THE MAKING OF ARTHUR WELLESLEY by Bennell, Anthony S

Mumbai, 1997, Orient Longman,Indian first edition, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, hard bound in dust jacket, VG/VG CONDITION ( light bump on 1 corner ), 235 pages, glossary, bibliog., index. -------------------------------------------Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Wellington, first came to prominence in India. Partly because he was in India at the time of the Governor- Generalship of his elder brother Richard, Lord Mornington and later first Marquis Wellesley, he was given significant military command at a young age. In the contest of the East India Company with the Maratha Confederacy, fought out in three wars, that of 1803-1805 marked the point at which the emergent British power directly challenged the Maratha power for the paramountcy of India. In this conflict, Arthur Wellesley was given significant political authority. This study of the years 1803-1805 draws on the correspondence of the day. Arthur Wellesley himself knew that his training in India was the background to his later extended military authority in the Spanish Peninsula and in the campaign of Waterloo. Many Studies of Wellesley have tended to handle this Indian experience only in broad outline. In this book it is the central theme. The gradual gain of military and political insight by Arthur Wellesley is set here against the background of events in India, viewed both from the battlefield and from the Secretariat of the Governor-General of Fort William, Calcutta.