But the most important of the great men who at this time kept Britain top nation was an Irishman called John Wesley, who afterwards became the Duke of Wellington (and thus English). When he was still Wolseley, Wellington made a great name for himself at Plassaye, in India, where he
“Fought with his fiery few and one,”
remarking afterwards, “It was the bloodiest battle for numbers I ever knew.” It was, however, against Napoleon and his famous Marshals (such as Marshals Ney, Soult, Davos, Mürren, Soult, Blériot, Snelgrove, Ney, etc.) that Wellington became most memorable. Napoleon’s armies always used to march on their stomachs, shouting: “Vive l’Intérieur!” and so moved about very slowly (ventre-à-terre, as the French say), thus enabling Wellington to catch them up and defeat them. When Napoleon made his troops march all the way to Moscow on their stomachs they got frozen to death one by one, and even Napoleon himself admitted afterwards that it was rather a Bad Thing.
Gorilla War in Spain
The second part of the Napoleonic War was fought in Spain and Portugal and was called the Gorilla War on account of the primitive Spanish method of fighting.
Wellington became so impatient with the slow movements of the French troops that he occupied himself drawing imaginary lines all over Portugal and thus marking off the fighting zone; he made a rule that defeats beyond these lines did not count, while any French army that came his side of them was out of bounds. Having thus insured himself against disaster, Wellington won startling victories at Devalera, Albumina, Salamanda, etc.
Waterloo
After losing this war Napoleon was sent away by the French, since he had not succeeded in making them top nation; but he soon escaped and returned just in time to fight on the French side at the battle of Waterloo. This utterly memorable battle was fought at the end of a dance, on the Playing Fields of Eton, and resulted in the English definitely becoming top nation. It was thus a very Good Thing. During the engagement the French came on in their usual creeping and crawling method and were defeated by Wellington’s memorable order, “Up Jenkins and Smashems”.
This time Napoleon was sent right away for ever by everybody, and stood on the deck of a ship in white breeches with his arms like that.
W.C. Sellar & R.J. Yeatman, 1066 And All That, 1930.
August 11, 2021
QotD: Wellington and Napoleon
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