ish and their allies suffered about 5,000 dead. In August,
Wellington’s forces entered Madrid, and for his service
he was created a marquess. Historian Michael Lee Lan-
ning writes: “Wellesley accomplished his victories in
Portugal and Spain through a variety of tactics and
strategies. His most successful proved to be a shift back
and forth between defense and offence, combined with
a scorched-earth policy. Always aware of the limited
available replacements and his own personal aversion to
sustaining useless casualties, Wellesley planned in great
detail and proceeded methodically. His tactics were, in
fact, fairly simple: He achieved victory by concentrating
superior firepower and overwhelming his enemy with a
greater number of better-trained and more highly mo-
tivated soldiers.”
Learning that Soult was once again advancing,
Wellington went back to Portugal, but on 25 February
1813, he wrote to Major General Campbell: “The for-
eign troops are so much addicted to desertion that they
are very unfit for our armies, of which they necessarily
form too large a proportion to the native troops. The
evil is aggravated by the practice which prevails of enlist-
ing prisoners as well as deserters, and Frenchmen as well
as other foreigners, notwithstanding the repeated orders
of government upon the subject. The consequence is
therefore that a foreign regiment cannot be placed in a
situation in which the soldiers can desert from it, that
they do not go off in hundreds; and in the Peninsula
they convey to the enemy the only intelligence which
he can acquire.” That spring, he once again advanced
out of Portugal and chased retreating French forces, de-
feating them at Vittoria in northern Spain on 21 June.
At San Sebastian (10 July–31 August 1813), Wellington
besieged a French garrison; although his initial attack
was repulsed, his blockade forced the surrender of the
French troops after two months. The British troops then
crossed into France and fought at Toulouse (10 April
1814), forcing a French withdrawal. The following day,
Napoleon abdicated, ending the war.
Wellington returned to London in triumph and was
created duke of Wellington in 1814. He was also named
as the British ambassador to the court of King Louis
XVIII, now restored to the French throne. In 1815,
when the Congress of Vienna met to fix the borders of
the nations that Napoleon had invaded, Wellington at-
tended as a member of the British delegation. During
the congress, Napoleon escaped from his exile in Elba
and returned to France to renew his fight to conquer
Europe. Wellington therefore moved to lead the British
army and, with the aid of Prussian field marshal Gerhard
von blücher, met Napoleon at Waterloo in Belgium
(18 June 1815). In one of the most momentous battles
in world history, Wellington decisively defeated Napo-
leon, forcing the end of the French emperor’s “Hundred
Days” campaign and his second abdication, this time
for good. The noted military historian John Keegan
writes: “The Duke of Wellington strongly disapproved
of all attempts to turn the battle of Waterloo either into
literature or history. His own account of it in his of-
ficial dispatch was almost dismissive and he advised a
correspondent who had requested his help in writing a
narrative to ‘leave the battle of Waterloo as it is.’ The
Duke’s attitude rested in part on his disdain for sensa-
tionalism, in part on a well-founded doubt about the
feasibility of establishing a chain of cause and effect to
explain its outcome.”
Wellington again returned to England a hero. In
1818, Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson, Lord Liv-
erpool, invited him to join the government as master
general of the ordnance. In 1827, he was appointed
commander in chief, and in January 1828, when Fred-
erick Robinson, Viscount Goderich, resigned as prime
minister, Wellington was chosen to replace him. His
short tenure was marked by a fight for the emancipa-
tion of Catholics in Ireland. In 1829, Home Minister
Robert Peel asked Wellington for his support in forming
the London Metropolitan Police force. A deteriorating
economy and high unemployment led to a loss in a vote
of confidence in Parliament on 15 November 1830, and
Wellington was replaced as prime minister by Earl Grey.
He remained in public life until 1846, although in 1848
he helped to organize troops in case of a Chartist rising.
Four years later, on 14 September 1852, he died and was
buried with full military honors in St. Paul’s Cathedral,
London. His huge monument reads simply “Arthur,
Duke of Wellington.”References: Weller, Jac, On Wellington: the Duke and
His Art of War, edited by Andrew Uffindell (London:
Greenhill Books, 1998); Keegan, John, “Wellington: the
Anti-Hero,” in The Mask of Command (Viking/Elisabeth
Sifton Books, 1987), 92–163; Bruce, George, “Seringapa-
tam II,” in Collins Dictionary of Wars (Glasgow, Scotland:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1995), 225; Lanning, Michael
Lee, “Arthur Wellesley (First Duke of Wellington),” The
Military 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Militarywellington, ARthuR welleSley, FiRSt Duke oF