"Wellington’s complaints over the British contingent in" Topic

… the Army of Occupation:.

"Before Wellington had recovered from his irritation with the ministers at home for their attitude during the peace negotiations, he had a fresh grievance when he was informed that more than one quarter of the British contingent of the Army of Occupation would be Hanoverian troops and that he would be given no more than 20 or 22,000 British troops of which cavalry and artillery would make up an unusually high proportion. Worse was to come in the form of detailed proposals from the Duke of York who made his calculations on the basis of the nominal rather than the actual strength of units which meant that Wellington would retain only 15 of the 58 battalions of infantry he then had under his command. Barely four months after Waterloo, Wellington was being told that he could maintain his position at the head of the Army of Occupation with no more than two divisions of British infantry. (Bathurst to Wellington 20 October 1815, Duke of York to Wellington 27 October 1815 and enclosed Memorandum WSD vol 11 p 204-5, 212-14). In response Wellington told Bathurst that ‘the best troops we have, probably the best in the world, are the British Infantry, particularly the old infantry that has served in Spain. This is what we ought to keep up; and what I wish above all others to retain'. He cast doubt on the ability of Hanover to supply such a large part of the British contingent as well as its own and scouted the idea of counting units at their nominal strength, pointing to the problems this would raise with the French, who would not pay for men who were not present, and the allies, who would undoubtedly resort to similar tricks if Britain succeeded. (Wellington to Bathurst, Paris, 23 October 1815, Wellington to Torrens 4 November 1815 WD VIII p 285, 292-3). In general these responses were surprisingly calm given the provocation, but Wellington let some feeling show in a private letter to Torrens:…"
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