"Wellington after Waterloo" Topic

by Rory Muir.

"The Duke of Wellington felt far from triumphant after defeating Napoleon at Waterloo, famously remarking that "I don't know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one's friends." A few weeks later in Paris, at the pinnacle of his fame, he told a friend, "I hope to God that I have fought my last battle. It is a bad thing to be always fighting. While in the thick of it I am too much occupied to feel anything; but it is wretched just after. It is quite impossible to think of glory." And he devoted the rest of his life—thirty-seven years as an immensely influential figure in Britain and Europe—to ensuring that he would never be called upon to preside over another bloodstained battlefield.

In Paris in the autumn of 1815 Wellington and Castlereagh used the prestige of victory to combat the demands of some of their allies, notably the Prussians, to impose a harsh peace on France, that would have made fresh wars more likely. To help stabilize France a multinational army occupied the northern third of the country for three years, and Wellington, who commanded the force, worked tirelessly to minimize friction with the local population while encouraging the French government to broaden its base of support and appeal to moderate liberals as well as committed royalists. When the occupation army was withdrawn at the end of 1818 Wellington joined the British cabinet and threw his weight behind Castlereagh's policy of close co-operation with the other European powers, seeking to defuse and diminish tensions before they became dangerous, and resisting liberal revolutions that might spread and cause fresh wars. He continued to champion this policy after Castlereagh's suicide in 1822, strenuously opposing the more belligerent and narrowly self-interested foreign policy pursued by George Canning the new foreign secretary. Their disagreements played a large part in the breakup of the conservative party after the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, was incapacitated by a stroke in 1827. Canning attempted to form a liberal Tory government without Wellington, but died within a few months and his successors soon resigned, leaving Wellington to attempt to reconstruct Liverpool's conservative coalition when he became Prime Minister in early 1828. However it proved impossible to unscramble the omelette and the antipathy which had built up between different wings of the party over a number of years could not be eradicated. Wellington was a much more skillful and politically astute Prime Minister than has generally been recognized, but he had been dealt a weak hand of cards, while the need to avert the risk of civil war in Ireland by granting equal civil rights to Catholics, permanently alienated many of the government's natural supporters…"
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