The Duke of Wellington called his men ‘the scum of the earth’ in anger. But it went deeper than that. It was a patrician view of the world that left him on the wrong side of history in the early part of the nineteenth century that he, perhaps more than anybody else apart from Napoleon Bonaparte, had helped to shape.
But when the soldiers returned home from battle they found Britain at war with itself. For them, the forgotten heroes, Waterloo was not the end – it was only the beginning.
With the bicentenary of Waterloo approaching, I thought it was time to follow ‘the scum of the earth’ and find out what happened to them.
I approached this book as an investigative journalist with some trepidation. Historians have churned up the ground of Waterloo for 200 years and there is a minefield of disputed ‘facts’ surrounding it. There is still a dispute about the time it started. I apologise in advance if I have stumbled on the odd mine.
Colin Brown
Blackheath, England
To Earl Bathurst, Huarte, 2nd July, 1813
My Dear Lord,
I enclose the copy of a letter from the Governor of Vitoria which shows how our men are going on in that neighbourhood. These men are detachments from the different regiments of the army who were sent to Vitoria the day after the battle, each under officers, in order to collect the wounded and their arms and accoutrements. It is quite impossible for me or any other man to command a British army under the existing system. We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers; and of late years we have been doing everything in our power, both by the law and by publications, to relax the discipline by which alone such men can be kept in order. The officers of the lower ranks will not perform the duty required from them for the purpose of keeping their soldiers in order; and it is next to impossible to punish any officer for neglects of this description. As to the non-commissioned officers, as I have repeatedly stated, they are as bad as the men, and too near them, in point of pay and situation, by the regulations of late years, for us to expect them to do anything to keep the men in order. It is really a disgrace to have anything to say to such men as some of our soldiers are …
Believe me, etc Wellington.