WELLINGTON.*
" I CANNOT write my father's Life," said the second Duke of Wellington, "but I can at least see that the material is there for a biographer some day." And the second Duke could have wished no better fate for his material than that it should fall into such competent bands as Sir Herbert Maxwell's, whose Life of Wellington is in all respects an admirable book. It is no mere extract from history ; it is the portrait of a great man,—great despite an amiable weakness and a certain lack of sympathy. Wellington the soldier and Wellington the politician are one and the same man,— masterful, uncompromising, assured. It is quite another Wellington who wrote sentimental letters to Miss J., and took a perverse pleasure in trivial correspondence. Every hero is permitted the relaxation of folly, and the real Wellington is the victor of Waterloo, whose splendid achieve- ments Sir Herbert Maxwell has worthily celebrated. His biography, indeed, is a thoroughly efficient piece of work, well studied, well balanced, well written. Even though it does not contain a vast deal of new matter, it gives us in perfect shape all that is known of the Iron Duke ; and though the style is simple and restrained, it rises with the occasion, even unto eloquence.
It is a curious fact that Arthur Wellesley, one of the greatest soldiers that ever led our armies to victory, does not
• The Life of Wellington. By the Right Hon. Sir Herbert MaxwelL 2 vols. London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. [Us.]
seem to have had the military vocation. He was not a born soldier, as Marlborough was or Clive. His vast energy, his sense of command, his ingrained habit of authority, were sufficient to have made him distinguished in any profession. But the exclusive tyranny of arms did not dominate him, and more than once he would, if he could, have left the Service, which did not offer him a swift enough opportunity of success. The truth is, he did not easily endure a subordinate position. He preferred to give orders rather than to receive them, and he was only content when a full responsibility was put upon him. Though his promotion was rapid, though he obtained the command of his regiment at twenty- four, was Governor of Mysore at thirty, and Major-General at thirty-three, he still complained. His early letters, in fact, are not wholly pleasant to read; his anger when, in 1801, Baird was give the command in Egypt, which he thought should have been his, was neither just nor dign fi d. But it must be remembered that Wellesley had from the very first a firm and well-founded confidence in himself. He was not vain,
he was merely intelligent; he knew that he could do whatever was to be done far better than the most of men, and possibly he would have deemed it a lack of patriotism if he had not insisted upon his own claims. "I must say I was the fit person to be selected," said he when he was made Com- mandant of Seringapatam, and he spoke nothing but the simple truth.
The Mahratta Campaign was his first conspicuous triumph, and after that there was no going back. The conqueror of Scindia proved himself fit for any command, and the security of our Indian Empire is in a large measure due to Wellesley's generalship. At Assaye be was confronted by much the same problem as has just baffled us at the Tugela• But Wellesley had not the knowledge possessed by Sir Redvers Bailer. The river ran between him and the enemy, and being unable to reconnoitre, he knew not whether it was fordable or not. He observed, however, two villages at a certain point on either bank, and concluded that they were joined either by boat or ford. To that point, then, he sent his infantry, and thus began the fight which ended in a complete victory. But the victory was not won without a heavy loss. Oat of an army of five thousand there were more than two thousand five hundred killed and wounded, a fact which those prophets of evil might remember who to-day are apt to construe a disagreeable check into a serious reverse.
But in spite of the Mahratta Campaign, in spite of his prowess in the Peninsula, Wellington's chief glory is and will ever remain the battle of Waterloo,—not because Wellington performed his greatest exploit on the Belgian field, but because Waterloo was far more important in its result than any other fight of the century. Wellington himself did not want its history written, and when Sir Walter Scott was bent upon the task, the Duke most firmly dissuaded him :- " The history of a battle." he wrote, "is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost : but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance. Then the faults or the misbehaviour of some gave occasion for the distinction of others, and perhaps were the cause of material losses ; and you cannot write a true history of a battle without including the faults and misbehaviour of part at least of those engaged. Believe me that every man you see in a uniform is not a hero."
For a while Sir Walter persisted, but in the end his history of Waterloo was never written, and the great battle has found in Sir Herbert Maxwell and M. Houssaye its tardy and most efficient historians.
Sir Herbert Maxwell thinks that Wellington was surprised at Brussels. This may be so, but then it merely intensifies the admirable work done by our arms on the three great days of Jane. One thing, at any rate, is certain,—that mistakes were made both on the one side and the other. But it is the issue of the battle that is all-important, and the issue of Waterloo, long as it hung undecided, was decisive and in- dubitable. It was, moreover, the last battle fought in the ancient style. Indeed, it may be described as a hand-to- hand combat. Wellington's own description, contained in a letter to Lord Beresford, is the simplest possible :— e You will have heard of our battle of the 18th," ho wrote. " Never did I see such a pounding match. Both were what the boxors call gluttons. Napoleon did not manceuvre at all. He just moved forward in the old style, in columns, and was driven off in the old style. The only difference was that he mixed cavalry with his infantry, and supported both with an enormous quantity of artillery. I had the infantry for some time in squares, and we had the French cavalry walking about ns as if they had been our own. I never saw the British infantry behave so well."
And in this pounding mateh Wellington himself was always conspicuous. He spared himself as little as he spared his men. He was exposed to the enemy's fire the whole hard- fought day, and he escaped without a wound. Now in the square itself, now directing the artillery, he worked as hard as Ney himself, but to better purpose. When he knew that he had won the day, his sentiment was entirely characteristic:
"It is very singular," he said, " but I have no recollection of any feeling of satisfaction I can recollect no sensation of delight on that day,—if I experienced it. My thoughts were so entirely occupied with what was to be done to improve the victory, to replace the officers that were lost, to put everything in proper order, that I had not leisure for another idea It was not until ten or twelve days after that I began to reflect on what I had done, and to feel it."
What was it that made Wellington the great general that he was ? In the first place, he was as severe a disciplinarian as Cromwell or Marlborough, and though he described his army as "the scum of the earth," he made that "scum" into heroes. Many of the boys that fought at Waterloo were ill- clad and ununiformed, but tinder Wellington's eye they grew into soldiers, and at Wellington's command they saved our British Empire. Moreover, if he did call them "scum," he treated the " scum " always with care and consideration. Whatever comfort was possible was theirs, for Wellington from the beginning of his career had never neglected the details of a campaign. There still exist long lists of provisions drawn up in his own band, and none knew better than he that an army will only fight well when it is well fed and well clothed. On the other hand, his intuition of times and places was pure genius. When he divined the ford before Assaye he said : " That was common-sense. When one is strongly intent upon an object, common-sense will generally direct to the right• means." Alas! that kind of sense is the rarest, and genius is the word that best describes it.
But after Waterloo, Wellington's fighting days were over. Henceforth he played a part in the politics of the Empire, and he played that part like the brave, magnanimous gentle- man that he was. A strong reactionary, he liked the people as little as he trusted it, and it is quite natural that he should have encountered a vast deal of unpopularity. But he cared not when his windows were broken and himself insulted. He advocated what he thought right, in spite of reformers. On the other hand, he never stooped to political intrigue, and in the first letter he addressed to Lord Liverpool on taking office he stipulated that he should not under any cir- cumstances be expected to harass his Majesty's Government when his party was in Opposition. As a soldier he knew only too well how great a disaster was a divided country. So whether in arms or in peace, he served his country valiantly; and we are by no means of those who believe that it would have been a good thing if an assassin's bullet had cut short the Duke's career in 1815. For he remained many years the type of the English gentleman, and it is only the glamour of Napoleon's temperament that has for a while eclipsed his glory.
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