Historical Drama: Day 3 (Protagonist A)

The Man... The Myth... The Nose

Arthur Wellesley was in many ways the savior of Europe... well... non-French Europe. As much as poor hygiene was the savior of non-Macedonian Europe in the time of Alexander. He was born in Ireland months before his military rival and raised in Ireland, England, Brussels and France. Not outwardly social, he did not... AT FIRST succeed in school or society. When he finally found his footing in school he developed a love for horsemanship and a proficiency in the French language. He would be gazetted as Ensign in 1787 and thanks to his generous older brother would rise high enough to save Europe from domination.

Imagine a company where to be promoted you had to pay the company a large some of money. That was the British military. If a man could avoid public embarrassment and had deep enough pockets... well... then he was the prime example of a Modern Major General. Wellesley, it should be noted, rose to captaincy on his own but looked to a large loan from his brother to rise to Lt. Colonel with the 33rd infantry.

He fought in the largely unsuccessful British campaign in the Netherlands vs. the infant French Republic. Arthur saw first hand how a break-down in communication and chain of command could compromise an entire army. After this he goes to India and outside of the ordinarily stuffy and rules-oriented British High-Command he flourished and became the heroic leader of several major actions in the India conflict. Though many in Europe looked down their nose at these victories, achieving successes and no failures earned a certain level of respect.

I will re-visit Nosey later as I get into the second and third movies.

For the purposes of my movie I want to show Arthur as the foil to Napoleon. Where the majority of Napoleon's scenes will feature bright sunshine, Arthur will be plagued by rain and fog. In the pursuit of higher drama I will probably make Wellesley's child-hood and teenage years less pleasant than they might have been. He will be a quiet and unenthusiastic boy until he discovers riding and develops friends in Angers. For my purposes, the Fates have aligned themselves against poor Arthur and his hopes and dreams. YET, through the course of the movies the wheel of fate continues to turn. It is no accident that Napoleon is Emperor at the end of the first movie.

As an American think of it this way. Whose giant man-hood did we immortalize in stone? I think his name was George and he was a pretty cool dude.

The origin of the name is unclear. One theory is that beef Wellington is named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. Some have suggested this was due to his love of a dish of beef, truffles, mushrooms, Madeira wine, and pâté cooked in pastry, but there is no evidence to say for sure.[clarification needed] Other accounts simply credit the name to a patriotic chef wanting to give an English name to a variation on the French filet de bœuf en croûte during a period when England was often at odds with France. Still another theory is that the dish is not named after the Duke himself, but rather that the finished joint was thought to resemble one of the brown shiny military boots which were named after him.