ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the inability of conservatives to think strategically even though on numerous occasions they were capable though fitfully in the twentieth century to act strategically. It also confirms the burden of the military thinker Sir Basil Liddell Hart's complaint that a tendency to elevate pragmatism and tactical opportunism pushes out strategy in British calculations though Liddell Hart does not make this complaint in any party political sense. The Duke of Wellington became the dominant figure in Tory strategy, eventually a Tory Prime Minister (1828-30). Aided by his brothers, Richard and Henry, he adopted an offensive defensive model of strategy in the Iberian Peninsula that rested on command of the sea. After the evacuations in 1809 at Corunna and Walcheren, Wellington withdrew from Spain but made a powerful case to defend Portugal, (1809-11) and create an impregnable base from which he could launch an offensive against Napoleon's marshals in Spain.
