Byron also attacked Wellington, but in manner ironic and scornful, as a leader who had lost all claim to the gratitude of the people by allying himself with their oppressors. For George, who as Regent and King, had done nothing to redeem himself with his subjects, Byron had little but contempt. In satirizing these men, however, Byron was perhaps less effective than Moore, over whose imitations of Castlereagh’s orations and “best-wigged Prince in Christendom,” people smiled when Byron’s tirades seemed too vicious. Through the method commonly called dramatic, or indirect, Byron assailed English politicians in his portrayal of Lord Henry Amundeville, the statesman who is “always a patriot--and sometimes a placeman,” and who is representative of the unemotional, just, yet altogether selfish British minister. The type is drawn with considerable skill and with much less rancor than would have been possible with Byron ten years before. Indeed the satire resembles Dryden’s in that it admits of a wide application and is not limited to the individual described. Nothing in Byron’s political creed redounds more to his credit than his persistent opposition to all war except that carried on in the “defence of freedom, country, or of laws.” Neglecting the pride and pomp of war, he depicted the Siege of Ismail with ghastly realism, laying emphasis on the blood and carnage of the battle and condemning especially mercenary soldiers, “those butchers in large business.” Though this attitude towards warfare was not original with him,[296] Byron spoke out with a firmness and pertinacity that marked him as far ahead of his age. Though Byron, in _Don Juan_, was almost entirely a destructive critic of the political situation in England and in Europe, his ideas were exceedingly influential. In spite of the fact that he had no definite remedy to offer for intolerable conditions, his daring championship of oppressed peoples affected European thought, not only during his lifetime, but also for years after his death. He was revered in Greece as more than mortal; he was an inspiration for Mazzini and Cavour; he seemed to Lamartine an apostle of liberty. It is probably to his insistence on the rights of the people and to his sweeping indictment of autocratic rule that he owes the greatest part of his international recognition.