Wellington The Iron Duke Episode 1 The Making of a Man
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00:00The Duke of Wellington was born in Ireland on April the 29th 1769.
00:30His name then was Arthur Wellesley and he was the third surviving son of an Irish Earl.
00:39This is all that remains now of the Wellesley family seat, Dangan Castle in County Meath.
00:50Dangan is now the shell of a splendid 18th century house and its current owner is farmer Christopher Barry.
00:59The Wellesleys were Anglo-Irish, part of the ruling class which dominated Ireland at this time.
01:11Dangan was a Protestant island in a Catholic sea, the family remote from the community around it.
01:18And there were lakes there?
01:20That's right. I think there were two if not three lakes and altogether there was 100 acres underwater.
01:27And I think that the main lake went over in that direction there, over towards those beech trees.
01:34There were islands in it, there was cannon on the shore, there were cannons on the shore and there were models of battleships on the lake.
01:45It must have been a fantastic place at the time.
01:48It must have been, a fantastic view from here looking out over this terrific landscape.
01:58Arthur's father was an Earl but he was also a composer and professor of music at Trinity College Dublin.
02:06Arthur himself learned to play the violin rather well.
02:09One visit at a Dangan memorably described it as a place where there was nothing to do but eat, drink and enjoy oneself.
02:19When Arthur was 12, his world changed abruptly.
02:26His father died, leaving nothing but debts.
02:30Within a few months, the house and the estates had been rented out.
02:35Arthur's father was the only person in the family who could afford to pay the rent.
02:40None of the family ever lived here again.
02:43Later in life, Arthur Wellesley always resented the suggestion that he was Irish.
02:49He famously declared that not everybody born in a stable was a horse.
02:54But I think that his family's experience as impoverished Anglo-Irish gentry was a sign of the fact.
03:01Arthur's eldest brother, the new Earl of Mornington,
03:05decided that what little money there was, was to be spent on the education of the other brothers.
03:11Arthur was considered the least promising.
03:16With his future career uncertain,
03:19Arthur was forced to leave the house and move to London,
03:23where he would spend the rest of his life.
03:25In later years, when Arthur Wellesley looked back on his boyhood,
03:29he described himself as a dreamy, shy, and idle lad.
03:34He was a loner, an odd-man-out.
03:38He was a man of his word.
03:41He was a man of his word.
03:44He was a man of his word.
03:47He was a man of his word.
03:50He was a man of his word.
03:52He was a loner, an odd-man-out,
03:56a Protestant in Ireland and an Irishman abroad.
04:00His mother despaired of him.
04:03I vow to God I don't know what I shall do with my awkward son Arthur, she said,
04:09and felt he was good for nothing but cannon fodder.
04:17At the academy at Angers,
04:19other pupils rumoured him mainly for the time he spent playing with his terrier, Vic.
04:25But away from the burden of family disappointment,
04:28a change came over him.
04:30Arthur began to blossom.
04:38He himself attributed this to his friendship with the governor's wife,
04:42the Marquise de Séran,
04:44whom he later described as
04:45une dame de la vieille cour.
05:01Whatever the cause,
05:03by the time Arthur Wellesley left Angers,
05:06he now showed a glimmer of promise.
05:08When his mother caught sight of him, she exclaimed incredulously,
05:12that is my ugly boy Arthur,
05:15and wrote that he was a very charming young man.
05:22Nonetheless, his family could still see no future for him except the army.
05:28Most officers' commissions were bought and sold,
05:32and Mornington bought him a commission at the lowest officer rank of ensign,
05:36as we would now put it, second lieutenant.
05:39Arthur had entered an army where officers' promotion
05:42was largely dependent on wealth and connections, not ability.
05:46The men were volunteers,
05:48risking death on a foreign field,
05:50for meagre wages and two square meals a day.
05:56But for now, Britain was at peace.
06:00Wellesley received rudimentary training
06:02and went back to Ireland as aid to the Lord Lieutenant.
06:04He was promoted steadily, but was not a committed soldier.
06:09By now, Arthur Wellesley was in his early twenties.
06:12He was restless and unfocused,
06:14spending more time playing his violin than on his work,
06:18and passing his evenings gambling.
06:20He was a dilettante,
06:22but one who was about to learn a lesson at home in Ireland.
06:26It was here at Pakenham Hall
06:29that Arthur was to suffer a grievous blow to his hopes
06:32and to his pride.
06:35This was the home of a young woman, Kitty Pakenham,
06:39from a military family of similar standing to the Wellesleys.
06:43The Pakenhams, however, had married money rather than lost it.
06:48Kitty and Arthur had been married for a long time,
06:51but they had married money rather than lost it.
06:54Kitty and Arthur had first met when she was only 15.
06:58Now, she was 23, and he wanted to marry her.
07:07For her part, Kitty was very taken by the young Arthur Wellesley.
07:12She was later to say that she'd loved him
07:15from the first moment she'd laid eyes upon him,
07:18when she was still in the schoolroom.
07:22The Pakenhams still live at Pakenham Hall,
07:25though now it is renamed Tullyn Alley Castle.
07:29Eliza Pakenham is Kitty's great-great-great-great niece.
07:34What was Kitty like?
07:36Well, she was very bookish and very sweet-tempered.
07:42She lived a very retired life in Westmeath
07:46with her large number of brothers and sisters.
07:48She was the second of nine,
07:51so she would have been in mother role quite early on.
07:55Her mother was widowed very young,
07:59and so I think she was always helping
08:02and very close to her mother as a result.
08:04And then I expect she sat in this library quite often.
08:09Like Arthur, Kitty had lost her father when she was young.
08:14Her younger brother Tom was head of the family.
08:16He was only 21.
08:28In this room, Arthur Wellesley asked Kitty's brother,
08:32who was actually several years younger than him,
08:35for permission to ask her hand in marriage.
08:38He was turned down resoundingly.
08:42He was a young man of little achievement or position.
08:44His prospects were poor.
08:47Kitty Pakenham could do much better.
08:50Arthur was sent packing.
08:55Yet again, Arthur Wellesley had been dismissed
08:59as not quite up to scratch.
09:01The story has it that Arthur went home
09:04and threw his violin into the fire.
09:08It is certainly true that he never played again.
09:12Perhaps it was now that he resolved
09:15to make a success of himself.
09:19His chance came almost immediately.
09:23By 1793, the French Revolutionary Armies
09:27were sweeping across Europe,
09:30with the British and their allies struggling to contend.
09:36The French Revolutionary Armies
09:39were the only French army in the world.
09:42The French Revolutionary Armies
09:45were the only French army in the world.
09:48The French Revolutionary Armies
09:50were the only French army in the world.
09:57Arthur Wellesley, now Lieutenant Colonel,
10:00commanding the 33rd Regiment of Foot,
10:03was sent to join the troops in the Low Countries.
10:06It was one of the most disastrous campaigns
10:09of British military history.
10:11By the time the 33rd arrived,
10:13most of the fighting was over,
10:15and the British were in retreat
10:17under the command of the Duke of York.
10:18By day, they marched grimly
10:20through the bitter cold of a Dutch winter,
10:22making their way towards the port of Bremen.
10:28By night, they huddled around whatever fire they could make,
10:32and slept on the ground beside frozen rivers.
10:49And fire your musket right over my coffin
10:55For I'm a young soldier cut down in my prime
11:03They had few supplies, little food,
11:06and inadequate uniforms.
11:09Many men were lost, not shot by the French,
11:13but killed by cold and disease.
11:19For I'm a young soldier cut down in my prime
11:28It was a bitter experience,
11:31but one that Arthur Wellesley was to profit from.
11:34As he said later,
11:36I learnt what one ought not to do,
11:39and that is always useful.
11:43Soon he would be able to show what he had learnt.
11:47The order came when he was 27,
11:50in the spring of 1796.
11:52He and the regiment were to be sent to India.
11:56It was India which would give him the chance to prove himself,
12:00to himself,
12:02to his family,
12:04and to Kitty's brother.
12:11For nearly a decade, Arthur and Kitty were to be separated
12:14on different continents,
12:17forbidden even to write to each other.
12:20In later years,
12:22their relationship was to be interpreted as a great love story.
12:25The reality for both of them was to be rather less romantic.
12:40So far, Arthur Wellesley's life
12:42had been one of false starts and failed promise.
12:46But there was a new opportunity ahead,
12:49a chance to make something of himself,
12:52if he had the courage to grasp it.
12:54Gathering together a library,
12:57he used the long voyage to India
12:59to fill the gaps in his education.
13:02Among the military manuals and histories of India,
13:05he also read Voltaire, Rousseau and Plutarch,
13:08and a rather dubious series called Women of Pleasure.
13:12By the time he arrived,
13:14he was as well prepared as anybody could be for military success
13:18in a completely unfamiliar continent and culture.
13:32Now it takes less than ten hours to fly to India.
13:36Then, it took Arthur Wellesley ten months to sail here.
13:40Most of the British arrived at Madras,
13:43coming ashore from pounding surf in small boats.
13:46Some drowned before they even landed.
13:50India was a dangerous and unenviable posting.
13:54Some Europeans would return, their fortunes made.
13:58But fewer than half the British soldiers who came here
14:02would ever see home again.
14:04It's such a long way away.
14:07I'm struck by the thought of young men
14:10from Scunthorpe and Cheltenham coming out here.
14:14I feel a long way from home even now,
14:17with a train and an aircraft relatively close at hand.
14:21But just imagine being here with nothing but your feet
14:25to get you the next 800 miles, perhaps,
14:28and then a six-month voyage home.
14:30It's a long, long way from Cheltenham.
14:47The British had originally come to India for one reason only,
14:51trade.
14:53India's a prosperous and fertile place,
14:56and Europeans had been trading with it for centuries.
14:58But by the time that Arthur Wellesley arrived,
15:01all this had changed.
15:03India was now a place of strategic significance,
15:06because the French were here as well.
15:08Two European nations were fighting it out
15:11for supremacy in the East.
15:14The British had control of several key ports
15:17and a trading network that stretched across the country,
15:20run by the British East India Company.
15:23But much of India was under the rule of local leaders.
15:25At liberty to play the French off against the British.
15:31Wellesley spent his first year in India
15:34getting to know parts of the country and training his troops.
15:37He was already noted by his superiors for his confidence
15:41and quick grasp of the situation.
15:44But he was still one amongst many young British officers,
15:48eager to make their name and their fortune.
15:51Wellesley's time in India
15:52might have proved just as unimpressive as his earlier career,
15:55had it not been for one vital event,
15:58which occurred at the end of his first year.
16:01In 1798, his brother, Lord Mornington,
16:04was also posted here,
16:06but in a rather more important job than Wellesley's.
16:09He was to be Governor General of the whole of British India.
16:14Wellesley had tremendous respect for his eldest brother,
16:17whom, as a boy, he had considered
16:19the most brilliant and wonderful person in the world.
16:24Mornington was ambitious far beyond the requirements of his job.
16:28The East India Company
16:30really wanted to be able to carry on trading in safety.
16:33Mornington wanted to make India British.
16:37And his younger brother, Arthur,
16:39was to be his most successful instrument in achieving this.
16:43Within months of arriving in India,
16:46Mornington was making plans for the future.
16:49He was to join the British Army,
16:51and he was to join the British Army
16:53in his plans to extend British rule,
16:55with Arthur as one of his right-hand men.
16:58The first task was to establish British control
17:01over the rich territory of southern India.
17:04Arthur was in charge of a major part of the force,
17:07a brigade made up of his own 33rd Regiment,
17:10and some East India Company troops,
17:13manned by local soldiers known as sepoys.
17:16Arthur had a regime of regular drill for these troops,
17:19as he had for his own regiment.
17:22Arthur knew that for the plan to succeed,
17:25all the troops must be properly trained and well-equipped.
17:31But the enemy was formidable.
17:34From his splendid fortress of Seringapatam,
17:37Tipu Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore,
17:40controlled much of southern India.
17:43Furthermore, he had a powerful ally in the French,
17:47who supplied him with arms and military expertise.
17:54Arthur Wellesley, in charge of military preparations,
17:59spent months planning the march on Tipu's stronghold.
18:03He organised the troops, arranged their supplies,
18:07and collected enough siege guns
18:09to give them a chance of taking the fortress.
18:12Having suffered the results of inefficiency in Flanders,
18:16Wellesley was determined to do better,
18:18now that he was responsible.
18:25This was the route that Wellesley and his men took from Madras.
18:29It took them five weeks to approach
18:32Tipu's stronghold of Seringapatam.
18:35By 1799, Wellesley had been in the army for 12 years,
18:38but he'd yet to lead his men into a proper battle.
18:42All that was about to change.
18:49I'm looking for a place called Malavelli.
18:52Malavelli is a village on this road,
18:54which was useful for a campsite because it had got water.
18:57And what the British were planning to do
18:59is to get to Malavelli and camp for the night.
19:02Well, the British got to Malavelli
19:05and were getting ready to make camp
19:06when they discovered that across a low plain,
19:09and I've not been there, so I'm not quite sure what to expect,
19:12across a low plain there was a ridge,
19:15and on the ridge there were at least two of Tipu's heavy guns
19:18and a large part of Tipu's army,
19:20and it seemed as if Tipu was going to offer battle.
19:22This was an advantage from the British point of view
19:24because they wanted a battle,
19:26because by winning a battle they could weaken Tipu's force
19:30and have a much better chance of taking Seringapatam.
19:37As they marched,
19:39the British troops had been surrounded by burning fields
19:42and under occasional enemy fire.
19:45Now it was their chance to retaliate.
19:54I'm pretty sure that we're in the position of Tipu's guns.
19:58It's actually quite hard to relate contemporary accounts
20:01to the map to the ground as it now is,
20:02but this I'm sure is the ridge that Tipu held
20:05looking down towards the village from which the British were advancing.
20:09The British came up that slope in two big columns.
20:13The one on this side of the village was commanded by Wellesley
20:16and his regiments came up that slope in columns of their own.
20:20They're about halfway up
20:22when a great mass of Tipu's infantry came down from here to meet them.
20:27Wellesley swung his regiments into line
20:29and they'd have moved like gates swinging on a hinge.
20:33Tipu's infantry headed for the 33rd, Wellesley's own regiment.
20:38And typically Wellesley was there to give the fire order himself.
20:42There was an accurate close-range volley followed by a charge.
20:47As Wellesley himself put it,
20:49they did not quite stand to receive the bayonet.
20:54For the first time, Wellesley had a chance of winning.
20:57For the first time, Wellesley had led his troops into victory.
21:01Tipu was now in retreat, with the British following behind.
21:07But Tipu's fortress of Seringapatam,
21:10some 30 miles west from Malaveli, was to prove far harder.
21:15And on the way, Wellesley was to suffer a grievous blow.
21:20On the afternoon of 5th April, Wellesley and his men were in camp.
21:24Just over there, about a mile from the fortress.
21:28Then he received orders from General Harris
21:31to lead a night attack across the canal,
21:34which then had rather less water in it,
21:37to the woods just here, held by a party of Tipu's men.
21:41He'd only just arrived.
21:43His orders were imprecise and he had no idea of the lie of the land.
21:48Wellesley was about to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life.
21:55As Wellesley and his men set off into the darkness,
21:59they encountered a weapon that they'd never seen before.
22:19Within minutes, Wellesley and his troops were in danger.
22:22In the darkness, Wellesley and his troops were in disarray.
22:26They didn't know where the enemy was.
22:28They didn't know what to do, and they weren't sure where they were going.
22:32Even Arthur Wellesley got lost.
22:35When he finally stumbled back to the camp,
22:38the attack had failed hopelessly,
22:40and eight of his men had been taken prisoner.
22:48The British had underestimated their enemy.
22:50At his splendid court,
22:52Tipu Sultan had brought together craftsmen of all kinds
22:55and created a vastly improved version of an old weapon,
22:59the explosive rocket.
23:01There was a corps of 5,000 rocket men in Tipu's army.
23:07Radham Narasimha is a rocket scientist at the institute in Bangalore,
23:12and he's made a replica of one of Tipu's rockets.
23:15And it was carried by individual soldiers?
23:17It was carried by individuals.
23:18It could be carried in a kind of a sheath on the back.
23:22It could be carried in carts.
23:24And it was quite often launched from those carts past a ramp.
23:30And they had methods by which,
23:33by changing the elevation of the ramp, the angle of the ramp,
23:36they could reach different targets.
23:39Were they very accurate in reaching these targets?
23:42No, they were not very accurate.
23:44So they were most effective when they were fire groups of soldiers.
23:48How far would one of these have gone?
23:50The largest recorded is about two and a half kilometres.
23:55That's a long way.
23:57That's quite long, yes.
23:59A thousand yards was very common.
24:01They created a lot of confusion and a lot of damage.
24:04And I think a lot of it was psychological, in a way,
24:07because I think British troops had not encountered attacks from rockets before.
24:12It's certainly a reversal of expectation
24:15to discover a European army coming out here
24:18and being taken on by something that it doesn't understand and which is a real shock.
24:24At midnight that night,
24:26Wellesley had reported his fail at his commanding officer, General Harris,
24:30who recorded that the young colonel had come to his tent in a good deal of agitation.
24:37The next day, Wellesley, with more men and proper artillery support,
24:42was sent to attack the outpost once again.
24:45This time, in daylight, he and his men succeeded.
24:50But the bitter humiliation of the previous night
24:53taught Wellesley two lessons that he'd never forget.
24:57The first was a military lesson,
24:59of the importance of reconnaissance before attack.
25:02The second was an emotional lesson, about the bitterness of defeat.
25:07All in all, he was lucky to get away with it.
25:10Had his brother not been governor-general,
25:11Wellesley might have found himself facing a court-martial.
25:16But Wellesley had little time to reflect upon these lessons.
25:20For the next few weeks,
25:22he and his troops were absorbed in playing their part
25:25in the siege of the island fortress of Seringapatam.
25:31Inside the fort were Tipu Sultan and 30,000 of his men,
25:36protected not just by the river,
25:38but by a range of defensive walls and moats.
25:42Outside, on the other bank of the river, were the British.
25:46Their siege guns firing constantly over the heads of their troops,
25:50who were entrenched for protection against enemy fire.
25:56To defeat Tipu,
25:58the British had to knock a breach in the walls
26:01through which they could storm Seringapatam.
26:04For three weeks,
26:05the British cannon pounded.
26:07It was a long,
26:09hot
26:11and noisy business.
26:14Fire!
26:16Finally, it was decided that the breach was ripe for attack.
26:20Wellesley stayed behind with the reserve,
26:23and a fiery Scots general ordered the assault.
26:27The attackers,
26:29led by a small group of volunteers,
26:32called the Forlorn Hope,
26:33because their chances of survival were so slim,
26:36crossed the river just there.
26:38Wellesley was watching here, on the riverbank,
26:41and would have been able to see them scramble up the breach.
26:45We can see the new stonework where the breach actually was.
26:48He'd then have seen how they piled up
26:51against a set of inner defences that hadn't been breached.
26:55They bravely took a bridge,
26:57and then there was vicious hand-to-hand fighting
27:00for a couple of hours.
27:02Fire!
27:15Finally, Wellesley could see that the fighting was pretty well over.
27:19He left his troops here,
27:21and went across into the fort.
27:32Wellesley came up here to the top of the breach,
27:35passing over the bodies of hundreds of attackers and defenders.
27:39When he got here,
27:41he'd have seen that down in the town,
27:43the British army was already badly out of hand,
27:46looting and raping.
27:48This was the downside of the British soldier
27:51across the whole of the period.
27:53Phenomenal bravery in a place like this,
27:56but a tendency to get into trouble.
27:58In a place like this,
28:00but a tendency to get into an appalling state,
28:03especially after a moment of stress,
28:06and if drink was to hand.
28:08It was something Wellesley really disapproved of,
28:11and he went down into the town to try to stop it.
28:19Amidst the splendour of Tipu's fortress,
28:22the British soldiers were running amok.
28:29Wellesley walked on into the town,
28:32trying to assert some sort of control.
28:35At the royal palace,
28:37he posted a guard from his own regiment
28:39to protect Tipu's family.
28:41But the key question was about Tipu himself.
28:44Was he alive or dead?
28:46Then Wellesley got a message.
28:48There'd been fierce hand-to-hand fighting here at the Watergate,
28:52and this tunnel was choked with dead.
28:55The body of a plumber,
28:56well-dressed man was dragged out.
28:58Wellesley felt for a heartbeat.
29:01It was Tipu, and he was dead.
29:13The battle was over,
29:15and the British had won.
29:18Wellesley had played a full part in this victory,
29:21but for him, the real work was yet to come.
29:24The day after the battle, May the 6th, 1799,
29:28Arthur Wellesley was put in charge of running the state of Mysore.
29:33His first task was to restore order and calm
29:37in place of looting and violence.
29:40Wellesley took swift action
29:43and ordered the worst of the British looters to be hanged.
29:46The rest were to be freed.
29:48Wellesley was a man of his word.
29:50He ordered the British looters to be hanged.
29:53The rest were to be flogged.
29:57He was to spend three years governing Mysore.
30:00In this time,
30:02he was implacable in his opposition to corruptness
30:05and deception by British soldiers,
30:07even the officers.
30:09If we lose our character for truth and good faith,
30:13we have but little to stand upon in this country, he wrote.
30:17This was the kind of stern sentiment
30:20he had an empire rather than individual profiteering.
30:25It was during this time that Wellesley came to recognise
30:29his own essentially solitary nature.
30:32As he wrote to one of his younger brothers,
30:35I like to walk alone.
30:37This was to prove both a strength and a weakness.
30:42But while Wellesley was absorbed in governing Mysore,
30:46Mornington was determined not to rest upon his laurels.
30:51Within two years, he was planning a new campaign,
30:54one which he would ask his brother to lead.
31:02To the north of Mysore,
31:04the country was run by a loose alliance of rulers
31:07known as the Maratha Confederacy.
31:13The Marathas were formidable enemies
31:16with a network of fortified cities
31:18stretching far up to the north.
31:22In alliance with the French,
31:24they could threaten all that Mornington had achieved.
31:27He saw his chance
31:29when the Marathas began to squabble amongst themselves.
31:32But to seize the moment,
31:34the British must advance through the monsoon.
31:41Moving an army through weather like this was a huge challenge,
31:45but one that Arthur Wellesley,
31:46now promoted to general, welcomed.
31:51One of Wellesley's great strengths was his eye for detail.
31:55For the advance on the Marathas,
31:57he organised a supply of hundreds of coracles like this.
32:00The technology has scarcely changed.
32:03Then it was buffalo hides, now it's old cement sacks.
32:07Some of these were to be carried forward with the troops,
32:10others stockpiled in advance at river crossings.
32:13He wanted nothing to hold his army back.
32:18Traditionally, the British army abroad foraged off the land,
32:22taking food from local people as it marched through.
32:25This made it vulnerable to an efficient enemy
32:28burning the crops on its route.
32:32Wellesley was determined that his army would take supplies with it.
32:36He organised a train of over 100,000 bullock carts
32:41and enlisted the help of local grain merchants
32:44to keep the troops supplied.
33:01Even today on the train,
33:02the journey takes nearly two days.
33:05Then it took months.
33:07The roads were atrocious.
33:09The bullocks were underfed
33:11and the army kept having to stop to make new wheels.
33:15But the troops were fit and well trained
33:18and this time Wellesley was in complete command.
33:24I think the single most important thing that Wellesley takes away from India
33:28is the importance of leadership.
33:30Military historians like me bang on about logistics
33:33but it really means the practical art of moving armies
33:36and keeping them supplied.
33:38And in this sort of landscape,
33:40you really need to understand how to keep troops fed,
33:43how to get them across rivers,
33:45how to sustain them when they're mounting a siege.
33:48And Wellesley takes that away from India with him
33:52and I think it's crucially important.
34:01By mid-August 1803,
34:04the British army had made it here to Aurangabad,
34:07400 miles north of Mysore,
34:10close to the heartland of the Maratha Confederacy.
34:14Wellesley was about to fight the battle
34:17he was later to describe as his most difficult.
34:23On this fertile plain to the north of Aurangabad,
34:26the British army,
34:27under Major General Arthur Wellesley,
34:30would meet that of the Marathas
34:32and history would be made at the Battle of Assay.
34:38There are no markers here,
34:40no heritage trail with a panorama explaining the events
34:43of nearly 200 years ago.
34:45But the battle is not forgotten.
34:49My interpreter, Dhruv Singh,
34:52tells me that there's a relic left behind.
34:55There's a cannon actually right next to the temple here
34:58and it would be nice to know which part it's from.
35:04This is the cannon
35:06and it's been in the village ever since it was brought here
35:10and what do you think?
35:12Well, I think it's certainly British.
35:15We've got a crown here on the barrel.
35:18And these would have been brought in by Wellesley, would they?
35:21Well, I think it's heavier, I think.
35:24than the ones that Wellesley brought to the battle with him.
35:27But I can't really tell without looking at the business end of it.
35:36It might be a six-pounder.
35:39It might be a six-pounder that came here with Wellesley.
35:41I simply don't know.
35:43But it is of the right period.
35:46It's an iron cannon that probably fought at the Battle of Assay.
35:50It's a remarkable thing to find it still here.
35:52And it's found a nice place next to the temple.
35:54People are respectful.
35:56I mean, it's wonderful to see it, absolutely wonderful to see it.
35:58But that's not all.
36:00Some children tell us that there are bits of cannon
36:02in a field outside the village.
36:05Actual pieces of cannon.
36:07Well, that's what they say. We'll just see what it's all about.
36:10Ah.
36:13This is...
36:15What do you make of this?
36:18To my surprise, I actually think it is a piece of cannon.
36:21Really?
36:22It looks like...
36:24It's hard to be sure.
36:26It looks like part of a pretty heavy gun,
36:30made of iron.
36:32And I think it's burst.
36:34Iron guns often burst when they got hot.
36:37And I think that remarkably,
36:39that is a piece of an iron gun.
36:42But they were notorious when they'd been fired a lot,
36:45which they would have been that day.
36:47They would eventually burst.
36:49Did they just blow up and fall into pieces?
36:50They blew up with distressing consequences
36:52for the gunners, unfortunately.
36:54And we're pretty well where the Maratha guns would have been.
36:57They also find metal balls,
37:00which I think would be shots.
37:02Show me what's in your pocket, Bhaskar.
37:04But I don't know what they are, really.
37:07Do you think they're...
37:09You have some, don't you?
37:12All the boys have sort of found these shots
37:17all over the fields.
37:18These are canister.
37:21This one here.
37:23They're made of iron, not lead.
37:25So they're not musket balls.
37:27And they're different calibres,
37:29they're different sizes of canister.
37:31And these would have come in a tin box.
37:33So they would have come packed in a tin box.
37:35They would have come packed in a round tin box,
37:37which would have been rammed into a cannon.
37:39And when the cannon was fired, the box broke up.
37:41And all these would fly out.
37:43And these would have flown out.
37:45Now I can't tell you whether they're British or Maratha,
37:48but they were absolutely deadly at the time.
37:51They were the most deadly sort of projectile
37:54fired by artillery.
37:56And you can imagine these skimming over the battlefield.
38:09On the morning of the 23rd of September,
38:11Wellesley brought his army just round here.
38:14Like Wellesley, I'm going to take to horse
38:16to be able to see things better.
38:18Though I doubt if this lady
38:20looked much like his favourite charger.
38:22The men were just making camp
38:24when some locals came in with the news
38:27that the whole Maratha army was just behind that ridge.
38:32For Wellesley, it was a time of decision and risk.
38:37He could attack immediately and take them by surprise.
38:41Or he could wait a day or two
38:43until the whole British force was concentrated.
38:46Being Wellesley, there was only one decision.
38:50He'd attack at once.
38:52He was embarking on the hardest battle of his entire career.
38:57The first problem facing Wellesley was one of topography.
39:01He was on one side of the river, the Marathas on the other.
39:05Wellesley wanted to avoid attacking them straight from the front,
39:09but instead to attack from a flank, putting them off balance.
39:13That meant he must cross the river to the east.
39:17But all his guides told him it was too deep to cross.
39:20Wellesley wouldn't rest until he'd checked it for himself.
39:26One of the reasons why Wellesley didn't believe the guides
39:30was that he could see two villages,
39:32close together but on opposite banks of the river.
39:35He later wrote that there had to be
39:37some habitual means of communication between them.
39:40He staked everything on the guides being wrong.
39:48Wellesley and his army arrived at the River Caitna
39:51to find the water flowing fast.
39:54Wellesley was the first man to kick his horse on into the river.
39:58But he was right. There was a ford.
40:01The water was no more than four feet deep at its worst.
40:04Easy for the cavalry and not much of a problem for the infantry.
40:08Wellesley led his army across the river.
40:15He had succeeded in surprising the Marathas,
40:18who hastily regrouped to face him.
40:22On the Maratha side of the river,
40:24Wellesley formed up his army in line,
40:27infantry in front and cavalry behind.
40:30Ahead of them, his soldiers could see the skyline
40:33filled with the Maratha army.
40:34Over a hundred cannon,
40:36and infantry who outnumbered them by perhaps five to one.
40:40It must have been a terrifying sight.
40:43The Marathas had already opened fire.
40:46The British replied, but they were badly outgunned.
40:49With cannonballs whistling around him,
40:52Wellesley rode from one end of his line to the other,
40:55speaking to all his commanding officers personally
40:58and launched the attack.
41:05Reload!
41:07Reload!
41:18All was going well,
41:20but then came disastrous news.
41:23Up here,
41:25at the end of the line nearest the fortified village of Assay,
41:28the 74th regiment was being cut to pieces.
41:30It had pushed too close to the cannon defending the village
41:33and was then attacked by infantry and cavalry.
41:36Its men formed square,
41:38behind a barrier made up of the bodies of dead enemy.
41:41But relief was at hand.
41:44A cavalry charge led by the gallant Colonel Maxwell
41:47came to the rescue of the 74th
41:50and scattered the Marathas.
41:52The battle was still not over.
41:55Wellesley, who'd already lost two horses,
41:58one of them run through with a spear,
42:00now rallied his scattered troops
42:03and sent them back in tight formation
42:06to deal the killing blow.
42:09The Marathas broke and fled,
42:12leaving all their guns,
42:14their weapons,
42:16and their lives.
42:17The Marathas broke and fled,
42:20leaving all their guns behind them.
42:24The battle of Assay had been won.
42:32I can understand now,
42:34although frankly I couldn't before,
42:36why he reckoned that Assay was his most difficult battle.
42:40It's a remarkable achievement to move an army that far
42:43over such a difficult country
42:45and then to carry out a complicated manoeuvre
42:47against some determined adversary.
42:49It's really a tackle-out battle
42:52with no safety net
42:54and he does it, he judges it right
42:57and makes it work.
43:03Assay was a turning point for the British in India
43:06and a personal triumph for Wellesley as a general.
43:10But like all victories,
43:12it had a cost.
43:14One in four of Wellesley's men
43:15had been killed or wounded.
43:19The Maratha losses were just as high.
43:22It was the bloodiest battle that Wellesley was ever to take part in.
43:26At nightfall,
43:28the surviving British dropped exhausted
43:31and slept amongst the ungathered dead.
43:34Wellesley for some time was sleepless
43:37and sat with his head on his knees.
43:39Soon afterwards, he was to write,
43:41I acknowledge
43:43that I should not like again to see such loss,
43:46even if accompanied by such a gain.
43:58On September 24th, 1803,
44:01the morning after the battle,
44:03Arthur Wellesley left Assay and came here
44:06to the fortified town of Adjunta,
44:08bringing with him the British wounded.
44:13Within the secure walls of the town,
44:16he organised a field hospital
44:18and left a small garrison to protect it.
44:23Wellesley and most of his army marched away to the north
44:27and over the next few months,
44:29won another pitched battle
44:31and took the key stronghold of Gwalior.
44:34There was to be yet more fighting,
44:35but the power of the Maratha Confederacy was really broken.
44:41For the two years following his victory at Assay,
44:44Wellesley returned to rule in Mysore.
44:47But by 1805, he'd had enough of India.
44:51I have served as long in India, he wrote,
44:54as any man ought.
44:56However, he had acquired a small fortune
45:00and was a Knight of the Order of the Bath.
45:02Mornington, too, was going home.
45:05Between them, the Wellesley brothers
45:08had fundamentally changed the status of the British in India.
45:12What had started as a matter of commerce
45:15was fast becoming an empire.
45:19They left behind them an India which, for good or bad,
45:24would be under British rule for the next 140 years.
45:28In the next few years, Wellesley would become Wellington.
45:32His reputation and his fortune would be made.
45:35But he still had many hard lessons to learn.