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QotD: Ol’ Beaky on Fear
The only thing I am afraid of is fear.—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, 3 November 1831
Fifty years before FDR was even a gleam in his daddy’s eye, a much greater light wrote down a thought that shows a true understanding of fear.
Published in Group Writing
Oh, and it’s Arthur’s 250th birthday.
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I recall reading somewhere that on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo as Wellington strode through camp he came upon a soldier who had stolen a small pig. The man tried to stuff it into his clothing as he stood at attention. (Looting was a hanging offense and Wellington was a stern disciplinarian.) When the soldier denied there was a squiming pig under his coat, Wellington started laughing and ordered the man decorated for bravery for the sheer brazenness of the lie.
It seems like in every victory in the Peninsular Campaign and at Waterloo Wellington established a brilliant defensive posture and somehow induced his adversary to attack it.
The version that I heard was that Wellington had the man promoted to corporal “for he knows how to defend a hopeless position.”
Good story, either way.
Fear doesn’t ever feel good, but it’s not necessarily without benefit. Fear that paralyzes to the point of inertia is defeating. Cautious fear, on the other hand, is one sign of someone who has a healthy realization they have something precious to lose. The guy who feels he has nothing to lose can be as much or more dangerous than the petrified inert individual.
Perhaps its greatest benefit lies in overcoming fear: courage is the virtue on which all others depend (h/t CS Lewis).
He had other strengths as well, including a firm understanding of logistics, and I’d argue he had a far better understanding of combined arms than Boney. Boney had just a couple of key tricks (and he was very good at them): massive artillery barrage to break the lines, massive quick marches of columns to smash lines, cavalry to roll up the sides and exploit formation weaknesses. Wellington’s men, by contrast, could fire more rapidly, and they made good use of riflemen and skirmishers to disrupt French orders, and proved very able to adapt to French tactics.