The Battle of Waterloo: Europe in the Balance (20 page)

The Duke of Wellington
 
Arthur Wellesley was born in Dublin in 1769 into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family. He joined the British army at the age of 19, being famously dismissed by his own mother with the words, ‘Poor Arthur is fit for nothing but cannon fodder.’ Despite this, his family used their connections to get him appointed aide to the lord lieutenant of Ireland, where his talents and capacity for hard work were noticed. This, together with family connections, ensured his early rapid rise through the ranks to the rank of colonel by 1796. He then went to India, where he won a series of battles and campaigns – most notably, Assaye in 1803. He returned to Britain as a lieutenant general and was fortunate to be available when General John Moore was killed at Corunna, necessitating an urgent replacement to take over command of British forces in the Spanish Peninsula. Wellesley arrived in Portugal in 1808 and with days had defeated the local French forces at Roliça. The following years brought a series of victories, with very few minor setbacks, which ensured Wellesley’s increasing prestige, fame and the bestowal on him of a hat-trick of dukedoms in Portugal, Spain and Britain by 1814. After the Battle of Waterloo, the duke of Wellington (as he now was) went into politics and became a government minister in 1818. By 1828 he was prime minister, during which his most famous act was the Catholic Emancipation Act that gave full rights to Roman Catholics in Ireland. He stood down as prime minister in 1830 and retired from public life in 1846. He died in 1852 and was given a lavish state funeral that took him to his impressive tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
 
Blücher was born into an ancient but minor family of nobility in the small German state of Mecklenburg-Schewerin in 1742. As a younger son he took the traditional path of a military career, but since Mecklenburg-Schewerin had few opportunities to offer, he joined the Swedish army as an hussar. When Sweden went to war with Prussia, Blücher fought gallantly in Pomerania, but was captured. He found that the officer commanding the force that had captured him was a relative, Wilhelm von Belling. Invited to dinner, Blücher impressed von Belling who at once recruited him to serve as a Prussian staff officer. Blücher later fell out with King Frederick the Great and resigned from the army. He bought a farm and rapidly established himself as a successful businessman. After Frederick the Great’s death, Blücher was offered command of the prestigious Seydlitz Hussars, famed for their red and silver uniforms. During the 1790s he gained fame as a cavalry commander in campaigns against Revolutionary France. After the Prussian defeat by Napoleon at Jena in 1806 he extricated some of the Prussian army before the rest surrendered and commanded a skilful fighting retreat to the Danish border. The Danes refused Blücher and his men sanctuary, so he was forced to surrender, a humiliation he never forgot nor forgave. Blücher became a national hero for his fighting retreat and agitated constantly for a renewed war with France. When war broke out in 1813, Blücher was given command of the Prussian army and fought tirelessly and ruthlessly against the French. Arriving in Paris after Napoleon’s defeat in 1814 he ordered his men to blow up the Jena Bridge over the Seine, but after the first blast failed to demolish the bridge was stopped from further efforts by Wellington. After the Waterloo campaign he was increasingly troubled by the injuries he sustained at Ligny and retired to his country estate. He died in 1819.

Jean-de-Dieu Soult
 
Born in 176
9 the son of a rural lawyer, Soult trained as a lawyer but instead joined the army. He gained rapid promotion both under king and republic to become a brigadier general by 1794. He won a string of minor victories in Germany and in 1802 he was given command of Napoleon’s bodyguard. He did not like Napoleon, but nevertheless was given high command as a marshal of France. He commanded corps in several major campaigns, including Ulm and Austerlitz, before being sent to Spain, where he fought against Wellington several times. Soult succeeded in stopping the Spanish armies from linking up with Wellington and was managing to hold his own when he fell out with Napoleon’s brother Joseph – who had been created king of Spain – and was sacked. Before he left Spain, Soult went through the provinces under his control and stole a vast amount of art treasures. After serving as Napoleon’s chief of staff in the Waterloo campaign he fled into exile, but was allowed to return to France in 1819. King Louis XVIII recognized his military talents and made him again a marshal of France. He went on to be minister of war in 1830 and prime minister in 1832–34. In 1838 he attended the coronation of Queen Victoria in London and at the festivities was suddenly grabbed from behind by a man who whispered menacingly ‘I’ve got you at last.’ It was a smiling duke of Wellington. Soult retired in 1848 and died in 1851.