Perhaps with the exception of Churchill, England has produced no more a remarkable man of action than the Duke of Wellington, who put an end to the Napoleonic Wars at Waterloo—nearly six million dead and twenty-three years after France’s mad genius first declared war against Austria in 1792. He was as effective an organizer and logistician as Lords Roberts, Wolseley, and Kitchener. But unlike his successors he crafted a method of war for his times that transcended the theater of his command, and so could prove as deadly to European adversaries as to colonials.

Born Arthur Wesley to a shaky aristocratic family (which later changed the spelling to Wellesley), the future duke showed no unusual talent as a student. His early military commissions were the results of purchase and family connections, culminating in a command in India granted largely through the interventions of his ...

 

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