The Story of Wellington. Harold Wheeler
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the younger Pitt. Lord Westmorland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, also took a fancy to him and made him one of his aides-de-camp.
In 1790, when he was still in his twenty-first year, he entered the Irish House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Trim, County Meath, a “pocket borough” of the Wellesley family. We are told by Sir Jonah Barrington, who made his acquaintance some three years later, that the young soldier “was then ruddy-faced and juvenile in appearance, and popular enough among the young men of his age and station. His address was unpolished; he occasionally spoke in Parliament, but not successfully, and never on important subjects; and evinced no promise of that unparalleled celebrity and splendour which he has since reached, and whereto intrepidity and decision, good luck, and great military science have justly combined to elevate him.” The same authority then proceeds to introduce us to Lord Castlereagh, and adds: “At the period to which I allude, I feel confident nobody could have predicted that one of those young gentlemen would become the most celebrated English general of his era, and the other one of the most mischievous statesmen and unfortunate ministers that has ever appeared in modern Europe.2 However, it is observable that to the personal intimacy and reciprocal friendship of those two individuals they mutually owed the extent of their respective elevation and celebrity: Sir Arthur Wellesley never would have had the chief command in Spain but for the ministerial manœuvring and aid of Lord Castlereagh; and Lord Castlereagh never could have stood his ground as a minister, but for Lord Wellington’s successes.”
Another contemporary tells quite a different story of Wellesley’s ability, and as he also heard him in 1793 it is printed here in order that the reader may not be prejudiced by Barrington’s opinion. So much is determined by the point-of-view of the witness. The occasion was a debate on the perennial question of the Roman Catholics. Captain Wellesley’s remarks, we are told, “were terse and pertinent, his delivery fluent, and his manner unembarrassed.” Gleig, who was intimately acquainted with the Duke, says that he “seems to have spoken but rarely, and never at any length. His votes were of course given in support of the party to which he belonged, but otherwise he entered very little into the business of the House.” He mentions but one incident connected with this period, namely, Wellesley’s attachment to the Hon. Catherine Pakenham, an acknowledged Society beauty and a daughter of Baron Longford. His Lordship, possessing a keen eye for the practical affairs of life, objected to the match on the score of lack of money, but there is little doubt that the couple came to a mutual understanding.
That Wellesley took more than a casual interest in his military duties is evident, and if he did not display the inherent genius of Napoleon he certainly went about his duties in a highly commendable and workmanlike manner. For instance, he had scarcely donned the uniform of his first regiment before he entered into calculations regarding the weight of the accoutrements, ammunition, and other paraphernalia carried by a private when in marching order. For this purpose he ordered a soldier to be weighed both with and without his trappings.
“I wished,” he says, “to have some measure of the power of the individual man compared with the weight he was to carry and the work he was expected to do. I was not so young as not to know that since I had undertaken a profession I had better endeavour to understand it.” He adds, “It must always be kept in mind that the power of the greatest armies depends upon what the individual soldier is capable of doing and bearing,” a maxim which still holds good, notwithstanding the many changes effected in the course of a century and a quarter. However excellent the gun, it is the man behind it which determines the issue.
It was not until 1794 that Wellesley underwent the hardships of active service. Before that phase of his career is detailed we must make a hasty and general survey of the wide and scattered field of action. The occasion was the second year of the great strife which occupied the attention of Europe, with little intermittance, for over twenty years. The gauntlet had been flung down by France in 1792, when war was declared against the Holy Roman Empire, with which Prussia made common cause. The campaign was an eye-opener to all Europe, for although the Prussians and Austrians began well they did not follow up their advantages, particularly when the road to Châlons and Paris lay open to the former. At Valmy the Prussians were defeated, and subsequently withdrew across the frontier in a deplorable condition of dearth and disease. Dumouriez then invaded Flanders, and was victorious over the Austrians at Jemappes, a success followed by the fall of Mons, Malines, Ghent, Brussels, Antwerp, and Namur, while smaller towns, such as Tournay, Ostend, and Bruges welcomed the victorious troops with open arms as the heralds of a new era.
In Savoy the scanty Sardinian forces were routed by Montesquiou, and the country annexed, as was Nice by Anselme. With the dawning of 1793 Belgium shared a similar fate, and the occupation of Dutch territory was decided on. This latter was an extremely foolish move, as events soon proved.
England and Holland became involved in the second month of the new year, when the French Convention announced hostile intentions to both Powers. Previous to this, Great Britain had maintained a strict neutrality. She now commenced proceedings by sending 10,000 troops to Holland under the incompetent Duke of York, where they united with a similar force of Hessians and Hanoverians, whose expenses were met by English gold, a plentiful supply of which also found its way into the coffers of other Powers. The Island Kingdom and Russia had already allied themselves, although the Czarina’s designs on Poland precluded immediate co-operation, and during the next few months Sardinia, Spain, Naples, Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, and Portugal joined in mutual support.
Dumouriez duly appeared on Dutch territory, but was compelled to retreat on Flanders by the defeat of the general engaged in besieging Maestricht. On resuming offensive operations he himself lost the battle of Neerwinden. Within a fortnight the French had abandoned all their conquests in Belgium, which again passed into the possession of Austria. Dumouriez took refuge in the camp of the Imperialists after negotiating with Coburg, the commander of the “White Coats,” to place the frontier fortresses into his hands and to unite the two armies. Neither arrangement was carried through, for the defeated general found it more prudent to fly the country.3 Mayence, on the Rhine, was invested by the Prussians, to whom it eventually capitulated, and Valenciennes and Condé were successfully besieged by the Austrians and British. All three fortresses fell during July 1793.
The tide was beginning to turn even in France, for Toulon and Lyons openly revolted, and civil war broke out in La Vendée. Had the Allies made a concerted effort, the defeat of the Republican cause could scarcely have failed to follow, but they quarrelled amongst themselves instead of following up their advantage. They squandered their strength by dividing their army into detachments, and much precious time was wasted by the diversion on Dunkirk made by the English, Hanoverian, Hessian, and some of the Austrian forces, about 37,000 strong.
The Revolutionary Government, augmenting its fighting body, instructed General Houchard to attack the enemy before the historic seaport. As a sequel to this movement the Duke of York was forced to retreat and abandon forty guns and much of his baggage. Houchard’s triumph was short-lived. He met with disaster at the hands of the Austrians, and paid the price of failure with his head. With the Convention defeat spelt death. Professing the Cause of Humanity, it refused to be humanitarian.
By the middle of September all the important fortresses which blockaded the way of the Allies to the Capital had fallen, with the exception of Maubeuge. The victory of Jourdan, the successor of Houchard, over the covering force at Wattignies saved the situation, and on the 17th October the French marched into Maubeuge. On the Upper Rhine the Allies found themselves in possession of Metz only, at the end of 1793. In the south-west of Europe the campaign made no further progress, and the Republican cause gained fresh impetus by the crushing of the royalist risings at Lyons and Toulon. It will be remembered that Napoleon won his first laurels in helping to subjugate the great arsenal in the south of France, and in forcing the withdrawal of the British fleet under Hood which had gone to support the rebellious inhabitants.
These facts, dry as dust though they may be, are essential to a correct understanding of the part played by Wellington in the early days of the Great War detailed in the following chapter.
CHAPTER II
Wellington’s Baptism of Fire
(1794–97)
It must be remembered that Barrington wrote from the point of view of a “patriot,” and that Castlereagh had much to do with the Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Castlereagh entered the Irish Parliament in 1790, served in the Pitt, Addington, Perceval, and Portland ministries, was present at the Congress of Vienna, and died by his own hand in 1822.
Dumouriez was in London from the 12th June until the 22nd, 1793. He lived in England from October 1803 until his death on the 14th March 1823.