To describe the Duke of Wellington in these terms might seem rather disrespectful to the Prussian field marshal, Gebhard von Blücher. Had the Prussians not turned up in the late afternoon, it might well have gone the other way.
Wikiquote has a fuller quote: "It has been a damned serious business ... Blücher and I have lost 30,000 men. It has been a damned nice thing – the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life ... By God! I don't think it would have been done if I had not been there."
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