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One prominent personal meeting between Wellington and Marshal Soult was during the coronation of Queen Victoria on 28 June 1838. Although the latter had rallied to Napoleon in the Hundred Days and suffered a brief period of exile, he had managed to return to the good graces of the French government and wisely sided with the Orleanist faction in ...
Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo campaign and Napoleon's last. It was also the second bloodiest single day battle of the Napoleonic Wars, after Borodino. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life". [18]
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Sep 14, 2023 · Doggedly, Wellington pursued the retreating French, outflanking and defeating Soult at Orthez in February, and finally capturing Toulouse in April. Shortly afterwards, news of Napoleon’s abdication came through, though it was too late to avert a final bloody clash between the Anglo-Portuguese force besieging Bayonne and its garrison.
- Military History
Soult had fought against Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula, always coming off worst, and consequently held the British army and its commander in high regard. Napoleon now used that fact against him, retorting that ‘Because you have been beaten by Wellington, you consider him a great general.
- Assaye – September 23, 1803
- Second Battle of Porto – May 12, 1809
- Salamanca – July 22, 1812
- Vitoria – June 21, 1813
- Nivelle – November 10, 1813
- Conclusion
When asked in later life what his greatest victory was, Wellington would often answer with just one word: “Assaye.” Fought in India, the it saw the future Duke of Wellington, then known as General Arthur Wellesley, match 6,500 redcoats and East India Company sepoys against a 40,000-strong Maratha army (although some estimates go as high as 100,000 ...
The Crossing of the Douro at Portowas one of Wellington’s most ambitious and risky battles – a daring gambit featuring something quite rare in the age of horse and musket: an amphibious assault. It also resulted in the liberation of Portugal from the French. Lord Wellesley had returned to Portugal on April 22, 1809, having been cleared of all charg...
Undoubtedly one of the Allies’ greatest victories of the Napoleonic Wars and Wellesley’s “masterstroke” was the Battle of Salamanca. It’s here that the future Duke of Wellington saw and exploited a momentary advantage and turned it into a remarkable triumph. After capturing the fortress city of Badajoz in April, Wellesley set off to take the French...
Following his victory at Salamanca, Wellesley withdrew to Portugal to regroup for a fresh offensive in Spain in 1813. In May, he moved his army through mountain passes into northern Spain to outflank the French armies of Marshal Jourdan and Napoleon’s own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, which were scattered between the Douro and Tagus rivers. By June, J...
Attacking into France over the Pyrenees in late 1813, Wellesley fought a series of battles that drove Napoleon’s shattered forces into their own territory. By the time the snow was flying in 1813, the emperor’s army in the west found itself holed up in a string of mountain redoubts along the Spanish frontier By November, the line stretched 20 miles...
Arthur Wellesley, who was made the 1stDuke of Wellington in 1814, won more than 32 battles in his career; he was never defeated. After vanquishing the French for the last time at Waterloo, the Duke wept at the loss of life and swore he’d never fight again. His final victory against Napoleon remains an important milestone, not only for Wellington an...
Nov 6, 2009 · The Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by the Prussians and the British (led by the Duke of Wellington), marked the end of his reign and of France’s domination in Europe.
June 2015. Illustration by Tim O’Brien. "Come general, the affair is over, we have lost the day," Napoleon told one of his officers. "Let us be off." The day was June 18, 1815. By about 8 p.m ...
