Wellington fought far fewer but never lost. Waterloo was to be the last battle for them both. Then Wellington arranged his troops in defensible squares on the battlefield, where they fended off charging cavalry, used by Napoleon in a last ditch attempt to break the line. But there was no longer any backup support from an exhausted infantry. Napoleon died on St Helena in and was eventually entombed in a grand ceremony nearly 20 years later in Les Invalides in Paris.
Wellington was to outlive him for more than 30 years, dying in his sleep at the age of 84 in He was entombed at St Pauls and his funeral was watched by a million people who lined the route from Greenwich. Sign up for our free monthly eNews now, and receive exclusive updates on new releases, giveaways and VIP offers. View the series. Share this study guide.
View our Product Catalogue. Be the first to know… Be the first to know Sign up for our free monthly eNews now, and receive exclusive updates on new releases, giveaways and VIP offers Sign up. He was elected MP for Hastings in the same year. He also found time to take part in the Copenhagen campaign, which was short-lived, though not quite so disastrous as earlier British incursions to Napoleon's Europe. He told a friend that he would not be chased off the continent as so many other similar forces had been In , by then a lieutenant-general, Wellesley was at last given an opportunity for genuine glory, when he was - albeit briefly - given command of the British expeditionary force destined for Portugal.
He told a friend that he would not be chased off the continent as so many other similar forces had been, because he had made a study of French tactics, and would not be at any kind of psychological disadvantage in relation to the enemy. I suspect that all the continental armies were more than half beaten before the battle was begun - I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.
The Iberian Peninsular campaign started off well after victories at Rolica and Vimeiro. Soon afterwards, however, Wellesley was superseded in command by two generals, Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple, who signed an armistice with the French that allowed the defeated enemy safe passage home, with all their arms and booty and even transportation in Royal Navy vessels.
Back in Britain there was outrage at the terms of what was called the Convention of Cintra, and an 'inquiry' which was effectively a court-martial was heard in the Great Hall of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea.
After several weeks, Wellesley was finally acquitted. Soon after the Cintra inquiry closed, Wellesley returned to the Peninsula, once again in command. In one of history's great coincidences, however, the time he had spent in England had coincided with the two months that Napoleon had campaigned in Spain.
So the two men missed confronting one another, and only came face to face for the first and last time at the battle of Waterloo six years later.
Having resumed command in Portugal in , Wellesley - aided at all times by the Portuguese army and the Spanish guerrillas - spent the next five years trying to expel the French from the Peninsula. He took not one day's leave as he campaigned backwards and forwards across Portugal and Spain, occasionally being forced to retreat because of the pressure of numbers opposing him, but never losing a battle or even so much as a single cannon.
He was almost always outnumbered by the huge French forces that were occupying Spain in the name of Napoleon's brother, King Joseph of Spain. The leadership Wellesley showed in the Peninsular campaign was exemplary; he won a reputation for expecting the best from his men, and for being a harsh disciplinarian when he did not get it. Yet his troops also knew he never risked their lives unnecessarily.
He was then appointed British plenipotentiary to the Congress of Vienna. He was in Vienna when, in March , the news arrived that the ex-Emperor Napoleon had escaped from exile on the island of Elba. Pausing only to declare Napoleon an international outlaw, Wellington went to take up command of the Anglo-Allied army in Brussels. This was made up of an ungainly mix of units of British, Dutch, Belgian and some German soldiers, a large proportion of whom were raw recruits.
It was far removed from the seasoned army Wellington had moulded into a crack fighting unit in Spain and Portugal. In June Napoleon suddenly marched north into present-day Belgium, making for Brussels.
Wellington was forced to retreat to the easily defended slopes of Mont St-Jean, three miles south of his headquarters at Waterloo. Following a series of stunning victories for Napoleon, only Britain remained in the fight against the French in , protected — at least temporarily — by its vital naval victory at Trafalgar two years before. But despite this, there was one part of the world where the British high command reckoned that its unloved and unfashionable army could be put to some use.
Portugal had been a long-standing ally of Britain and was not compliant when Napoleon tried to force it into joining the continental blockade — an attempt to strangle Britain by denying it trade from Europe and its colonies. Faced with this resistance, Napoleon invaded Portugal in and then turned on its neighbour and former ally, Spain.
When Spain fell in , Napoleon placed his elder brother Joseph on the throne. But the struggle for Portugal was not yet done, and the young but ambitious General Arthur Wellesley was landed on its shores with a small army, going on to win two minor but morale-boosting victories against the invaders. The Emperor clearly thought the same, for he returned to Paris, considering the job to be done. But the job was not done, for though the central governments of Spain and Portugal were scattered and defeated, the people refused to be beaten and rose up against their occupiers.
With Napoleon once again occupied in the east, it was time for a British return to assist the rebels. These British forces were once again commanded by Wellesley, who continued his immaculate winning record at the battles of Porto and Talavera in , saving Portugal from imminent defeat. General Arthur Wellesley was made the Duke of Wellington following his battle victories. This time, the British were there to stay. Over the next three years, the two forces see-sawed over the Portuguese border, as Wellesley who was made Duke of Wellington after his victories won battle after battle but lacked the numbers to press his advantage against the enormous forces of the multi-national French Empire.
In , the situation was beginning to look more promising for Wellington: after years of defensive warfare, it was finally time to attack deep into occupied Spain.
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