Duke of Wellington Biography

Duke of Wellington

(Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington; Dublin, Ireland, 1769-Walmer Castle, Kent, England, 1852) British military and politician.He entered the army in 1787 and years later served in India, where his brother Carlos-the Marquis of Wellesley-was governor (1796-1805).And, also following his brother, he entered politics as a Conservative deputy in the House of Commons in 1805, and served as Secretary for Ireland in 1807.

The Duke of Wellington (detail of a portrait of Goya)

In 1808 he was placed in command of the army that Great Britain sent to Portugal to fight against the French occupation of the Iberian Peninsula.In that same year he had to return to England to answer before a court for having allowed the withdrawal of the French general Jean Junot after defeating him around Lisbon.He was declared innocent and authorized to continue the direction of the Spanish War of Independence (1808-1814), which the English called the Peninsular War.

The fate of the war was unfavorable to him until 1810.But, after containing the French advance towards Lisbon in Torres Vedras (1811), he began a victorious offensive towards the center of the Peninsula, counting on the support of the autochthonous guerrilla, which weakened the military position of the French: took Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, defeated Auguste Marmont in the battle of the Arapiles, occupied Madrid (1812), persecuted José I Bonaparte towards the north until inflicting two new defeats in Vitoria and San Marcial (1813), he crossed the Pyrenees and, already in French territory, definitively defeated Jean de Dieu Soult in Toulouse (1814).

His advance was simultaneous to that of the German and Russian troops that culminated in the Battle of Leipzig; and both allied successes determined the fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the Bourbons, both in Spain (Ferdinand VII) and in France (Louis XVIII).In 1815, Napoleon's unexpected return to power during the Hundred Days Empire forced his enemies to form a new coalition and send an army under the command of the Duke of Wellington, who finally defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo (1815 ).

His military services to the Crown during the Napoleonic Wars earned him successively the titles of Count, Marquis (1812) and Duke (1814) of Wellington.Later he carried out diplomatic missions; He participated in the Congress of Vienna (1815) and, as a member of the cabinet chaired by Liverpool, in those of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) and Verona (1822).He was prime minister in 1828-30 and later minister in the governments of Robert Peel (1834-35 and 1841-46).

From those positions and that of commander-in-chief of the army, he had an undeniable influence, all the more so since the young Queen Victoria adored him.His political stance was ultra-conservative, since he considered that the English Constitution was perfect and did not need any reform (that is why he opposed, for example, the electoral reform of 1832).He was the last general to have real political power in the UK.

Comments

Giacomo Fauser Biography

Giacomo Fauser (Novara, 1892- id ., 1971) Italian industrialist.With studies in chemical engineering, he carried out interesting research in the field of production processes by synthesis of nitrogen compounds, especially nitrogen fertilizers.

Christopher de Molina Biography

Cristóbal de Molina (Called el Cuzqueño; second half of the 17th century) Spanish Chronicler of the Indies.A great connoisseur of the Quechua language, he is the author of Fables and Rites of the Incas (published in 1913).

Agustín de Zárate Biography

Agustín de Zárate (Valladolid, around 1514-Seville ?, around 1577) Spanish historian.In 1528 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Council of Castile.In 1543 he passed to Peru as a grant accountant for said region and Tierra Firme, with the task of putting in order the boxes of the Royal Treasury of that province, going there in the squad that led Viceroy Núñez Vela.Secretary of the Court, he was involved in the civil strife that ravaged the country.Before the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, Agustín de Zárate sided with Viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela.Later Carlos I awarded his services with the position of governor of the Hacienda de Flandes.In his leisure he composed History of the discovery and conquest of Peru (Antwerp, 1555), which includes from the conquest of the territory to its pacification by Pedro de La Gasca. Methodical writer and good stylist, his work, not very original, enjoyed high prestige and was translated into Italian, English, French and German.Zárate shows a rema...

George dewey Biography

George Dewey (Montpelier, 1837-Washington, 1917) American admiral, famous for commanding the North American fleet that defeated the Spanish in Manila Bay.He began his military studies at the Norwich School (New Hampshire), and in 1854 he entered the Annapolis Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1858.After serving on the steam frigate USS Wabash bound for the Mediterranean fleet, in 1861 he returned to the Naval Academy to obtain the rank of lieutenant. George Dewey When the civil war broke out that same year, he was assigned to the Mississippi frigate with the mission of participating in the blockade of the coast of the Confederacy, and commanding this ship took part in the Battle of New Orleans (April 1862).In 1863 he fought under the orders of Admiral David Farragut at the Battle of Port Hudson, in which the Mississippi was destroyed.Later he was appointed commander of the Monongahela, flagship of Admiral Farragut, and of the Kearsarge, in which he served when the war ended. ...

César Oviedo linen Biography

Lino César Oviedo (Lino César Oviedo Silva; Juan de Mena, 1944) Paraguayan coup general.He completed a career in military academies in Germany.As a Paraguayan military officer, on February 3, 1989, and with the rank of colonel, his intervention was decisive in the overthrow of President Alfredo Stroessner. From this moment on, the promotions in Oviedo's military career followed one another.In May of that same year he was promoted to Brigadier General and in December 1991 to Division General.In that period of time, he served, first, as Head of the 1st Cavalry Division and, later, that of the 1st Army Corps, a position he held until the end of 1993, the year in which he became commander of the Army. He was only promoted to general in the Army when he starred in the most important political-military crisis of the democratic process in Paraguay.On April 22, 1996, and with the support of loyal commanders, he declared in absentia against President Juan Carlos Wasmosy.The military ...

The Mayan Religion

The Mayans inhabited Central America in the centuries before the Conquest of America, developing a highly evolved civilization.In it, religious beliefs played an essential role that we will talk about in the next article.In About History we talk to you now of the Mayan Religion . The Mayan religionThe Mayan calendarsThe Mayan ceremoniesOther entities in the Mayan religionVideo of the Mayan religion The Mayan religion : The religion of the Mayan culture was characterized basically for the passing of life around infinite cycles of the universe .that way, it will be possible to be noticed that the Mayan religion finds its roots in time, being this diagrammed by means of diverse systems of calendars based on different patterns, dividing the life cycles of the Mayan culture . The Mayas believed that the world had been created five times and destroyed four times , this being the basis of the Mesoamerican religious culture that spread from the year 900 onwards, later a...

Higinio Uriarte Biography

Higinio Uriarte (Asunción, 1843-1909) Paraguayan politician who reached the provisional presidency of his country between 1877 and 1878, after the death of Juan Bautista Gill.He studied in Buenos Aires and returned to Asunción at the end of the War of the Triple Alliance (1865-1870).He was a senator with Cirilo Antonio Rivarola, and later a deputy and president of the Chamber. Higinio Uriarte During the presidential period of Juan Bautista Gill (1874-1877) was elected vice president of the Republic.Higinio Uriarte acceded to the presidency in April 1877, after Gill's assassination in Asunción.In October 1877 he put down an uprising led by Cirilo Antonio Rivarola.During his tenure, US President Rutherford Hayes, arbitrator in territorial disputes after the War of the Triple Alliance, ruled that large tracts of the Chaco were Paraguayan domain. His government had to face the difficult economic and social situation in which the country had been after the War of the Triple All...

Charles II, the Bewitched

Carlos II was laultima, the most degenerate, and the most patent victim of the inbreeding of the Austrias.These words, by the British historian John Lynch, may seem excessive and somewhat loaded in the adjectives.But if we take a look at the history doctor who for thirty-five years was King Carlos II of Spain maybe we change our mind. Index of the article Carlos II, the Bewitched Carlos II was a soul quite unfortunate .Born at the end of a long line of inbreeding, he suffered health problems throughout his life, although short.Badly disfigured, he was considered unable to govern and, during his lifetime, most of the power was in the hands of his mother, Mariana of Austria.He was the last of the Spanish rulers of the Habsburgs and with his time on the throne, Spain fell into decline as an empire.Some of the wild rumors about his health were true, others pure sensation.However, his tragic life was also full of intrigue, and his death plunged much of Europe into a major war. ...

Carmen de Icaza Biography

Carmen de Icaza (Madrid, 1904-1979) Spanish novelist.She was the daughter of the Mexican poet and academic Francisco A.de Icaza, at the time his country's ambassador in Madrid.Her very childhood was spent in a literary environment to which her father's gathering contributed to a great extent, which was attended by Juan Ramón Jiménez, José Ortega y Gasset, Rubén Darío and Amado Nervo, also a Mexican diplomat.Later, her father's career would take her to various cities in Europe.Especially important was her stay in Berlin, where she received a careful education in classical and modern languages. Carmen de Icaza In 1925, and again in Spain, her father.The family's lack of resources leads her to apply for a position at the newspaper El Sol, thanks to her father's friendship with Ortega, the newspaper's founder.It deals with the feminine page, from which it echoes the problems of women.He immediately began to collaborate in ABC, Blanco y Negro y Ya, of whose wr...

The history and origin of the Earth

The planet Earth 4.5 billion years ago was a mass of clustered rocks whose core melted the planet.Over time it dried and cooled to form a crust solid and consistent.After a long cooling process, the formation of gases and the interaction with the air is the atmosphere . Index of the article Formation of the solar system The scientific studies confirm that it does around of 13.8 billion years there was a big explosion that they called Big Bang .The exorbitant force that was unleashed dispersed all the matter that was in all possible directions at speeds too exorbitant.As time went by, they moved away from the place of the explosion and slowed down.The nearby matter stayed for p roast to be what are now the galaxies . In the immediate vicinity of the limit of our galaxy is the Via Lactea. These fractions of matter were condensed in a dense cloud about 5,000 million years ago.All this matter was constituting a huge mass thanks to gravitational forces, until a sphere ...

History Today Online

Search This Blog