The Iron Duke - Personality

Personality

Wellington always rose early, he "couldn't bear to lie awake in bed" once awake, even if the army was not on the march. Even when he returned to civilian life after 1815, he slept in a camp bed, reflecting his lack of regard for creature comforts—it remains on display in Walmer Castle. General Miguel de Álava complained that Wellington said so often that the army would march "at daybreak" and dine on "cold meat", that he began to dread those two phrases. While on campaign, he seldom ate anything between breakfast and dinner. During the retreat to Portugal in 1811, he subsisted, to the despair of his staff who dined with him, on "cold meat and bread". He was, however, renowned for the quality of the wine he drank and served, often drinking a bottle with his dinner—not a great quantity by the standards of his day.

He rarely showed emotion in public, and often appeared condescending to those less competent or less well-born than himself (which was nearly everyone). However, Álava was a witness to an incident just before the Battle of Salamanca. Wellington was eating a chicken leg while observing the manoeuvres of the French army though a spyglass. He spotted an overextension in the French left flank, and realised he could launch a successful attack there. He threw the drumstick in the air and shouted "Les français sont perdus!" ("The French are lost!"). Another time, after the Battle of Toulouse, when an aide brought him the news of Napoleon's abdication, he broke into an impromptu flamenco dance, spinning around on his heels and clicking his fingers.

Despite his famous stern countenance and iron-handed discipline (he was said to disapprove of soldiers cheering as "too nearly an expression of opinion"), Wellesley cared for his men; he refused to pursue the French after the battles of Porto and Salamanca, foreseeing an inevitable cost to his army in chasing a diminished enemy through rough terrain. The only time he ever showed grief in public was after the storming of Badajoz; he cried at the sight of the British dead in the breaches. In this context, his famous dispatch after the Battle of Vitoria calling them the "scum of the earth" can be seen to be fuelled as much by disappointment at their breaking ranks as by anger. He expressed his grief openly the night after Waterloo before his personal physician, and later with his family; unwilling to be congratulated for his victory he broke down in tears, his fighting spirit diminished by the high cost of the battle and great personal loss.

Viva Montgomerie, niece to the third Duke of Wellington, relates an anecdote that Holman, valet to the duke, often recalled how his master never spoke to servants unless he was obliged to, preferring instead to write his orders on a note pad on his dressing-table. Holman, incidentally, was said to greatly resemble Napoleon.

In 1822 he had had an operation to improve the hearing of the left ear. The result, however, was that he became permanently deaf on that side. It is claimed that he was "... never quite well afterwards".

In 1824 Wellington received a letter from a publisher offering to refrain from issuing an edition of the rather racy memoirs of one of his mistresses, Harriette Wilson, in exchange for financial consideration. It is said that the Duke promptly returned the missive, after scrawling across it, "Publish and be damned". However, Hibbert notes in his biography that the letter can be found amongst the Duke's papers, with nothing written on it. That Wellington did reply is certain, and the tone of a further letter from the publisher, quoted by Longford, suggests that he had refused, in the strongest language, to submit to blackmail.

He was also a remarkably practical man, who spoke concisely. In 1851, when it was discovered that there were a great many sparrows flying about in the Crystal Palace just before the Great Exhibition was to open, his advice to Queen Victoria was "Sparrowhawks, ma'am".

Wellington has often been portrayed as a defensive general, even though many, perhaps most, of his battles were offensive (Argaum, Assaye, Oporto, Salamanca, Vitoria, Toulouse). But for most of the Peninsular War, where he earned his fame, his troops lacked the numbers for an attack.