Arthur Wellesley. The Duke of Wellington. (1769-1852)

The son of the 1st Earl of Mornington, born in Ireland in 1769 into a life of the ruling classes.

In 1787 Wellesley joined up into the British Army, serving his time as an officer and slowly but surely working his way up through the ranks until in 1799 he was given the command of a division in the war against the Sultan of Tipu in India. As it happened Wellesley’s brother Richard was the Governor General of India at that time and appointed Wellesley as Supreme Commander of the Deccan, a post that he held until 1805.

Napoleon had begun his conquest of the world by then and was in Spain mopping up any resistance. Wellesley was promoted to Lieutenant General and placed in charge of the Peninsular War. It was during this campaign that Wellesley realised the importance of espionage and created his first espionage service, their goal to infiltrate the French and Spanish forces and report back directly to him troop movements, strengths and positions of Napoleons troops.

In a brilliant move Napoleon had pursued the Spanish that the British were going to invade Denmark, so they agreed to send their best troops there to defend against the invasion, Napoleon knew that the Spanish would probably join forces with the British against his army and the remaining Spanish volunteers, so with them out of the way his army would have the upper hand in Spain.

Wellesley sent one of his agents, a Scottish cleric called James Robertson up through the French lines and up into Denmark to speak to the Spanish commander of the deception. Having done this the main Spanish army returned to Spain and joined forces with the British against Napoleons army.

Captain Henry Hardinge was Wellesley’s chief of espionage and his work was instrumental in many of the of the British victories in Spain, his spy network spread misinformation about Wellesley’s troop movements and plans.

In 1814 Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington and was placed in supreme command of the allied troops against Napoleon. Here Hardinge arranged his spies to spread rumours around the French camps about movements, size and positions of Wellington’s troops and even more devastating to Napoleon was the fact that his agents had no idea of the German General Blucher’s position, his attack on Napoleons flank dealt a fatal blow to his army resulting in a magnificent victory for Wellington.

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