Upon being appointed one of
The Duke of Wellington's senior
commanders in
the
Peninsular War,
General Sir William Erskine had alread been
confined to
a
lunatic asylum twice. When Wellington objected to the appointment,
the Military Secretary replied:
"No doubt he is a little mad at times,
but in his lucid intervals he is an uncommonly clever fellow; and I
trust that he will have no fit during the campaign, though I must say
he looked a little mad as he embarked."
That was not all however; Erskine's eyesight was so bad that in battle
he needed
someone to point out to him which direction the enemy was.
In the
battle of
Sabugal in
1811 he managed to send his troops in the
wrong direction and during the siege of
Almeida he was having a
dinner party and simply forgot to
dispatch his troops until it was too late.
After a nervous breakdown he eventually committed suicide by jumping
out of a window in 1813. His last
words, while lying in the street, was "Why on earth did I do that?".