Re: your tag line- I was reading a well researched novel set during the Napoleonic Wars, written by Georgette Heyer, "A Civil Contract," published in 1961.
Apparently the British public believed that Wellington's exploits in the Peninsular War were over-rated. There was great debate in the House of Lords about whether to spend the money to keep up the Army after Napoleon went to Elba.
Many in the "nobility" lost their fortunes by selling cheaply out of their government "funds" when news started to come through about the carnage at Waterloo. Because they had speculated on losing the war, there were many in government who were furious with Wellington and called Waterloo a defeat for several year afterwards.
I thought that kind of historical revisionism was a product of our times, but apparently not.
I like inventing aphorisms but I can rarely produce a good and original one:
Education is always painful;
Pain is always educational.
Radical egalitarians want to make everyone equal--
By making everyone equally poor.
I can try some others if you like.
--Boris