battalions which had behaved 
 with great gallantry at the battle of Assaye were 
 seized with a sudden panic and fled. " Luckily," the 
 General remarked in a letter to his brother's military 
 secretary, " I happened to be at no great distance 
 from them, and I was able to rally them and re- 
 establish the battle. If I had not been there, I am 
 convinced we should have lost the day." This 
 incident necessitated the front line being reformed, 
 which caused some delay ; but eventually the infantry 
 advanced with great steadiness, the right being 
 pushed forward with the object of turning the 
 enemy's left. On the failure of two attempts on the 
 part of the enemy's cavalry to throw the line into 
 confusion, which were repulsed with great slaughter, 
 the Mahrattas abandoned their position, leaving 
 38 guns with all their ammunition and stores on the 
 field. The cavalry of the British force pursued the 
 enemy by moonlight for several miles, destroying 
 large numbers and capturing many elephants and 
 camels. The total loss on the British side was not 
 very serious, amounting to 46 Europeans and Natives 
 killed and 293 wounded. 
 
 This victory having opened the road to Gawilgarh, 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 31 
 
 Wellesley ordered the troops under his immediate 
 command, together with Stevenson's column, to 
 resume their march on November 30th, and after a 
 short investment the fort was taken by assault on the 
 15th December, with a loss on the British side of only 
 126 killed and wounded. The governor of the fort, 
 his principal officers, and the greater part of the 
 garrison lost their lives ; and 52 guns, 2000 English 
 muskets, and a large quantity of ammunition fell 
 into the hands of the besiegers. These operations, 
 combined with the successes achieved in other parts 
 of India, resulted in the Raja of Berar and Sindhia 
 suing for peace ; and in December 1803 Wellesley 
 concluded treaties with them, under which they ceded 
 in perpetuity to the East India Company the 
 important cities of Delhi, Agra, Broach, and Ahmed- 
 nagar, transferred territory yielding an annual 
 revenue of three millions sterling, and engaged not 
 to take any Europeans into their service except with 
 the sanction of the Government of India. 
 
 Early in 1804 Wellesley set out on his return 
 towards Poona, but on his way he found it necessary 
 to break up a band of Mahratta freebooters who had 
 been plundering along the western frontier of the 
 Nizam's dominions. Taking with him one British 
 and three Native cavalry regiments, and a small 
 
32 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 detachment of infantry, he made a forced march of 
 sixty miles in thirty hours, and coming up with 
 the Mahratta force, already in retreat, he charged 
 it with his cavalry, and completely routed and dis- 
 persed it. 
 
 Wellesley visited Bombay on his way to Poona, 
 and from the latter place submitted an application to 
 the Commander-in-Chief in India for leave to return 
 to England on the ground of ill-health. He also 
 resigned the military and political powers vested in 
 him by the Governor-General. From Poona he was 
 ordered to Calcutta, which place he reached at the 
 beginning of August, by way of Seringapatam and 
 Madras. The following month the news arrived of 
 the reverses sustained by Colonel Monson, who had 
 been selected by General Lake to command a force 
 intended to drive Holkar out of Rajputana. Owing 
 to Monson's vacillation and incapacity, this force was 
 disastrously defeated, and Holkar's success seemed 
 likely to encourage Sindhia and the Raja of Berar to 
 renew their struggle against the British power. The 
 Governor-General offered his brother's services to 
 General Lake, but the latter preferred that Wellesley 
 should resume his previous command in the Deccan, 
 and accordingly he returned to Seringapatam at the 
 end of November. In December Holkar was de- 
 
^H 
 
 ^ 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 33 
 
 feated by Lake, and all danger of a Mahratta 
 combination was at an end. 
 
 In February, 1805, Wellesley again asked to be 
 allowed to return to England, his health not having 
 improved, and prolonged service in India being 
 extremely distasteful to him. The Government and 
 the military authorities raised no objection, and he 
 embarked at Madras towards the end of March. 
 Before leaving India he received news of his appoint- 
 ment to be an extra Knight Companion of the 
 Bath, which, under the original constitution of the 
 order, was a higher distinction than the Grand 
 Cross of the Bath is at present, and the thanks of 
 the King and Parliament were communicated to 
 him in a general order by the Governor-General in 
 Qoyncil. 
 
 Jrhere can, I think, be little doubt that much of 
 Wellington's subsequent success in the Peninsula was 
 due to the experience he gained in India as a soldier, 
 a politician, and an administrator. The dunce of the 
 family, the somewhat frivolous aide-de-camp to the 
 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, the young man whom his 
 mother considered to be only food for powder, was 
 able to show in the retreat from Antwerp to Bremen 
 that he knew how to manoeuvre his battalion and to 
 command a reaF^uard. On his arrival in India he 
 
 D 
 
34 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 * " 
 
 found himself in a country where in almost every 
 matter the power and influence of the Governor- 
 General were supreme, and the Governor-General 
 being his brother, he was quickly placed in a position 
 of responsibility, which gave him the opportunity of 
 developing his talents as a soldier and statesman in 
 the best of all schools — the school of practice. It 
 cannot be denied that in early life Wellington owed 
 much to family influence, and to a system of pro- 
 motion which would now be stigmatised as jobbery. 
 On the other hand, he took full advantage of every 
 chance that was thrown in his way, and by his 
 industry and capacity fully justified the exceptional 
 favour with which he was treated. 
 
 The following appear to me to be the most 
 interesting points in Wellington's early career. First, 
 the hardships suffered by the British soldiers in the 
 retreat through Holland seem to have impressed upon 
 him the necessity for keeping troops employed on 
 field service in the best possible fighting condition, 
 and his views on this point were strengthened by 
 what he observed and learned in India, the result 
 being that no commander has ever realised more fully 
 than he did that the efliciency of a field army can 
 only be maintained by attending most carefully and 
 constantly to the organisation of its several depart- 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 35 
 
 ments. When the force was being prepared at 
 Madras and Vellore for the siege of Seringapatam, 
 Wellesley himself supervised the commissariat and 
 transport arrangements. Later, when he was en- 
 trusted with an independent command, his first 
 thought was to improve his bullock train ; and in 
 order to supplement his departmental resources he en- 
 couraged the Brinjarries, or itinerant grain merchants, 
 to attach themselves to his force by promising them 
 protection and liberal treatment. He took every 
 precaution to ensure the safety of his convoys, and 
 gave the most minute instructions for the periodical 
 replenishment of his supply dep6ts. He spared 
 neither time nor trouble in dealing with such matters 
 as the repair of his ordnance carriages and the 
 provision of a pontoon train. Finding when he 
 occupied Poona that serious delay was likely to occur 
 in procuring new gun wheels from Bombay, he 
 established workshops of his own, and he drew up an 
 elaborate memorandum on the subject of pontoons, 
 in which he not only gave the dimensions of the 
 requisite boats and equipment, but described in detail 
 the method of laying a bridge. He was strongly 
 averse to the system of requisitions, as being almost 
 certain to demoralise the troops and alienate the 
 population of the country. He always endeavoured, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 therefore, to obtain supplies either by transporting 
 them from his advanced dep6ts, by purchase on the 
 spot, or through the agency of the Brinjarries. 
 Indian campaigns of a century ago resemble in their 
 main features those which have been carried on in 
 later years on the borders of our Indian Empire. It 
 is one of the peculiarities of Asiatic warfare that 
 the facilities and resources which are furnished by 
 European civilisation for the concentration, move- 
 ment, and subsistence of large bodies of men are 
 either entirely wanting, or exist in such a rudimentary 
 form that considerable skill and practical experience 
 are required to turn them to the best account. A 
 commander of troops in India cannot hope to be 
 successful unless he has acquainted himself with every 
 detail of his profession. He must know not only how 
 to manoeuvre and fight, but how to feed and clothe 
 his men, to arrange for their payment, to provide for 
 the care of the sick and wounded, and to improvise 
 the means for overcoming the countless difficulties 
 which are continually presenting themselves in the 
 course of a campaign. From the time of Clive up to 
 the present day India has been a valuable training 
 school for the British army, and to none were its 
 lesions of greater advantage than to the illustrious 
 soldier who in the Peninsula and the Netherlands 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 37 
 
 adhered to the principles and methods which he had 
 learnt in the East. 
 
 The rapid development of Wellington's administra- 
 tive talents is in the highest degree remarkable. 
 Placed, at the age of thirty, at the head of the civil 
 and military government of Mysore, he quickly 
 restored order throughout that conquered province, 
 and though, in his opinion, the natives of India, both 
 Hindus and Mohammedans, were incurably vicious, 
 cruel, and deceitful, he acted towards them with such 
 fairness and liberality that they accepted his rule as a 
 welcome change from the tyranny of their own princes. 
 He displayed the same equitable and indulgent spirit 
 in his dealings with the Nizam and the Mahratta 
 chiefs, and it was mainly owing to the confidence 
 which he inspired in the minds of Sindhia and the 
 Raja of Berar that he was able to conclude treaties 
 with them so advantageous to the East India 
 Company. He had to be constantly on his guard 
 against the treachery and duplicity of the Native 
 rulers, who, while nominally the Allies of the British 
 Government, did their utmost to defeat his plans and 
 embarrass his movements. Nevertheless he uniformly 
 acted in the most conciliatory manner towards them, 
 and by maintaining the strictest order and discipline 
 among the troops under his command, did all in his 
 
38 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 power for the protection of the life and property of 
 the people of the country. He thus established 
 British prestige and the influence of the British 
 Government throughout the Deccan and Southern 
 India. 
 
 Another point deserving of notice is Wellington's 
 correct appreciation of our position as an alien Power 
 controlling a vast and heterogeneous Oriental popula- 
 tion. He pointed out, in words as true now as when 
 they were written, that the Government of India 
 depends for its stability on the sword, and that, as 
 our responsibilities become greater with the extension 
 of our territory, the cost of the army must proportion- 
 ately increase. To use his own words, "the con- 
 clusion of the most successful foreign war in India, 
 that by which the most formidable enemy may have 
 been subdued, if it gives an accession of territory, 
 must bring with the territory a necessity to increase 
 the army, because the government must be established 
 in the new territory, and supported, as well as in the 
 old, by the power of the sword. The want of know- 
 ledge, or rather of recollection of these facts, is the 
 cause of all the complaints of high military establish- 
 ments and expenses." Is not this the case at the 
 present time } A cry is being raised against the cost 
 of the army in India, in forgetfulness of the fact that 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 39 
 
 Baluchistan and Upper Burma have within the last 
 fifteen years been added to the Empire, and that the ]^ 
 rapid advance of a rival Power has obliged us to 
 strengthen and improve our army, and to spend 
 money on the necessary defence of the North-West 
 Frontier. It seems also to be forgotten that the 
 revenue of India is collected in rupees, while many of 
 the charges for the army have to be paid in sterling. 
 
 With respect to the distribution of the army in 
 India, Wellington was at first in favour of keeping 
 the greater portion of the troops in standing camps, 
 and of holding only those fortresses which appeared 
 to be indispensable to the internal security of the 
 country. Before he left India he changed his views, 
 and recommended that most of the existing forts 
 should be kept up, and that the troops in each 
 province should be concentrated in a few healthy 
 and well-situated cantonments, with their field equip- 
 age always in readiness. This arrangement, he 
 thought, would increase the mobility of the troops, 
 and would admit of their discipline and training, as 
 well as their health, being more carefully attended to. 
 Of the soundness of this principle there can be no 
 doubt, but for many years after Wellington's departure 
 from India an opposite course was followed, until the 
 disasters of the Mutiny impressed upon the Govern- 
 
40 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ment and the military authorities the advantages of 
 concentration. 
 
 It is also worthy of note that Wellington was 
 strongly in favour of encouraging the Native States 
 to keep up armies capable of taking the field and 
 assisting in the defence of the country.- This policy, 
 I am glad to say, has lately been accepted by the 
 Government of India, and the Imperial Service 
 contingents maintained by the principal feudatories 
 of the Empire will, if judiciously managed, add very 
 materially to our military strength. 
 
 As regards the knowledge of strategy and tactics 
 displayed by Wellington in the course of his field 
 operations, it is evident that he fully realised the 
 supreme importance in Eastern warfare of prompti- 
 tude of action, and audacity in assuming the offensive 
 even though the enemy might be enormously superior 
 in number. This was shown at the battle of Assaye, 
 where, if he had hesitated in the smallest degree, 
 a serious defeat, instead of a brilliant victory, would 
 have been the result. On that occasion his dis- 
 positions are certainly open to criticism. His 
 knowledge of the enemy's movements was so de- 
 fective that he came upon the Mahratta army a day 
 sooner than he expected, and before he had been 
 joined by the large portion of his force which was 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 41 
 
 under Colonel Stevenson's command. Having, how- 
 ever, resolved to attack, he marched his troops along 
 the enemy's front in the immediate presence of a 
 large body of hostile cavalry ; and the ford by which 
 he crossed the Kaitna was not only under the fire of 
 the Mahratta artillery, but capable of being easily 
 defended by a detachment of the Mahratta infantry. 
 " Luckily," he wrote, " they did not occupy the ford. 
 If they had, I must have gone lower down ; and 
 possibly I should have been obliged to make a road 
 across the river, which would have taken so much 
 time that I should not have had day enough to 
 attack." When the river had been crossed the 
 premature advance of the right of his line threw the 
 infantry on that flank into confusion, and to relieve it 
 he had to make use of his cavalry, which consequently 
 lost its cohesion and was unable to make a vigorous 
 pursuit. 
 
 At the battle of Argaum the arrangements were 
 more carefully matured, the entire British force was 
 united, and the enemy, dispirited by a previous defeat, 
 did not offer the same stubborn resistance as at 
 Assaye. Here again Wellington's promptitude and 
 decision were displayed, for he engaged the enemy at 
 once, though his troops were fatigued by a long 
 march and it was late in the day before the attack 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 could be delivered. So with the sieges of Ahmed- 
 nagar, Burhanpur, Asirgarh, and Gawilgarh ; they 
 were conducted with skill and foresight, and the 
 general plan of campaign was admirably designed to 
 protect the Allies of the East India Company, to drive 
 the Mahrattas out of the Deccan, and to break up the 
 alliance between Sindhia and the Raja of Berar. 
 
 The first three volumes of "Wellington's Dis- 
 patches," which relate to India, throw considerable 
 light on his personal character. He seems to have 
 been an ambitious man, with a high opinion of his 
 own qualifications and services. He had no fear of 
 responsibility, and whatever duty was entrusted to 
 him he desired to carry it out free from all interference 
 or control on the part of equal or superior authority. 
 There is no doubt he rendered most valuable 
 assistance to the Commander-in-Chief of the Madras 
 army in supervising the transport and commissariat 
 arrangements previous to the advance on Sering- 
 apatam ; and it appears that General Harris not only 
 treated him with friendship and confidence, but also 
 brought his services to the special notice of his brother 
 the Governor-General. Still he complained to the 
 latter that the Commander-in-Chief adopted his ideas 
 without giving him due credit for them, and remarked : 
 " I wish for several reasons that you had a com- 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 
 
 43 
 
 mander-in-chief under you who, when he approved 
 of the conduct of an officer, would have a sufficiency 
 of spirit to make known his approbation." When 
 Seringapatam had been captured, and Wellesley was 
 appointed Commandant of that city in supersession 
 of Major-General Baird, he does not seem to have 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL BAIRD. 
 
 realised that the latter officer had been hardly treated, 
 or that he himself owed his exceptional advancement 
 to his relationship with the Governor-General. When 
 he was made military and civil Governor of the 
 province of Mysore, it had at first been intended to 
 associate with him a civil commissioner, who had been 
 
44 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 attached to the Nizam's contingent during the 
 campaign. Wellington refused point blank to divide 
 his authority with any one, expressing himself to the 
 Marquis Wellesley in the following forcible terms : 
 " I intend to ask to be brought away with the army 
 if any civil servant of the Company is to be here, or 
 any person with civil authority who is not under my 
 orders ; for I know that the whole is a system of job 
 and corruption from beginning to end, of which I and 
 my troops would be made the instruments." Then 
 followed his mortification at finding that the Govern- 
 ment of India had thought proper to appoint a Major- 
 General to command the expedition to Egypt, and 
 his annoyance at the selection of General Baird. On 
 this occasion he wrote to his brother Henry : '' This 
 supersession has ruined all my prospects, founded 
 upon any service that I may have rendered. ... It 
 must have been occasioned either by my own mis- 
 conduct, or by an alteration in the sentiments of the 
 Governor- General. I have not been guilty of robbery 
 or murder, and he has certainly changed his mind ; 
 but the world, which is always good-natured towards 
 those whose affairs do not exactly prosper, will not, 
 or rather does not, fail to suspect that both, or worse, 
 have been the occasion of my being banished, like 
 General Kray, to my estate in Hungary." Just before 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 45 
 
 Wellington left India he wrote very bitterly about the 
 East India Company : " I have served the Company in 
 important situations for many years, and have never 
 received anything but injury from the Court of 
 Directors." There is, however, nothing to show in 
 what particular way he had suffered at the hands of 
 these gentlemen. 
 
 The failure of Wellington's health was, no doubt, 
 one of his principal reasons for deciding to return to 
 England. At the same time he had come to the con- 
 clusion that it was opposed to his own interests to stay 
 longer in India, as he felt convinced that his services 
 in that country, however distinguished they might be, 
 would give him no claim to advancement in the home 
 army. " I think," he says, " that I have served as 
 long in India as any man ought, who can serve any- 
 where else ; and I think that there appears a prospect 
 of service in Europe, in which I should be more likely 
 to get forward." And again — " I acknowledge that 
 I never have been very sanguine in my expect- 
 ations that military services in India would be con- 
 sidered in the scale in which are considered similar 
 services in other parts of the world." 
 
 It is pleasant to notice that, during his stay in 
 India, Wellington, though extremely strict in matters 
 of discipline, was kind and considerate to the troops 
 
46 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 under his command, and was respected and liked by 
 his officers. Mr. Gleig, in his Life of Wellington, 
 quotes the following passage from a letter written in 
 1802 by a young officer of the East India Company's 
 Service to his friends in England : " Everything goes 
 well, because Colonel Wellesley is in command. 
 Whatever he undertakes he does admirably. 
 Perhaps it was hardly fair to employ him rather 
 
 than General ; but we are all delighted to have 
 
 him at our head, he makes us so confident and so 
 comfortable." Major-General NicoUs refers in his 
 journal to the attention paid by Wellington to the 
 sick and wounded after the battle of Assaye. He 
 furnished them with wine from his own stock, re- 
 peatedly visited them, and made every possible 
 arrangement for their comfort. He regarded it as 
 most important from a financial and military, as well 
 as from a humanitarian point of view, that proper 
 care should be taken of the health of the British 
 soldier in India. Writing to Colonel Murray on the 
 subject of the barracks at Surat, he observed : ''Every 
 attention must be paid to economy, but I consider no- 
 thing in this country so valuable as the life and health 
 of the British soldier, and nothing so expensive as 
 soldiers in hospital. I request you to pay particular 
 attention to their discipline and regularity, and to pre- 
 
THE INDIAN PERIOD. 47 
 
 vent their getting intoxicating liquors, which tend to 
 their destruction." Wellington's appreciation of the 
 good qualities of our Native soldiers is shown by his 
 repeatedly comparing them in after life to the 
 Portuguese troops, who, towards the close of the 
 Peninsular War, attained a very high standard of 
 efficiency. " The Sepoys," he used to say, " like the 
 Portuguese, would go anywhere and do anything, 
 when led by British officers and supported by British 
 troops." 
 
 So highly was Wellington esteemed in the army of 
 the Deccan, that, when he relinquished his command, 
 the officers who had served under his immediate 
 orders presented him with a service of plate of the 
 value of two thousand guineas. 
 
 There are many other points of interest in Welling- 
 ton's Indian career, with which I am unable to deal 
 within the limits of this article. His indefatigable 
 industry, his sound and cool judgment, and his 
 political sagacity were as remarkable as his military 
 talents. A masterful, ambitious man, he went home 
 apparently somewhat disappointed with the results of 
 his eight years' service in the East, and determined 
 to push his way in a wider field than India affi^rded. 
 Yet during those eight years he had risen to the rank 
 of Major-General and become a K.B., had acquired a 
 
48 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 large amount of prize money at Seringapatam and in 
 the Deccan, had been entrusted with high military 
 command, and had filled important administrative 
 and political appointments. His return to England 
 was opportune. His country needed the services of 
 an officer who to the vigour and audacity of youth 
 united a sound judgment, an equable temper, and a 
 thorough knowledge of his profession. His oppor- 
 tunity was not long in coming, and "the Sepoy 
 General," as he was contemptuously styled by those 
 who underrated the value of an Indian training, was 
 soon to show the nations of Europe that he could be a 
 match, and more than a match, for the Marshals of 
 France. 
 
( 49 
 
 " In the beginning of each war England has to seek 
 in blood the knowledge necessary to ensure success ; 
 and, Hke the fiend's progress toward Eden, her con- 
 quering course is through chaos followed by death." — 
 Napier, ' Peninsular War.' 
 
 CHAPTER II. ~ 
 
 As stated in my previous chapter, Major-General Sir 
 Arthur Wellesley, K.B., left India in March 1805, 
 and, after an absence of nine years, reached England 
 in September. Shortly after his arrival, he was 
 selected for the command of a brigade in an ex- 
 pedition to Hanover under Lord Cathcart. But the 
 victory which Napoleon gained at Austerlitz in 
 December broke up the European coalition against 
 him, and the British troops had hardly landed in 
 Germany before it was found necessary to recall 
 them. On the return of the expedition, in February 
 1806, Major-General Wellesley was appointed to 
 command an infantry brigade at Hastings, and soon 
 afterwards was elected Member of Parliament for 
 
 E 
 
50 TBE 'RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Rye. He took an active part in the House of Com- 
 mons in defending his brother's administration as 
 Governor-General of India, which had been impugned 
 by a party opposed to the territorial aggrandisement 
 of the East India Company. General Wellesley's 
 clear exposition of the nature of our rule in India 
 and of the perils which had been avoided by the 
 adoption of a resolute course of action in dealing with 
 the Mahratta States, convinced a large majority of the 
 House of Commons, and a vote was passed in support 
 of his brother's policy. 
 
 In September 1806 the death of Fox led to the 
 formation of a new Ministry, with the Duke of Port- 
 land at its head. The Duke of Richmond was / 
 appointed Lord-Lieuten^_ofIreland, and i n April ^ 
 1807 Majotj ^eneral W gllesley- accepted th.e-.Q£Oice of \ 
 Chief Secretary^ foi^-that country. During the early 
 part of the same year the victories of Eylau and 
 Friedland made Napoleon absolute master on the 
 Continent, and induced the Emperor of Russia to 
 enter into an alliance with the French, the terms 
 of which were ostensibly embodied in the treaty of 
 Tilsit. In connection with this treaty, however, there 
 were certain secret articles, one of them being that 
 the Danish fleet should be placed at Napoleon's 
 disposal. This arrangement seriously menaced the 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 5* 
 
 sea power of England, and the British Government 
 determined to despatch a combined naval and military 
 -expedition to Copenhagen for the purpose of seizing 
 the Danish ships, dockyard, and arsenal. The troops 
 ordered on this service, numbering 27,000 men, were 
 commanded by Lord Cathcart ; the reserve, con- 
 sisting of four infantry battalions with some German 
 horse, being placed under Major-General Wellesley. 
 
 The object of the expedition was kept a profound 
 secret until the force had arrived at its destination, 
 when Lord Cathcart called upon the Danish Govern- 
 ment to place its fleet and maritime stores in the 
 temporary custody of England, pending the conclusion 
 of a general European peace. The Prince Royal of 
 Denmark refused to accede to this summons, and 
 endeavoured by all the means in his power to prevent 
 its enforcement. Lord Cathcart, therefore, invested 
 the city, and directed General Wellesley with a 
 division about 5000 strong to attack and disperse the 
 Danish troops operating in the field. Wellesley found 
 the latter, to the number of about 14,000, occupying a 
 position at Kioge, the front of which was protected by 
 earthworks ; and after a short engagement defeated 
 them with considerable loss. Meanwhile, batteries 
 had been constructed by the investing army ; andj 
 after being bombarded for three days by these 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 batteries, and by the guns of the British fleet, Copen- 
 hagen capitulated, and the demands of the British 
 Government were complied with. England thus ob-- 
 tained possession of fifteen line-of-battle ships, several 
 frigates, and 20,000 tons of naval stores. The action 
 taken by the Cabinet was not only prompt and 
 decisive, but also somewhat unusual, if judged by the 
 ordinary rules of international comity. On this account 
 it has been condemned by many Continental writers. 
 Nevertheless, the course adopted appears to have 
 been justifiable, on the ground that Napoleon's secret 
 compact with Russia threatened our maritime su- 
 premacy — and consequently, our national existence — 
 by handing over to the French Emperor the resources 
 of a neutral state, which, however well disposed 
 towards us, was too weak to preserve its neutrality. 
 General Wellesley distinguished himself in Zealand, 
 not only by his defeat of the Danish troops at Kioge, 
 but by the strict discipline which he maintained among 
 his own men, and the protection which he afforded to 
 the inhabitants of the island. 
 
 The expedition returned to England in October, 
 GeneraK, Wellesley preceding it by a few weeks in 
 order to resume his functions as Secretary for Ireland. 
 In February 1808, he received the thanks of Parlia- 
 ment for his conduct at Copenhagen, and in the July 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 53 
 
 following, he was appointed to command an expedi- 
 tion which was being assembled at Cork for operations 
 in Portugal or the south of Spain. 
 
 Before describing Wellington's campaign in the 
 Peninsula, it seems desirable briefly to refer to the 
 condition of affairs then prevailing in that part of 
 Europe. /After the conclusion of the treaty of Tilsit, 
 Napoleon had, for the time, disposed of all his Conti- 
 nental enemies, and, at the instigation of Russia, he 
 resolved first to subjugate Portugal, and afterwards to 
 expel the Bourbon dynasty from Spain, substituting 
 
 his brother Joseph for Charles IV^; Russia encouraged 
 
 J 
 the French Emperor in his designs upon the Peninsula, 
 
 first, in order to withdraw his attention from Poland, 
 
 and, secondly, in the event of a general peace, to secure 
 
 his assent to the incorporation in the Russian Empire 
 
 of Finland, Wallachia, and Moldavia. ^Napoleon was 
 
 anxious to completely subjugate Portugal, because 
 
 that country was the traditional ally of England, and 
 
 an extensive and lucrative trade was carried on 
 
 between the two nations. He also regarded it as 
 
 necessary to his Continental system, and conducive to 
 
 the strength and permanence of his dynasty, that a 
 
 member of his own family should replace the Bourbons 
 
 on the Spanish throne. The Portuguese as a race were 
 
 well disposed towards England, and ready to welcome 
 
54 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 British assistance in maintaining their independence. 
 The Spaniards, on the other hand, wished to be 
 left alone to manage their own affairs ; and though 
 they objected to French interference, and greedily 
 accepted the money and stores which the British 
 
 SIR HEW DALRYMPLE. 
 
 Government so lavishly supplied, they appear to have 
 disliked the English even more than they did the 
 FrenchN This is shown by the speech which Castaiios 
 made to the French officers after the affair at 
 Baylen, when he remarked : " Let not Napoleon 
 persevere in aiming at a conquest which is unattainable. 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 55 
 
 Let him not force us into the arms of the English. 
 They are hateful to us, and up to the present moment 
 we have rejected their proffered succours." The 
 revolt of the Spanish colonies in America increased 
 the ill-feeling against England. This revolt was as 
 ruinous to Spain as it was advantageous to our own 
 merchants, who were enabled to participate in a trans- 
 atlantic trade which had previously been monopolised 
 by the parent kingdom. 
 
 As regards the Portuguese and Spanish troops, both 
 at first were equally useless, not on account of the 
 inferiority of the raw material, but because the officers 
 were bigoted, conceited, and devoid of any idea of 
 discipline and subordination. The Portuguese, how- 
 ever, were wise enough to recognise their own ineffi- 
 ciency, and to submit themselves to the control of 
 British officers, under whose supervision they gradually 
 improved until, in Wellington's opinion, they became 
 equal to the native troops of the East India Company. 
 The Spaniards, a manly and martial race, with 
 glorious military traditions, could neither learn nor 
 forget. They would not tolerate for a moment the 
 interference of any foreign agency with the discipline 
 and organisation of their soldiers. " I am quite con- 
 vinced," said Wellington, "that the Spanish officers 
 would rather submit to France than consent to give 
 
56 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 to US the smallest authority over their troops ; neither 
 will they allow that our officers know more than their 
 own." And yet these troops were so badly commanded 
 as to be almost worthless. Wellington remarked of 
 them : " They are mere children in the art of war : 
 they know only how to advance, how to take to flight, 
 and reassemble again, as if they were in a state of 
 nature." One of their own generals, the Duke of 
 Albuquerque, speaking of Cuesta's army, made the 
 following admission : '' In our marches we stopped to 
 rest like a flock of sheep, without taking up any posi- 
 tion. By-and-by we resumed our journey like pilgrims, 
 without paying any attention to distances, order, or 
 formation." Napoleon was of a similar opinion. 
 Writing in August 1808, he said : "The whole body 
 of insurrectionary forces is incapable of beating 25,000 
 French in a good position." And Berthier, in a letter 
 to Joseph Bonaparte, dated January 31st, 18 10, 
 observed : " The Emperor considers that the English 
 alone are formidable in Spain. The rest are the 
 merest canaille^ which can never keep the field." 
 
 Another obstacle to the proper organisation of the 
 national forces for the defence of the Peninsula was 
 the violent animosity that existed between the 
 Spaniards and Portuguese — an animosity of long 
 standings which had been fostered by the convention 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 57 
 
 entered into by Napoleon and Charles IV. in 1807, 
 providing for the expulsion from Portugal of the 
 reigning house of Braganza, and the partition of that 
 country and its colonial possessions between France 
 and Spain. 
 
 Yet another difficulty was the state of official and 
 popular feeling in England. The British Government 
 had but little confidence in the capacity of its military 
 commanders. Pitt, as Lord Rosebery points out in 
 his Life of that statesman, "had no generals. He 
 discovered the genius of Wellington, but did not live 
 to profit by it." Previously, when Lord North had a 
 list of officers submitted to him for the commands in 
 America, he observed : " I know not what effect these 
 names may have on the enemy, but I know they 
 make me tremble." " It was doubted," says Lord 
 Londonderry, " whether among our own generals there 
 could be found any capable of opposing the experi- 
 enced and skilful warriors of France. We had never 
 been accustomed to carry on war upon a large scale 
 except in India ; and in India it was believed, for the 
 successful conduct of a campaign, talents of the first 
 order were hardly required." On the other hand the 
 British public attached undue value to the national 
 spirit and patriotism of the Spaniards. They 
 imagined that enthusiasm could take the place of 
 
58 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 dicipline and training, and when they saw Spain over- 
 run, and the Spanish fortresses and capital occupied 
 by French troops, they were inclined to blame their 
 own officers rather than the arrogance and imbecility 
 of those responsible for the organisation of the Spanish 
 army. From the foregoing remarks it will be seen 
 that, in attempting to maintain the independence of 
 the Peninsula, the British Government was under- 
 taking a task of extraordinary difficulty, and that a 
 successful issue could not be hoped for unless our 
 operations against the French were directed by a 
 commander possessing military, diplomatic, and 
 administrative talents of quite an exceptional order. 
 Fortunately for England and Europe, such a man 
 was forthcoming in the person of Wellington. 
 
 In the summer of 1807 Napoleon sent a force under 
 Junot to invade Portugal and occupy Lisbon. Shortly 
 afterwards the principal Spanish fortresses were seized 
 by the French, and an army under Murat's command 
 captured Madrid in March 1808. Two months later 
 Charles IV. ceded his throne to the French Emperor, 
 who nominated his brother Joseph to succeed the 
 Bourbon king. Joseph entered his capital in July, 
 but had not been there many days before the Spanish 
 nation rose in revolt, attacked the French troops, and 
 forced their new sovereign to retire behind the Ebro. 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 59 
 
 The British Ministry assisted the Spaniards with 
 large supplies of money and warlike stores, and in 
 July 1808 determined to send an expedition to the 
 Tagus with the object of expelling the French from 
 Portugal and inducing the inhabitants of that country 
 
 LIEUTENANT-GENERAL THE HON. JOHN HOPE. 
 
 to join in the insurrection against Napoleon. The 
 expeditionary force at first numbered about 9500 
 men, and the command of it was given to Wellesley, 
 who in April 1808 had been promoted to the rank of 
 Lieutenant-General. General Wellesley received his 
 instructions from Lord Castlereagh on June 30th. 
 
6o THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 A fortnight later the Cabinet thought it desirable to 
 raise the force to a strength of 30,000 men, and to 
 appoint Sir Hew Dalrymple to the chief command, 
 with Sir H. Burrard as second in command. Under 
 this new arrangement Lieutenant-General Wellesley 
 was to command one of the four divisions of the 
 army, the other divisional commanders being Lieu- 
 tenant-Generals the Hon. J. Hope, Lord Paget, and 
 Mackenzie Fraser. General Wellesley sailed from 
 Cork early in July, and after touching at Coruiia in 
 order to ascertain the state of affairs in Northern 
 Spain, resolved to disembark his troops at Mondego 
 Bay, in preference to the mouth of the Tagus, which 
 was defended by forts held by French soldiers and 
 by Russian men-of-war. Major-General Spencer, 
 > who was commanding a corps about 4800 strong at 
 Cadiz, was ordered to join General Wellesley, and 
 fortunately arrived at Mondego Bay about the same 
 time as the convoy from Cork. The French troops 
 at Junot's disposal did not exceed 20,000 men, and 
 of these not more than 17,000 were available for the 
 defence of Lisbon. One of his divisions, under 
 General Loison, was posted at Estremoz, on the 
 Spanish frontier. This he recalled by the Abrantes 
 road, and sent Laborde from Lisbon to check the 
 British advance and effect a junction with Loison at 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 6i 
 
 Leiria. General Wellesley, whose force, including the 
 reinforcement from Cadiz, numbered less than 14,000, 
 and was especially weak in cavalry and artillery, 
 moved rapidly southward, forestalled Laborde in the 
 occupation of Leiria, and compelled him to retire 
 upon Roliga, a village covering the road to Torres 
 Vedras. Laborde was thus prevented from joining 
 Loison, whose division had only just reached San- 
 tarem. On August 17th Wellesley attacked Laborde 
 at Roliga, and, after a severe engagement, in which 
 the British lost 420 killed and wounded and the 
 French 600, drove him back towards Torres Vedras. 
 The next day the British commander did not follow 
 up the enemy, first, because his cavalry numbered 
 only 470 sabres, and secondly, because he had received 
 news of the arrival of two additional brigades from 
 home, and thought it advisable to take up a position 
 near Vimeiro to cover their landing. This opera- 
 tion occupied two days, and during the interval 
 Junot was able to bring up Loison's division, and to 
 concentrate and reorganise his troops at Torres 
 Vedras. Marching thence on the evening of August 
 20th, he attacked early next morning the position 
 held by the British at Vimeiro. It had been 
 Wellesley's intention to assume the offensive and to 
 cut off the enemy from their base by a flank march 
 
62 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 along the sea coast, but the proposal was negatived 
 by Sir H. Burrard, who reached Maceira Bay on the 
 20th, but did not disembark until the following 
 morning. The result of the engagement at Vimeiro 
 was entirely in favour of the British force. The 
 French lost 1800 killed and wounded, and thirteen 
 guns, while the casualties on the English side did not 
 exceed 720. General Burrard appeared on the field 
 of battle, but did not interfere with the dispositions 
 of his predecessor in command, except to halt one of 
 the brigades at a most inopportune moment. By 
 noon the fate of the day was decided, and Wellesley 
 proposed at once to push forward with five brigades 
 with the object of forcing Junot into the Tagus valley, 
 while three other brigades, penetrating the defiles of 
 Torres Vedras, might occupy Mafra and cut off the 
 French from Lisbon. Burrard hesitated, consulted 
 his subordinates, and decided not to move. This 
 resolve so annoyed Wellesley that he remarked to 
 his staff : " Gentlemen, there is nothing for us to do 
 now but to hunt red-legged partridges." Burrard's 
 excessive caution enabled Junot to regain, on the 
 evening of the 21st, the position at Torres Vedras 
 which he had previously occupied, and the next day 
 Sir Hew Daliymple landed and assumed the chief 
 command. He also was in doubt whether to await 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 63 
 
 reinforcements or to order an immediate advance, 
 when the question was settled for him by Junot, who 
 proposed an armistice and subsequently opened 
 negotiations for the evacuation of Portugal by the 
 French army. General Wellesley was present as an 
 assessor when the terms of the armistice were being 
 discussed between the French General Kellermann 
 and Sir Hew Dalrymple ; and although he considered 
 that the conditions acceded to by the British com- 
 mander were unduly favourable to the enemy, he 
 signed the preliminary memorandum, dated August 
 22nd, at the request of General Dalrymple, who 
 regarded it as derogatory to his own dignity as a 
 commander-in-chief to treat directly with an officer 
 of inferior rank. The final convention was negotiated 
 by the Quartermaster-General of the force, Colonel 
 George Murray, and signed by him and General 
 Kellermann on August 30th. 
 
 Writing on September 6th to the Bishop of Oporto, 
 General Wellesley remarked : " Sir Hew Dalrymple, 
 the present Commander-in-Chief, landed on the 
 morning of August 22nd ; and on that evening he 
 negotiated in person with the French General Keller- 
 mann an agreement of the suspension of hostilities. 
 I was present during the negotiation of this agree- 
 ment ; and, by the desire of the Commander-in-Chief, 
 
64 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 I signed it. But I did not negotiate it, nor can I in 
 any manner be considered responsible for its con- 
 tents." A week before he had written privately to 
 Lord Castlereagh, informing him that matters were 
 not prospering, and that he wished to leave the army. 
 He added : " I have been too successful with this 
 army ever to serve with it in a subordinate situation, 
 with satisfaction to the person who shall command it, 
 and of course not to myself" On September 5th he 
 again addressed Lord Castlereagh in the following 
 terms : " It is quite impossible for me to continue any 
 longer with this army ; and I wish, therefore, that you 
 would allow me to return home and resume the duties 
 of my office ; or, if not, that I should remain upon the 
 staff in England ; or, if that should not be practicable, 
 that I should remain without employment." Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple was equally disinclined to retain General 
 Wellesley's services, and conveyed to him Lord 
 Castlereagh's proposal that he should be sent to 
 examine the northern provinces of Spain and report 
 on the possibility of defending them against a French 
 invasion. Wellesley declined this mission, pointing 
 out to Sir Hew Dalrymple that he was not a topo- 
 graphical engineer, and could not pretend to describe 
 in writing such a country as the Asturias. Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple apparently accepted this as a valid excuse, 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 65 
 
 for he suggested that officers of the Quartermaster- 
 General's department might more fittingly be em- 
 ployed on such a duty. 
 
 General Wellesley was eventually permitted to leave 
 the army, and he reached London on October 6th. 
 Before his departure the general officers who had 
 served under him while he was directing the opera- 
 tions presented him with a piece of plate, of the value 
 of a thousand guineas, as a testimony of their high 
 esteem and respect, and of their satisfaction at having 
 had the good fortune to serve under his command. 
 
 On Wellesley's return home a great outcry was 
 raised against the convention of Cintra, and the public 
 were inclined to throw the blame on him, rather than 
 on Sir Hew Dalrymple, who was really responsible. 
 The Government, however, recalled Sir Hew and his 
 second in command, and assembled a court of inquiry, 
 which arrived at no specific conclusion on the subject 
 of the armistice and convention, merely advising that 
 no further proceedings should be taken, and declaring 
 that unquestionable zeal and firmness had been dis- 
 played by Generals Dalrymple, Burrard, and Welles- 
 ley. The popular indignation having by this means 
 been pacified, the thanks of Parliament for the victory 
 of Vimeiro were accorded to General Wellesley in 
 January 1809. 
 
66 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 In the meantime the chief command of the British 
 army in Portugal had devolved on Sir John Moore, 
 who was feebly supported by the home authorities, 
 and much hampered by the ill-advised interference of 
 Mr. Frere, the British Minister at the headquarters of 
 the provisional Spanish Government. In November 
 1808 Napoleon, after confirming his alliance with 
 Russia and obtaining the Tzar's recognition of Joseph 
 as King of Spain, proceeded to Vittoria to assume the 
 command of the French forces in the Peninsula. He 
 there issued a proclamation to his soldiers, promising 
 them an easy victory over the British army, and 
 assuring them that " le hideux leopard qui souille la 
 Peninsule de sa presence prendra honteusement la 
 fuite a notre aspect." The French Emperor rapidly 
 overthrew the Spanish levies, and occupied Madrid on 
 December 4th. Here he received intelligence that 
 Sir John Moore was advancing into the north of 
 Spain to the relief of the capital, and at once con- 
 centrated an overwhelming force for the purpose of 
 cutting off the British army from the Tagus and the 
 Galician ports. Moore had reluctantly committed 
 himself to an offensive movement in answer to the 
 earnest appeal of the Junta and Mr. Frere, and he 
 naturally relied on the co-operation of the Spanish 
 troops and civil authorities. Receiving, however, no 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 67 
 
 support either in men or in supplies, he found himself 
 in an extremely perilous position, and was obliged to 
 withdraw as rapidly as possible. In spite of innumer- 
 able difficulties, he conducted his retreat in a most 
 masterly manner ; and after reaching CoruHa, on 
 January 12th, 1809, defeated the enemy on the i6th, 
 
 COLONEL GEORGE MURRAY. 
 
 and died a hero's death on the field of battle. The 
 British troops embarked the next day unmolested by 
 the French, and Marshal Soult, who was in command 
 of the latter, caused a monument to be erected in his 
 opponent's honour. Moore's reputation has been 
 unjustly assailed. He was one of the ablest and 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 most progressive of British generals ; but, in common 
 with most of his countrymen, he made the mistake of 
 supposing that the undisciplined Spanish forces could 
 offer an effective resistance to the veteran soldiers of 
 France. This belief appears to have been shared at 
 the time by Wellington, who, in a letter to the Hon. 
 C. Stewart, dated September ist, 1808, referred to 
 Sir Hew Dahymple's inaction in the following words : 
 " I do not know what Sir Hew Dalrymple proposes 
 to do, or is instructed to do ; but, if I were in his 
 situation, I would have twenty thousand men at 
 Madrid in less than a month from this time." 
 
 \ In the spring of 1809 the general state of affairs 
 was as follows. The British Ministry was perplexed 
 and the nation dispirited by Sir John Moore's retreat. 
 The Opposition also took the opportunity of de- 
 nouncing more violently than before the policy of 
 intervention on behalf of Spain and Portugal. Napo- 
 leon, after makingjiimself master of the whole of 
 
 xSpain, had started in January for J*aris, where he 
 began his preparations for another campaign against 
 
 ^Austria. The British troops remaining in Portugal 
 under Sirjohn Craddock's command were left with- 
 out funds or supplies, while they were threatened on 
 
 the north by Soult's occupation of Oporto and on the 
 east by the presence of Victor's army in the Tagus^ 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 69 
 
 valley. At one time the Cabinet had almost decided 
 to withdraw from the Peninsula, but before issuing 
 orders to that effect they consulted General Wellesley, 
 who, in a convincing memorandum, urged on the 
 Government the feasibil ity of defending Portuga l, and 
 of training the Portuguese troops under the super- 
 intendence of British officers, so as to render them 
 capable of facing the French. He pointed out that a 
 defence of this nature would be extremely useful to 
 the Spaniards in their contest with France, and that it 
 could be effected by the employment of a British 
 force of about 30,000 men, provided that England was 
 prepared to afford very extensive pecuniary assistance 
 and strong political support to the Portuguese nation 
 and that the organisation and control of the Portu- 
 guese army was placed entirely in the hands of the 
 British commander. These views commended them- 
 selves to His Majesty's Ministers, the more so as the 
 certainty of an early rupture between France and 
 Austria encouraged them to persevere in their struggle 
 against Napoleon ; but still they were by no means con- 
 fident of success, or disposed to devote all the energies 
 and resources of the nation to the vigorous prosecution 
 of the policy w hich W ellesley recommended. 
 
 In choosing an officer for the chief command in the 
 Peninsula, a difference of opinion appears to have 
 
70 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 arisen in the Cabinet ; but eventually Wellesley's 
 high military reputation and great social and political 
 influence carried the day, and the Government en- 
 trusted him with the. duty of giving efifect to his own 
 proposals. He accordingly resigned the office of 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland in April 1809, and at once 
 proceeded to LisJ^on, where he took over the com- 
 mand from Sir John Craddock. A month before, 
 Major-General Beresford, who had been appointed to 
 the command of the Portuguese forces with the local 
 rank of Marshal, had arrived, and begun his re- 
 organisation by selecting British officers for all the 
 more important military posts. With the help of 
 these officers and by his own tact and ability he 
 gradually raised the Portuguese troops to a high 
 standard of discipline and efficiency. General Welles- 
 ley had the chief command of the Portuguese as well 
 as of the British army, and in July 1809 he was given 
 the rank of Marshal-General in the Portuguese service. 
 Napoleon, on leaving Spain, had given orders to his 
 generals to continue the operations he had begun, 
 C with the object of driving the English out of the 
 ( Peninsula, and bringing the whole country into sub- 
 jection. Soult was directed to occupy Oporto by 
 February 5th, on which date he was to instruct 
 General Lapisse, who commanded a division at 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 Salamanca, to march upon Ciudad Rodrigo and 
 Abrantes. Reinforced by Lapisse, Marshal Victor, 
 who was stationed in the Tagus valley, was to 
 threaten Lisbon from the east, while Soult was to 
 advance upon that city from the north. As soon as 
 
 SIR JOHN MOORE. 
 
 Lisbon had been captured, and the British force com- 
 pelled to evacuate _ Portugal, Soult was to place a 
 portion of his troops at Victor's disposal, and the 
 latter, operating^ through Merida, was to make him- 
 self master of Seville. This plan was ably conceived, 
 
72 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 but depended for its success on the promptitude with 
 which it was carried out by the French commanders, 
 and on their being able to overcome the resistance of 
 the British army. Soult's troops had been greatly 
 fatigued by their rapid pursuit of Sir John Moore, 
 and consequently were unable to occupy Oporto 
 before the end of March. Victor, however, on the 
 28th of that month defeated the Spanish general, 
 Cuesta, with immense slaughter, at Medellin, east of 
 Merida ; and the following day a French division, 
 under Sebastiani, routed another Spanish force at 
 Ciudad Real, about a hundred miles south of Madrid. 
 Lapisse, instead of moving towards Abrantes on the 
 Tagus, joined Victor on the Guadiana at Merida on 
 April 19th. The French, therefore, were exceedingly 
 strong in Spanish Estremadura ; but, owing to the 
 Emperor's instructions, Victor awaited Soult's advance 
 on Lisbon before crossing the Portuguese frontier. 
 
 When Wellesley landed on April 22nd he perceived 
 that Soult and Victor were too far apart to afford 
 each other mutual support, and that he had it in his 
 power to act against either. He considered it of 
 .C primary importance to expeljhej^rench^from Oporto, 
 ^and thus carry out his scheme of maintaining the 
 integrity of Portugal, and using that country as a 
 base of operations against the French in Spain. 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 73 
 
 After taking the necessary steps to prevent, or at any 
 rate to retard, any movement that Victor might 
 attempt in the direction of Lisbon, Wellesley rapidly 
 concentrated his force, consisting of 13,000 British, 
 3000 German, and 9000 Portuguese soldiers, at 
 Coimbra, and, marching in two columns, reached the 
 Douro on May 12th. He found Soult's army in 
 occupation of Oporto, separated from him by a deep 
 and rapid river, three hundred and twenty yards in 
 width. He possessed no bridge equipment, and all the 
 country boats had been removed to the right bank of 
 the stream. Massing his artillery on a height which 
 commanded a strongly walled enclosure on the 
 opposite bank, he directed Captain Waters, a staff 
 officer of unrivalled activity and resource, to procure 
 some boats in which a crossing could be effected. 
 Captain Waters was fortunate enough to discover an 
 old boat hidden among the rushes and filled with 
 mud. In this, aided by a few peasants, he managed 
 to cross the river, and finding four barges with no 
 guard over them on the enemy's side, he succeeded in 
 bringing them away without attracting attention. 
 Detaching a column under General John Murray to 
 cross the river at Avintas, three miles above Oporto, 
 and thus threaten the French line of retreat, the 
 British commander managed to send over troops 
 
74 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 sufficient to hold the walled enclosure before the 
 enemy realised his intention ; other boats were pro- 
 cured from up-stream ; the river was crossed at 
 several points ; and eventually the French were 
 driven out of Oporto with such rapidity and in such 
 confusion that General Wellesley at four o'clock that 
 afternoon dined at the table which had been prepared 
 for Marshal Soult. General Murray failed to attack 
 the French flank in conformity with his instructions. 
 Had he done so, a large portion of the retreating force 
 would have been destroyed. As it was, Oporto fell 
 into the hands of the JEnglish, and Soult was com- 
 pelled to retire through Braga on Orense in Garcia, 
 where he arrived on May 19th with only 18,000 men, 
 having lost 6000 killed, wounded, and prisoners, as 
 well as his guns, ammunition, baggage, stores, and 
 military chest. 
 
 - Having thus for the time disposed of Soult, 
 Wellesley turned his attention towards Victor's army 
 quartered in the valley of the Upper Tagus ; and this 
 was the more necessary as General Lapisse had 
 seized the bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara, and 
 Soult, after reorganising and re-equipping his troops, 
 was beginning to move in a south-easterly direction 
 to Zamora on the Upper Douro, with the object of 
 reinforcing Madrid. In transferring his operations to 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. . 75 
 
 the south, Wellesley had serious difficulties to over- 
 come. The rapid march from Lisbon to Oporto, and 
 thence in pursuit of Soult, had sent over 4000 of his 
 men into hospital ; provisions were scarce ; the 
 soldiers*_shoes and clothing were in bad order ; their 
 discipline had been impaired by success ; and money 
 was not forthcoming, either to pay the troops or to 
 purchase supplies. Moreover, Cuesta, who was in 
 chief command of the Spanish army, refused to act as 
 Well esley recomme nded. The result was that the 
 British force was detained in the neighbourhood of 
 Abrantes until the end of June. Wellesley had about 
 22,000 men at his disposal, while Cuesta's army, with 
 its headquarters at Oropesa, numbered about 33,000. 
 The F'rench had 250,000 soldiers in the Peninsula, but 
 out of these only 50,000 were immediately available 
 to oppose the British advance, 33,000 being under 
 Victor, 12,000 under Sebastiaiii, and 5000 under 
 Xogeph. At the end of June, Soult, then at Zamora, 
 received orders from Napoleon to take up a position 
 north of the Tagus valley, and, as soon as Wellesley 
 had committed himself to a forward movement, to 
 cross the mountains and fall on his flank and rear. 
 On July 20th the British troops joined Cuesta's army 
 at Oropesa, and it was arranged that the combined 
 force should advance towards Madrid, while Venegas, 
 
76 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 with another Spanish column 26,000 strong, should 
 approach the capital from the south through Toledo 
 and Aranjuez. Venegas failed to march at the 
 appointed time, and the French army was able to 
 concentrate undisturbed at and near Toledo from the 
 24th to the 26th July. On the 22nd Wellesley 
 entered TalaYera, and wished to attack JVj ctor th e 
 next da}^, before the troops under Sebastiani and 
 the king had come up. But Cuesta refused on 
 the ground that July 23rd was a Sunday. On the 
 24th Soult received orders from Joseph to move 
 at once from Salamanca on Plasencia, but he obeyed 
 in such a dilatory manner that the three corps 
 under his command were not assembled in the 
 Tagus valley until August 5th. On July 27th Victor 
 attacked the British and Spanish forces, which 
 were drawn up on the right bank of the Tagus, with 
 their right flank resting on Talavera. The Spaniards 
 in front of that flank were defeated, and fled with 
 their artillery many miles to the rear, only 4000 out 
 of a corps of 10,000 returning to the field of battle. 
 On the left flank the British troops held their own. 
 The next day Victor renewed the combat. Sir 
 Arthur was watching the advance of the French, 
 when Colonel Donkin was sent by the Spanish 
 general Albuquerque to report that Cuesta had made 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 77 
 
 terms with the enemy. With immovable coolness 
 Wellesley read the letter, desired Colonel Donkin to 
 return to his brigade, and continued his own recon- 
 naissance. At two o'clock in the afternoon the battle 
 began, Victor's object being to turn the left and break J 
 through the centre of the British line. In this he 
 failed, owing not only to his opponent's readiness of • 
 resource and_tactical_skillj but also to the surpassing 
 gallantry of the British soldiers. In this engagement 
 the British loss exceeded 6000 killed and wounded, 
 inclusive of five general officers, and that of the 
 French was over 7000. ** The battle of Talavera," 
 says Jomini, "restored to the successors of Marl- 
 borough the glory which for a whole age seemed to 
 have passed from them," and it caused Napoleon to 
 change his opinion regarding the bravery "of British 1 
 troops and the capacity of their leaders. The next 
 day the two armies remained in presence of each 
 other, but the British were reinforced by the cele- 
 brated Light Division, 3000 strong, under General 
 Crauford, which in twenty-six hours accomplished a 
 march of sixty-two miles, and, although each soldier 
 carried a load of from fifty to sixty pounds on his 
 back, left only seventeen stragglers behind. On 
 July 30th Joseph became anxious about the safety of 
 Madrid, and fell back on the Alberche, and shortly 
 
78 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 afterwards Wellesley received information that Soult, 
 with 37,000 men, had reached Plasencia with the 
 intention of cutting him off from his base. It had 
 been arranged with Cuesta that the mountain 
 passes giving access to Plasencia should be guarded 
 by Spanish troops, but these had fled on the ap- 
 
 >^>- 
 
 MAJOR-GENERAL BERESFORD; 
 
 proach of the French columns without firing a shot. 
 Wellesley now found himself in an extremely critical 
 position, being threatened in front and rear by forces 
 equal or superior to his own ; he could place no 
 reliance on his Spanish Allies ; and his own army was 
 almost starving, owing to the failure of the local 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 79 
 
 authorities to provide the supplies and transport 
 which they had promised. He extricated himself,<^ 
 however, by a._rapid march, crossed the Tagus at S 
 Arzobispo, arrested Soult's advance by breaking 
 down the bridge of boats at Almaraz, and retired 
 through Truxillo and Merida on Badajoz and Elvas. 
 The enemy attempted nothing further, and the several 
 corps soon separated, their leaders being unable to 
 agree upon a united course of action. This expedi- 
 tion taught Wellington that he had to face the same 
 difficulties which baffled Sir John Moore. In Brial- 
 mont's words, it showed him " the ignorance and 
 wrongheadedness of the Spanish generals ; the worth- 
 lessness of their troops ; the blind hostility of the 
 Juntas ; the apathy of the Spanish people ; their 
 insane hatred of the Portuguese ; and their unsatis- 
 factory disposition towards the English soldiers, with 
 whom they were never, on good terms." Thence- 
 forward up to the end of the war Wellesley wisely 
 resolved to act independently, and to rely on his own 
 resources and his own soldiers. 
 
 In August 1809 Sir Arthur Wellesley was created a 
 peer with the titles of Baron Douro of Wellesley and 
 Viscount W^ellington of Talavera, and in the succeed- 
 ing February he received the thanks of Parliament 
 and a pension of ;^2000 a year for three lives. This 
 
8o THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 pension was strongly opposed by the Corporation of 
 London, the Common Council representing that Wel- 
 lington " had exhibited in the campaign of Talavera, 
 with equal rashness and ostentation, nothing but a 
 useless valour." The grant was also censured by the 
 Opposition in both Houses of Parliament. 
 
 Returning to Lisbon in October 1809, Wellington 
 gave orders for the construction of the celebrated 
 defensive works at Torres Vedras. He afterwards 
 visited Seville and Cadiz, where he met his brother, 
 the Marquis Wellesley, who had been appointed 
 ambassador at the seat of the provisional Spanish 
 Government. Towards the close of the year the 
 main body of the British troops was transferred from 
 Badajoz and Elvas to the Mondego valley, and 
 General Hill was left at Abrantes to guard the valley 
 of the Lower Tagus. In the meantime the French 
 Emperor, having made peace with Austria, ordered 
 100,000 men to be collected on the Spanish frontier, 
 and proposed, early in 18 10, to lead them himself 
 into Spain. In November 1809 the Spanish armies 
 were signally defeated at Ocana by Marshal Mortier, 
 and at Alba de Tormes by General Kellermann ; and 
 in January 18 10 Joseph invaded Andalusia, overran 
 the whole province, and captured Seville. Napoleon 
 was so much occupied with public and private affairs, 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 8i 
 
 especially with his negotiations for a marriage with 
 a Russian or Austrian Princess, that he abandoned 
 the idea of personally directing the operations in the 
 Peninsula ; but he sent large reinforcements into the 
 country, and appointed Soult to the chief command in 
 Spain, while Marshal Massena was selected to lead an 
 army into Portugal. 
 
 In England the nation had been mortified by the 
 failure of the Walcheren expedition, and the hospi- 
 tals were crowded with soldiers suffering from the 
 Walcheren fever. Recruits could hardly be obtained 
 even by the offer of high bounties, and the expenses 
 of the war were causing grave financial embarrass- 
 ment. A disagreement between Mr. Canning and 
 Lord Castlereagh was followed by a duel and by 
 the dissolution of the Portland Ministry. Another 
 Government was formed under Mr. Perceval, in which 
 Lord Liverpool replaced Lord Castlereagh as Secre- 
 tary for War. Wellington perceived that the new 
 Cabinet was disposed to withdraw the British army 
 from the Peninsula, and, as he did not wish to give 
 any pretext for such a decision, he refrained from 
 asking for the reinforcements and supplies which 
 might have enabled him to defend the Portuguese 
 frontier. His plan was gradually to fall back on the 
 Torres Vedras lines, and to take measures for laying 
 
 G 
 
82 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 waste the districts in which the French army would 
 operate. Stringent orders were given that the people 
 should be compelled to destroy their mills and 
 bridges, drive away their cattle, abandon their homes, 
 and cany with them everything that could be made 
 use of by an invading force. As a result of these 
 measures, the French troops, who lived by requisition 
 and plunder, would starve in front of Lisbon, and 
 would be obliged to retreat or disperse in order to 
 obtain food and forage. 
 
 In June 1810, Massena, with 80,000 men under his 
 orders, began the campaign by besieging Ciudad 
 Rodrigo ; and although the Portuguese and Spanish 
 authorities entreated Wellington to march to its relief, 
 he steadfastly refused to do so. Ciudad Rodrigo 
 surrendered early in July, and Almeida was next 
 invested. This fortress was expected to make an 
 obstinate defence, but owing to the explosion of the 
 main magazine it became untenable, and had to be 
 given up after a short siege. The possession of these 
 places furnished the French commander with good 
 bases for offensive action, and at the beginning of 
 September he marched towards Viseu, which he 
 reached on the 21st. Wellington had meanwhile 
 concentrated his force in the Mondego valley, and 
 resolved to dispute the passage of that river. His 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 83 
 
 reasons for engaging the enemy were, first, that his 
 army was dispirited by the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo 
 and Almeida, and required a victory to restore its 
 confidence ; and, secondly, that the devastation of the 
 country in front of Lisbon was not yet completed. 
 
 / 'A V . V-, ■ 
 
 X ^ri>\ 
 
 LORD CASTLEREAGH. 
 
 He accordingly took up a position on the Sierra de ^ 
 Busaco, where the enemy, about 56,000 strong, 
 attacked him on September 27th, but were repulsed 
 with much slaughter. The French loss in this engage- 
 rnent amounted to 4500 killed and wounded ; that of 
 
 G 3 
 
84 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the British and Portuguese to about 1 300. After the 
 battle Massena drew off towards the sea, and con- 
 tinued his advance through Coimbra upon Leiria by 
 the coast road, while Wellington retired by easy 
 marches through Condeixa and Leiria to Torres 
 Vedras. The French had hardly quitted the Mon- 
 dego when their line of communication with Almeida 
 was interrupted by a detachment of Portuguese 
 Militia, and shortly afterwards a similar force sur- 
 prised the garrison of Coimbra and captured Massena's 
 dep6ts and a large number of his wounded. On 
 October loth, the French Marshal found himself in 
 front of the triple line of entrenchments, which had 
 been constructed with such secrecy that, until he 
 reached them, he was absolutely unaware of their 
 existence. The lines, defended by about 30,000 men 
 and 250 guns, were impregnable, and the country 
 around them was a desert. Massena might at once 
 have retreated, or he might have crossed the Tagus, 
 threatened Lisbon from the left bank of that river, 
 and based his further operations on Spanish Estrema- 
 dura, where supplies were plentiful. He did neither, 
 and his army soon became demoralised by inactivity 
 and starvation. Towards the end of October he 
 found it necessary to establish his headquarters at 
 Santarem, while Wellington remained within the 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 85 
 
 Torres Vedras entrenchments, which he strengthened 
 from day to day, and completed by a line of works on 
 the left bank of the Tagus. Massena sent General 
 Foy to make an urgent appeal to Napoleon for 
 assistance, but the Emperor was preparing for the 
 invasion of Russia, and refused to supply the rein- 
 forcements asked for. He gave orders, however, to 
 Marshal Soult, who was then occupied in besieging 
 Cadiz, to march a force abbut 30,000 strong towards 
 Abrantes, and desired his brother Joseph to push 
 forward in the direction of Alcantara. Soult was 
 disinclined to move ; nevertheless, he slowly collected 
 a siege train and, advancing northward, captured 
 Merida, Olivenga, and Badajoz, which were held by 
 Spanish garrisons. Shortly after the surrender of 
 Badajoz, which took place on March nth, 181 1, Soult 
 heard that the English were attempting the relief of 
 Cadiz, and he therefore returned to Andalusia. 
 Towards the end of February Massena found it 
 impossible to maintain his position at Santarem, and 
 on March 2nd the French army began its retreat, 
 destroying, as it marched, the baggage, ammunition, 
 horses and guns which impeded its progress, burning 
 the towns through which it passed, and putting many 
 of the inhabitants to death. Wellington, who during 
 the winter had received reinforcements from England, 
 
^6 TItE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 followed the enemy on March 7th, and attacked the 
 French rear-guard commanded by Ney at Pombal on 
 the nth, at Redinha on the 12th, at Cazal Nova on 
 the 14th, and at the passage of the Ceira on the 15th. 
 On arriving at Celorico and Guard a, Massena, whose 
 troops now only numbered 40,000, proposed to march 
 southwards to the Tagus valley at Alcantara, and 
 there to recommence operations against Lisbon, in 
 conjunction with Soult and Joseph. Ney refused to 
 comply, and after a sharp altercation between the two 
 marshals, Massena removed him from his command, 
 and appointed General Loison to take his place. But 
 before the French army could evade the pursuit of 
 the British force, Wellington crossed the Guarda 
 mountains, and forced the enemy to retire across the 
 Coa on Sabugal, where, on April 3rd, he attacked 
 and defeated Reynier's corps, which was holding that 
 town. The next day the French crossed the Portu- 
 guese frontier, and four days afterwards Massena 
 passed through Ciudad Rodrigo, where he left a 
 division, and fell back on Salamanca. During this 
 campaign the Marshal had lost 30,000 men, and had 
 been defeated in every action in which his troops had 
 been engaged. The miseries which Portugal endured 
 on this occasion, rather than submit to the rule of 
 Napoleon, are thus described by Colonel Jones, R.E., 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 who was serving with the British force : — " Nearly two 
 thousand square miles of country remained for five 
 months with scarcely an inhabitant ; everything it 
 contained was devoured by the enemy, or destroyed 
 by the season. In the space immediately bounding 
 the positions of the two armies, not permanently 
 occupied by either, the produce of the harvest 
 perished, scattered over the ground, and the vintage 
 mouldered on the stalk ; flocks of innumerable small 
 birds, drawn to the spot by instinct, fattened un- 
 molested on the ungathered grapes ; and latterly, the 
 very wolves, conscious of security, or rendered more 
 daring by the absence of their accustomed prey, 
 prowled about, masters of the country, reluctantly 
 giving way to the cavalry patrols which occasionally 
 crossed their track." 
 
 The Perceval Ministry was much encouraged by 
 the disastrous retreat of the French, and congratulated 
 Wellington on the success of his defensive operations. 
 He also received the thanks of Parliament for the 
 liberation of Portugal. 
 
 During his pursuit of Massena, Wellington heard of 
 the surrender of Badajoz, and determined to detach 
 Beresford for the purpose of investing that fortress 
 and fetaking Olivenga. Beresford accordingly started 
 on March i6th, with 20,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. ' 89 
 
 and 18 guns, and reached Campo Mayor on the 25th ; 
 but great delay occurred in crossing the Guadiana, as 
 the Spaniards had neglected to provide a bridge of 
 boats, and the only timber procurable was ill adapted 
 for the construction of a trestle bridge. Eventually 
 the troops had to cross the river upon rafts, an 
 operation which occupied three days, and gave the 
 French time to repair the defences of Badajoz, pro- 
 vision the place, and mount their artillery. As 
 Beresford approached, Marshal Mortier retreated 
 towards Seville, leaving a garrison in the fortress and 
 a detachment at Olivenga. On April 21st, Wellington 
 arrived from the north, reconnoitred Badajoz, and 
 arranged with Beresford for its speedy capture. In 
 the meantime, however, Massena had reorganised his 
 army at Salamanca, and, with the aid of such rein- 
 forcements as he could collect, attempted to relieve 
 Almeida, which had been invested by the British 
 army. Hearing of this movement, Wellington left 
 Badajoz, rejoined the main body of his troops, and 
 took up a position at Fuentes d'Onoro, between 
 Almeida and Ciudad Rodrigo. There on May 3rd 
 and 5th he successfully resisted the French onslaught, 
 the British and Portuguese losing about 1800 killed, 
 wounded, and prisoners, and the French 2700. On 
 May 6th, Massena again fell back on Salamanca, and 
 
90 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 in the night of the loth, General Brennier, com- 
 manding the Almeida garrison, broke through the 
 investing force and rejoined the French army. 
 Shortly afterwards Napoleon removed Massena from 
 his command, and replaced him by Marshal Marmont. 
 • While these events were taking place in the north, 
 Beresford had begun the siege of Badajoz, and 
 hearing that Soult was marching to its relief with 
 19,000 infantry, 4000 cavalry, and 40 guns, he 
 determined to take up a position in advance of the 
 place. He accordingly moved to Albuera, where, on 
 the night of the 15th, he effected a junction with a 
 Spanish column under General Blake. The Spaniards 
 were worn out by fatigue and starvation, and their 
 leader was too conceited and obstinate to obey the 
 orders which were given him. The total force at 
 Beresford's disposal amounted to about 32,000, of 
 which number 7000 were British and 10,000 Portu- 
 guese. On the morning of May i6th Soult attacked 
 the Allies, and so nearly defeated them that Beres- 
 ford was preparing to retreat. Luckily, however. 
 Colonel Hardinge, Quartermaster-General of the 
 Portuguese army, took upon himself to order the 
 advance of the Fusilier Brigade under General Cole, 
 and this movement turned the fortune of the day. 
 In the following passage, perhaps the most impressive 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 91 
 
 in his history, Napier records the surpassing gallantry 
 of the British troops during the concluding phase of 
 this combat. " Nothing could stop that astonishing 
 infantry. No sudden burst of unciisciplined valour, no 
 nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of their 
 order ; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark 
 columns in their front, their measured tread shook 
 the ground, their dreadful volleys swept away the 
 head of every formation, their deafening shouts over- 
 powered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts 
 of the tumultuous crowd, as slowly and with a horrid 
 carnage it was pushed by the incessant vigour of the 
 attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did 
 the French reserves mix with the struggling multi- 
 tude to sustain the fight, — their efforts only increased 
 the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, 
 breaking off like a loosened cliff, went headlong down 
 the steep ; the rain flowed after in streams discoloured 
 with blood, and eighteen hundred unwounded men, 
 the remnant of six thousand unconquerable British 
 soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill." 
 
 Soult's loss had been so heavy that the next day 
 he remained inactive, and. the day following he with- 
 drew to await the arrival of reinforcements. Wel- 
 lington, with two divisions, reached Elvas from the 
 north on May 19th, and continued the siege of 
 
92 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 Badajoz, Soult meanwhile establishing himself at 
 Llerena, where, in the middle of June, he was joined 
 by a column under Drouet, and subsequently by 
 Marmont's force from Salamanca. His troops being 
 greatly outnumbered, and an attempt to capture 
 Badajoz by assault having failed, Wellington decided 
 to raise the siege and to retire beyond the Caya. 
 This operation was skilfully effected by June 19th, 
 and shortly afterwards the French marshals separated, 
 Soult going south to guard Seville against the attack 
 of a Spanish force under Blake, and Marmont taking 
 up a position on the Tagus between Talavera and 
 Alcantara. 
 
 In July Wellington transferred the greater part of 
 his army to the province of Beira, north of the Lower 
 Tagus, with a view to surprising Ciudad Rodrigo ; 
 but early in August the French provisioned that 
 fortress for two months, and on September 23 rd 
 Marmont, who had moved to Salamanca, opened 
 communications with the garrison and threw in eight 
 months' supplies. Wellington, therefore, drew back 
 from Ciudad Rodrigo to the position of El Bodon, 
 where Marmont attacked him with his cavalry and 
 artillery on September 25th. During this action a 
 square formed of the 5th and 77th Foot was charged 
 on three of its faces at the same moment without 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 93 
 
 being broken. Although the English gained the day 
 at El Bodon, Wellington's flank divisions had not 
 come up, and he thought it expedient to retire 
 towards the Coa. His outposts were attacked by 
 Marmont at Aldea da Ponte without any decisive 
 result, and the following day the French commander 
 retreated, a portion of his troops returning to Sala- 
 manca and the rest to the Tagus valley. Thereupon 
 the British force established itself on the Coa, with 
 headquarters at Freneda, and renewed the blockade 
 of Ciudad Rodrigo. 
 
 During the remainder of the year 181 1 nothing 
 further was attempted, but Napoleon withdrew a 
 large proportion of his veterans from Spain for the 
 invasion of Russia, replacing them by an equal 
 number of young soldiers ; and Wellington secretly 
 collected a bridge and siege train and other equip- 
 ment necessary for the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo. 
 Marmont, believing that the British force would 
 remain inactive during the winter, had reduced the 
 garrison of that place to 1800 men, when Welling- 
 ton suddenly crossed the Agueda on January 7th, 
 18 1 2, and began his investment the same day. The 
 siege was vigorously conducted, and on the evening 
 of the 19th the fortress was assaulted and captured by 
 two columns led by Picton and Crauford. During 
 
94 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the siege and assault the Allies lost 90 officers and 
 1200 men killed and wounded, among the killed 
 being General Crauford. Three hundred of the 
 garrison were killed, and 80 officers and 1500 soldiers 
 taken prisoners. In the fortress were found an 
 immense quantity of ammunition and 150 guns, 
 including Marmont's siege train. In recognition of 
 his services on this occasion Wellington received an 
 earldom and an additional pension of ;^2000 a year ; 
 he was also created a grandee of Spain with the title 
 of Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo. 
 
 While Marmont, under Napoleon's orders, was 
 collecting his troops at Salamanca, and preparing for 
 an advance on Almeida, Wellington resolved to lay 
 siege to Badajoz, and, transferring the greater part 
 of his army from Beira to the valley of the Guadiana, 
 invested that fortress on March i6th. Marmont was 
 anxious to co-operate with Soult in the defence of 
 Badajoz, but was warned by the French Emperor not 
 to interfere. The siege was pushed on in spite of 
 the tempestuous weather, swampy ground, interrupted 
 communications, and imperfect appliances. Soult, 
 believing that Badajoz was in no immediate danger, 
 began to assemble a large force at Llerena, but on 
 April 5th the breaches appeared to be practicable, 
 and Wellington decided to assault the place the 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 95 
 
 following evening. The issue was for some time 
 doubtful, as the garrison, under General Philippon, 
 defended themselves with great gallantry ; but finally 
 the heroic valour of the British troops overcame all 
 resistance, and Badajoz was taken, with a loss to the 
 besiegers of more than 5000 men, of whom over 3500 
 fell in the assault. Of the garrison only 1300 were 
 killed or wounded. As soon as he had got possession 
 of Badajoz, it had been Wellington's intention to 
 operate against Soult's army at Llerena ; but the 
 neglect of the Spaniards to throw supplies into 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, which was threatened by Marmont, 
 obliged him to return to the north. Soult shortly 
 afterwards fell back on Seville ; and General Hill, 
 having surprised the French and broken the bridge 
 over the Tagus at Almaraz, severed the direct line 
 of communication between that city and Madrid. 
 Wellington then caused the bridge at Alcantara to 
 be repaired, and took steps to improve the navigation 
 of the Tagus and Douro, thus providing a short and 
 secure line of communication between his troops on 
 the Agueda and those in the Tagus valley, and con- 
 necting the Portuguese frontier with his bases on 
 the seaboard. 
 
 When Marmont, who had advanced as far as 
 Sabugal and Castello Branco, heard of the fate of 
 
96 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Badajoz and the subsequent movement of the British 
 troops in support of Ciudad Rodrigo, he withdrew to 
 Salamanca ; and there Wellington determined to 
 attack him. Crossing the Agueda on June 13th, he 
 invested with one division the fortified posts which 
 Marmont had constructed in front of the city, while 
 with the remainder of his troops he operated against 
 the French army, which fell back on the Douro. The 
 strength of the defences having been underrated, 
 considerable delay occurred in reducing them, and 
 the French garrison did not surrender until June 27th, 
 ten days after the investment. During this interval 
 Marmont was reinforced, and took up a strong 
 position on the right bank of the Douro. Wellington 
 followed to the left bank, but found the enemy in 
 such strength, and was himself so embarrassed by the 
 want of money, and consequently of supplies, that he 
 contemplated a retreat to the Portuguese frontier. 
 Marmont resolved to assume the offensive ; and, 
 suddenly crossing the Douro at Tordesillas on 
 July 17th, manoeuvred for several days in close 
 proximity to the British army, his object being to 
 regain Salamanca and cut off his opponent's retreat. 
 The result of these manoeuvres was generally favour- 
 able to the French, until on July 22nd Wellington, 
 seeing his opportunity while the enemy were engaged 
 
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 To face p. 96. 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 97 
 
 in a complicated evolution, attacked and completely 
 defeated them. Marmont had his arm broken and 
 was severely wounded in the side, and Wellington 
 was hit by a spent shot ; the French lost about 6000 
 
 GENERAL LORD HILL, G.C.B. 
 After a painting by O. Dawe, R.A. 
 
 killed and wounded, including seven general officers, 
 and the Allies over 5000, including six general 
 officers. In recognition of this victory the Cortes 
 conferred the order of the Golden Fleece on the 
 British commander, and appointed him generalissimo 
 
 H 
 
98 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 of the Spanish armies. Wellington also received the 
 thanks of Parliament and a money grant of ;f 100,000, 
 and was advanced in the peerage to the rank of 
 marquis. 
 
 General Clausel, who succeeded Marshal Marmont 
 in the command of the French army, fell back on 
 Burgos, and Wellington moved towards Madrid, which 
 he entered on August 12th, Joseph having retired 
 towards Valencia, where he ordered Soult to join him 
 with the army of Andalusia. On September ist 
 Wellington quitted Madrid, and, marching north, 
 drove Clausel out of Valladolid on the 7th, and on 
 the 1 8th occupied the town of Burgos. The next day 
 he began the siege of the fortress of Burgos, which 
 was strong, heavily armed, and garrisoned by 1700 
 French soldiers under General Dubreton. The place 
 held out for more than a month, and meanwhile 
 General Souham, who had been sent from France to 
 succeed Clausel, had collected a force of 40,000 strong 
 at Briviesca, while Soult, having joined Joseph at 
 Almanza, was advancing on Madrid. On October 
 22nd Wellington raised the siege of Burgos, and on 
 the 29th he crossed the Douro and retreated upon 
 Salamanca. At the same time General Hill fell back 
 from Madrid, and rejoined his chief on November 8th. 
 The French armies, under Soult and Souham, had 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 99 
 
 also united, and threatened to cut off their opponents 
 from Ciudad Rodrigo ; but Wellington, by a bold 
 flank march, evaded the enemy and reached the 
 Agueda on November 19th. There he halted for 
 some months, distributing his troops so as to guard 
 the Portuguese frontier ; the French withdrew at the 
 same time, and took up a position stretching from 
 Valladolid to Toledo. 
 
 During the winter the British Government sent out 
 considerable reinforcements to the Peninsula, and 
 Wellington, having reorganised the Portuguese army, 
 did his best to improve the administration of the 
 Spanish army, and to prepare for an advance in the 
 spring. On the other hand, the condition of the 
 French troops rapidly deteriorated. Napoleon con- 
 tinued to withdraw more of his old soldiers, replacing 
 them by untrained conscripts ; and such differences 
 of opinion arose between the King and his military 
 advisers that no comprehensive scheme of action 
 could be decided on. Joseph was so much offended 
 by Soult's opposition to his views that, in writing to 
 the Emperor, he declared, "Either the Duke of 
 Dalmatia must quit Spain or I will." The ablest 
 French commander in the Peninsula was accordingly 
 recalled, and placed at the head of the Imperial 
 Guard in Germany. Napoleon sent orders to Joseph 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 to move his court from Madrid to Valladolid, and 
 there to concentrate the armies of the south, the 
 centre, and Portugal, so as to be ready to fight if the 
 Allied force attempted to advance upon France, 
 These instructions reached Joseph by the middle of 
 February 1813, but his movements were so dilatory 
 that he was not established at Valladolid until the 
 beginning of April, and even then his armies, instead 
 of being concentrated, were dispersed over a wide 
 extent of country. The King imagined that Welling- 
 ton's first object would be to occupy Madrid, and the 
 British commander encouraged this belief by false 
 reports and deceptive movements. He had fully re- 
 solved, however, to operate through the northern 
 provinces, where he had ready access to the sea, 
 where the Spanish troops from Galicia and the 
 Asturias were capable of rendering very material 
 assistance, and where the defeat of the French army 
 would sever its communication with France, and thus 
 necessitate its withdrawal to the Pyrenees. 
 
 On May 15th the left wing of the British army, num- 
 bering about 40,000 men, under Sir Thomas Graham, 
 crossed the Lower Douro, and marched* through the 
 Tras-os-Montes towards the Esla. On the 22nd, the 
 right wing, 38,000 strong, began its advance through 
 Salamanca on Zamora. On the 31st the left wing 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 
 
 forded the Esla, and the next day Zamora was 
 occupied, and the junction between the two wings 
 secured. Wellington's force now amounted to 70,000 
 British and Portuguese, and 8000 Spanish soldiers from 
 Estremadura. The number of the latter was raised 
 to 20,000 on June 3rd by a reinforcement of 12,000 
 Galicians from Benavente. To this force the King 
 could only oppose 35,000 infantry, and 10,000 cavalry, 
 and he was therefore obliged to retire from Valladolid 
 to Burgos. Wellington followed the French closely, 
 and by threatening their right, induced Joseph to 
 evacuate Burgos, a fortress which a few months before 
 had successfully resisted the whole British army. 
 Crossing the Ebro, the King took up a strong position 
 where he might await reinforcements and dispute the 
 enemy's passage ; but Wellington moved rapidly to 
 his own left by roads believed to be impracticable, 
 crossed the river unopposed by bridges higher up the 
 stream, and established a new base at Santander. On 
 the evening of June i8th, the French staff received 
 the news that their right flank had been turned, and in 
 confusion and dismay the army was withdrawn the 
 same night b/ a forced march to Vittoria. Arrived 
 at Vittoria, Joseph did nothing for several days, except 
 to send away a convoy of stores and sick und-er an 
 escort of 4000 men. On the 21st Wellington attacked 
 
I02 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 and routed the enemy at Vittoria, capturing 150 out 
 of 152 guns, all the French ammunition, their public 
 and private baggage, and one million sterling of 
 treasure ; also the pictures, jewellery, and other 
 plunder which the King and his generals were carry- 
 ing out of Spain. Marshal Jourdan's baton was found 
 in the King's carriage, and was presented by Welling- 
 ton to the Prince Regent, who gave him in exchange 
 the baton of a British Field Marshal. The French 
 loss on this day amounted to 6000, and that of the 
 Allies to about 5200. Joseph retreated through 
 Pamplona, the garrison of which he strengthened, and 
 General Foy retiring through Tolosa threw a detach- 
 ment of good troops into San Sebastian. With the 
 exception of these garrisons and of the force in 
 Valencia and Catalonia, commanded by Marshal 
 Suchet, the French army had been driven out of 
 Spain. 
 
 When Napoleon, who was at Dresden, heard of 
 Wellington's success, he ordered Soult to start at 
 once for Paris, and having there conferred with the 
 War Minister, to continue his journey to the Spanish 
 frontier. On his arrival he was to assume the chief 
 command, and, as arrangements were being made to 
 supply him with a reinforcement of nearly 100,000 men, 
 the Emperor hoped that he would be able to make 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 103 
 
 head against the British, Portuguese and Spanish 
 forces. Soult left Dresden on July ist, reached Bayonne 
 on the 1 2th, and on the 25th marched on Pamplona. 
 Sir Thomas Graham had begun the siege of San 
 Sebastian on the loth, but was repulsed in his 
 attempt to take the fortress by assault on the 25 th. 
 Wellington thereupon converted the siege into a 
 blockade, and turned his attention to the right of his 
 line, which was threatened by the French Marshal. 
 Concentrating the right and centre divisions near 
 Pamplona, he stopped the enemy's advance by a 
 series of very skilful manoeuvres. On July 28th he 
 defeated Soult at Sorauren ; and on August 2nd the 
 Allied troops reoccupied the position on the Pyrenees, 
 from which they had temporarily fallen back. San 
 Sebastian was taken by a second assault on August 3 ist, 
 and the garrison capitulated on September 8th, after 
 a most gallant defence of the castle or retrenchment 
 to which it had retired. The loss to the Allies in 
 killed and wounded during the second assault exceeded 
 2500 men, among the killed being Colonel Fletcher, 
 the Chief Engineer ; and the total loss throughout the 
 siege and blockade was not less than 5600. The 
 garrison commanded by General Rey numbered 3000, 
 of whom over 1700 were killed or wounded. 
 
 On October 7th Wellington took Soult by surprise, 
 
I04 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 and crossed the Bidassoa with the same skill as he 
 had displayed in crossing the Douro in May 1809. 
 By this movement the British force turned the right 
 of the French and forced them back on the Nivelle. 
 On October 31st Pamplona surrendered, and on 
 November loth the- whole Allied army invaded 
 France, driving the enemy out of their fortified posi- 
 tions on the Nivelle, and capturing 51 guns, much 
 ammunition, and many prisoners. On December 9th 
 Wellington crossed the Nive, and during the four 
 succeeding days fought and repulsed Soult, who 
 attacked first the left and then the right of the British 
 army. During this prolonged conflict, the Allies lost 
 about 4600 men, killed and wounded, and the French 
 5800, besides three German regiments which deserted 
 to the British side on the evening of the loth. Leaving 
 two divisions under Sir John Hope to blockade 
 Bayonne, the British commander followed up Soult's 
 retreat, and on February 27th, 1 8 14, attacked and 
 defeated him on the Gave de Pau at Orthez. From 
 the 24th to the 26th of the same month, the naval 
 squadron, under Admiral Penrose, assisted in throwing 
 a bridge over the Adour below Bayonne — a wonderful 
 feat, considering that the river was deep, rapid, subject 
 to the action of strong tides, defended by a flotilla of 
 gunboats and a large body of troops on the right 
 
/idourR 
 
io6 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 bank, and 360 yards wide at the point of crossing. 
 The bridge being completed, Bayonne was closely 
 invested, and Soult drew off in the direction of 
 Toulouse. Wellington crossed the Adour at St. Sever 
 on March ist, and on the 8th he detached two divisions 
 under Beresford to occupy Bordeaux. Soult attempted 
 to resume the offensive on March 13th, but was 
 repulsed with such vigour that he fell back through 
 Tarbes on Toulouse, where the last battle of the 
 Peninsular War was fought on April loth. In this 
 final engagement the French lost 3200 killed and 
 wounded, and the Allies 4600, of whom about 2000 
 were Spaniards. On each side four generals were 
 wounded. The next day Soult withdrew from 
 Toulouse, leaving eight guns and his wounded behind, 
 and the day following the town was occupied by the 
 British force. Napoleon having abdicated, and the 
 Bourbon dynasty being replaced on the throne of 
 France, the war came to an end. 
 
 On April 21st Wellington issued a general order 
 thanking his troops for " their uniform discipline and 
 gallantry in the field, and for their conciliating con- 
 duct towards the inhabitants of the countiy." Shortly 
 afterwards the British army was broken up, the 
 cavalry marching through France and embarking at 
 Boulogne, and the infantry embarking at Bordeaux. 
 
\THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 107 
 
 Only a portion of the latter returned to the United 
 Kingdom, many gallant soldiers being sent to perish 
 at New Orleans or to die of yellow fever in the West 
 Indies. 
 
 On May 3rd, 18 14, Wellington, who a year before 
 had been made a Knight of the Garter, was advanced 
 in the peerage to the dignity of a duke, and in the 
 following month he was granted by Parliament a 
 further sum of ;^ 400,000. 
 
 During the second phase of Wellington's career the 
 qualities which he most conspicuously displayed were 
 soundness of judgment, tenacity of purpose, and self- 
 control. He had made up his mind that the best 
 way of beating the French was not to be afraid of 
 them. Just before he left England for Portugal, in 
 1808, he remarked : "The French have beaten all the 
 world, and are supposed to be invincible. They have 
 besides, it seems, a new system, which has out- 
 manoeuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of 
 Europe. But no matter, my die is cast. They may 
 overwhelm, but I don't think they will outmanoeuvre 
 me. In the first place, I am not afraid of them, as 
 everybody else seems to be ; and secondly, if what I 
 hear of their system of manoeuvres be true, I think it 
 a false one against troops steady enough, as I hope 
 mine are, to receive them with the bayonet. I suspect 
 
io8 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 that all the Continental armies were more than half 
 beaten before the battle began." 
 
 In the second place, he was determined not to run 
 any great risk of disaster, generally to adopt a 
 defensive attitude, and only to fight when he felt 
 reasonably certain of success. He fully appreciated 
 the difference between the French system of conscrip- 
 tion and the English system of voluntary enlistment ; 
 and he knew that under the latter the home Govern- 
 ment could not be expected to make good the heavy 
 losses which the French Emperor was in a position to 
 disregard. On this point he observed, with reference 
 to a plan of operations which had been submitted for 
 his consideration : " The scheme might answer well 
 enough if I could afford, or the British Government 
 or nation would allow, of my being as prodigal of 
 men as every French general is. They forget, how- 
 ever, that we have but one army, and that the same 
 men who fought at Vimeiro and Talavera fought the 
 other day at Sorauren ; and that, if I am to preserve 
 that army, I must proceed with caution. Indeed, this 
 becomes doubly necessary, as I see that, notwith- 
 standing the fondness of the British nation for the 
 sport, they began to cry out the other day upon the 
 loss of 300 or 400 men in the unsuccessful storm of 
 San Sebastian." 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 109 
 
 Then, again, he perceived how advisable it was to 
 avoid the Continental system of making war support 
 war. And this for two reasons. First, because troops 
 fed by forced requisitions or plunder in such a country 
 as Spain or Portugal would inevitably suffer such 
 privations as gravely to impair their efficiency and 
 diminish their numbers ; and, secondly, because it 
 was essential to secure the confidence and good-will 
 of the civil population. In all his operations Welling- 
 ton paid unremitting attention to his commissariat 
 arrangements, kept his troops within easy distance of 
 his bases on the seaboard, and carefully protected his 
 lines of communication. From 1809 until the spring 
 of 18 1 3 he made use of Lisbon and Oporto as his 
 principal centres of supply and reinforcement ; and 
 when he began his advance upon the Pyrenees, he 
 established his dep6ts, magazines, and hospitals at 
 Santander and other ports on the northern coast of 
 Spain. His lines of communication being shorter and 
 safer than those of the French, and funds or credit 
 being available for the purchase of such stores as 
 could not be imported from England, the British 
 soldiers were better fed, clothed, and equipped than 
 their opponents. In a letter dated January 26th, 
 18 1 1, to his brother, the Marquis Wellesley, Welling- 
 ton estimated the yearly casualties among the French 
 
Gal 
 
 AY OF B I S C A 
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 A S TlfrR T A S Sant,-Lnder 
 
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 Oronse 
 
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 SPAIN 
 
 AND 
 
 P ORTUGAL 
 
 illustrating- the cainpaigns of 
 
 The Duke of Wellington 
 
 L809 1813 
 
 Scaie of Miles 
 
 »» ■ » v> f ♦« y •« » 
 
112 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 troops on field service, due to the want of a properly 
 organised commissariat, at not less than one-half. 
 He said : " The French army is certainly a wonderful 
 machine ; but if we are to form such a one, we must 
 form such a government as exists in France, which 
 can with impunity lose one-half of the troops em- 
 ployed in the field every year only by the privations 
 and hardships imposed upon them." 
 
 Another conspicuous instance of Wellington's sound 
 judgment was the conclusion he arrived at that 
 Portugal was a country capable of being defended by 
 a moderate number of troops, and Hkely to furnish 
 the most advantageous base for operating against the 
 French in Spain. Portugal being long and narrow, 
 and provided with good harbours and two navigable 
 waterways, the British communications were short 
 and direct ; depdts could be formed unknown to the 
 enemy on either the Tagus or the Douro ; and the 
 French, having no means of ascertaining the probable 
 direction of attack, were generally surprised and 
 defeated before they could concentrate all their 
 available forces. Moreover, the Portuguese were too 
 much opposed to the French and the Spaniards to 
 be unfriendly to the English. They allowed their 
 soldiers to be trained and commanded by British 
 officers, their foreign and internal policy was guided 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 113 
 
 by the British Minister, and they even consented to 
 abandon their homes and lay waste their fields in 
 order to deprive their invaders of the means of 
 subsistence. 
 
 Wellington's tenacity of purpose was evinced by his 
 steady adherence to the policy which he regarded as 
 likely to prove successful. He was determined to run 
 no unnecessary risk, to spare his troops as much as 
 possible, and never to compromise his communications 
 by a too bold or too hasty advance. When feebly 
 supported by the British Government, when funds 
 and reinforcements were denied him, and when he 
 was menaced by the enemy in apparently over- 
 whelming strength, he never wavered in his resolve 
 to hold on to Portugal, and thence to resume the 
 offensive as soon as a fitting opportunity offered. He 
 was equally firm and prudent when he had gained 
 some great victory, and the British public clamoured 
 for the immediate expulsion of the French from the 
 Peninsula. On one occasion — after the battle of Tala- 
 vera — he was very nearly cut off from his base, owing 
 to a mistaken reliance on the co-operation of the 
 Spanish troops. Thus taught a lesson which Sir John 
 Moore had to learn at the expense of his life, he 
 thenceforward trusted entirely to himself, although he 
 continued to treat the Spanish generals with courtesy 
 
 I 
 
114 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 and forbearance, and to make what use he could of 
 the soldiers under their command. 
 
 Nothing is^more remarkable than Wellington's self- 
 control in dealing with his own subordinates, and with 
 the provisional governments of Portugal and Spain. 
 During the most critical period of the war, several of 
 his generals, who regarded it as hopeless to continue 
 the struggle, not only freely expressed their opinion 
 on the subject, but went home on leave, and used all 
 their parliamentary influence to procure the with- 
 drawal of the British army. The two most influential 
 members of the Portuguese Government, Principal 
 Souza and the Bishop of Oporto, formed a party 
 hostile to the British, neglected to pay or feed the 
 Portuguese troops, wrote anonymous threatening 
 letters to Wellington, and made arrangements for 
 libelling and caricaturing him in England. In a letter 
 to Sir Charles Stuart, dated July 20th, 1813, he 
 remarked : " I must say that the British army, which 
 I have the honour to command, have met with 
 nothing but ingratitude from the Government and 
 authorities in Portugal for their services." The 
 Spanish Government was actuated by an equally 
 hostile spirit. On July 2nd, 181 3, Wellington ad- 
 dressed Don Juan O'Donoju, the Spanish Secretary 
 for War, in the following terms : — " You are aware of 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 115 
 
 my disposition and desire still to serve the Spanish 
 nation as far as is in my power. There are limits, 
 however, to forbearance and submission to injury ; 
 and I confess that I feel that I have been most 
 unworthily treated in these transactions by the 
 Spanish Government, even as a gentleman." Writing 
 four months later to his brother Henry about the 
 attack made upon him by the Spanish Press, with 
 reference to the siege of San Sebastian, Ke ob- 
 served : — " The only reason why I noticed the libel in 
 the Duende was, that it affected Sir Thomas Graham 
 and the officers of the army; and I was convinced 
 that it was written under the direction of that greatest 
 of all blackguards, the Minister at War." Wellington 
 was naturally a man of strong temper, and no doubt 
 felt extreme annoyance at the intrigues which en- 
 dangered his plans, and the obstacles placed in his 
 way by those to whom he had a right to look for 
 assistance and support. But he was too great a 
 man to show his feelings ; he recognised that every 
 prominent servant of the state must be exposed to 
 envy and detraction ; and he treated scheming 
 generals and factious politicians with equal for- 
 bearance, and probably with equal contempt. 
 
 It is impossible, within the limits of a magazine 
 article, to discuss the merits of Wellington's strategy 
 
 I 2 
 
n6 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 and tactics during the Peninsular War. Suffice it to 
 say that, generally with inferior numbers, and always 
 with a mixed, and therefore a not altogether reliable 
 force, composed partly of British and partly of 
 Portuguese and Spanish troops, he met and defeated 
 the ablest of Napoleon's marshals. He appears to 
 have developed in the course of a five years' campaign 
 tactical ability of the highest order ; and, commanding 
 as he did a body of veteran soldiers inured to war, 
 and well trained in musketry and fire discipline, he 
 displayed supreme military genius in being the first 
 to recognise the advantages of an extended order 
 of attack. Writing in April 1811 to Captain Chap- 
 man, R.E., he remarked : — " We have given the 
 French a handsome dressing, and I think they will 
 not say again that we are not a manoeuvring army. 
 We may not manoeuvre so beautifully as they do ; but 
 I do not desire better sport than to meet one of their 
 columns en masse with our lines." 
 
 As a strategist he knew his own mind and kept 
 his own counsel. The passage of the Douro and 
 occupation of Oporto, the retirement into the lines of 
 Torres Vedras, the capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and 
 Badajoz, and the advance through the Tras-os-Montes 
 before the battle of Vittoria, are instances of masterly 
 combinations which took the enemy entirely by 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 117 
 
 surprise. Wellington's sieges have often been criti- 
 cised on account of their occasional failure and the 
 great loss of life which attended them even when 
 successful. The fact is, however, that the appliances 
 and ordnance for siege operations were very defective ; 
 few, if any, sappers were attached to the British army, 
 and the enemy being generally more numerous than 
 the besieging force, and only wanting time to concen- 
 trate, the places could not be taken at all unless they 
 were taken quickly. Wellington, therefore, had no 
 choice in the matter. He was obliged to sacrifice his 
 soldiers in order to avoid the delay which would have 
 defeated his plans, and to compensate for deficiencies 
 in skilled labour and siege equipment. Another 
 point, on which considerable stress is laid by General 
 Brialmont and other writers, is the alleged failure of 
 Wellington to follow up his victories by vigorous 
 pursuits. Here again he appears to be blamed some- 
 what unreasonably. His army was a small one, the 
 British Government supplied him with reinforcements 
 in a sparing and dilatory manner, and, whenever 
 discipline was relaxed by success, the British soldiers 
 were liable to get out of hand and to disperse in 
 search of plunder. This tendency was strikingly 
 exemplified after the battle of Vittoria, when for 
 eighteen days 12,500 men were absent from the 
 
ii8 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 colours, engaged in marauding among the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 The success which attended Wellington's operations 
 in the Peninsula is to be ascribed not only to his 
 own military and administrative genius, and to the 
 coolness, courage, and obstinacy of his troops, but 
 also to the fact that the control of the British and 
 Portuguese forces was centred in one man, who also 
 exercised a predominant influence over the pro- 
 visional governments of Spain and Portugal. How- 
 ever able a number of officers may be — and there 
 can be no question as to the ability of the French 
 marshals — they cannot be expected to think alike, 
 or, if given co-ordinate authority, to act in unison. 
 Napoleon's disinclination to appoint a supreme head 
 over the French armies in Spain caused jealousy, 
 vacillation, and confusion. The Emperor himself 
 sent orders which, being written at a distance and in 
 ignorance of the course of events, almost invariably 
 arrived too late to be applicable to existing circum- 
 stances. To each marshal was assigned a distinct 
 sphere of action ; and as they viewed each other with 
 considerable jealousy, they very rarely co-operated 
 at the proper time or in the proper direction. Even 
 when they attempted to do so they were liable to be 
 reprimanded by Napoleon, who, for example, when 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 119 
 
 Marmont proposed to assist Soult in the defence of 
 Badajoz, told the former that " he was meddling with 
 matters that did not concern him," and that " Badajoz 
 was not committed to his charge." The King, with 
 Marshal Jourdan as his chief of the staff, was given 
 a nominal control over the commanders of the several 
 French armies ; but these commanders, reported to 
 Napoleon direct, and continually disregarded Joseph's 
 instructions. Without a supreme head present on the 
 spot, whether that head be a commander-in-chief like 
 Wellington, or a chief of the staff nominally subor- 
 dinate to a royal personage like Von Moltke, it is 
 impossible that military operations on an extended 
 scale can be conducted with the unity of purpose 
 and continuity of action which are essential to 
 success ; and on this account the diffusion of responsi- 
 bility and authority which Napoleon permitted and 
 encouraged did much to neutralise the great numeri- 
 cal superiority of the French troops employed in the 
 Peninsula. 
 
 A further point to be noticed is the extraordinary 
 diplomatic skill which Wellington displayed in 
 dealing with the Portuguese and Spanish authorities. 
 They disliked him, but they feared him ; and by 
 keeping his own counsel, and setting one party 
 against another, he managed to get his^ own way 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 without seeming unduly to interfere with the civil 
 government. Here his Indian training was of great 
 service. Brialmont observes : " Wellington's long 
 experience of Indian intrigue gave him peculiar 
 facilities for counteracting the selfish and shifting 
 policy of the Peninsular nations ; while his active par- 
 ticipation in the government of Mysore had developed, 
 to a great degree, the ability which was natural 
 to him in the administration of political and civil 
 offices. A leader deficient in these qualities would 
 probably have failed in Spain, however great in other 
 respects his military talent might have been." 
 
 Finally, Wellington's industry was indefatigable ; 
 and if genius is correctly described as being an in- 
 finite capacity for taking pains, he had every right to 
 lay claim to that gift. Whatever matter came under 
 his consideration, whether military, political, or finan- 
 cial, he dealt with it promptly and exhaustively. 
 His correspondence alone would have taken up the 
 whole time of any ordinary man, and in addition he 
 had his own responsible duties as a commander-in- 
 chief in the field to attend to. Moreover, he had 
 only one or two generals under him on whom he 
 could rely to carry out his instructions without his 
 own personal supervision ; and he was often obliged 
 himself to undertake the duties of subordinate officers, 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 121 
 
 to whom, in spite of his repeated remonstrances, 
 leave of absence had been granted by the Horse 
 Guards. In a letter to Lord Liverpool he remarked, 
 " I am obliged to be everywhere, and, if absent from 
 any operation, something goes wrong." And in 
 another letter he informed the same Secretary of 
 State that " the consequence of the absence of some 
 of the general officers has been that in the late 
 operations I have been obliged to be general of 
 cavalry and of the advanced guard, and the leader of 
 two or three columns, sometimes on the same day." 
 The spirit which actuated Wellington is perhaps best 
 described in his own words : " I work as hard as 
 I can in every way in order to succeed." 
 
 There is one feature in Wellington's character 
 which to some extent diminishes our admiration for 
 his great qualities as a military commander. He was 
 wanting in sympathy, and inclined to speak harshly 
 and ungenerously of the officers and men who served 
 under him during the Peninsular War. After cap- 
 turing Oporto, he wrote : " I have long been of opinion 
 that a British army could bear neither success nor 
 failure.". And again : " The army behave terribly 
 ill. They are a rabble who cannot bear success any 
 more than Sir John Moore's army could bear failure. 
 I am endeavouring to tame them ; but if I should not 
 
THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 succeed, I must make an official complaint of them, 
 and send one or two corps home in disgrace." After 
 the battle of Vittoria he addressed the Secretary of 
 State as follows : " It is quite impossible for me or 
 any other man to command a British army under the 
 existing system. We have in the service the scum of 
 the earth as common soldiers ; and of late years we 
 have been doing everything in our power to relax the 
 discipline by which alone such men can be kept in 
 order. The non-commissioned officers are as bad as 
 the men. It is really a disgrace to have anything to 
 say to such men as some of our soldiers are." Again 
 he remarked : " We shall do no good until we change 
 our system so far as to compel all ranks to do their 
 duty." Again : " The ignorance of their duty of the 
 officers of the army who are every day arriving in 
 this country, and the general inattention and dis- 
 obedience to orders by many of those who have been 
 long here, increase the details of the duty to such an 
 extent as to render it almost impracticable to carry it 
 on ; and, owing to this disobedience and neglect, 
 I can depend upon nothing, however well regulated 
 and ordered." Again : " Nobody in the British army 
 ever reads an order as if it were to be a guide for his 
 conduct, or in any other manner than as an amusing 
 novel ; and the consequence is that, when complicated 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 123 
 
 arrangements are to be carried into execution, every 
 gentleman proceeds according to his fancy ; and then, 
 when it is found that the arrangement fails, they 
 come upon me to set matters to rights, and thus my 
 labour is increased tenfold." Once more : " The fact 
 is that, if discipline means habits of obedience to 
 orders as well as military instruction, we have but 
 little of it in this army. Nobody ever thinks of 
 obeying an order, and all the regulations of the Horse 
 Guards, as well as of the War Office, and all the 
 orders of the army applicable to this peculiar service, 
 are so much waste-paper." 
 
 These strictures may have been natural and ex- 
 cusable at the time they were written, but, published 
 as they were with Wellington's approval twenty-three 
 years after the close of the war, they seem rather 
 exaggerated and ungracious, especially when it is 
 remembered that he used to declare that with such 
 an army as he led in the Peninsula he could go 
 anywhere and do anything, that he eulogised the 
 uniform discipline, good conduct and gallantry of the 
 officers and men in his farewell order of April 21st, 
 1 8 14, and that to their exertions and sacrifices he 
 owed his fame and fortune. 
 
 It is curious to contrast Napier's opinion of the 
 British soldiers who served in the Peninsula with 
 
124 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Wellington's description of them as being " a rabble " 
 and " the scum of the earth." In the second volume 
 of his history Napier says : "That the British infantry 
 soldier is more robust than the soldier of any other 
 nation can scarcely be doubted by those who, in 1815, 
 observed his powerful frame, distinguished amidst the 
 united armies of Europe ; and, notwithstanding his 
 habitual excess in drinking, he sustains fatigue and 
 wet and the extremes of cold and heat with incredible 
 vigour. When completely disciplined — and three 
 years are required to accomplish this — his port is 
 lofty and his movements free, the whole world cannot 
 produce a nobler specimen of military bearing ; nor 
 is the mind unworthy of the outward man. He does 
 not, indeed, possess that presumptuous vivacity which 
 would lead him to dictate to his commanders, or even 
 to censure real errors, although he may perceive 
 them ; but he is observant and quick to comprehend 
 his orders, full of resources under difficulties, calm 
 and resolute in danger, and more than usually 
 obedient and careful of his officers in moments of 
 imminent peril. It has been asserted that his un- 
 deniable firmness in battle is the result of a phleg- 
 matic constitution uninspired by moral feeling. 
 Never was a more stupid calumny uttered ! Napo- 
 leon's troops fought in bright fields where every 
 
THE PENINSULAR PERIOD. 125 
 
 helmet caught some gleams of glory, but the British 
 soldier conquered under the cold shade of aristocracy. 
 No honours awaited his daring, no despatch gave his 
 name to the applauses of his countrymen ; his life of 
 danger and hardship was uncheered by hope, his 
 death unnoticed. Did his heart sink therefore } Did 
 he not endure with surpassing fortitude the sorest of 
 ills, sustain the most terrible assaults in battle un- 
 moved, overthrow with incredible energy every oppo- 
 nent, and at all times prove that, while no physical 
 military qualification was wanting, the fount of 
 honour was also full and fresh within him ? " So far 
 as my own experience goes, I have every reason to 
 believe that Napier's estimate of the British soldier's 
 character is more correct than Wellington's. 
 
 In bringing this present chapter to a close, I 
 cannot do better than quote the description given by 
 the French historian, M. Alphonse de Beauchamps, 
 of the position which Wellington had achieved during 
 the second phase of his military career : " Napoleon 
 mistook his destiny in not condescending to command 
 in person the expedition of 18 10. He did not per- 
 ceive that he was winking at the inordinate growth 
 of a name that Europe would soon be tempted to 
 oppose to his own. Europe had plenty of soldiers 
 to fight him. What it wanted was a man. After 
 
126 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Europe had seen the most illustrious marshals of the 
 empire foiled by Wellington, it began to suspect that 
 it had found what it sought. Napoleon had at 
 length a rival." 
 
 WELLINGTON. 
 
( 127 ) 
 
 " Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia ; nos te 
 Nos facimus, Fortuna, deam, coeloque locamus." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The abdication of Napoleon, followed by the 
 restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, ended the war 
 between France and the Allied Powers ; the Penin- 
 sular Army was broken up, and Wellington returned 
 to England after having visited Paris and Madrid 
 At the latter place he was well received by King 
 Ferdinand, on whom he urged the expediency of 
 adopting a moderate and constitutional course in 
 dealing with the Spanish people. He reached 
 London on June 23rd, 18 14, and was enthusiastically 
 welcomed by all classes of the British public. On 
 July 5th he was appointed Ambassador to the Court 
 of France, and left England early in August to take 
 up his duties. But before entering upon them he was 
 instructed to examine personally the Belgian frontier, 
 and to report on the most suitable measures for put- 
 
128 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ting it in a state of defence. The British Government 
 thought it desirable to obtain the Duke of Welling- 
 ton's opinion on this question, as the Kingdom of the 
 Netherlands had just been established by European 
 agreement to serve as a bulwark against French 
 aggression, and a force composed of British, Hano- 
 verian, Dutch, and Belgian troops was then occupying 
 the country. In preparing his report the Duke was 
 assisted by several experienced officers of the Royal 
 Engineers ; and, after a careful reconnaissance, he 
 arrived at the conclusion that the frontier was so 
 accessible to an invader, so intersected by roads, 
 canals and rivers, and so devoid of the natural 
 obstacles which might be expected to restrict an 
 enemy's operations, that it would be impossible to 
 protect it by means of a single powerful fortress. 
 He recommended, therefore, that the cordon of 
 fortifications and dikes, which had been originally 
 constructed under Austrian rule, should be put in 
 order and improved ; and he further pointed out 
 certain positions which might advantageously be 
 occupied by a field army resisting a French invasion. 
 He showed his military acumen by selecting as one of 
 these positions the actual site on which the battle of 
 Waterloo was fought in the following year. 
 
 This duty being completed, Wellington proceeded 
 

OF The 
 *JNlVERs/Ty 
 
 OF 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 129 
 
 1/ \ 
 
 to Paris, where he arrived on August 22nd. He 
 was received with a fair show of cordiality by 
 Louis XVIII. and his ministers, but in a less friendly 
 spirit by the Court party and a section of the Bona- 
 partists. His tenure of the appointment only lasted 
 for about five months, during which no really im- 
 portant diplomatic questions came under consider- 
 ation. ( At that time a strong feeling prevailed in I f\ 
 England in favour of the immediate abolition of the 
 slave trade, and Wellington was directed to use every 
 means in his power to obtain the active support and 
 co-operation of the French Government. The French 
 people, however, though the advocates of universal 
 freedom in the abstract, were hardly prepared to 
 accept the views held by Mr. Wilberfbree— and other 
 prominent abolitionists unjjess-^thi^y" obtained some 
 compensating advantage ; anxlaiiint was thrown out 
 that the cession ^By^ngland of one of the more 
 important West Indian Islands, such as Trinidad, 
 might materially facilitate the progress of the | 
 negotiations. This proposal did not find favour with 
 the British ministry, and was not seriously pressed. 
 The question remained still undecided when Lord 
 Castlereagh, who, as Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, was representing Great Britain at the Con- . 
 gress of Vienna, found it necessary to return to his 
 
 . K .V 
 
I30 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 parliamentary duties, and Wellington was chosen to 
 replace him. Leaving Paris towards the end of 
 January 1815, the Duke reached ^Vienna early in 
 February, and there found the sevefat European 
 Powers quarrelling amongst themselves about the 
 redistribution of the territory set free by Napoleon's 
 abdication. The existing state of affairs was unsettled 
 and complicated. As already mentioned, a joint 
 army of occupation commanded by the Prince of 
 Orange was quartered in the Low Countries, while 
 the German provinces on the right bank of the Meuse, 
 extending from Lorraine to the junction of the 
 Meuse and Rhine, were held by a Prussian force. In 
 compensation for her efforts to overthrow Napoleon, 
 Russia laid claim to the whole of Poland, and Prussia 
 was resolved to annex the entire kingdom of Saxony. 
 These demands were resisted by England and Austria, 
 as being contrary to the wish of the populations 
 concerned, and likely to upset the European equili- 
 brium ; and the objections raised to the undue 
 aggrandisement of the two northern Powers were 
 supported by the representative of the French 
 Government. The Emperor Alexander was so much 
 irritated at this opposition that he encouraged Murat, 
 who had been allowed to retain the Neapolitan throne, 
 to occupy a portion of the Papal States, and largely 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 131 
 
 to increase his army as a menace to Austria and 
 France. Austria accordingly concentrated 150,000 
 men in Northern Italy, the Russian troops which 
 were returning to their own country were halted in 
 Poland, and Prussia declared her determination to 
 keep Saxony by force of arms. A secret treaty was 
 entered into by Austria, France and England, and a 
 general European war seemed far from improbable. 
 
 The aspect, of affairs, however, was suddenly 
 changed by news received on March 7th that 
 Napoleon had escaped from Elba ; and the sovereigns 
 and statesmen assembled at Vienna had to abandon 
 their mutual animosities in order to face a common 
 danger. A few days afterwards a report was received 
 that the Emperor had landed in France with only a 
 thousand men at his command, and was marching upon 
 Paris. At first it was thought that the French troops 
 would remain faithful to the Bourbon dynasty, and 
 that Napoleon s enterprise would fail. Louis XVIII. 
 assured the Ambassadors at his Court that there was 
 no reason for alarm. Marshal Soult, who had been 
 appointed War Minister, issued an order of the day 
 in which he congratulated the army on having at its 
 head the Comte d'Artois, whom he described as " the 
 model of French chivalry." He added: ''Bonaparte 
 mistakes us so far as to believe that we are capable of 
 
132 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 abandoning a legitimate and beloved sovereign in 
 order to share the fortunes of one who is nothing more 
 than an adventurer. He believes this — the idiot ! — 
 and his last act of folly is a convincing proof that 
 he does so." Marshel Ney was directed by the 
 King to meet and arrest the Emperor. " Go," said 
 Louis XVIII. to him : "I trust to your fidelity and 
 devotion." Ney promised, in reply, that he would 
 bring back the usurper in an iron cage. He had not 
 proceeded far when his sentiments changed. He 
 remarked : " What would you have me do } I cannot 
 stop the waters of the sea with my hand." And 
 shortly afterwards, forming up his troops, he read to 
 them Napoleon's proclamation, and issued an order of 
 the day beginning — " Soldiers, the cause of the Bour- 
 bons is lost for ever." On March 20th Napoleon 
 entered Paris, and Louis XVI 1 1., with his Court, 
 fled across the Belgian frontier. 
 
 At this crisis England and the Continental Powers 
 were united in their determination to prevent Napoleon 
 from re-establishing himself as the ruler of France, 
 although before leaving Elba he had caused it to be 
 made known that he was prepared to adhere to the 
 Treaty of Paris, and would in future confine himself 
 to the internal administration of his own country. As 
 usual, the first thought of England's Continental allies 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 133 
 
 was to extract liberal subsidies from the* British 
 Government. After the Peace of Tilsit Russia had 
 endeavoured to persuade the French Emperor to join 
 her in an attack on our Eastern possessions. She had 
 encouraged him in his attempt to subjugate Spain and 
 Portugal. Her whole policy had been to intensify the 
 ill-feeling between France and England, in order to 
 distract attention from her own aggressive designs in 
 Europe and Asia. It is therefore a remarkable illus- 
 tration of Russian assurance to find that in 18 15 the 
 Tsar was particularly pressing and persistent in his 
 demands for pecuniary assistance ; and it is an 
 equally remarkable illustration of the somewhat indis- 
 criminate generosity of British statesmen to find that 
 the Tsar's demands, in common with those of the 
 other sovereigns, were complied with to an extent 
 which seems to have rendered England the general 
 paymaster of the Allied Forces. So far, indeed, was 
 this generosity carried that the British Government 
 actually agreed to pay the expenses of the French 
 mission at the Vienna Congress. 
 
 On March 13th the Congress of Vienna issued a 
 declaration placing Napoleon hors des relations civiles 
 et sociales, and on the 25th of the same month a formal 
 treaty was concluded providing for the concentration 
 of an overwhelming force on the French frontier. The 
 
134 ' " THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 following scheme of mobilisation was decided on : — The 
 troops of the United Kingdom, Hanover, Brunswick, 
 and the Netherlands were to occupy Belgium under 
 Wellington's command. The Prussian army under 
 Marshal Blucher was to take up its position between 
 the Rhine and the Meuse. The contingents from 
 Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden were to assemble in 
 the Black Forest and Palatinate, and there to be 
 joined by an Austrian force, the command of the 
 whole being assumed by Marshal Schwarzenberg. 
 The Russian army, marching from Poland through 
 Germany, was to form upon the Rhine, the Main, and 
 the Moselle. 
 
 Wellington left Vienna on March 29th, and 
 reached Brussels on April 5th, where he relieved the 
 Prince of Orange of the command of the troops 
 quartered in the Low Countries. He was at first 
 inclined to underrate the strength and mobility of the 
 force at Napoleon's disposal, and he drew up a 
 memorandum, dated April 12th, advocating an 
 advance of the Allied armies into France by May ist. 
 The more accurate information which he subsequently 
 received led him to modify his original estimate of the 
 enemy's resources ; and, besides, he found his own 
 army so weak and badly equipped, and composed of 
 soldiers differing so much in quality and nationality, 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 135 
 
 that it was absolutely necessary to await reinforce- 
 ments and supplies, and to make a careful distribution 
 of the good and inferior troops so as to render the 
 whole force as uniformly efficient as possible. He 
 thought it desirable also to improvise such fortifica- 
 tions along the Belgian frontier as would impede the 
 enemy's advance and facilitate his own movements. 
 And last, but not least, he ascertained that consider- 
 able delay was likely to occur in the arrival of the 
 Austrian and Russian corps on the French frontier. 
 
 Writing to Lord Bathurst on May 2nd, the Duke 
 expressed the opinion that, if Napoleon decided to act 
 on the offensive, he would probably begin by attacking 
 the Bavarians, who, to the number of 25,000, had 
 crossed the Rhine and taken up a position in the 
 vicinity of Germersheim. On May 8th he seems to 
 have regarded it as not unlikely that Napoleon would 
 act on the defensive and await the invasion of the 
 Allied armies. In that case he considered the diffi- 
 culties in the way of an advance upon Paris from the 
 Belgian frontier to be so formidable, that he doubted 
 whether his Own force, in combination with the 
 Prussian army under Blucher, could move until the 
 troops assembled on the upper Rhine under Schwar- 
 zenberg had begun their forward movement and had 
 thus obliged the French Emperor to concentrate upon 
 
136 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the Aisne. On May 9th he addressed the Due de 
 Berri in the following- terms : " J'avoue a votre Altesse 
 Royale que j'ai toute raison de croire la force ennemie 
 a present rassemblee a Valenciennes et Maubeuge tres 
 superieure a ce qu'elle a ete representee a votre 
 Altesse ; et que je ne serais pas surpris que nous 
 fussions attaques." The same day he used similar 
 language in writing to Lord Hill. Three days after- 
 wards he wrote as follows to his brother Henry : 
 " There has been a good deal of movement upon the 
 frontier in the last week, but I am inclined to believe 
 it is entirely defensive, and that Bonaparte cannot 
 venture to quit Paris. Indeed, all accounts give 
 reason to hope that, even without the aid of the 
 Allies, his power will not be of long duration." In a 
 memorandum written in 1842, controverting certain 
 statements which had appeared in General Clause- 
 witz's history of the campaign of 181 5, Wellington 
 explained the exact position occupied by the British 
 and Prussian forces, and the alternative lines of action 
 for which they had to be prepared. He pointed out 
 that the two Allied armies guarding the Belgian 
 frontier were "necessarily on the defensive, waiting 
 for the junction of other large armies, to attain, by 
 their co-operation, a common object ; " but that " their 
 defensive position and immediate objects did not 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 137 
 
 necessarily preclude all idea or plan of attack upon the 
 enemy." Such ideas or plans had, however, to be 
 postponed because Napoleon took up a position " in 
 which his numbers, his movements and his designs 
 could be concealed, protected, and supported by his 
 formidable fortresses on the frontier, up to the last 
 moment previous to their being carried into execution. 
 The initiative, then, rested with the enemy ; and the 
 course to be pursued by the Allied generals respec- 
 tively was to be prepared to move in all directions, to 
 wait till it should be seen in what direction the attack 
 would be made, and then to assemble the armies as 
 quickly as possible to resist the attack, or to attack 
 the enemy with the largest force that could be 
 collected." He emphasised the necessity for extreme 
 watchfulness and caution by observing that, whatever 
 might be thought of Napoleon as a leader of troops in 
 other respects, "there certainly never existed a man 
 in whose presence it was so little safe to make what is 
 called a false movement." 
 
 I have referred in some detail to the somewhat 
 inconsistent views put forward by Wellington in 
 regard to the nature and direction of Napoleon's 
 operations, in order to show how difficult it is for even 
 the most sagacious and experienced commander to 
 fathom the designs of an equally able antagonist. 
 
158 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 But, whatever schemes he might elaborate for the 
 eventual invasion of France, the Duke did not neglect 
 his more immediate duty, which was to arrange for 
 the rapid concentration of his army at any threatened 
 point, and to improve his own defensive position. On 
 April 30th he circulated a secret memorandum giving 
 specific instructions to his subordinate commanders for 
 the movement of the troops under their orders, in 
 the event of a French attack between the Lys and 
 Scheldt, or between the Sambre and Scheldt, or by 
 both lines simultaneously. He caused the fortifica- 
 tions of Ypres, Ostend, Nieuport, Ath, and Tournay 
 to be repaired and armed. Mons was protected by 
 inundations and redoubts. The defences of Antwerp 
 were strengthened, and Ghent was covered by a line 
 of field works extending from the Lys to the Scheldt. 
 Audenarde also was fortified, in order to facilitate the 
 movement of troops along either bank of the latter 
 river. Writing to the Prince of Orange on April 17th, 
 Wellington pointed out that the King of the Nether- 
 lands "had but a small and very young army to 
 oppose to the well-disciplined French troops," and 
 that the inhabitants of Belgium were not particularly 
 well disposed towards the existing Government. 
 Under these circumstances he was of opinion that the 
 most useful way to employ such an army was to place 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 139 
 
 it in well-chosen works of defence. Subsequently 
 garrisons were allotted to the several places men- 
 tioned above, consisting of about 2000 British troops, 
 10,000 Hanoverians, and 14,000 soldiers of the Low 
 Countries. As explained by Colonel Carmichael 
 Smyth, the Commanding Royal Engineer, "the object 
 of these various works was not to stop the French 
 from invading Belgium, but to detain them long 
 enough to give the Allies time to concentrate upon 
 their line of operations." That this object was 
 attained is evident from Wellington's account of the 
 concentration on Quatre Bras during the evening and 
 night of June 15th, his words being — "The whole 
 army moved on that evening and in the night, each 
 division and portion separately ; the whole being 
 protected on the march by the defensive works 
 constructed at the different points referred to, and by 
 their garrisons." 
 
 As regards the army placed under his command, 
 Wellington, on arriving at Brussels, expressed his 
 dissatisfaction at the inadequate number of British 
 troops despatched to the Low Countries. He re- 
 marked to Lord Bathiirst that the Home Government 
 had not taken a clear view of the situation, and that, 
 if the war was to be a short one, a great effort was 
 necessary. He asked for 40,000 good British infantry 
 
140 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 in addition to the number required for garrisons, 
 18,000 cavalry, and 150 field guns manned by British 
 artillerymen and fully horsed. He also requested 
 that the entire corps of Sappers and Miners should be 
 sent to the scene of operations, as well as a bridge 
 train of eighty pontoons, a waggon train, ambulance 
 corps, and proper transport for small arms ammuni- 
 tion. With these equipments and reinforcements he 
 engaged that the British army would creditably play 
 its part in the game ; but added, " As it is, we are in 
 a bad way." Writing to General Lord Stewart, on 
 May 8th, he expressed himself as follows : " I have 
 got an infamous army, very weak and ill-equipped, 
 and a very inexperienced staff. In my opinion they 
 are doing nothing in England. They have not raised 
 a man ; they have not called out the militia either in 
 England or Ireland ; are unable to send me anything ; 
 and they have not sent a message to Parliament 
 about the money." The Duke strongly objected to 
 the excessive number of general and staff officers 
 appointed to the force by the Horse Guards, and to 
 the selection of officers who were absolutely ignorant 
 of their staff duties. Writing to the Military Secre- 
 tary, he observed : ''The army — that is, the British 
 part of it — is excessively small, and it already has a 
 staff more than sufficient for its numbers and organ- 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 141 
 
 isation. ... I am certain that His Royal Highness 
 would wish to nominate the staff officers most capable 
 of serving the army and those about whom they are 
 placed ; and he will admit that the most experienced 
 — that is, those that have been serving in staff situa- 
 tions for five or six years — are of that description. 
 But of the list you and Colonel Shawe have sent, there 
 are only three who have any experience at all. As 
 for the others, if they had been proposed to me, I 
 should have rejected them all." He wrote again on 
 the same day, "Before you send any more general 
 officers let me see more troops." Finding that his 
 remonstrances were not well received by His Royal 
 Highness, Wellington thought it better to give way, 
 and informed the Military Secretary that he would 
 not object to having as many officers on the staff as 
 the Commander-in-Chief chose to nominate. But he 
 pointed out that the staff was to a great extent 
 useless. Speaking of the departments of Military 
 Intelligence and Military Communications, he re- 
 marked : " It Is quite impossible for me to superintend 
 the details of the duties of these departments myself, 
 having already more to arrange than I am eqiial to, 
 and I cannot entrust them to the young gentlemen on 
 the staff of this army. Indeed, I must say I do not 
 know how to employ them," And he finally wrote, 
 
142 
 
 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 on May 5th: "I think it much better that this 
 correspondence upon the Staff should cease. The 
 Gommander-in-Chief has a right to appoint whom he 
 chooses, and those whom he appoints shall be em- 
 ployed. It cannot be expected that I should declare 
 
 H.R.H. FREDERICK, DUKE OF YORK AND ALBANY, F.-M., 
 COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 
 
 myself satisfied with these appointments till I shall 
 find the persons as fit for their situations as those 
 whom I should have recommended to His Royal 
 Highness." 
 
 Wellington, as we know, had a high opinion of the 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. \^y 
 
 Portuguese troops, when led by British officers and 
 associated with British soldiers. He endeavoured, 
 therefore, to strengthen his army by obtaining from 
 Portugal a contingent of 15,000 picked men under 
 the command of Marshal Beresford. He addressed 
 the Prince Regent of Portugal on the subject,, 
 and also submitted repeated applications to the 
 Home Government. No objection was raised by 
 the authorities concerned ; the force, with artillery 
 and baggage-train, was assembled, and the transports 
 were ready for its embarkation. But unfortunately 
 Canning, who was then Ambassador at Lisbon, deter- 
 mined to proceed by strictly diplomatic methods, the 
 Souza faction took advantage of the opportunity to 
 oppose the despatch of the contingent, and the army 
 of England's traditional ally lost its chance of sharing 
 in the glories of the campaign of 181 5. 
 
 Turning now to the state of affairs at the beginning 
 of June, we find that the Allied troops under 
 Wellington's command were holding the fortified 
 posts along the Belgian frontier from O^tend to 
 Mons. The right wing, under General Hill, was 
 stationed in the neighbourhood of Ath, and the left 
 wing, under the Prince of Orange, occupied Braine-le- 
 Gomte and Nivelles. The cavalry, commanded by 
 Lord Uxbridge,'was collected at Grammont, atid the 
 
144 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 reserve of all arms was encamped and cantoned at 
 Brussels, which place was also the Duke's head- 
 quarters. The troops of all ranks numbered al- 
 together about 110,000, of whom a little over 49,000 
 (including the King's German Legion) were British, 
 and the remainder Hanoverians, Brunswickers, Dutch- 
 men, and Belgians. Out of this total some 20,000 
 men were employed in garrisoning Antwerp, Ostend, 
 Nieuport, and the frontier defences, leaving a field army 
 about 90,000 strong, with 200 guns. Blucher's army, 
 consisting of four corps and numbering 117,000 men, 
 with 300 guns, was quartered at Charleroi, Namur, 
 Dinant and Liege. At the same date the force at 
 Napoleon's disposal amounted to about 128,000 men, 
 with 350 guns, and occupied cantonments facing the 
 Belgian frontier, from Lille on the left to Metz on 
 the right. In addition, there were some 53,000 
 regular troops doing duty in garrisons and as corps 
 of observation in various parts of France. 
 
 There were three courses open to the French 
 Emperor. He might have endeavoured to negotiate 
 with the Allied Powers ; but such an attempt seemed 
 useless — at any rate until he had gained a decisive 
 victory — in view of the declaration placing him hors 
 de la lot, and the treaty binding the Powers to con- 
 tinue the struggle until he was driven from the 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 
 
 145 
 
 French throne. Secondly, he might have maintained 
 a defensive attitude, and awaited the attack of the 
 Allies along a front stretching from Paris to Lyons. 
 But to do this would have been to diminish his 
 resources by abandoning a large portion of France to 
 
 FIELD-MARSHAL VON BLUCHER. 
 
 the enemy, to alienate the population of the invaded 
 provinces, and to dishearten his own troops. The 
 third course was to attack and defeat the Anglo- 
 Prussian force before the Austrian and Russian corps 
 had time to concentrate on the French frontier. It 
 
146 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 is true that the French army was numerically much 
 weaker than the combined armies of England and 
 Prussia. But Napoleon's previous successes had 
 induced him to believe that this inequality would be 
 more than counterbalanced by his skill as a general, 
 and by the superiority of his soldiers. Besides, he 
 considered, to use his own words, that " an offensive 
 plan of action was alone in conformity with the genius 
 of the French nation and with the spirit and prin- 
 ciples of the war in which he was engaged." He 
 hoped to take the Allies by surprise, to beat them in 
 detail before they could unite, and to bring about a 
 national rising in Belgium and the Rhine Provinces. 
 For these reasons the third course commended 
 itself to the Emperor, as offering him the best, if not 
 the only, chance of success. 
 
 Having determined to assume the offensive. Napo- 
 leon decided to operate by the valley of the Sambre, 
 and strike at the point of junction between the 
 British and Prussian forces. The long front occupied 
 by the Allies was exposed to attack in other direc- 
 tions ; and he might have advanced by the Meuse 
 valley with the object of cutting off the Prussians 
 from their base at Cologne, or he might have en- 
 deavoured to turn the right flank of Wellington's 
 army, driving it back in an eastward direction and 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 147 
 
 threatening its communications with the sea, Holland, 
 and Hanover. In adopting the central line of opera- 
 tions, it seems probable that Napoleon failed to realise 
 what an able and active enemy he had to deal with ; 
 for it is obvious that, unless he could effectually 
 interpose between the British and Prussian armies 
 before they had time to concentrate on their point of 
 junction, he ran the risk of being attacked by them 
 simultaneously. Even if he were fortunate enough 
 to defeat and drive back one of these armies, the 
 other army might prevent him from following up 
 his success by menacing his flank and rear ; while if, 
 under the same circumstances, he proceeded to 
 attack the force which had not yet been engaged, the 
 defeated army might come to its ally's assistance — 
 unless, indeed, its defeat had been so disastrous as 
 to render it incapable for the time of further inter- 
 ference with his movements. Wellington was always 
 of opinion that the French Emperor would have done 
 better if he had selected another line of operations, 
 and the result of the campaign to a great extent 
 confirms the correctness of this view. 
 
 The concentration of the French army was carried 
 out with the precision and secrecy characteristic of 
 Napoleon's strategy, and by June 14th his force was 
 assembled upon the line stretching from Maubeuge 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 through Beaumont to Philippeville, within one march 
 of Charlerol, which was held by Ziethen's corps of 
 30,000 Prussians. Early the next day the French 
 troops came into contact with the Prussian outposts, 
 and crossed the Sambre at Charleroi, Marchiennes, 
 and Chatelet, Ziethen's corps falling back in good 
 order first on Fleurus and afterwards on Ligny. 
 Blucher received the news of Napoleon's advance on 
 the 14th, and at once gave orders for the concentra- 
 tion of his army at Fleurus. The same intelligence 
 was first communicated to Wellington at three o'clock 
 in the afternoon of the 15th by the Prince of Orange, 
 whose report was shortly afterwards confirmed by 
 General Muffling, the Prussian Staff Officer at the 
 Duke's headquarters. Orders were issued forthwith 
 for the British army to be prepared to concentrate on 
 its left at a moment's notice, but for some little time 
 Wellington doubted whether Napoleon had really 
 committed himself to an attack upon the centre of 
 the position occupied by the Allied forces. The 
 news received in the afternoon was, however, sub- 
 stantiated a few hours later, and at 10 P.M. the troops 
 were directed to move upon Quatre Bras. The 
 reserve quartered in and near Brussels was assembled 
 on the evening of the 15th, and began its march to 
 Quatre Bras at daybreak on the i6th. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 149 
 
 On the morning of the i6th Ziethen's corps was at 
 Ligny, about eight miles south-east of Quatre Bras. 
 It was there joined at an early hour by Pirch's corps, 
 32,000 strong, and Thielman's, 21,000 strong, the 
 whole being under Bluchers personal command. 
 Bulow's corps, numbering 30,000, which had been 
 quartered at Liege, some fifty miles distant, did not 
 come up in time to take part in the operations of the 
 day. A division of the troops of the Netherlands 
 about 10,000 strong, commanded by the Prince of 
 Orange, was holding Quatre Bras and awaiting the 
 arrival of the reinforcements which had been ordered 
 up at 10 o'clock the preceding evening. Wellington 
 left Brussels early in the morning, after having 
 attended with many of his officers the famous ball 
 given by the Duchess of Richmond. He reached 
 Quatre Bras about 10 A.M., reconnoitred the French 
 troops which had halted in front of the Prince of 
 Orange's division, and rode on to Ligny, where he had 
 an interview with the Prussian Commander-in-Chief. 
 He is said to have disapproved of the position which 
 Blucher had taken up between St. Amand and 
 Sombre fife, telling the Marshal — " Every man knows 
 his own troops best ; but if I were to place my men 
 where you have placed yours, I should expect to 
 be beaten." Blucher's reply was — "My men like to 
 
I50 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 ^see the enemy " ; and the Duke did not continue the 
 •discussion. But when riding back to Quatre Bras he 
 remarked to his staff— " If I am not very much 
 mistaken, the Prussians will get an awful thrashing 
 to-day." 
 
 Wellington got back to Quatre Bras between 3 and 
 4 P.M. He tells us that the reserve from Brussels 
 had arrived there about noon, and was shortly 
 afterwards followed by the Brunswick and Nassau 
 contingents, ist Infantry Division consisting of the 
 Foot Guards, and a portion of the Cavalry and 
 Artillery. It is only fair to say that, though the 
 Duke's statement on this point in his memorandum 
 on Clausewitz's history is quite clear, he reported in 
 his official despatch that the reserve only reached 
 Quatre Bras at half-past two in the afternoon ; and 
 other authorities assert that the Prince of Orange was 
 not reinforced until four o'clock, and that the British 
 cavalry and artillery did not come up until six o'clock. 
 
 Napoleon's plans for the i6th were as follows : — He 
 assumed the personal command of the right and 
 centre of his army, consisting of about 73,000 men, 
 with 230 guns ; and the command of the left, consist- 
 ing of some 47,000 men, with 120 guns, was given to 
 Marshal Ney, who had arrived from Paris late in the 
 evening of the preceding day. Ney's headquarters 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 151 
 
 were at Gosselies, about eight miles south of Quatre 
 Bras, and there he received a letter dictated by the 
 Emperor at 8 A.M., desiring him to occupy the position 
 held by the Prince of Orange, and afterwards to be 
 in readiness for a rapid march on Brussels. The in- 
 .structions given in this letter were singularly vague, 
 and indicated a misapprehension of the true state of 
 affairs. Napoleon wrote : " I shall attack the enemy 
 if. I fall in with them. Then, after the engagement 
 is over, I shall begin my march at three in the after- 
 noon^ — ^^perhaps in the evening. My wish is for you 
 to be ready to move immediately after I have started. 
 I desire you to make such arrangements aswillenabl^ 
 your eight divisions, on the receipt of orders frorrt me, 
 to march rapidly and without check upon Brussels." 
 Napoleon evidently looked upon victory as assured. 
 
 The Emperor reached Fleurus at about 1 1 A.M., 
 and personally reconnoitred Blucher's position. The 
 information he obtained seems to have been very 
 imperfect, for shortly afterwards, Soult, who wa^ 
 Chief of the Staff, wrote to Ney in the following 
 terms : " The Emperor commands me to inform you 
 that the enemy has collected a body of troops between 
 Bry and Sombreffe ; and that at half-past two Marshal 
 Grouchy, with the 3rd and 4th Corps, will fall upon 
 him." The body of troops thus referred to was in 
 
152 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON, 
 
 reality the Prussian army, over 80,000 strong, drawn 
 up in readiness to oppose Napoleon's advance. It had 
 been the Emperor's intention to take the Allied forces 
 by surprise. He appears to have taken it for granted 
 that he had succeeded in doing so, and he apprehended 
 no serious opposition to his preventing their junction. 
 That junction, however, had actually been effected 
 about midday, although Napoleon remained ignorant 
 of the fact until his dispositions had been made, and 
 his troops were engaged. 
 
 Ney began his attack on Quatre Bras at 2 p.m., and 
 Napoleon engaged the Prussian troops about half an 
 hour later. The resistance of the latter was so 
 obstinate, and their strength so much greater than the 
 Emperor had anticipated, that shortly after three 
 o'clock, he sent an order to Ney directing him to 
 manoeuvre in the direction of Bry, so as to turn the 
 Prussian right. As this order was being conveyed 
 to Ney, it was shown to Marshal D'Erlon, one of 
 liis commanders, who, with a corps of 20,000 men, 
 and forty-six guns, was moving up in support of 
 the attack on Quatre Bras. Without waiting for 
 instructions from his immediate superior, D'Erlon 
 decided to comply with the order, and accordingly 
 turned off in the direction of Biy, which he reached 
 about 7 P.M. Meanwhile, Ney was being pushed back 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 153 
 
 by Wellington, and finding himself in urgent need of 
 reinforcements he sent peremptory orders to D'Erlon 
 to retrace his steps towards Quatre Bras. The result 
 was that on June 17th, an entire corps with forty-six 
 guns spent the day in marching to and fro between 
 the left and centre of the French army. 
 
 ' After a severe and protracted struggle, the Prussians, 
 as predicted by Wellington, were defeated, but not 
 routed, at Ligny, while the English were victorious at 
 Quatre Bras, driving the French back to Frasnes, and 
 themselves bivouacking on the field of battle. During 
 these engagements, both Wellington and Blucher 
 narrowly escaped being killed or captured by the 
 enemy.* During the night the Prussian force drew off 
 
 * Blucher placed himself at the head of a body of Prussian 
 cavalry, and charged the French squadrons which were pur- 
 suing his defeated infantry. His horse was shot under him, 
 and entangled him in his fall ; and he lay, fortunately unrecog- 
 nised, on the field of battle until his aide-de-camp was able to 
 remount him on a charger taken from one of his own troopers. 
 
 At Quatre Bras Wellington accompanied a regiment of 
 Brunswicker Hussars, which he had ordered up in support of 
 the infantry of the same contingent. This regiment was com- 
 posed of young soldiers, and being exposed to a hot musketiy 
 fire, it fell back in confusion. The Duke was carried away 
 with it, and, the French Lancers charging at the moment, he 
 had to trust to the speed of his horse. He arrived, closely 
 pursued, at the edge of a ditch which was lined by the 92nd 
 Highlanders, and, leaping his horse across the ditch and over 
 the Highlanders' bayonets, he drew up in safety on the other 
 
154 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 in the direction of Wavre, their retirement being con- 
 ducted in such a leisurely manner, that on the morning 
 of the 17th, their rear-guard was still at Sombreffe. 
 Shortly after daybreak, Wellington communicated 
 with General Ziethen, commanding the rear-guard, 
 through Colonel Gordon, one of his aides-de-camp, 
 whose escort, consisting of two squadrons of the roth 
 .Hussars, drove in the French vedettes posted on the 
 field of Ligny. 
 
 About 8 A.M. on the 17th, Napoleon proceeded to 
 St. Amand and spent three or foiir hours in inspecting 
 his troops, and visiting the scene of the previous day's 
 conflict with the Prussians. He assumed that the 
 latter had withdrawn eastward towards their base in 
 Germany, but took no steps to verify the accuracy of 
 this conjecture. He accordingly placed Grouchy in 
 command of about 33,000 men with ninety-six guns, 
 and directed him to pursue the Prussians through 
 Gembloux in the direction of Namur and Liege. 
 This order, which was a verbal one, was not given 
 until early in the afternoon. It was followed by written 
 instructions to the same effect ; and after an unneces- 
 sary delay of at least eight hours, for which the 
 
 side. A French officer, named Burgoyne, made a dash at the 
 Duke, but was stopped by a musket-ball from one of the 92nd, 
 which passed through both his ankles. _ " ' '• 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 155 
 
 Emperor alone was responsible, Grouchy began his 
 march at 3 P.M. in a wrong direction. 
 
 In the meantime, ascertaining that the English 
 
 were still holding Quatre Bras, the Emperor wrote 
 
 to Ney a letter dated "Noon, in front of Ligiiy," 
 
 desiring him to engage the enemy, and promising him 
 
 to support the attack by an advance upon Marbais. 
 
 Wellington's main body had, however, fallen back 
 
 about 10 A.M. without interruption or molestation 
 
 towards the position he had selected in front of 
 
 Waterloo, and only the outposts and cavalry remained 
 
 at Quatre Bras, under his personal command. His 
 
 own account is: "No pursuit was made of the 
 
 Prussian army, or movement of any kind made by 
 
 the French army, until a late hour in the afternoon 
 
 of the 17th. The largest body of French troops and 
 
 the great mass of the cavalry moved down the high 
 
 road from Sombreffe to Quatre Bras, towards the left 
 
 of the British troops of the army of the Duke of 
 
 Wellington, which still remained on that ground. 
 
 These were put in motion, and retired as soon as 
 
 their outposts were touched by the enemy, and joined 
 
 the main body of the army at that time posted in 
 
 front of Waterloo." So far, then, Napoleon had 
 
 gained no material advantage. He had failed to 
 
 anticipate the concentration, or to prevent the 
 
156 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 junction, of the Allied forces opposed to him ; he had 
 fought a double engagement without decisive results ; 
 Blucher, having been defeated, had fallen back in 
 good order on Wavre ; and Wellington, having 
 gained the day at Quatre Bras, had withdrawn to a 
 position which offered great defensive advantages 
 besides being within easy reach of the Prussian force. 
 
 At nightfall the main body of the French army, 
 numbering 72,000 men with 240 guns, was collected 
 within a mile of the troops under Wellington's 
 command ; but Grouchy's corps, which had been 
 detached in pursuit of the Prussians, had started at so 
 late an hour that by nine in the evening it had only 
 advanced as far as Gembloux, about fourteen miles 
 from Wavre and twenty miles from Waterloo. On 
 reaching Gembloux, Grouchy ascertained that a 
 considerable portion of the Prussian force had re- 
 treated towards Wavre, and he reported to Napoleon 
 accordingly, proposing to continue his pursuit in that 
 direction early next morning. This course of action 
 was approved by the Emperor, but the French 
 troops did not quit Gembloux until about 9 A.M. on 
 the 1 8th, and it was only at 11 A.M., when passing 
 through Sart-lez-Walhain, that Grouchy became 
 aware of the concentration of the whole Prussian 
 army at Wavre on the previous night. The heavy 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 157 
 
 rain which fell during the afternoon and night of the 
 17th somewhat modified the operations of the 
 following day, though it can hardly be said to have 
 affected their result. In the first place, the state of 
 the roads greatly delayed the movement of the 
 Prussians in support of Wellington's left, while it 
 retarded to an equal extent Grouchy's march from 
 Gembloux to Wavre ; and, secondly, the ground at 
 Waterloo had become so heavy that Napoleon de- 
 cided not to begin the battle until 1 1 AM., by which 
 time he expected to be able to manoeuvre his cavalry 
 and artillery. The first phase of the engagement 
 was an attack on the British right at the advanced 
 post of Hougoumont, a building surrounded by 
 orchards and enclosures, and occupied by a detach- 
 ment of the Guards. The building itself was set on 
 fire by the French shells, and the enclosures sur- 
 rounding it fell for a time into the enemy's hands ; 
 but eventually the assailants were repulsed, and the 
 defenders held their ground up to the close of the 
 day. This attempt to turn the British right proving 
 unsuccessful, D'Erlon's corps, 20,000 strong, was 
 directed against the British left centre at about half- 
 past one in the afternoon. Moving in four dense 
 columns, the French infantry quickly routed a brigade 
 of Belgian troops which obstructed their advance ; 
 
mm^S "^^itajxin/i 
 
 THE FIELD OF WA'l ERLOO. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 159 
 
 but coming next into contact with Picton's division, 
 drawn up in rear of the Belgians, they recoiled in 
 disorder before its deadly fire. The brigade of heavy 
 cavalry under Ponsonby seized the opportunity to 
 charge the wavering masses of the enemy, driving 
 them back in the utmost confusion, and capturing 
 3000 prisoners. The cavalry continued their pursuit 
 as far as the batteries which had been supporting 
 D'Erlon's attack ; but, after sabring many horses 
 and upsetting fifteen guns, they were charged in 
 turn by the French squadrons, and had to retire with 
 heavy loss, their gallant commander being among the 
 killed. About 3 P.M. Ney again attacked the British 
 left centre, and succeeded in gaining possession of 
 a farmhouse called La Haye Sainte, which Welling- 
 ton had occupied as a defensive outpost covering this 
 flank of his position. An hour later the Duke at- 
 tempted to recapture La Haye Sainte ; but the 
 Hanoverians, to whom the task was entrusted, were 
 repulsed by the French troops, and a gap was thus 
 made in the British line, through which Ney en- 
 deavoured to penetrate. Having no infantry im- 
 mediately available for this purpose, he ordered up 
 a brigade of cavalry, which, either accidentally or in 
 accordance with the Emperor's instructions, was 
 followed by the main body of that arm including 
 
i6o THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 the reserve cavalry of the Imperial Guard. Welling- 
 ton, however, brought up reinforcements ; and his 
 infantry, formed into squares, stubbornly resisted the 
 repeated charges of the French horsemen, who had at 
 last to fall back completely disorganised by the cool 
 and accurate fire of their opponents. 
 
 We must now turn to the Prussian army, which 
 on the night of the 17th had bivouacked in the 
 neighbourhood of Wavre. In order to appreciate 
 the plan of campaign of the Allied generals, it must 
 be remembered that throughout the operations 
 Wellington was in constant communication with 
 Blucher. As already mentioned, he had an interview 
 with the latter on the battle-field of Ligny. Early 
 the next morning he sent one of his aides-de-camp to 
 ascertain from General Ziethcn the line of retreat of 
 the Prussian force to Wavre, and shortly afterwards 
 he received a despatch from Blucher conveyed by 
 Lieutenant Massow. He has himself stated that 
 the exact position of the Prussians and the in- 
 tentions of their commander were known to him 
 before he broke up his own position at Quatre 
 Bras, and that " the two Allied armies communi- 
 cated with each other throughout the night of 
 June 17th." Up to the battle of Ligny Wellington 
 and Blucher were kept in close touch with each 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. i6i 
 
 other's plans and movements through Colonel Sir 
 Henry Hardinge, the British Commissioner at the 
 Prussian headquarters, and General Muffling, the 
 Prussian Commissioner at the British headquarters. 
 Hardinge was severely wounded at Ligny, and for 
 the next few days General Muffling had to under- 
 take his colleague's duties in addition to his own. 
 Speaking of the latter officer, Wellington remarked : 
 " We were engaged in sl^ridt co-operation with the 
 Prussian army, and he necessarily carried on a very 
 active and almost hourly correspondence with the 
 Prussian headquarters, particularly after Hardinge 
 was wounded in the battle of Ligny." It may there- 
 fore be concluded that a clear understanding had 
 been come to between the Allied generals that the 
 British army should engage Napoleon in front of 
 Waterloo while Blucher attacked him on the right 
 flank from the direction of Wavre. Wavre is barely 
 ten miles from Waterloo, and two nearly parallel 
 roads connected the two places, one through Ohain 
 on Mont St. Jean, the other through St. Lambert to 
 Planchenois. In view of these facts it seems reason- 
 able to assume that Wellington had arranged to be 
 supported by a strong body of Prussian troops not 
 later than one or two o'clock in the afternoon. At 
 daylight on the i8th the cavalry of General Bulow's 
 
 M 
 
i62 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 corps was visible on the high ground in front of 
 Ohain, less than four miles from the British position ; 
 but, owing to the bad state of the roads and several 
 accidental circumstances, it was two in the afternoon 
 before the infantry of that corps had passed through 
 
 THE MARQUESS OF ANGLESEY. 
 
 St. Lambert, and half-past four before the Prussians 
 deployed for attack in front of Planchenois. Napoleon 
 had detached General Lobau with 10,000 men to 
 meet this flanking movement ; but the French troops 
 were driven back into the village of Planchenois and 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 163 
 
 had to be reinforced an hour later by a division of 
 the Young Guard, a regiment of the Old Guard, and 
 twenty-four guns. At 7 P.M. Ziethen's corps, march- 
 ing through Chain, came up on the left of the British 
 line, and assisted in defeating the Emperor's final 
 attack. For this attack Napoleon formed eight 
 battalions of the Guard, hitherto held in reserve, into 
 two columns, two additional battalions following in 
 support. The columns were opposed by a line of 
 British infantry, consisting of Maitland's brigade of 
 the Foot Guards led by Wellington in person, and 
 they were taken in flank by the 52nd Regiment. 
 Being exposed to an overwhelming fire, to which, 
 from the nature of their formation, they were unable 
 to reply, they halted and wavered. At that moment 
 they were charged by two brigades of British cavalry, 
 and after a brief struggle driven back in disorder. 
 At this critical moment Ziethen's corps, led by 
 Blucher, engaged the French right and carried the 
 position it occupied at Papelotte and La Haye. 
 Seizing the opportunity, Wellington ordered a 
 general advance of his whole line of infantry, sup- 
 ported by his cavalry and artillery. To use his own 
 words, " the attack succeeded at every point ; the 
 enemy was forced from his position on the heights, 
 and fled in the utmost confusion, leaving behind him, 
 
 M 2 
 
i64 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 as far as I could judge, 150 pieces of cannon, with 
 their ammunition, which fell into our hands." 
 
 The pursuit was begun by both British and Prussian 
 troops. The former, however, were much fatigued, 
 and both on this account and because there was not 
 room for them to act along the Charleroi road simul- 
 taneously with the Prussians, Wellington arranged 
 with Blucher that the latter should follow up the 
 enemy throughout the night. By daybreak the 
 next morning the Prussian cavalry had reached 
 Gosselies, about five miles short of Charleroi and 
 twenty miles from the battle-field ; and had captured 
 sixty guns belonging to the Imperial Guard. The 
 Emperor passed through Charleroi at 6 A.M., and out 
 of the army 72,000 strong which he commanded at 
 Waterloo, only 40,000 recrossed the Sambre. The 
 total loss of the Allies on June i8th amounted to 
 over 23,000 killed and wounded, that of the British 
 being 8460, and of the Prussians 7000. 
 
 Here it should be mentioned that a portion of 
 Wellington's available force was not present on the 
 field of battle. One division under General Colville, 
 consisting of four British and five Hanoverian bat- 
 talions, with three British batteries, was posted at 
 Hal, on the road between Mons and Brussels, while 
 a corps of Netherlanders, 17,000 strong, under Prince 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 165 
 
 Frederick of Orange, occupied the ground between 
 Hal and Enghien. It has generally been supposed 
 that these troops were detached with the object of 
 guarding the right flank of the Duke's army against 
 a turning movement But it seems most unlikely 
 that such a commander as Wellington was ignorant 
 of the fact that the whole French army, except 
 Grouchy's corps, had taken up its position im- 
 mediately in front of him on the evening of the 17th ; 
 and from some remarks of his, recorded by Mr. 
 Gleig, it would appear that his intention in holding 
 Hal and Enghien on the i8th was to secure his line 
 of retreat in the event of his being defeated. In 
 December, 1825, Wellington, in discussing with Mr. 
 Croker the assertion made by Napoleon, and repeated 
 by several military writers, that the position he had 
 taken up at Waterloo was a bad one, because it 
 afforded no practicable line of retreat, distinctly denied 
 that this was the case, and pointed out that the road 
 to Brussels through the Forest of Soignes was open 
 to him. His words were : " The road to Brussels 
 was practicable, every yard, for such a purpose. I 
 knew every foot of the plain beyond the forest and 
 through it. The forest on each side of the chauss^e 
 was open enough for infantry, cavalry, and even for 
 artillery, and very defensible. Had I retreated 
 
i66 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 through it, could they have followed me ? The 
 Prussians were on their flank, and would have been 
 in their rear. The co-operation of the Prussians in 
 the operations I undertook was part of my plan, 
 and I was not deceived. But I never contemplated 
 a retreat on Brussels. Had I been forced from 
 my position I should have retreated to my right, 
 towards the coast, the shipping, and my resources. 
 And again I ask, if I had retreated to my right would 
 Napoleon have ventured to follow me } The Prussians, 
 already on his flank, would have been in his rear. 
 But my plan was to keep my ground till the Prussians 
 appeared, and then to attack the French position ; 
 and I executed my plan." 
 
 While the fight was going on at Waterloo, Grouchy 
 received further orders from Napoleon, written that 
 very morning, instructing him to continue his pursuit 
 of the Prussians in the direction of Wavre, and by 
 four in the afternoon he reached that town, and 
 became engaged with Thielman's corps, which formed 
 the Prussian rear-guard. After a severe struggle the 
 Prussians succeeded in holding their own, and re- 
 mained in possession of Wavre during the night of 
 the 1 8th. Early the next morning the conflict was 
 resumed, the opposing forces being still ignorant of 
 Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo ; and eventually the 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 167 
 
 ^a ^"^ /f/S 
 
 
 ai-^^^y^:^^/^^ ^^ xSX; 
 
 «-<>i^^^*<.,<i^ 
 
 ;^i^ 2^ 
 
 A 
 
 
i68 
 
 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ^V-x^i-^'<^-'''^^^^^ 
 
 /^Ce^ ^^-3^.0^^ ^?'^^*!i*.-t^^ 
 
 FACSIMILE OF PORTION OF DESPATCH WRITTEN FROM 
 WATERLOO TO LORD BATHURST THE DAY AFTER THE 
 BATTLE. 
 
 French, who were greatly superior in numbers, carried 
 the position, and drove back Thielman's corps towards 
 Louvain. Very soon, however, the French Marshal 
 was informed of the result of Wellington's victory, 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 169 
 
 and at once withdrew to Namur, which in the hurry 
 of the concentration had been left unguarded. There 
 on June 20th he was attacked by Pirch's corps, which 
 had been ordered on the night of the i8th to march 
 from Waterloo to Sombreffe in order to cut off his 
 retreat. The attack was repulsed with heavy loss to 
 the assailants, and the next day Grouchy passed 
 through Dinant and reached French territory without 
 being further molested. 
 
 In estimating Wellington's achievements during 
 the brief campaign which ended in the battle of 
 Waterloo, it must be borne in mind that he com- 
 manded a mixed force of very unequal quality. The 
 pick of the British infantry who had served in the 
 Peninsular War were still in North America, sufficient 
 time not having elapsed after the conclusion of peace 
 with the United States, to enable the Government 
 to bring these troops back to Europe. With the 
 exception of the German Legion, the Hanoverian 
 contingent consisted of imperfectly trained militia ; 
 while the Nassau and Belgian soldiers required very 
 careful handling, believing as they did that Napoleon 
 was irresistible. The following incident, described 
 in Wellington's own language, illustrates the kind of 
 glamour thrown by the French Emperor over some 
 
I70 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 of the Continental troops opposed to him : — " I had 
 three battahons of Nassau troops under my command. 
 I put them in the park at Hougoumont, and expected 
 that, being old soldiers, they would keep their ground. 
 But the moment the French began to advance I saw 
 them waver. It was this which made me withdraw 
 them and put a battalion of the Guards in their place. 
 I ascertained afterwards, just what I expected to find, 
 that the name of Napoleon had beaten them before 
 they fired a shot ; and that if I had left them there, 
 the park and probably Hougoumont itself would have 
 been carried at a rush." 
 
 On the morning of the i8th Wellington's force 
 consisted of 25,400 British soldiers, the German 
 Legion 6800 strong, about 11,000 Hanoverians, 
 6000 Brunswickers, 3000 Nassau troops, and 17,500 
 troops of the Netherlands ; total 69,700 men, with 
 159 guns. The French army was composed of 
 soldiers all belonging to the same race and of 
 excellent quality ; it was 72,000 strong, with 240 guns, 
 and was commanded by the foremost captain of the 
 age. That under these circumstances the Duke 
 should not only have held his own from 1 1 A.M to 
 7 P.M., but have succeeded in driving the enemy off 
 the field of battle at the moment the Prussians were 
 in a position to take an active part in the conflict, is 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 171 
 
 a feat almost unequalled in the annals of war. On 
 that particular occasion the British commander 
 certainly displayed greater readiness of resource, 
 tactical skill, and coolness of judgment, than his 
 illustrious antagonist. Wellington was the only\ 
 general of the first order that Napoleon ever had to 
 encounter, and throughout the campaign the Emperor 
 appears to have underrated his opponent's ability and 
 failed to realise the surpassing bravery and endurance \. 
 of British soldiers. Some of the French officers who f 
 had served in the Peninsula were better acquainted \ 
 with the fighting qualities of the British army and j 
 the Duke's military genius. General Foy told the / 
 Emperor that " the British infantry are the very devil / 
 in the fight." Soult too warned his master not to be 
 too confident of success. Napoleon replied, "You 
 think, because he beat you, that Wellington is a great 
 general." And when on the morning of the i8th he 
 remarked, "At last I have them : there are nine 
 chances to one in my favour," the Marshal answered 
 — " Sire, I know these English. They will die on the 
 ground on which they stand before they lose it." 
 
 After Napoleon's defeat the Allies lost no time in 
 advancing upon Paris. The French frontier was 
 crossed on June 21st ; the following day the Emperor 
 abdicated for the second time, and the provisional 
 
[72 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 government which replaced him sent commissioners 
 to negotiate with the British and Prussian com- 
 manders. On June 25th Cambrai and Peronne 
 surrendered to Wellington ; on the 28th Blucher took 
 Villers-Cotterets by surprise ; and on July 4th a 
 convention was signed for the capitulation of Paris. 
 It was stipulated that in three days the French troops 
 should evacuate the capital, and remove within a week 
 with their stores and artillery behind the Loire. The 
 Allies at once occupied Neuilly and St. Denis, and 
 entered Paris on July 6th. Napoleon, who had with- 
 drawn to Malmaison, started for Rochefort at four 
 o'clock in the afternoon of June 29th, a few hours 
 before the Prussian soldiers broke into the palace. 
 
 With the occupation of Paris, Wellington's -service 
 in the field came to an end, but as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Allied Armies in France, his moderation, 
 sound judgment, and impartiality did much to ensure 
 lasting peace in Europe. While he insisted on the 
 restoration of the art treasures which the French armies 
 had plundered from the principal Continental cities, he 
 prevented the destruction of the national monuments 
 which had been erected in commemoration of French 
 victories ; and he strenuously and successfully opposed 
 the demand of the allies of Great Britain for a large 
 cession of French territory. His opinion on this 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 173 
 
 subject is well worth repeating. After pointing out 
 that France would never acquiesce in the loss of any 
 of her provinces, and that their forcible annexation 
 would lead to a state of armed neutrality rather than 
 a general peace, he remarked : " If we take this large 
 cession, we must consider the operations of war as 
 deferred till France shall find a suitable opportunity 
 of endeavouring to regain what she has lost ; and 
 after having wasted our resources in the maintenance 
 of overgrown military establishments in time of peace, 
 we shall find how little useful the cessions we shall 
 have acquired will be against a national effort to 
 regain them." Wellington was also instrumental in 
 adjusting the claims brought against the French 
 nation on account of the cost of the late war, and the 
 damage done to public and private property by the 
 French troops. The commissioners appointed to 
 investigate these claims were unable to agree, and the 
 Duke undertook the office of arbitrator ; the result 
 being that the total charge against France was reduced 
 from eight hundred millions of francs to two hundred 
 and forty millions. As Commander-in-Chief of the 
 army of occupation, he took care that the expense of 
 maintaining the troops, which fell upon the French 
 people, should be kept within reasonable limits ; and as 
 soon as he thought it prudent to do so, he advised the 
 
174 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Allied sovereigns first to diminish the force under his 
 orders, and afterwards to withdraw it, two years before 
 the date fixed by the treaty. 
 
 It is almost unnecessary to say that, like most 
 people who do good to their enemies, Wellington was 
 treated with ingratitude by the nation he endeavoured 
 to befriend. On the occasion of his giving a ball, in 
 June 1816, his house in the Champs-Elysees was set 
 on fire, oil and gunpowder having previously been 
 placed in the cellar. Fortunately the fire was dis- 
 covered in time to prevent an explosion. In February 
 18 18, his life was attempted by Cantillon, an old non- 
 commissioned officer of the Imperial Army. Napoleon 
 was base enough to leave a legacy of ten thousand 
 francs to this miscreant, in acknowledgment of the 
 service which he had endeavoured to render to 
 France by shooting at the Duke of Wellington ; and 
 a quarter of a century later. Napoleon III. caused 
 search to be made at Brussels for Cantillon's heirs, in 
 order that the money might be handed over to them. 
 The Court, the Ministers, and the chief officers of the 
 French army behaved towards Wellington with a cold- 
 ness which sometimes amounted to discourtesy. On 
 one occasion, when he was attending a Levee, the 
 Marshals present barely acknowledged his greetings, 
 and after a short interval, walked away from him in a 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 175 
 
 body. Louis XVIII. had grace enough to apologise 
 for this act of rudeness, whereupon Wellington made 
 the apt reply — " Your Majesty need not distress 
 yourself It is not the first time they have turned 
 their backs on me." 
 
 After attending the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in- 
 October 18 18, and arranging for the evacuation of 
 France by the Allied armies on the ist of the 
 following month, Wellington returned to England in 
 December and took up the appointment of Master- 
 General of the Ordnance, with a seat in the Cabinet. 
 In July 181 5 Parliament had voted him an additional 
 grant of £ 200,000 for his services in the Netherlands ; 
 and before he left France he was given the rank of 
 Marshal in the Austrian, Prussian and Russian armies, 
 besides other marks of distinction too numerous to 
 mention. This may be regarded as the culminating 
 point of Wellington's career. From December 18 18 
 until June 1846 he devoted himself almost entirely to 
 political affairs. From the latter date up to his death 
 in 1852 the only important public office which he held 
 was that of Commander-in-Chief, to which on the 
 death of Lord Hill in 1842 he had been appointed for 
 life by patent under the Great Seal. 
 
 When he commanded in the field Wellington was 
 fully alive to the defects in our military system ; and 
 
176 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 it is extraordinary that as a Cabinet Minister, and 
 afterwards as Commander-in-Chief, he did so little to 
 remedy those defects, or to carry out much needed 
 reforms in the organisation and administration of the 
 army. He considered the material of which the army 
 was composed anything but what it ought to have 
 been, but he took no steps to improve it. Yet, as a 
 man of business as well as a practical soldier, he must 
 have recognised that, under a voluntary system of 
 enlistment, able-bodied men of respectable character 
 were not likely to enter the ranks, at any rate in 
 peace time, unless the pay and other advantages held 
 out to them were fairly equivalent to the wages of 
 civil labour, and unless they were certain of being 
 treated in a rational and considerate manner. When 
 Wellington joined the Ministry after the evacuation 
 of France by the Allied armies he offered no opposi- 
 tion to the inordinate reduction of our naval and 
 military establishments which then took place. In- 
 deed, he seemed desirous of having as few troops as 
 possible quartered in the United Kingdom, so as to 
 avoid irritating the civil population by the presence of 
 those to whom the nation owed its independence and 
 prosperity. In his Life of Wellington, Gleig, who was 
 a personal friend and ardent admirer of the Duke, has 
 to admit that ** it may be questioned, looking to sub- 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 177 
 
 sequent events, whether he did not carry the principle 
 of economy too far. It is certain that he reduced 
 both the Navy and the Army to such a state as 
 rendered England virtually powerless if any sudden 
 call had been made on her military resources. But it 
 was a game of brag between the Government and the 
 Opposition, such as will never, we trust, be played 
 again." What renders Wellington's action in this 
 matter the more unaccountable is the fact that he was 
 well aware of the irripossibility of upholding our 
 national rights and interests if England were unpre- 
 pared for war. In a memorandum written in 1846, 
 on the subject of the Spanish marriages and the 
 hostile attitude of Louis Philippe, he remarked : " We 
 are riot in a state to risk even the smallest manifesta- 
 tion of angry feeling on this or any other subject. 
 We must first put our country in that reasonable state 
 of defence in which it was put after the Seven Years' 
 War, in which it was before the French revolutionary 
 war, and in which it ought always to have been kept, 
 particularly in late years ; but in which it would 
 almost appear that it had been the object of Govern- 
 ment in modern times not to place it." That the 
 nation would have listened to Wellington had he been 
 patriotic enough openly to speak his mind, and insist 
 on the necessity for maintaining the defensive forces 
 
 N 
 
i78 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 of the Empire in an efficient state, is apparent from 
 the effect produced by the accidental publication of 
 his letter, dated January 9th, 1847, to Sir John 
 Burgoyne. He was extremely indignant at this 
 communication finding its way into the newspapers, 
 yet there can be little doubt that, had not the country 
 been thus aroused to a sense of its defenceless con- 
 dition, no steps would have been taken to strengthen 
 the Army and Navy. In the letter under reference 
 the Duke pointed out that our naval supremacy' was 
 not as absolute as it had been at the beginning of the 
 century, and that it was unwise and unsafe to rely 
 wholly on our fleet for the defence of the United 
 Kingdom. He expressed the opinion that, under the 
 conditions then existing, England would not be secure 
 from invasion for a week after a declaration of war 
 with France, he explained the measures which, in his 
 judgment, ought to be adopted to guard against the 
 danger, he remarked that he had in vain endeavoured 
 to rouse the attention of different administrations to 
 this state of things, and he ended with the following 
 words : " I am bordering upon seventy-seven years of 
 age, passed in honour. I hope the Almighty may 
 protect me from being the witness of the tragedy 
 which I cannot persuade my contemporaries to take 
 measures to avert." What Wellington omitted to 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 179 
 
 mention was the fact that, for a considerable period 
 after his return to England in 18 18, h^ had held high 
 office, that for some years he had been Prime Minister, 
 that for five years he had been Commander-in-Chief, 
 and that up to the resignation of Peel's Government 
 in June 1846 he had exercised a powerful, if not a 
 predominant, influence over the policy of the Con- 
 servative party. If then, England was, as he declared, 
 incapable of defending herself against invasion, surely 
 the responsibility rested with him, even more than 
 with his colleagues or political opponents. 
 
 A careful study of Wellington's despatches pro- 
 duces the impression that, though perfectly just and 
 impartial in describing the operations in which his 
 troops were engaged, he was somewhat chary of 
 bringing to notice the meritorious services of indi- 
 vidual regiments, officers and soldiers. Lord Hill 
 appears to have remonstrated with him on this 
 subject in March 1 8 14; and when Sir Stapleton 
 Cotton in November 18 13 urged that a medal should 
 be granted to the cavalry for their services in 1 8 10 
 and 18 1 2 the Duke replied that in no one instance 
 had it ever occurred to him to apply for a medal for 
 any service performed by the troops. He reported 
 the services in what he thought the clearest and 
 fairest manner to all concerned ; and he considered 
 
 N 2 
 
l8o THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 that it rested with the Government, and not with him, 
 to notice the services as they thought proper. His 
 usual answer to those who expressed their disappoint- 
 ment at not having received any mark of the royal 
 favour seems to have been that he had himself never 
 solicited the numerous honours and rewards conferred 
 upon him by the Crown and nation. Writing on this 
 subject to a General Officer in September 1813, he 
 observed : " I recommend to you the same conduct, 
 and patience; and above all resignation, if after all 
 you should not succeed in obtaining what you wish." 
 This, no doubt, was sound advice, though probably 
 rather unpalatable to its recipient, whom Wellington 
 acknowledged to be specially deserving of honourable 
 distinction. Mr. Gleig informs us that the Duke, 
 after his return to England in 18 18, associated but 
 little with his old companions in arms. He says : 
 '' We have reason to believe that neither Lord Hill, 
 nor Lord Raglan, nor Sir George Murray, ever visited 
 the Duke at Strathfieldsaye ; nor could they or others 
 of similar standing, such as Lord Anglesey, Sir 
 Edward Paget and Sir James Kempt, be reckoned 
 among the habitues of his hospitable gatherings in 
 Apsley House. The circle in which he chiefly moved 
 was that of fashionable ladies and gentlemen, who 
 pressed themselves upon him, and were flattered, as 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. i8i 
 
 indeed they had much reason to be, with the notice 
 which he took of them, and by his presence at their 
 parties." 
 
 Wellington held very pronounced views on certain 
 points connected with the organisation of the Ai;my ; 
 and though these views may now be out of date, they 
 are perhaps not unworthy of consideration, as being 
 based on his long experience as a successful com- 
 mander in both Asiatic and European warfare. , He 
 was strongly in favour of long service and old soldiers. 
 When the Ten Years' Enlistment Act was brought 
 forward, he only supported it on the condition that 
 duly qualified men should be allowed to re-enlist on 
 the completion of their limited engagement He 
 believed that the efficiency of an army depended as 
 much upon the thorough training and soldierly habits 
 of the men as upon the ability of the officers. On 
 this point Napoleon was of the same opinion, as will 
 be seen from the following extract from " National 
 Life and Character," by the late Professor Pearson : — 
 " Decr^s once said to the Emperor in Council, ' I 
 cannot extemporise a sailor as you dd a soldier. You 
 turn out a soldier in six months.' ' Taisez-vous,' said 
 Napoleon. * Such ideas are enough to destroy an 
 empire. It takes six years to make a soldier.' On 
 another occasion he wrote of himself : ' The First 
 
i82 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Consul did very good things, he put everything in the 
 right way, but he did not work miracles ; the heroes 
 of Hohenlinden and Marengo were not recruits, but 
 good and old soldiers.' " 
 
 Fully recognising the necessity for maintaining our 
 maritime predominance, Wellington was in favour of 
 providing such fortified harbours and bases of supply 
 and refitment as would facilitate and support the 
 action of the fleet. He regarded the Channel Islands 
 as the key of our outer line of defence against French 
 invasion, and recommended the construction of naval 
 bases in Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. As regards 
 the home army, he was opposed to the formation of a 
 reserve consisting of men who had completed their 
 term of service with the colours. He considered it to 
 be the proper function of the Militia to reinforce and 
 support the infantry of the line, and urged that it 
 should be raised to a strengh of 150,000 men and 
 kept under training for four months every year. 
 With reference to the staff of the Army, Wellington 
 believed in the principle of unrestricted selection, and 
 stated that the only good staff officers he had met 
 with were those who, being thoroughly acquainted 
 with their regimental duties, possessed sufficient 
 natural ability to enable them to apply on a large 
 scale what they had learnt on a small scale. He 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 183 
 
 deprecated the special instruction of officers in staff 
 duties, his words being : " You think that officers 
 ought to be educated specially for the staff. Perhaps 
 you would like to have a staff corps also. That is 
 what they do in France and in other Continental 
 countries, and the consequence is that their staff 
 corps are generally made up of pedants and cox- 
 combs. I am sure that I found the young gentle- 
 men who came to me from High Wycombe* to be 
 pretty much of that stamp." 
 
 During the past fifty years great changes have 
 taken place in the organisation of the British Army, 
 and, whether Wellington's advice was sound or not, it 
 certainly has not been followed. In his objection to 
 the formation of an army reserve it will probably be 
 admitted that Wellington was mistaken, even by 
 those who believe that the reserve system now in 
 force is capable of improvement. It adds most 
 materially to the military strength of a nation that its 
 army should be capable of rapid expansion, for in 
 some senses it is undoubtedly true that '' Providence 
 is on the side of the big battalions." On the other 
 hand, it seems questionable whether in the present 
 day we are not inclined to exaggerate the fighting 
 
 * Formerly there was a Staff College, or, as it was then called, 
 a " senior department," at High Wycombe. 
 
i84 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 value of large bodies of young and inexperienced 
 troops, and to imitate too closely the Continental 
 system of military service, without paying due regard 
 to our own special requirements. Compared with 
 armies raised by conscription, the British Army must 
 always be small, and our endeavour should be to 
 render it in all military essentials a corps d'^lite. 
 History proves that the greatest victories have not 
 been won by the largest armies, but by the most 
 capable commanders and the most efficient soldiers. 
 Alexander invaded Persia with only 30,000 foot and 
 5000 horse ; Hannibal entered Italy with but 20,000 
 foot and 6000 horse ; Wellington drove the French 
 out of Spain with barely 40,000 British soldiers. 
 
 The Duke's objection to the special education 
 of staff officers sounds almost heterodox in these 
 days of intellectual activity and constantly recurring 
 examinations. Nevertheless, it was based on princi- 
 ples correct in themselves if not pushed to an ex- 
 treme, and it was the outcome of his own long and 
 varied experience as a commander. There can be 
 little doubt that the value of a staff officer greatly 
 depends on his being thoroughly conversant with the 
 details of regimental organisation, and that the" duties 
 of the staff are best learnt on active service. War, 
 however, is the exception and not the rule ; and in 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. 185 
 
 time of peace the instruction imparted at a staff col- 
 lege, if properly conducted, takes the place of practical 
 training in the field, and tends to develop those intel- 
 lectual qualities which are needed for the efficient 
 administration of an army. But such instruction is 
 not in itself sufficient. To derive full advantage from 
 it officers must be naturally fitted for the staff ; and 
 those who are devoid of the tact, temper, enterprise, 
 resource, and bodily activity which are essential quali- 
 fications for staff, employ are not unlikely to mistake 
 the means for the end, to imagine that their proficiency 
 as students is a proof of their administrative capacity, 
 and thus to become the prigs and pedants of whom 
 Wellington complained. It follows therefore, that the 
 utmost care should be exercised in the choice of 
 officers for admission into the staff college ; and that, 
 while due weight should be given to the possession of 
 a staff college certificate, the responsible authorities 
 should have the power of selecting the most suitable 
 officers for appointments on the staff, whether they 
 are staff college graduates or not. 
 
 In bringing these chapters to a close, I will only 
 add that a study of Wellington's life and writings 
 leads me to the conclusion that he has been some- 
 what overrated as a man and greatly underrated as a 
 commander. Stress is often laid on the strict sense 
 
i86 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 of duty by which he is supposed to have been specially 
 actuated, the inference being that personal ambition 
 had little to do with his efforts to succeed in the tasks 
 entrusted to him. That Wellington was honourable, 
 straightforward, resolute, and patriotic, none can 
 deny ; but there appears to be no instance in his 
 military career of his adopting a course where his 
 duty was opposed to his own interests, or of his being 
 called upon to sacrifice the latter in order to carry out 
 the former. In his case the paths of duty and of 
 personal advancement were identical, and it seems, 
 therefore, hardly reasonable to assume that he 
 differed from other great military leaders — such as 
 Caesar, Marlborough, or Napoleon — in being devoid 
 of that desire for distinction and power which is one 
 of the most potent incentives to exertion. At the 
 beginning of the Peninsular War his own words were : 
 " The ball is now at my foot, and I hope I shall have 
 strength enough to give it a good kick " ; and the 
 principal reason he gave for wishing to leave India 
 was that he would be more likely to get on in Europe. 
 Possessed of many admirable qualities, Wellington 
 gained the esteem and confidence, but not the affec- 
 tion, of his soldiers. By nature reserved and unsym- 
 pathetic — perhaps a little selfish — he regarded his 
 army in the light of a fighting machine. When its 
 
NAPOLEON. 
 (From the Engraving hy Hopivood in the ' Bibliotheque Militaire.' ) 
 
1 88 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 task was performed and peace established, he ceased 
 to associate with the officers who had been most 
 intimately connected with him in the field, and he 
 did little or nothing to promote the welfare of his 
 soldiers, or to make the nation understand what a 
 debt of gratitude it owed them. 
 
 The place I should be inclined to assign to Wel- 
 lington as a general would be one in the very 
 first rank — equal, if not superior, to that given to 
 Napoleon. In estimating the comparative merits 
 of these illustrious rivals, it may be conceded that 
 the schemes of the French Emperor were more 
 comprehensive, his genius more dazzling, and his 
 imagination more vivid than Wellington's. On the 
 other hand, the latter excelled in that coolness 
 of judgment which Napoleon himself described as 
 " the foremost quality in a general." It must 
 also be remembered that, as soon as Napoleon had 
 attained supreme power in France, the whole re- 
 sources of that country and of a great part of the 
 Continent were at his disposal. He could raise 
 enormous armies, incur vast expenditure, and sacri- 
 fice large numbers of troops in carrying out his 
 plans. Moreover, he was absolutely unfettered in his 
 selection of the best qualified officers for commands 
 and staff appointments. Developing a system of 
 
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NETHERLANDS. ~ 189 
 
 tactics which proved extremely effective against his 
 Continental enemies, and until his last campaign only- 
 opposed by second-rate generals, Napoleon gained 
 victories so decisive and overwhelming that for a time 
 he was believed to be invincible. His presence on the 
 field of battle was regarded as equivalent to a force of 
 forty thousand men. 
 
 Wellington's operations, on the other hand, were 
 hampered by the vacillation and timidity of the 
 British Government of the day, his resources were 
 limited, his army was generally outnumbered by the 
 enemy, the reinforcements he asked for were seldom 
 forthcoming, and incompetent generals and staff 
 officers were forced upon him by the Horse Guards. 
 Above all, he must have felt that a single mistake or 
 disaster would probably lead to his own removal from 
 the chief command, and to the termination of the 
 struggle in which he was engaged. Under these un- 
 favourable conditions he never lost confidence. As he 
 remarked before starting for the Peninsula, he was not 
 afraid of the French, although he knew that they were 
 capital soldiers. Believing that their tactics would be 
 unsuccessful against troops steady enough to fight in 
 line, he adopted the extended formation which gave 
 full effect to the accurate fire and resolute courage of 
 his infantry. Throughout the Peninsular War he out- 
 
I90 THE RISE OF WELLINGTON: ^ 
 
 manoeuvred and out-fought the ablest of the French 
 marshals. Finally, in the Waterloo campaign, while 
 Napoleon made many mistakes, Wellington made 
 none. His distribution of the Allied troops along the 
 Belgian frontier, his rapid concentration at Quatre 
 Bras in concert with the Prussian army at Ligny, his 
 success on June i6th, his subsequent withdrawal to 
 Waterloo, the manner in which he handled his troops 
 before and during the battle, and the arrangements 
 he made with Blucher for the flank attack from 
 Wavre and for the pursuit of the defeated enemy, 
 prove him to have been a profound master of the art 
 of war. For a brief period the military genius of 
 Napoleon revolutionised Continental Europe ; that 
 of Wellington enabled him to lead his British soldiers, 
 few in number but incomparable in quality, from 
 victory to victory, to march triumphant from Lisbon 
 to Toulouse and from Waterloo to Paris, to overthrow 
 his great opponent, and to establish a peace which 
 lasted for nearly forty years. 
 
I N D E^X. 
 
 AGRA, 15, 17, 31 ; Mahratta troops 
 
 defeated at, 28 
 Ahmednagar, siege of, 21, 31, 42 
 Aix la Chapelle, Congress of, 175 
 Albuera, 90 
 Albuquerque, Duke of, 76 ; on the 
 
 Spanish army, 56 
 Alexander, Emperor, 130 
 Aligarh, 15 
 Allied Armies, the, in the Waterloo 
 
 campaign, 134, 170; advanced on 
 
 Paris, 171, 172 
 Almeida, capture of, 82, 89 
 Alum, Shah, 27 
 Amrot Rao at Poona, 18, 19 
 Anglesey, Marquis of, 162, 180 
 Argaum, battle of, 29, 30, 41 
 Asirgarh, siege of, 26, 27, 29, 42 
 Assaye, battle of, 22-26, 40, 46 
 Aurungabad, 21 
 Austria, troops in Northern Italy, 
 
 131 
 
 Badajoz, 85 ; surrender of, 88-91, 
 
 94, 95, 116 
 Baird, Major-General, 9, 13, 43, 
 
 44 
 Bajee Rao, head of the Mahratta 
 confederacy, 15, 17, 19 ; defeated 
 by Holkar, 16 
 
 Baroda, the Gaekwar of, 15 
 Bassein, treaty of, 16, 20 
 Bathurst, Lord, 135, 139 ; Welling- 
 ton's despatch to, 167, 168 
 Batavia, expedition to, 9, 11, 12 
 Bavarian army at'" Germersheim, 
 
 135 
 
 Bayonne, capture of, 104, 106 
 
 Beauchamps, M. Alphonse de, on 
 WeUington, 125, 126 
 
 Belgian frontier, Wellington ex- 
 amines the, 127, 128 
 
 Berar, the Rajah of, 15-31, 37 
 
 Beresford, Major-General, 70, 78, 
 143 ; besieges Badajoz, 88-91 ; 
 occupies Bordeaux, 106 
 
 Berri, Due de, 136 
 
 Blake, General, 90, 92 
 
 Blucher, Marshal, 134, 145, 172, 
 190 ; army under, 144 ; at Fleurus, 
 148, 150, 151 ; at the battle of 
 Ligny, 153, and n. ; falls back 
 on Wavre, 157, 160, i6i ; at 
 Waterloo, 162-165 
 
 Bombay, Colonel Wellesley at, 12, 
 
 13, 32 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, campaign in 
 Spain; 53-107, 119; enters 
 Madrid, 58; soldiers under, 75 ; 
 captures Seville, 80 
 
192 
 
 \ INDEX. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, see Napoleon 
 I. 
 
 Bonaparte, Victor, army in the 
 Tagus valley, 68, 69, 71, 74-76 ; 
 defeats General Cuesta, 72 ; 
 defeated at Talavera, 77 
 
 Bordeaux, occupation of, 106 
 
 Bourbon dynasty in Spain, 53 ; 
 replaced on the throne, 106 
 
 Bourquien, Frenchman named, 27 
 
 Boxtel, engagement at, 3 
 
 Breda, movement on, 3 
 
 Brennier, General, 90 
 
 Brialmont, General, 117, 120 
 
 Brinjarries, the (grain merchants), 
 35.36 
 
 British Army, India a valuable 
 training school for the, 36 ; the 
 cost of, in India, 38, 39 ; Welling- 
 ton's distribution of, in India, 39, 
 40 ; Wellesley held in high 
 esteem by officers and troops of, 
 in India, 45-47 ; in the Nether- 
 lands, 140-144; Wellington's 
 views on the organisation of, 181- 
 185 ; in Spain, Wellington on, 
 121-123; at Albuera,9l ; Napier's 
 opinion on, 123-125 ; at Water- 
 loo, 169, 170 
 
 Broach, fort of, 28, 31 
 
 Brussels, Wellington at, 134, 139, 
 149 
 
 Bulow, corps of Prussians under, 
 149, 161, 162 
 
 Burgos, siege of, 98, loi 
 
 Burgoyne, Sir John, 178 
 
 — . , French officer named, 
 
 154 «. 
 Burhanpur, army of Mahratta chiefs 
 
 at, 19, 20 ; siege of, 26, 42 
 Burrard, General Sir H., 60, 62, 65 
 Busaco, 83 
 
 Calcutta, 5 
 
 Camden, Lord, 4 
 
 Campbell, Major Colin, and the 
 battle of Assaye, 24 ?^., 26 n.\ 
 
 Canning, Mr., 81 
 
 Cantillon, attempt on Wellington's 
 life, 174 
 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 59, 64, 81, 83, 
 129 
 
 Cathcart, Lord, expedition to Han- 
 over, 49 ; expedition to Denmark, 
 
 51,52 
 
 Chapman, Captain, Wellington's 
 letter to, 116 
 
 Charles IV., 53, 58 
 
 Cintra, convention of, 65 
 
 Ciudad Real, Spanish force de- 
 feated at, 72 
 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, besieged, 82, 92- 
 94, 116 
 
 Clausel, General, 98 
 
 Clausewitz, General, history of the 
 1815 campaign, 136, 137, 150 
 
 Clive, Lord, 6 
 
 Coimbra, General Wellesley at, 73 
 
 Cole, General, 90 
 
 Colville, General, 164 
 
 Commissariat and transport arrange- 
 ments for the siege of Seringa- 
 patam, 35 
 
 Commissariat, Wellington's atten- 
 tion to, in the Peninsula, 109 
 
 Commons, House of. General Wel- 
 lesley defends his brother's ad- 
 ministration of India in, 50 
 
 Copenhagen, expedition to, 51, 52 
 
 Coruiia, battle at, 67 
 
 Cotton, Sir S., 179 
 
 Craddock, Sir John, 68, 70 
 
 Crauford, General, 77, 93, 94 
 
 Croker, Mr., 165, 166 
 
 Cuesta's army in Spain, 56, 75, 76, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 193 
 
 78 J defeated by Victor Napoleon, ; 
 
 72 j 
 
 Cuttack, province of, 17, 27, 28 ! 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir Hew, 54, 60-65, 
 
 68 
 D'Artois, Comte, 13 1 
 Delhi, 15, 17, 27, 31 
 Denmark, English expedition to, 
 
 50-52 
 D'Erlon, Marshal, 152, 153 ; corps 
 
 under, 157 
 Dhoondiah Waugh, freebooter, 1 1 
 Donkin, Colonel, 76, 77 
 Douro River, passage of the, 95, 
 
 116 
 Dowlatabad, fort of, 27 
 Dubreton, General, 98 
 Dundas, General, 3 
 
 East India Company, and the 
 Mahratta confederacy, 15-32, 37, 
 42 ; Wellesley and, 45 
 Elba, Napoleon's escape from, 131 
 El Bodon, Wellington attacked at, 
 
 92,93 
 Egypt, the French in, 12, 15, 44 
 England, expedition to Denmark, 
 50-52 ; campaign in the Penin- 
 sula, 53-125; Spanish ill-feeling 
 against, 54, 55 ; the Waterloo 
 campaign, 157-169 ; Wellington 
 on the naval supremacy of, 1 78 
 Eton, Arthur Wellesley at, 2 
 
 Ferdinand, King, 127 
 Fletcher, Colonel, 103 
 Fleurus, Blucher at, 148, 151 
 Foy, General, 85, 102, 171 
 France, and Egypt, 12, 15 
 
 , alliance with Russia, 50, 52, 
 
 133; invasion of Portugal, 58 
 
 Eraser, Lieutenant - General M., 
 
 60 
 French army in the Peninsula, 
 
 75 ; Wellington on the, 109, 112 
 French army, at Waterloo, 170 
 officers in command of the 
 
 Mahratta troops, 22, 27 
 Erere, Mr., 66 
 Fuentes d'Onoro, 89 
 
 Gawilgarh, siege of, 29-31, 42 
 Gleig, Mr., ' Life of Wellington,' 46, 
 
 165, 176, 180 
 Gordon, Colonel, 154 
 Graham, Sir Thomas, 100, 103, 
 
 115 
 
 Grant, Quartermaster James, 24 «.. 
 Grouchy, Marshal, 151, 154-156, 
 165-169 
 
 Hanover, expedition to, 49 
 
 Harcourt, Colonel, 28 
 
 Hardinge, Colonel Sir H., 90, 
 
 161 
 Harris, General, invests Seringa- 
 
 patam, 6-9, 14, 42 
 Hill, General Lord, 80, 95, 97, 98, 
 
 136, 143, 175, 180 
 Hobart, Lord, 5 
 Holkar, 15-32; attacks Poona, 16, 
 
 18 
 Holland, Lieutenant-Colonel Wel- 
 lesley and, in 1 794.. 3, 34 
 Hope, Lieutenant - General, the 
 
 Hon. J., 59, 60, 104 
 Hougoumont, 157, 170 
 Hurryhur, Madras army pat, 17, 
 
 18 
 
 India, Colonel Wellesley, ex- 
 periences in, 5-48 ; a valuable 
 training school for the British 
 O 
 
 V 
 
194 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 army, 36 ; government of, depends 
 for its stability on the sword, 38, 
 39 ; armies of the Native States 
 in, 40 
 Ireland, General Wellesley chief- 
 secretary for, 50, 52, 70 
 
 Jalna, sieged by Colonel Steven- 
 son, 21 
 Java, island of, England and, 11, 
 
 12 
 Jones, Colonel, Zd, 88 
 Jourdan, Marshal, 102, 1 19 
 Junot, invades Portugal 58, 60, 62, 
 63 
 
 Kellermann, General, 63, 80 
 Kempt, Sir James, 180 
 Kioge, battle at, 51, 52 
 Konagull, Dhoondiah Waugh de- 
 feated at, II 
 
 Laborde, General, 60, 61 
 
 La Haye Sainte, farmhouse, 159, 
 
 163 
 Lake, General, 17, 20, 27, 28, 32, 
 
 33 
 
 Lapisse, General, 70-72, 74 
 
 Laswarrie, battle at, 28 
 
 Ligny, 148 ; battle at, 153, 160, 
 190 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 81 ; Wellington's 
 letters to, 121- 123 
 
 Lobau, General, 162 
 
 Loison, General, 60, 61 
 
 London, Corporation of, opposes a 
 pension granted to Lord Welling- 
 ton, 80 
 
 Londonderry, Lord, on the lack of 
 English Generals, 57 
 
 Louis XVIIL, 129, 131, 132, 17s 
 
 Madras, Colonel Wellesley at, 6 ; 
 in control of Colonel Wellesley, 9 
 
 Madrid, captured by Murat, 58; 
 Napoleon at, 66 ; entered by 
 Wellington, 98 
 
 Mahratta confederacy, the, 15-32, 
 40, 41 
 
 Manauli, Dhoondiah Waugh de- 
 feated at, II 
 
 Manilla, expedition to, 5 
 
 Marmont, Marsnal, 90, 92, 119; 
 attacks Wellington at El Bodon, 
 92, 93 ; defeated at Salamanca, 
 
 96,97 
 Massena, Marshal, 81 ; besieges 
 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, 82 ; his re- 
 treat from Santarem, 84, 85 ; 
 
 falls back on Salamanca, 86, 
 
 89, 90 
 Massow, Lieutenant, 160 
 Mauritius, 12 
 Medellin, battle at, 72 
 Mellavelly, attacked by Tippoo 
 
 Sultan, 7 
 Mondego Bay, General Wellesley 
 
 lands at, 60 
 
 Valley, the, 82, 84 
 
 Monson, Colonel, 32 
 
 Moore, General Sii John, 66, 68, 
 
 71, 79, 113 ; killed at Coruna, 
 
 67 
 Mornington, Lord, 5 
 Mortier, Marshal, 80, 89 
 Muffling, General, 148, 161 
 Murat, Marshal, 130, 131 ; captures 
 
 Madrid, 58 
 Murray, Colonel George, 46, 47, 
 
 63, 67, 180 
 
 , General John, 73, 74 
 
 Mysore, province of, affairs in, 5-9 \ 
 
 Colonel Wellesley, governor of, 
 
 9, 13. 14, 37, 43 
 
INDEX, 
 
 195 
 
 Nagpore, 15 
 
 Napier, on the British troops at 
 Albuera, 91 
 
 Napoleon I., absolute master of the 
 Continent, 50; secret compact 
 with Russia, 50, 52, 53, 133; 
 invades Portugal, 58 ; occupies 
 Madrid, 66 ; master of the whole 
 of Spain, 68, 70 ; sends a fresh 
 army into Spain, 80, 81 ; with- 
 draws a large proportion of his 
 veterans from Spain, 93 ; his con- 
 tinental system, 109 ; Wellington, 
 a rival of, 125, 126 ; escapes from 
 Elba, 131 J the campaign of 1815, 
 134-174; army of, 144, 170; 
 Wellington superior to, as a 
 general, 1 88- 190 
 
 Native States of India, armies in,"40 
 
 Netherlands, Wellington examines 
 the frontier of, 127, 128; cam- 
 paign in the, 134-174 
 
 Nay, Marshal, 86, 132, 150, 151 ; 
 attack on Quatre Bras, 152-155; 
 at Waterloo, 159 
 
 Nicolls, Major-General, 46 
 
 Nive, Wellington's passage of the, 
 104, 105 
 
 North, Lord, 57 
 
 O'DoNOju, Don Juan, Welling- 
 ton's letter to, 114, 115 
 
 Olivenga, 88, 89 
 
 Oporto, occupied by Soult, 68, 70, 
 72, 73 ; the French driven out of, 
 74 ; Wellington's occupation of, 
 116 
 
 , Bishop of, 114; General 
 
 Wellesley's letter to, 63, 64 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 134, 138, 143, 
 148-150, 165 
 
 Orthez, battle at, 104 
 
 Paget, General Lord, 60, .180 
 
 Pamplona, surrender of, 104 
 
 Paris, treaty of, 132 ; occupation of, 
 after Waterloo, 171, 172 
 
 Peninsula, General Wellesley's cam- 
 paign in the, 53-125 
 
 Penrose, Admiral, 104 
 
 Perceval, Mr., 81, 88 
 
 Perron, a French adventurer, 15, 
 17, 27 
 
 Philippon, General, 95 
 
 Picton, General, 93, 159 
 
 Pignerol, Marquis of, 2 
 
 Pirch, corps of Prussians under, 
 149, 169 
 
 Pitt, on the lack of English generals, 
 
 57 
 Poland, Russia and, 53, 130, 131 
 Ponsonby, cavalry under, 159 
 Pontoons, Colonel Wellesley and, 
 
 35 
 
 Poona, 15 ; attacked by Holkar, 
 16 ; occupied by Major-General 
 Wellesley, 18, 19, 32, 35 
 
 Portland, Duke of, 50 
 
 Portugal, 112, 113 J General Wel- 
 lesley's campaign in, 53-107 ; 
 animosity between Spain and, 
 
 56,57 
 
 Portuguese troops, 55, 56 ; Welling- 
 ton's opinion of the, 47, 56, 143 
 
 Prussia; and Saxony, 130, 131; 
 army in the Netherlands, 134, 
 170; defeated at Ligny, 153; 
 falls back on Wavre, 156, 160 
 
 Quatre Bras, concentration of 
 troops on, 139, 148, 149, 190; 
 battle of, 152-155 
 
 Raglan, Lord, 180 
 Rajputana, Holkar in. 32 
 
tgs 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Rey, General, 103 
 Richmond, Duke of, 50 
 
 • , Duchess of, ball given by, 149 
 
 Roli^a, battle at, 61 
 
 Russia, alliance with France, 50, 
 
 52, 133; and Poland, 53, 130, 
 
 131 
 Rye, Major-General Wellesley 
 
 M.P. for, 49, 50 
 
 Sabugal, Battle of, 86, 87 
 St. Pierre, battle of, 104, 105 
 Salamanca, 71, 86-90 ; attacked by 
 
 Wellington, 96, 97 
 San Sebastian, siege of, 103, lo8j 
 
 115 
 
 Santander, loi 
 Santarem, 84, 85 
 Schwarzenberg, Marshal, 134 
 Sebastiani, French soldiers under, 
 
 72, 75 
 Sedasir, attacked by Tippoo Sultan, 
 
 7 
 Sepoy battalions at Argaum, 30 ; 
 
 Wellington's appreciation of, 47 
 Seringapatam, capture of, 6-1 1, 42, 
 
 43»48 
 Seville, 92, 95 ; captured by the 
 
 French, 80 
 Shaw, Colonel, 8, 141 
 Shore, Sir John, 5 
 Sieges in Spain, 117 See also 
 
 Badajoz, &c. &c. 
 Sindhia, 15-31, 37; defeated by 
 
 Holkar, 16 
 Slave trade, abolition of the, 129 
 Smyth, Colonel C, 139 
 Sorauren, Soult defeated at, 103 
 Souham, General, 98 
 Soult, Marshal, 67, 119, 131, 151, 
 
 171 ; occupies Oporto, 68, 70-73 ; 
 
 driven out of Oporto, 74, 75 j ^^ 
 
 Plasencia, 78 ; appointed to the 
 chief command in Spain, 8 1, 85 ; 
 the battle of Albuera, 90, 91 ; 
 defends Badajoz, 94 ; falls back 
 on Seville, 95 ; recalled by 
 Napoleon, 99 ; returns to Spain, 
 102, 103 ; defeated at Sorauren, 
 103 ; at St. Pierre, 104 ; and at 
 Toulouse, 106 
 
 Souza, Principal, 1 14 
 
 Spain, General Wellesley 's cam- 
 paign in, 53-125 ; ill-feeling in, 
 against England, 54, 55 ; ani- 
 mosity between Portugal and, 
 56, 57 ; Napoleon master of, 68 
 
 Spanish Press, attack on Welling- 
 ton in the, 115 
 
 troops, the, 55, 54 
 
 generals, Sira, Wellesley and, 
 
 79, 113 
 
 Spencer, Major-General, 60 
 Stevenson, Colonel, 18, 21, 26, 29, 
 
 41 
 
 Stewart, General Lord, 68, 140 
 Strategist, Wellington as a, in India, 
 40-42 ; in the Peninsula, 116, 117 
 Stuart, General, 7, 9 
 
 , Sir Charles, 1 14 
 
 Suchet, Marshal, 102 
 Surat, barracks at, 46, 47 
 
 Tactics, Wellington's, in India, 
 
 40-42; in the Peninsula, 116 
 Tagus, English expedition to the, 
 
 59-65» 95 
 Talavera, battle of, 76, 77 
 Ten Years' Enlistment Act, 181 
 Thielman, corps of Prussians under, 
 
 149, 166, 168 
 Tilsit, treaty of, 50, 53, 133 
 Tippoo Sultan, capture of, 5-10 
 Torres Vedras, Junot at, 62 ; Wei- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 197 
 
 lington constructs the defensive 
 
 works at, 80, 81, 85, 116 
 Toulouse, battle of, 106 
 Trim, Wellesley M.P. for, 3 
 Trincomalee, 12 
 
 UxB RIDGE, Lord, 143 
 
 Valladolid, 98-100 
 
 Venegas, Spanish column under, 
 
 75.76 
 Vienna, Congress of, 129, 130, 133 
 Vimeiro, battle of, 61, 62, 65 
 Vittoria, battle of, loi, 102, 116, 
 
 117, 122; Napleon at, 66 
 
 Walcheren Expedition, the, 81 
 
 Walmoden, Count, 3 
 
 Waterloo, 155 ; battle of, 157-159, 
 162-169, 190 
 
 Waters, Captain, 73 
 
 Wavre, Prussians at, 156, 157, 160, 
 l6l 
 
 Wellesley, Arthur, see Wellington, 
 Duke of. 
 
 , Marquis, the duke's brother, 
 
 14, 44» 50, 80, 109, IIS, 
 136 
 
 Wellington, Duke of : birth and 
 early days, 2, 3 ; M.P. for Trim, 
 3 ; his first experience of field- 
 service, 3, 4 ; goes to Calcutta, 5 ; 
 sent to Madras, 6 ; captures 
 Seringapatam, 7-11 ; puts a stop 
 to the depredations of Dhoondiah 
 Waugh, 1 1 ; goes to Bombay, 
 13 ; governor of Mysore, 9, 13, 
 14; and the Mahratta chiefs, 15- 
 32 ; the battle of Assaye, 22-26 ; 
 his success in the Peninsula due 
 to experience gained in India, 
 33-37 ; rapid development of his 
 
 administrative talents, 37, 38 ; 
 correct appreciation of our posi- 
 tion as an alien Power in India, 
 38 ; his distribution of the army 
 in India, 39, 40 ; encourages the 
 Native States to keep up armies, 
 40 ; the knowledge of strategy 
 and tactics displayed by him in 
 India, 40-42 ; personal character 
 of, 42-45 ; returns to England 
 owing to ill-health, 45, 48, 49 ; 
 held in high esteem by his officers 
 and troops in India, 45-47 > ex- 
 pedition to Hanover, 49 ; elected 
 M.P. for Rye, 49, 50 ; appointed 
 Chief Secretary for Ireland, 50, 
 52, 70; expedition to Copen- 
 hagen, 50-52 ; campaign in the 
 Peninsula, 53-125 ; his opinion 
 of the Spanish and Portuguese 
 troops, 47, 55, 56; leaves the 
 army, 65 ; resolves to act inde- 
 pendently of the Spanish generals, 
 79 ; created a peer, 79, 80 ; 
 pursues Marshal Massena, 84-89 ; 
 created a grandee of Spain, 94 ; 
 given a dukedom, 107 ; qualities 
 displayed by him during the 
 Peninsular War, 107-12 1 ; on his 
 army in Spain, 121-125; examines 
 the Belgian frontier, 127, 128 ; 
 the campaign of 1815 .. 134-175 ; 
 on his staff officers, 140-142 ; at 
 Quatre Bras, 153 ;z., 154 «. ; the 
 battle of Waterloo, 155-169 j his 
 army at Waterloo, 169, 170 ; 
 in Paris, 1 72-174 ; appointed 
 Master-General of the Ordnance, 
 175 ; and Commander-in-Chief, 
 175 ; his policy of economy, 176, 
 177 J on the Spanish marriages, 
 177; and our naval supremacy, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 178, 179 ; his views on the 
 organisation of the army, 181- 
 185 ; overrated as a man and 
 underrated as a cominander, 
 185-190 ; superior to Napoleon 
 as a general, 188-190 
 Wellington's Dispatches " : the 
 duke's personal character, as con- 
 tained in the first three volumes, 
 42,43 
 
 West Indies, expedition to, aban- 
 doned, 5 
 Wilberforce, Mr., 129 
 Woodington, Colonel, 28 
 
 York, H.R.H. Duke of, 142 
 
 ZlETHEN, corps of Prussians under, 
 148, 149, 154, 163 
 
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