British General, Commander Who Defeated Napoleon at Waterloo
The Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley (1769–1852), was a British army general who repeatedly beat Napoleon’s forces in the Peninsular War and in 1815, joined with the Prussians, utterly defeated the returned Napoleon at Waterloo, ending the Napoleonic Wars. He then entered politics and served for a time as Prime Minister; late in life his prestige was dented by his opposition to parliamentary reform, but as "the man who beat Napoleon" he held an important place in British history, and Wellington Arch still stands in central London in his honor.
On June 18, 1815, Napoleon assaulted Wellington’s position at Waterloo in Belgium; the battle lasted from morning to evening, Wellington’s troops several times near collapse, until the Prussian Marshal Blücher arrived in time with reinforcements to strike the flank and the French line broke at last. Wellington afterward called it "the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life."
Wellington entered politics after the war and served for a time as Prime Minister, but the hard-line manner he had formed in the army carried into politics, and his firm opposition to the 1832 Reform Act drew public fury — protesters even smashed the windows of his London home — and the nickname "Iron Duke" gradually shifted from a symbol of military prestige to a byword for his hard, conservative political stance.
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