VE Day 80 years on: A lasting victory?

After the battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815), Arthur Wellesley, the Anglo-Irish 1st Duke of Wellington and the commander-in-chief of the Allied forces fighting Napoleon, famously commented that “I don’t know what it is to lose a battle, but certainly nothing can be more painful than to gain one with the loss of so many of one’s friends.”

That battle brought to a close a tremendous global struggle that, for over 20 years, had pit the British Empire, first against the Revolutionary forces in France and then against the French dictator Napoleon I.

Wellington’s words are a good reminder that war, though often a sad necessity, exacts a terrible price.