Excerpt from Wellington and Waterloo
Of England"s greatest men two only depend for their fame upon their achievements as soldiers, and both were employed in our foreign wars for the maintenance of the balance of power in Europe. We refer, of course, to Marlborough and Wellington. Louis XIV, who died in 1715, and Napoleon I, who was deposed in 1815, were alike in being absolute monarchs of a type that the Western world could not stomach: it became necessary to destroy the armies and fleets which were the instruments of their ambition, and England"s then close ties with Germany led to a military partnership; so that Marlborough and Eugene are coupled in the history of the eighteenth as are Wellington and Blucher in that of the nineteenth century. Our present purpose, however, is to treat of Wellington and tell once more the story of Waterloo.
The first Duke of Wellington was born Arthur Wellesley in 1769. He lost his father, an Irish peer who was distinguished as a musician, at the age of twelve; and his mother, capable and masterful, brought up five sons and three daughters on an exiguous income. What military education Arthur possessed when commissioned as an ensign had been given him at Angers on the Maine, though at Eton he had learnt to box and play the fiddle.
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