He was ambitious, but it was to serve his king and country only; fearless, because his whole heart was wound up in these noble objects; disinterested, because the enriching of himself or his family never for a moment crossed his mind; insensible to private fame when it interfered with public duty, indifferent to popular obloquy when it arose from rectitude of conduct. Like the Roman patriot, he wished rather to be than appear deserving. “Esse quam bonus malebat, ita quo minus gloriam petebat eo magis adsequebatur.” Greatness was forced upon him, both in military and political life, rather because he was felt to be worthiest, than because he desired to be the first; he was the architect of his own fortune, but he became so almost unconsciously, while solely engrossed in constructing that of his country. He has left undone many things, as a soldier, which might have added to his fame, and done many things, as a statesman, which were fatal to his power; but he omitted the first because they would have endangered his country, and committed the second because he felt them to be essential to its salvation.
It is the honor of England, and of human nature, that such a man should have risen at such a time to the rule of her armies and her councils; but he experienced with Themistocles and Scipio Africanus the mutable tenure of popular applause and the base ingratitude of those whom he had saved. Having triumphed over the arms of the threatened tyrant, he was equally immovable in the presence of the insane citizens; and it is hard to say whether his greatness appeared most when he struck down the conqueror of Europe on the field of Waterloo, or was himself with difficulty rescued from death on its anniversary, eighteen years afterward, in the streets of London.
A constant recollection of these circumstances, and of the peculiar and very difficult task which was committed to his charge, is necessary in forming a correct estimate of the Duke of Wellington’s military achievements. The brilliancy of his course is well known; an unbroken series of triumphs from Vimiero to Toulouse; the entire expulsion of the French from the Peninsula; the planting of the British standard in the heart of France; the successive defeat of those veteran marshals who had so long conquered in every country of Europe; the overthrow of Waterloo; the hurling of Napoleon from his throne; and the termination, in one day, of the military empire founded on twenty years of conquest. But these results, great and imperishable as they are, convey no adequate idea, either of the difficulties with which Wellington had to contend, or of the merit due to his transcendent exertions. With an army seldom superior in number to a single corps of the French marshals; with troops dispirited by recent disasters, and wholly unaided by practical experience; without any compulsory law to recruit his ranks, or any strong national passion for war to supply its wants, he was called on to combat successively vast armies, composed, in great part, of veteran soldiers, perpetually filled by the terrible powers of the conscription, headed by the chiefs who, risen from the ranks, and practically acquainted with the duties of war in all its grades, had fought their way from the grenadier’s musket to the marshal’s baton, and were followed by men who, trained in the same school, were animated by the same ambition.
Still more, he was the general of a nation in which the chivalrous and mercantile qualities are strongly blended together; which, justly proud of its historic glory, is unreasonably jealous of its military expenditure; which, covetous beyond measure of warlike renown, is ruinously impatient of pacific preparation; which starves its establishment when danger is over, and yet frets at defeat when its terrors are present; which dreams, in war, of Cressy and Agincourt, and ruminates, in peace, on economic reduction.
He combated at the head of an alliance formed of heterogeneous states, composed of discordant materials, in which ancient animosities and religious divisions were imperfectly suppressed by recent fervor or present danger; in which corruption often paralyzed the arm of patriotism, and jealousy withheld the resources of power. He acted under the direction of a ministry which, albeit zealous and active, was alike inexperienced in hostility and unskilled in combinations; in presence of an opposition which, powerful in eloquence, supported by faction, was prejudiced against the war, and indefatigable to arrest it; for the interests of a people, who, although ardent in the cause and enthusiastic in its support, were impatient of disaster and prone to depression, and whose military resources, how great soever, were dissipated in the protection of a colonial empire which encircled the earth.
Nothing but the most consummate prudence, as well as ability in conduct, could with such means have achieved victory over such an enemy, and the character of Wellington was singularly fitted for the task. Capable, when the occasion required or opportunity was afforded, of the most daring enterprises, he was yet cautious and wary in his general conduct; prodigal of his own labor, regardless of his own person, he was avaricious only of the blood of his soldiers. Endowed by Nature with an indomitable soul, a constitution of iron, he possessed that tenacity of purpose and indefatigable activity which is ever necessary to great achievements; prudent in council, sagacious in design, he was yet prompt and decided in action. No general ever revolved the probable dangers of an enterprise more anxiously before undertaking it, none possessed in a higher degree the eagle eye, the arm of steel, necessary to carry it into execution.
By the steady application of these rare qualities he was enabled to raise the British military force from an unworthy state of depression to an unparalleled pitch of glory; to educate, in presence of the enemy, not only his soldiers in the field, but his rulers in the cabinet; to silence, by avoiding disaster, the clamor of his enemies; to strengthen, by progressive success, the ascendency of his friends; to augment, by the exhibition of its results, the energy of the government; to rouse, by deeds of glory, the enthusiasm of the people.
Skillfully seizing the opportunity of victory, he studiously avoided the chances of defeat; aware that a single disaster would at once endanger his prospects, discourage his countrymen, and strengthen his opponents, he was content to forego many opportunities of earning fame, and stifle many desires to grasp at glory; magnanimously checking the aspirations of genius, he trusted for ultimate success rather to perseverance in a wise, than audacity in a daring course. He thus succeeded during six successive campaigns, with a comparatively inconsiderable army, in maintaining his ground against the vast and veteran forces of Napoleon, in defeating successively all his marshals, baffling successively all his enterprises, and finally rousing such an enthusiastic spirit in the British Empire as enabled its Government to put forth its immense resources on a scale worthy of its present greatness and ancient renown, and terminate a contest of twenty years by planting the English standard on the walls of Paris.
THE END.