The Duke of Wellington told his friends not to congratulate him after the victory at Waterloo, because what he felt most acutely was the loss of so many lives, the Church of Ireland primate, Archbishop Richard Clarke, has recalled.
“The pity of war should never be far from our prayers and our thoughts at such a time as this,” he said.
He was speaking on Thursday at an Evensong service in Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, held to mark the 200th anniversary of Waterloo.
Those present included the Presbyterian Moderator Rev Dr Ian McNie, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson and Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, and representatives of the Defence Forces and diplomatic corps.
‘Mutilated and incapacitated’
“We believe that over 30,000 men may have died at the Battle of Waterloo... with many more mutilated and incapacitated.
“We know that Wellington believed that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery was a battle gained - we are told he wept in the aftermath of Waterloo,” recalled Archbishop Clarke.
“With millions of fellow Europeans, we commemorate today the bicentenary of Waterloo,” he said, “but for none should it be a day for xenophobia or nationalist chauvinism.”
Waterloo was “the conclusion of a long and continuing war that had brutalised people and nations”, he said.
“It was the beginning of a new opportunity to make something good out of Europe, an opportunity that has been squandered again and again, but which remains today precisely what it once was in 1815, a real opportunity.”
