It instantly occurred to me that a similar difficulty must present itself to a general commanding a vast army, when about to engage in a conflict with another army of equal or of greater amount. I therefore thought it must have been felt by the Duke of Wellington, and I determined to make a kind of psychological experiment upon him.
Carefully abstaining from any military term, I commenced my explanation to Lady Wilton. I soon perceived by his countenance that the Duke was already in imagination again in Spain. I then went on boldly with the explanation of my {180} own mechanical difficulty; and when I had concluded, the Duke turned to Lady Wilton and said, “I know that difficulty well.”
〈THE AUTHOR’S SKETCH OF THE DUKE’S INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER.〉
The success of this experiment induced me in a subsequent publication[34] to give an analysis of one portion of the Duke of Wellington’s intellectual character, although I made no mention of his name. Many of his admirers, however, perceived at once the truth of those views, and recognised the justice of their application. I therefore place them before my readers in the following extract from the work referred to:—
“It is now felt and admitted, that it is the civil capacity of the great commander which prepares the way for his military triumphs; that his knowledge of human nature enables him to select the fittest agents, and to place them in the situations best adapted to their powers; that his intimate acquaintance with all the accessories which contribute to the health and comfort of his troops, enables him to sustain their moral and physical energy. It has been seen that he must have studied and properly estimated the character of his foes as well as of his allies, and have made himself acquainted with the personal character of the chiefs of both; and still further, that he must have scrutinized the secret motives which regulated their respective governments.
[34] “The Exposition of 1852;” 2nd edition, p. 222.
“When directly engaged in the operations of contending armies occupying a wide extent of country, he must be able, with rapid glance, to ascertain the force it is possible to concentrate upon each of many points in any given time, and the greater or less chance of fairing in the attempt. He must also be able to foresee, with something more than conjecture, what amount of the enemy’s force can be brought to the same spot in the same and in different times. With these elements {181} he must undertake one of the most difficult of mental tasks, that of classifying and grouping the innumerable combinations to which either party may have recourse for purposes of attack or defence. Out of the multitude of such combinations, which might baffle by their simple enumeration the strongest memory, throwing aside the less important, he must be able to discover, to fix his attention, and to act upon the most favourable. Finally, when the course thus selected having been pursued, and perhaps partially carried out, is found to be entirely deranged by one of those many chances inseparable from such operations, then, in the midst of action, he must be able suddenly to organise a different system of operations, new to all other minds, yet possibly, although unconsciously, anticipated by his own.
“The genius that can meet and overcome such difficulties must be intellectual, and would, under different circumstances, have been distinguished in many a different career.
“Nor even would it be very surprising that such a commander, estimating justly the extent of his own powers, and conscious of having planned the best combinations of which his mind is capable, should, having issued his orders, calmly lie down on the eve of the approaching conflict, and find in sleep that bodily restoration so indispensable to the full exercise of his faculties in the mighty struggle about to ensue.”