(...) Surely not? Surely it was a great British victory? Yes and no. One of the two victorious generals: the Duke of Wellington, was British. Kind of. He was, in fact, born in Dublin. However, as Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke) used to say: "Just because you were born in a stable, it does not mean you are a horse."

Wellington also said, famously, that Waterloo was a "damned near run thing". In other words, he nearly lost, and, according to many stubborn historians and war-gamers, he should have lost. He also said - or perhaps, in fact, never said - that Waterloo was "won on the playing fields of Eton".

In truth, it was largely won by Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, Dutch and Belgians. Although we Brits prefer not to dwell on it, these nations supplied around three-quarters of the 120,000 soldiers who defeated the Emperor Napoleon at Waterloo. In other words, Wellington, the archetypal British hero, led a kind of European Union, or European army, long before such ideas were spawned to enrage readers of the Daily Mail. (...)

http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/8630.html
[History News Network]
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• damned/damn near or as near as dammit - British informal
used for saying that something is almost true or almost happened

I laughed till I damned near cried.
The average works out at 79.4, as near as dammit.

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/near
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bom trabalho!
beatriz souza