Campanian on the Southern coast.
--
The Opinion of the Iron Duke.--During the war of 1812 the
English Government appealed to the
Duke of
Wellington, then in the maturity of his military genius, to furnish a plan of campaign suited to the
American country.--The
Duke replied:
‘
"In such countries as
America, very extensive, thinly peopled, and producing but little food in proportion to their extent, military operations by large bodies are impracticable, unless the party carrying them on has the uninterrupted use of a navigable river or very extensive means of land transportation, which such a country can rarely supply.
I conceive, therefore, that were your army larger than even the proposed augmentation would make it, you could not quit the lakes (of
Canada) and indeed you would be lied to them, the more necessarily in proportion as your army would be large.
Then as to landings upon the coast,
they are liable to the same objections, to a greater degree, than an offensive operation founded upon
Canada.
You may go to a certain extent, as far as a navigable river or your means of transport will enable you to subsist, provided your force is sufficiently large compared with that which the enemy will oppose to you.
But I do not know where you could carry on such an operation which would be so injurious to the Americans us to force them to sue for peace.--Xii.
Wellington's Dispatches 525.
’
Thus we see how fixed was the opinion of the
Duke of
Wellington that nothing was to be done, even by a Power like
England, which at that time had one thousand vessels of war afloat and in commission.
A few weeks after the above letter was written the
battle of New Orleans vindicated the sagacity of the Great Captain, but long before tidings of that strife reached
England a treaty of peace had been signed, and as soon as he heard of it be wrote to the
English Ministry: "I congratulate you on the termination of the war with
America. " He know it was a hopeless undertaking.
