Wellington’s Career - A Military And Political Summary

NUMEROUS excellent works descriptive of Wellington’s military exploits have been given to the public, and the inquirer who seeks information on any particular phase of his career need be at no loss for ample materials on which to ground an opinion. But it is scarcely possible that works which afford these necessary and invaluable details should also present to the reader’s clear outline of the subject in all its Unity and simplicity. Lost in the mazes of the scene of campaign or the theatre of war, he fails to recognise, in the devious movements and shifting plans, the evidence of a presiding and controlling spirit; and it is not till, with much labour, he has succeeded in massing the minor incidents round their true centres that he perceives the full scope and meaning of each series of operations with reference to the main design; that, as a general reader, he can appreciate the grandeur of the mind which conceived and evolved them; and that, as a military student, he can profitably seek in them for illustrations of the great principles of war.