WELLINGTON'S FAMOUS DESPATCH.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 September 1915, Page 5

WELLINGTON'S FAMOUS DESPATCH.

"IP I HAD NOT BEEN THERE.! "The real vice, of the Waterloo patch is its symmetrical and sustained inadequacy. Let, anyone try to reproduce from Wellington's description of it, and lie will realise the helpless insufficiency of his dispatch," writes Dr. W, ff» Fitchett in the Comhill. "Nobody fun pretend that one of the greatest of tjbi« decisive battles of history is to be IMB, or guessed, through its cold and lomtysyllables. It succeeds in making one of the greatest battles in history co&monf place. Yet Wellington stubbornly faftu-1 ed to mend his dispatch, or to admit that it lacked anything. All writers "»ers solemnly warned off the battle,, on Ith* ground that they really could not ina* prove and might distort, the one ityßt cient account of it given in Wellington'# dispatch. T "

• "It was to Walter Scott, Wellington wrote, 'Remember, I recommend you tc| leave Waterloo alone.' But the in)* o( his own dispatch waß not yet dry wheat Welington, looking through the windov of his room in Brussels, sees Creevey, backons him with uplifted finger, tna tlfen walks to and fro telling him the story of the fight. He is remetoboina. now!, jHe sees the human aide of the ? uards 5 0ldln S Eougomont, with tnfc naming roof over their Head*;' the thin, red lines of infantry, on whieh' for * ° niany hours such a tempest 0f was itofttong; the stubborn red and Noel oblongr*W his infantry—little islets set in a sea of battle, every moment yet keeping their forZ and covering their front with the and flame of their steady volleys, to spite of the furious rush, thirteen ttofi repeated, of Ney's fierce cavalry. V JT"And as Wellington talked his J»« agination kindled; <He broke out,' sat* Creevey, 'into a,variety of observation! m his short, natural, blunt way, hot with the greatest gravity all the nW j and without the least approach to any* | thing like triumph or joy.' Here ia tM account of that talk Creevey give*] h bears the stamp of truth, though it ia probable that Creevey himself supplied the unnecessary 'damna' and other Mat; fane expletives with which the atory U adorned: 'I met Lord Arthur ESll in ante-room below, who, after hands and congratulations, told mi f could not go up to the Duke, as hs was then occupied in writing his disi patch; but as I had been invited, ot course, proceeded. The first thing I 3jg was to put out my hand and oongtmtift late him (the Duke) upon his victory, * ""It has been a damned aenoutf business," he said. "Blucher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing—the nearest run thW yott ever saw in your life,, Blucher teatl4,-t 000 on Friday night, and got so damm ably licked I could not find him on jj»t< nrday morning;, so I was obliged to fall back to keep up (regain) my commtwica* tions with him." Then, as he miked about, he praised' greatly those guard! who kept the farm (meaning H'rtigffmont) against the repeated attacks of the French; ami then he praised alltour troops, uttering repeated expressions 0? astonishment at our men'a courage. He repeated so often its' being "so "if thing"—so "nearly run a thing?—the# 1 asked him if the French had iought better than he had fiver seen them' do before. "No," he said, "They have Uwaya fought the same since I first saw«tkemi at Vimiera." Then he said "Br Qodf I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there."'* ■ •