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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1184
AUTHOR: Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769–1852)
QUOTATION: Really when I reflect upon the characters and attainments of some of the General Officers of this army, and consider that these are the persons on whom I am to rely to lead columns against the French Generals, and who are to carry my instructions into execution, I tremble; and, as Lord Chesterfield said of the Generals of his day, “I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names he trembles as I do.”
ATTRIBUTION: ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON, letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Torrens, August 29, 1810.—Antony Brett-James, Wellington at War, 1794–1815, p. 199 (1961). Lord Chesterfield’s comment is unverified.
SUBJECTS: Military affairs