Letter from the Duke of Wellington to the British Foreign Office (1809)

backuprestore 59 points 17 comments May 29, 2026
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Slightly more readable link: https://cns.gatech.edu/CNS/GTaccountProcs.pdf

Discussion Highlights (7 comments)

RobotToaster

Technically from Sir Arthur Wellesley, he wasn't made duke until 1814.

delichon

Likely apocryphal. It isn't in the massive official "Despatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington" and the exaggerated, humorous style is not characteristic.

BigTTYGothGF

There's no way that's not a joke written many decades or more later.

cjs_ac

Why would Wellington have to answer to the Foreign Office for the administration of the forces under his command when that was the responsibility of the War Office?

ggm

Entertaining if fictive. His comments to his army and his own role in the victory are I hope better attested to.

jhkrug

An AI debunking. https://gemini.google.com/share/3ff808eaa2ef

TacticalCoder

> Tis of no matter your Highness, I have seen their backs before Don't know whether that's true or not (that the Duke of Wellington said that) but... One year later (1815), he handed the french's arses back to them big, big, big, times at Waterloo. Basically the battle of Waterloo (a few kilometers away from where I was born) is considered the time when the UK overtook France as the world's number one superpower. Since then both have only ever been falling in the rankings and it doesn't look like that fall is going to stop anytime soon but that's another topic.

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