The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1909. A GREAT SOLDIER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2533, 21 June 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1909. A GREAT SOLDIER.

So much has been heard in recent years of the genius of Napoleon, whose career seems to receive more attention from the British people as years pass on, that it is with pleasure we turn to a consideration of the only really notablo rival who confronted the brilliant Frenchman when he had the world trembling. In a- recent issue of the “Quarterly Review” Dr W. H. Fitchett contains a most enthusiastic appreciation of Wellington as .a soldier. But for the genius of Wellington in the Peninsular War Napoleon “might have escaped both Elba and St. Helena, and have translated the wildest dreams of his ambition into sober fact. , It profoundly influenced the whole issue of tho strugglo against Napoleon, and so it helped to decide the fate of Europe.”'

“Mankind had almost ceased to take British soldiership seriously,” says Dr Fitcliett. “The sea was the Englishman’s natural field. On the soa he was terrible. There was no arguing against St, Vincent, the Nile, and Trafalgar? But on the land his performances were contemptible. But on the stage of ,the Peninsula the figure 'of Wellington emerges almost at once, one of the groat soldiers of all history. Wellington may be pronounced the one absolutely satisfactory soldier, and captain of soldiers, the British race lias produced. He. had ho touch, it is true,, of Nelson’s fiery and emotional genius. Ho would not have put the telescope to his blind eye at Copenhagen; lio never regarded his generals, as Nelson looked on his captains, as ‘a band of brothers’; and, dying, Wellington would have asked no Hardy- in epaulettes to ‘kiss him.’ But he had a quality' of sustained purpose, an iron ruthlessness of will, a mastery -of tactics, and a vision for the wholo landscape, ol war which Nelson hardly possessed. The only other soldier in' British history to be compared in genius to Wellington is Marlborough ; but'iu loyalty, in singkness of purpose, in all the qualities of character, Wellington stands far above Marlboiough. ' , ' : : :; ' ' : . ;■

“Wellington, ’no doubt, had his limitations even as a general. Ho was an ‘infantry’ general, and never attempted the use either of guns or of cavalry on the scale, and with tho effectiveness, of Napoleon. It is usual to say that he lacked Napoleon’s fiery and relentless energy in the pursuit of a beaten a'rmy; and that perhaps is true. Wellington, certainly lacked, personal sympathy with his own soldiers and officers, and so had nothing of the magic power over their imagination which other great captains have possessed. But it piust be remembered that Wellington'had to work with some very poor material, tfoth among his officers and the men in the ranks. His correspondence is full of complaints, sometimes against officers who were forced on him, and more frequently against officers -who were clamoring for permission to return home on. private business. “The comparative youth of the leading figures in tho Peninsula War is remarkable. Youth might be expected in armies which were thrown up by a revolution ; and it is not strange to find, say, Marmont a marshal at thirty-five, and Soult commanding all the French forces in Spain at forty-five. But Wellington was only thirty-nine when he began his career in Spain. “Wellington’s six campaigns in tho Peninsula, in a word, are a great and memorable record; and which deserves greater praise, tho skill of the leadership or tho endurance and valor of the men in the ranks, is not easy to say. ‘Those veterans,’ says Napier, summing up their deeds, ‘had won nineteen pit* ched battles and innumerable combats; had made or sustained ten sieges, and taken four great fortresses; had twice expelled the French from Portugal, once from Spain; had penetrated France, and killed, wounded, or captured 200,000 enemies, leaving of their own number 40,000 dead, whose bones whiten the plains and mountains of the Peninsula.’ ”