Duke of Wellington quote: The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields...

The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

Duke of Wellington

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Attributed in N.Y. Times, 26 Dec. 1886. The earliest trace of this quotation was in Charles de Montalembert, De l'Avenir Politique de l'Angleterre (1856). Montalembert quoted Wellington, supposedly visiting his old school, in French: "C'est ici qu'a ete gagnee la bataille de Waterloo." In fact,Wellington was a notably unenthusiastic alumnus of Eton, and Elizabeth Longford, in Wellington: The Years of the Sword (1969), concludes that "probably he never said or thought anything of the kind." See O

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