<p>Arthur Wellesley was one of history's most badass military commanders, a hero of the British Army, and a member of pretty much every single Knightly Order ever offered by the British Crown.&nbsp; Born in Dublin in 1769, Wellesley was commissioned into the army as an Ensign, where he served as the aide-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland -- the top British motherfucker in the Emerald Isle.&nbsp; In his spare time, when he wasn't being awesome and smashing mahogany desks into driftwood with his forehead, Wellesley also became a Member of the Irish Parliament, just so he'd have something to do when he got bored of armwrestling bears and using Frenchmen as target practice.&nbsp; One day, the dashing young officer asked this total hot giga-babe named Kitty Pakenham to marry him, but her brother told him that he was a pathetic nobody loser who should go fuck himself with a chainsaw and then smash his head shut in a car door.&nbsp; Getting epically cock-blocked only succeeded in making Wellesley sincerely fucking pissed, however, so he went and took all of that insane pent-up sexual frustration out on the Dutch.&nbsp; As a Lieutenant Colonel in the 33rd Infantry Regiment of Foot Soldiers Who Fight on Their Feet (But Not So Much <em>With</em> Their Feet), Arthur face-kicked a bunch of stoners and prostitutes in the Netherlands in 1795 before going off to Calcutta to assist the British Empire on it's quest to constantly dick over the indigenous peoples of India.</p>
<p>Now, around this time the Indian Mysore Empire didn't fully understand that it was in their best interests to grant the British East India Company a complete monopoly on trade in their nation and to tell the French to go fuck themselves whenever the opportunity presented itself, so Colonel Wellesley took it upon himself to tenderize their faces with a large splintery wooden mallet.&nbsp; The 33rd Regiment marched 250 miles through the dense jungles of Southern India, defeated the armies of the Mysore Sultan Tippu, breached the walls of his palace, destroyed all of the defenders, and stole his DVD collection.&nbsp; During the battle, the Sultan came running out at the head of his army armed with a shitty, out-of-date hunting rifle, so Wellesley's men busted a cap in his brain until he died from it.</p>
<p>Of course, Arthur Wellesley represented the badass knightly virtues that the people of his country seem to hold so dear, and, as such, in addition to being a fucking ass-destroying ballsmasher on the battlefield he was also a noble and righteous motherfucker as well.&nbsp; When the British troops started sacking and plundering everything in India following their victory, Wellesley ordered the men responsible for this complete lack of discipline to be flogged, beaten, teabagged, and/or hanged, because they were being fucking jackasses to everybody.&nbsp; Since he was the man responsible for single-handedly rocking so many nutsacks, Wellesley was appointed Governor of Mysore, took up residence in the lavish palace of the Sultan he had just finished pwning, and spent his days annihilating rebels, stomping the colons of jackass mercenaries, and administering Charles Bronson-style justice to gangs of murderous brigands.</p>
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<p>Some motherfuckers never learn, however, and a few years later the armies of the Indian Maratha Empire decided to fuck with the English for some asinine reason I'll never understand.&nbsp; Once again, it was up to Wellesley to kick more balls than Manchester United.&nbsp; At the battle of Assaye in 1803, Wellesley's small force of about 7,000 soldiers launched an unexpected surprise assault on an Indian force numbering over 40,000 men, and somehow managed to drive them from the field and capture 98 of their cannons.&nbsp; This is pretty goddamned impressive, considering that the British only brought 20 artillery pieces to the battlefield that day, but it's all in a day's work for this hardcore badass.&nbsp; The British marched on, crushed the Indians, and Wellesley returned to England as a conquering awesome war hero.&nbsp; When he got home, Wellesley went to the home of Kitty Pakenham, pimp-slapped her brother until he was unconscious, and asked her to marry him.&nbsp; She pretty much tore her dress off right on the spot.</p>
<p>Wellesley wouldn't have long to enjoy boning his new wife up and down the English countryside (more like "Packin' Ham" if you know what I mean <span>HEH HEH HEH HURRRRRR</span>), because some seriously whack-ass shit was going down in mainland Europe.&nbsp; Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had seized control of France, beat the ever-loving shitballs out of the toughest armies in Europe, and sent his cronies out to conquer and pillage pretty much every living thing in the Iberian Peninsula.&nbsp; Once again it was up to our boy A-Dub to thump some colons.&nbsp; He arrived in Portugal in 1809 with a force of only about 20,000 soldiers (the <em>Grande Armee</em> was roughly eight or nine hundred times the size of this), and immediately proceeded to charge balls-out at the enemy with everything he had.&nbsp; He fought a masterful defensive campaign, grinding the French invasion to a halt, and then pushed them back out with an insane series of epic military asswhompings.&nbsp; Along the way, Wellesley recruited Spanish soldiers and freedom fighters into his army (including guerillas like Ms. <a href="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/agustina.html">Agustina de Aragon</a>), and dealt the critical-hit deathblow to French ambitions in Spain at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813.&nbsp; Just to give you some kind of idea how hardcore Wellesley was, the allied army in the final battle numbered over 100,000 men &ndash; and you know you're a fucking geezer when you can wage a war lasting five years and you end up with <em>more soldiers than you had when you started fighting</em>.&nbsp; As a result of this display of asskickery, Wellesley was promoted to Field Marshal and awarded the title, "The First Duke of Wellington".</p>
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<p>But there was still some unsettled shit to take care of.&nbsp; Sure, Napoleon had been defeated by the Russkies and went off to exile on the island of Elba, but this planet was simply too small for two badasses like Wellington and Napoleon to not square off in an epic battle.&nbsp; It's a well-known fact that people need to see badass motherfuckers throw down with each other &ndash; what kind of sick, twisted, screwed-up asshole of a world would we live in if there were no awesome battles between Batman and The Joker, Frazier and <a href="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ali.html">Ali</a>, <a href="http://www.badassoftheweek.com/godzilla.html">Godzilla</a> and Mothra, or the Red Sox and the Yankees?&nbsp; Well, to rectify the situation, Napoleon busted out of exile, returned to mainland Europe, re-assembled his army, and prepared for war. And our boy Wellington was right there to face him.</p>
<p>Wellington marched out at the head of a combined army of British, Dutch, Belgian, and Prussian soldiers, and prepared for the epic battle that would shape the course of Europe for the next century.&nbsp; The British Infantry formed up in a defensive line, and despite repeated balls-out attacks by the French forces, they somehow managed to hold their positions.&nbsp; When Napoleon's cavalry launched an all-out charge to try and drive Wellington's men from the field, they ran head-first into a wall of bayonets and cannon fire.&nbsp; When the vaunted and invincible French Imperial Guard was brought in to smash the Allied front, they were defeated for the first - and only - time in their highly-successful career.&nbsp; After an entire day worth of some of the most hardcore and brutal fighting this side of the Second World War, The Iron Duke destroyed the French army, captured Napoleon, and sent him off into exile for good.</p>
<p>This insane victory cemented Wellington as one of the greatest military commanders of his era.&nbsp; He had won battles on two continents, crushed his foes wherever he found them, and had personally taken on one of the most brilliant tactical minds in history and emerged victorious.&nbsp; After returning home as one of England's greatest heroes, "The Beef" was elected to two terms as the British Prime Minister, and held the prestigious office of Commander-in-chief of the British Army until his death in 1852 at the age of 83.</p>
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<p><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: xx-small;">Links:</span><br /><br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wellesley,_1st_Duke_of_Wellington" target="blank">Wikipedia</a><br /><br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo" target="blank">Waterloo 1815</a></p>