In the midst of the war against Napoleon, Britain lost three of her greatest heroes. Within a few weeks Nelson fell at Trafalgar, Prime Minister William Pitt was killed by too much work – Charles, first Marquess of Cornwallis, predeceased them both.
Richard Middleton compiles this trio in his biography of Cornwallis. Not only the continental reader is surprised by this triumvirate. What is Cornwallis doing in this round, whose greatest feat was losing the American Revolutionary War with a bang? During his lifetime, however, Cornwallis was highly respected, and even the surrender of his forces in Yorktown was considered forgivable. But today his merits in India are not fading, but his series of misjudgments in the American war are not.
A more energetic soldier than Cornwallis was would have quickly crushed the rebellion. On January 2, 1777, Cornwallis pinned George Washington’s army at Trenton. One of his officers urged an immediate night attack, which would have finished off the Americans and the revolution. But fighting in the dark felt too risky for Cornwallis. “We’ve got the old fox in the sack now. Let’s go over there and pack him up in the morning,” he said and went to bed. It never occurred to Cornwallis that the fox could escape his grasp during the night. The next morning Washington was gone.
The merits of the conceited but also staid Cornwallis were not in polished verbal duels or on the battlefield, his realm was administrative reforms. But a good bureaucrat rarely becomes a national hero. His greatest exploits were the reforms in India, with which he was able to remove the country from the grip of the private East India Company, thus laying the foundations for the Victorian Empire. Unfortunately for him, credit for the spread of colonialism and imperialism is not popular today.
Cornwallis was a good-natured man in many ways. The religious intolerance of his time was foreign to him. Hated slavery, at least internally, as well as war and cruelty itself. In a time when there was no shortage of quirky and bizarre characters, Cornwallis is conspicuous by his boredom. No whimsy and no scandals accompany him. The Britons of the early 19th century may have appreciated that, since they were used to all sorts of depravity in the upper classes since the Regency – but that doesn’t make for an exciting character. Cornwallis is a quintessential product of British class rule. Every mistake was rewarded with a promotion because Cornwallis endured his defeats with flawless demeanor. “No officer in misfortune was ever so popular as he was,” wrote a contemporary. Without his high birth, however, he would hardly have made it past a middle career.
Perhaps it was his misfortune that a peaceful and well-to-do man should wage war against the freedom-loving colonists of North America. His simple mind always failed to see through or even predict the tricks and pitfalls of others. He found it incomprehensible that his officers would have fun with slovenly women during the lulls in the fighting. He did not understand the whole nature of the uprisings. For Cornwallis there was no world outside of Britain. The rebels in Ireland didn’t want freedom, they were just “blinded wretches”. Cornwallis could only explain the fact that the colonists in America turned away from the crown through lies and deceit. He was certain that the American rebels were “kept in the dark solely by the tyranny of their evil leaders” and so could not see the light of the monarchy.
He waged the war in the USA conscientiously and without personal mistakes. But unlike in the administrative reform, the lack of brilliance, energy and also of fortune was noticeable here. Cornwallis fought the war like a game of chess over tea. And so it was logical to want to spend the winter with the troops in Yorktown and stoically accept being surrounded by the rebels. After all, the Navy had assured him that he and his men would always be supplied from the sea. When the surprise came and a squadron of French ships under Admiral de Grasse now also cut off the city from the sea, Cornwallis capitulated indifferently and thus gave up the colonies forever. A more energetic general like Wellington would not have accepted that. But Cornwallis was even honored with a parade after his return. It was only right for his soldiers that they were not expected to fight to the last man at the time.
Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World. Richard Middleton