Amazing & Extraordinary Facts: British at War by Bastable Jonathan

Author:Bastable, Jonathan [Bastable, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4463-5451-3
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2011-06-16T16:00:00+00:00

Rabid Wolfe

The madness of a fine general

General Wolfe, the conqueror of Quebec, was often accused in his lifetime of dangerously eccentric behaviour. There is a story that in 1759, shortly before departing England to fight the French in Canada, he dined with prime minister William Pitt and his brother-in-law Lord Temple. After a sip or two of wine Wolfe ‘broke forth in a strain of gasconade and bravado. He drew his sword and, as the prime minister watched aghast, rapped the table with it, he flourished it round the room, and he talked of the mighty things which that sword was to achieve.’ After Wolfe had gone home, Pitt is said to have lifted his eyes to the heavens and said ‘Good God! That, I should have entrusted the fate of the country and of the administration to such hands!’

The story is almost certainly a malicious lie. It is unthinkable that a cultured officer would draw his sword at the dining table, however excited he was about fighting for his country. Equally unfounded is the theory, which was propounded long after Wolfe’s death, that he was a suppressed (and somewhat hysterical) homosexual. In any case, what if he was? It clearly didn’t prevent him from being a great commander. King George II had it right when he said to the Duke of Newcastle: ‘Mad, is he? Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals.’

It is said that on the night before Wolfe led his soldiers up the Heights of Abraham to engage the French, he recited part of Gray’s Elegy to his officers. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said afterwards, ‘I would rather have written that poem than take Quebec tomorrow.’ But take Quebec he did – and he took three bullets too, in the very moment that the French were set to flight. He was told of his victory as he lay bleeding on the ground. ‘I die contented,’ he said – and these were his last words.

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