Product Description

Wellington achieved fame as a soldier fighting the Mahratta in India. His later generalship fighting the French in Spain was rewarded by a dukedom and a grant from the house of Commons worth ?8 million in today's terms. After his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo he became a politician. Unhappily married, he had several mistresses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2324693 in Books
• Published on: 1992-10-01
• Format: Abridged
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 672 pages

Review
Sutton's Pocket Biographies are always useful and frequently outstanding; this one, abridged from the two-volume original, is written with style and wit as well as from considerable knowledge and research. 'By God, I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there!' said Wellington of the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. And he was right. No other soldier in Europe could have won the battle. He was a great soldier partly because he was extremely practical and straight-talking: he once fixed his soldiers' leave at two days - 'forty-eight hours, which is as long as any reasonable man can wish to stay in bed with the same woman'. His overwhelming common sense extended to military tactics - he was never afraid, led his men from the front, rather lacked imagination, was a sensible rather than an adventurous strategist. Elizabeth Longford, a distant relative by marriage, traces his career from the beginning of his military career in India to his grand State Funeral. Lady Longford is especially good on his campaign during the Peninsula War, when he was continually faced by superior numbers, yet time and time again defeated armies several times the strength of his own. She is also a keen observer of his time as Prime Minister, when he was not always brilliant and often very unpopular. His time in office was not the best time of his life, though he could rise to the situation with great style, as he did over the Bill for emancipation of the Catholics, which was passed during his premiership. (Kirkus UK)

Capaciously documented, this first volume of a two-volume life of the Duke of Wellington places its author, Lady Longford (author also of Queen Victoria) in the front ranks of 20th century military and political biographers. Through family connections with Wellington's inadequate wife, Kitty Pakenham, she has had access to hitherto untapped family records: her knowledge of his campaigns has enabled her to write knowledgeably of his defeats, victories and frustrations, his brutal discipline and his concern for the welfare of men who called him "Nosey" and followed him with grudging confidence. Three months older than Napoleon, Arthur Wesley or Wellesley was born in Ireland in 1769, the second - and awkward - son of a noble family. Poor and without apparent talents, he joined the army and in an appallingly mismanaged winter campaign in 1794 against the French learned how not to run an army or fight a war. Ordered to India in 1796, Arthur made money and enemies and achieved fame, now often forgotten, by defeating Tipoo, Sultan of Mysore, and the "tumultous" Mahrattas. Returning to England in 1806, he became involved with the notorious Hariette Wilson and made the mistake of marrying his former Irish sweetheart, Kitty Pakenham. Seat to Spain in 1808 when Napoleon prepared his own downfall by putting his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, Arthur, after six heartbreaking years drove tile French from the Peninsula, for which he was made Duke of Wellington. On Napoleon's escape from exile in Elba in 1815 he was appointed commander of the allied armies in Belgium, meeting and defeating his old enemy at Waterloo on June 16: the author's account of this battle is one of the best parts of tin amazing book. It is at once stirring biography and stimulating social history, dispassionate and sympathetic, and even it' Wellington hasn't quite the instantaneously identifiable appeal of Victoria, still it will he read widely, Implemented by its selection for April by the Book-of-the-Month Club. (Kirkus Reviews)

The Economist
'A book that is sparklingly alive, admirably coherent & compulsively readable'

New Statesman
'A thoroughly convincing portrait ...a rare achievement'

Customer Reviews

Good but the 2-volume set is better
This is a 1-volume abridgement of one of the best bios of the Duke ever written. If you're really interested, spend the money and get the original 2 volumes. Wellington - the Years of the Sword and Wellington - Pillar of State. Absolutely wonderful!

Excellent - but bowdlerised?
This is an abridgment of the excellent original two-volume biography of Arthur Wesley, later Wellesley, and later again the Duke of Wellington, the first of which was published in 1969. The Countess of Longford, nee Pakenham, was a descendant of Wellinton's wife's family, and wrote informatively on all aspects of the Duke's long life. Her descriptions of his battles are second to none - I found her description of Salamanca superior to those of several supposedly specialist military historians, including when touring it on the ground.

If there was one weakness - or was it the resolute defence of family hounour? - it was her unwillingness to concede that Wellington had had a string of mistresses or, indeed even the one - when any more recent or more dispassionate observer would conclude that he was no more faithful a husband that many other men of his era in his position. How else would one of Napoleon's former lovers have been able to describe him as "beaucoup le plus fort"?

Excellent - but, better still, track down the original two volumes in the second hand market.

Accessible yet comprehensive
Wellington is an enigmatic figure in British history, both revered for his military talent and critisized for his unapproachability.

In this book you are shown his life from India onwards (the book deals with his earlier life but not in great detail.) The book seeks to explain Wellington in a variety of fields, from his military genius to his political life but fals down in several areas, mostly due to the fact the certain areas of his life are glossed over and then a whole chapter devoted to a short episode.

Despite this, the book is very impressive and is a joy to read, if a little unfulfilling in the long term.