Arthur Wellesley

"'The French army is composed very differently from ours. The conscription calls out a share of every class, no different your son or mine, all must march; but our friends, I may say it in this room, are the very scum of the earth. People talk of enlisting for their fine patriotic feeling, no such thing. Some of our men enlist having begotten bastard children, some for minor offences, many more for drink; but you can hardly conceive such a set brought together, and it really is wonderful that we should have made them the fine fellows they are.' - Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington" Field Marshall Sir Arthur Wellesley, Prince of Waterloo and Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, Vitoria and Wellington FRS GCB KG PC (1, May, 1769 - 14, September, 1852) was an English diplomat, military officer, philanthropist, politician, soldier, statesman and veteran of the War of the First Coalition, the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the Second Anglo-Maratha War, the War of the Third Coalition, the War of the Fourth Coalition, the Peninsular War, the War of the Fifth Coalition, the Franco-Russian War, the War of the Sixth Coalition, the War of the Seventh Coalition and the Hundred Days War.

During his career, Wellesley served as a Member of Parliament, seventy-ninth Chief Secretary for the Province of Ireland, Commander-In-Chief of the British Army, twentieth Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, twenty-fourth Lord of the Treasury, seventeenth Secretary of State for the Home Department, sixteenth Minister of Foreign Affairs, and twelfth Minister for War and the Colonies.

Wellesley's administration abrogated penalties on practicing Catholics within the British Army, deployed forces during the Mysore Insurgency of 1800 in service of King George III, prohibited the participation of Jews in the civil service, managed the relief effort in Ireland during the famine between 1835 and 1836, repealed tariffs on produce imports and rescinded restrictions on Catholic participation in the civil service.

Wellesley's armies besieged the port city of Køge during the Anglo-Danish Wars, conquered the City of Vitoria during the Peninsular War, defeated the army of Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Talavera in Spain, expelled occupying French forces from Portugal and Spain, oversaw the occupation of France following the defeat and dissolution of the French Empire, repelled the French invasions of Belgium and Portugal, repulsed the army of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo, supported the Russian Empire's defense against the French invasion, suppressed the Mysore Insurgency of 1800 and thwarted Mysore forces in three engagements during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.

Wellesley personally founded King's College of London, introduced the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 to the House of Lords, rescinding restrictions on Catholic participation in the civil service, lead the delegation for the United Kingdom at the Allied-French Convention in 1808 at Cintra, the European Congress of 1818 in Aachen, the European Congress of 1822 at Verona, opposed electoral and parliamentary reform and signed the Allied-French Treaty of 1808 at the Palace of Queluz in Portugal.

Trivia

 * Wellington was multilingual and fluent in English, French, Persian and Spanish.