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00:00MUSIC
00:17April 1806.
00:19In a private house in Dublin, Ireland,
00:22Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley,
00:25the future Duke of Wellington, was getting married.
00:28He had just returned from nine successful years in India
00:32and claimed the hand of his former sweetheart, Kitty Pakenham.
00:36But the marriage was to be a curious one,
00:39for the fire that burned in Wellesley's heart
00:42was not for his wife, but for his dream.
00:45His dream of proving himself a great military commander.
00:49Over the next decade, the pursuit of this dream
00:53would bring him fame and fortune beyond his wildest expectations.
01:16Arthur Wellesley had fallen in love with Kitty Pakenham
01:19when he was a junior officer with no prospects.
01:23Kitty's family had wanted better for her and rejected him.
01:29Now, at 37, Wellesley was a wealthy general.
01:32The Pakenhams blessed the union.
01:37The entry in the register is still visible.
01:41The Honourable Sir Arthur Wellesley, Knight of the Bath,
01:45to the Honourable Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham of this parish.
01:5010th of April, 1806.
01:53When these lines were written,
01:56Kitty and Arthur had just set eyes on one another
01:59for the first time in 11 years.
02:02Kitty tried to persuade Arthur to see her
02:05before committing himself to the marriage.
02:08But he insisted that it wasn't necessary.
02:14When they finally met in the drawing room of the Pakenhams' house in Dublin,
02:19shortly before the ceremony,
02:21Arthur exclaimed to his brother,
02:24''She's grown ugly by Jove.''
02:28It was a bad start to what was to prove an unhappy marriage.
02:35Since they had last met, Arthur had spent a decade in India,
02:39winning a string of victories.
02:41Kitty had spent those years in near isolation in rural Ireland.
02:46Their experiences, once so similar, were now worlds apart.
02:51Increasingly, Arthur made Kitty nervous and she irritated him.
02:57So why had Arthur married Kitty?
03:00Her family had turned him down years before.
03:04But he had promised her that his feelings would remain unchanged
03:08and she had waited for him.
03:11I think that a sense of honour,
03:14not the quest for personal happiness, was what took him to the altar.
03:21But once married, neither that sense of honour,
03:25nor the birth of two sons,
03:27could make him want to stay by Kitty's side.
03:30Instead, he longed for a return to active service
03:34and the chance to make a name for himself on the European stage.
03:38I would be very sorry to stay at home while others went abroad.
03:42I am ready to be sent to any part of the world at a moment's notice.
03:48The time was ripe.
03:50Britain was living under threat from France.
03:53Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French,
03:56had set out to subjugate Western Europe.
03:59He had been terrifyingly successful.
04:05By the summer of 1807,
04:07the French Empire extended from the English Channel
04:10to the heart of Central Europe.
04:12The following winter, Napoleon seized control of Spain and Portugal.
04:24Wellesley's break came
04:26when Spanish and Portuguese delegates arrived in London,
04:29asking for British help against the occupying French armies.
04:33Arthur Wellesley was given the command of a force destined for Portugal.
04:37It was the beginning of a journey
04:39that would make him one of the most famous men in Europe
04:42and ultimately win him the title Duke of Wellington.
04:48Before he set out, Wellesley had a farewell dinner
04:51at his London home, 11 Harley Street.
04:54At the end of the meal, he confided to a friend...
04:57I am thinking of the French that I am going to fight.
05:02They have, it seems, a new system of strategy
05:05which has outmanoeuvred and overwhelmed all the armies of Europe.
05:10But if what I hear of their system is true,
05:13I suspect all the continental armies
05:15were more than half beaten before the battle was begun.
05:19I, at least, will not be frightened beforehand.
05:24This lack of fear, this refusal to be browbeaten,
05:28was to prove one of Wellesley's greatest assets.
05:33Fired with enthusiasm for command,
05:35Arthur Wellesley arrived in Portugal on 30 July 1808.
05:40There he found a letter waiting for him.
05:42It contained disastrous news.
05:47It said that the French army, under General Junot,
05:50was much bigger than had been believed
05:52and that reinforcements were being sent out to the British army.
05:56Then came the infuriating bit.
05:59Because the British army would be bigger,
06:01it needed more senior commanders,
06:04and two generals, both of them much older than Wellesley,
06:07were already en route.
06:10Wellesley's response showed characteristic impatience with authority
06:15and thirst for reputation.
06:18I hope that I will have beat Junot before any of them arrive.
06:22After that, they will do as they please with me.
06:31He then issued a proclamation to the Portuguese.
06:35People of Portugal, the time has arrived to rescue your country.
06:43But before Wellesley could engage Junot in battle,
06:46Sir Harry Burrard, one of the commanders who was due to supersede him,
06:50arrived offshore.
06:53Wellesley met him with a battle plan.
06:55Sir Harry rejected it
06:57and insisted they should do nothing until more British troops arrived.
07:01Like almost everyone else, he was decidedly cautious about the French.
07:06But Burrard's decision was overtaken by events.
07:13Wellesley had established his headquarters in the village of Vimero.
07:17Just after midnight, he heard that the French were marching to attack.
07:22With Sir Harry still out at sea, Wellesley remained in charge.
07:26Soon he had his British and Portuguese troops in position.
07:32Here on this slope, outside Vimero village,
07:35Wellesley's troops met the French for the first major battle of his command.
07:41It was here that he used tactics that he was convinced would beat the French.
07:45Tactics which were to characterise so much of the war.
07:48They brought together his own eagle eye for the ground,
07:52his painstaking study of French methods
07:55and his insistence on training and discipline.
08:01Wellesley's study of French tactics had convinced him
08:04that their methods had a serious flaw.
08:08The French concentrated on terrifying their opponents.
08:11They made a lot of noise and marched forward in densely packed columns.
08:17But although the column might burst its way through an enemy by sheer physical shock,
08:22it was not much use for delivering musket fire
08:25because only the first two or three lines could shoot.
08:29Wellesley believed that the key to victory was to surprise the French
08:33and then outshoot them.
08:35He positioned his troops behind the crest of a hill
08:38and arranged them in a long line.
08:40As the French approached, the British line would step forward
08:43as if from nowhere and open fire.
08:52The French problem was simple.
08:54They could see very little until they crossed the ridge
08:57and then it was far too late.
09:01The column that came up the slope here had about 30 men in front
09:05and was 42 men deep.
09:07Just over there was a British line of about 800 men.
09:12Those 800 British muskets were firing four times a minute.
09:17All morning, French column met British line right across the battlefield
09:21and every time the columns fell back in disarray.
09:27Wellesley was delighted.
09:29He had proved that he could beat the French.
09:31They had sustained over 2,000 casualties
09:34while Wellesley had lost only 700 men.
09:37He encouraged Sir Harry Burrard, who'd now arrived at the battlefield,
09:41to turn victory into a rout.
09:45Sir Harry, now is your time to advance.
09:48The enemy are completely beaten.
09:50We shall be in Lisbon in three days.
09:53But once again, to Wellesley's exasperation,
09:56Sir Harry refused to act.
09:59And the day after the battle, things got even worse.
10:02General Sir Hugh Dalrymple arrived
10:05and set about negotiating a treaty with the French.
10:10Dalrymple, a man of nearly 60,
10:13had only seen active service once in his entire career.
10:16But because of the inflexible law of seniority, he took command.
10:23Wellesley was called in to sign the final draft of the treaty.
10:27But he hadn't even read the document.
10:29This simple signature was to jeopardise his entire career.
10:35Wellesley was now desperate to go home
10:38and escape superiors for whom he had no respect.
10:42Since the arrival of the great generals,
10:45we appear to have been palsied and everything has gone wrong.
10:50As the French began to leave Portugal,
10:52the extraordinary nature of Dalrymple's treaty
10:55the Convention of Sintra, became clear.
10:58It looked more like a French victory than defeat.
11:02Back home in England, the public was dismayed by the treaty
11:06and it was ridiculed in newspapers and cartoons.
11:10This is the city of Lisbon.
11:12This is the gold that lay in the city of Lisbon.
11:15These are the French who took the gold that lay in the city of Lisbon.
11:19The French were being repatriated in British ships,
11:22taking with them all the treasures they'd looted from Portugal.
11:26Wellesley came in for personal attack.
11:30Although Sir Arthur, whose valour and skill began so well but ended so ill...
11:35The British public was not impressed.
11:38This is John Bull in great dismay at the sight of the ships
11:41which carried away the gold and the silver and all of the spoil
11:44the French had plundered with so much toil
11:47after the Convention which nobody understood.
11:50After the Convention which nobody owns,
11:52which saved old Juno's baggage and bones.
11:55Although Sir Arthur, whose valour and skill began so well but ended so ill...
12:00This was the atmosphere Wellesley returned to in London.
12:04One paper even accused him of being afraid of the French.
12:08His future looked doubtful.
12:10His career was teetering on the brink of ruin.
12:14And he found no solace at home.
12:16His relationship with Kitty was as awkward as ever.
12:21A notorious courtesan, Harriet Wilson,
12:24claimed it was during this critical period of his life
12:27that Arthur Wellesley became her client.
12:31Wellesley later disputed the timing,
12:33but Harriet's story seems plausible.
12:36After all, he needed distraction
12:39from the growing scandal over the Convention of Sintra.
12:43In November 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley,
12:47Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hugh Dalrymple
12:50were all called to face a court of inquiry
12:53into the Convention of Sintra.
12:55The court sat in the Great Hall in Chelsea Hospital.
12:59In 1808, the Great Hall looked very much the way it does today.
13:03Then, as now, it was used as a dining room.
13:06Here, Wellesley and the other generals gave their evidence.
13:10With Wellesley insisting that he hadn't negotiated the treaty
13:13and so wasn't responsible for it.
13:16But the Convention was so unpopular
13:19that there was every chance that the court would be swayed
13:22by the angry mood outside.
13:34When the court eventually reached a verdict,
13:36it upheld the Convention,
13:38by the narrowest of margins, four to three.
13:42Neither Sir Harry Burrard nor Sir Hugh Dalrymple
13:45ever held command again.
13:47And for Wellesley, who'd left England with such high hopes
13:51only a few months before, the future was bleak.
13:58Although the generals had technically been cleared,
14:01a shadow hung over them.
14:03Wellesley was determined to escape it.
14:06He spent his time writing long and useful memos
14:09to an old ally, the Minister of War,
14:12on the future course of the conflict.
14:15Wellesley was convinced that Spain and Portugal
14:18remained an ideal front on which to fight the French
14:21and put pressure on Napoleon.
14:24His industry paid off.
14:26The king was persuaded to give Sir Arthur a second chance.
14:29He was to return to the British army in Portugal,
14:32this time as undisputed commander-in-chief.
14:35For Wellesley, it was a dream come true.
14:38Now he could really prove his worth.
14:45Nothing could have prepared Wellesley
14:47for the welcome he received when he landed here in Lisbon
14:50as commander-in-chief.
14:52The city was staging a carnival in his honour.
14:55Shops were selling engravings at his victory of Vimero,
14:59and the streets were thronging with Portuguese men,
15:02ready to fight alongside the British.
15:05It was a heartening contrast to the ridicule and censure at home.
15:13Wellesley immediately embarked on an unglamorous but inspired project.
15:17He reorganised the Commissariat,
15:20the department responsible for food and supplies.
15:23He knew that Portugal was a poor country
15:26and that he couldn't afford to alienate the locals
15:29by taking their food.
15:31It is very necessary to attend to all the detail of proper food supply
15:36and to trace a biscuit from its being landed at a peninsular port
15:40into the man's mouth
15:42and to provide for its removal from place to place by land or water.
15:48The Emperor Napoleon, far away in Central Europe,
15:52was not preoccupied with such administrative detail.
15:55He believed that armies should live off the land.
15:58That's what the French did in Portugal and Spain,
16:01and they were hated for it.
16:03Arthur Wellesley was determined not to make the same mistake.
16:23To fight the French in Spain,
16:25Wellesley needed to work with the Spanish army.
16:28He travelled to the village of Miravete
16:31to meet the ageing Spanish general, Gregorio de la Cuesta.