In so far as the conduct of campaigns...Wellington was a dangerous opponent. However, if that was the case, on the battlefield he was absolutely deadly. In the Peninsula he triumphed, generally resoundingly so, over every French commander that came against him...while at Waterloo he held off Napoleon himself for a full day at the head of an army that was not remotely comparable to the troops he had headed in Spain and Portugal... [I]t is evident that Wellington's icy manner reflected a cool detachment that allowed him constantly to out-think the enemy, to exploit any accident of ground to the full, to maximise the strong points of his own forces and to get the best out of his officers and men: liked he may not have been, but respect and confidence he inspired in abundance... In Wellington, then, Britain truly had one of the greatest generals of all time.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "In so far as the conduct of campaigns...Wellington was a dangerous opponent. However, if that was the case, on the battlefield he was absolutely deadly. In the Peninsula he triumphed, generally resoundingly so, over every French commander that came against him...while at Waterloo he held off Napoleon himself for a full day at the head of an army that was not remotely comparable to the troops he had headed in Spain and Portugal... [I]t is evident that Wellington's icy manner reflected a cool detachment that allowed him constantly to out-think the enemy, to exploit any accident of ground to the full, to maximise the strong points of his own forces and to get the best out of his officers and men: liked he may not have been, but respect and confidence he inspired in abundance... In Wellington, then, Britain truly had one of the greatest generals of all time." in the context of "Charles Esdaile, 'Introduction', The Duke of Wellington, Military Dispatches (2014), pp. xxx-xxxi" to mean that wisdom is timeless.