Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was a British Army officer and statesman. A leading figure in early-19th-century British politics, Wellesley served as Prime Minister of the Uni
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, c. 1815–1816
Wellesley spent much of his early childhood at his family's ancestral home, Dangan Castle in County Meath, Ireland (engraving, 1842).
Beginning in 1787, Wellesley served at Dublin Castle (pictured) as aide-de-camp to two successive Lords Lieutenant of Ireland
Wellesley as Lieutenant Colonel, aged c. 26, in the 33rd Regiment. Portrait of Arthur Wellesley by John Hoppner, 1795.
Battle of Waterloo
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The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, being the last engagement with Napoleon I. The French Imperial Army under the command of Napoleon I was defeated by two armies
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
…town of Waterloo. On 17 June there was torrential rain, which severely hampered movement. and had a considerable effect the next day, 18 June, when the Battle of Waterloo was fought. This was the first time Wellington had encountered Napoleon; he commanded an Anglo-Dutch-German army that consisted of approximately 73,000…
The strategic situation in Western Europe in 1815: 250,000 Frenchmen faced about 850,000 allied soldiers on four fronts. In addition, Napoleon was forced to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection.
Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher commanded the Prussian army, one of the Coalition armies that defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig
Marshal Michel Ney, who exercised tactical control of the greater part of the French forces for most of the battle