Hanging with History

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Talleyrand represents a strand of the ancient regime, the old nobility that thrives and leads, right through the monstrosity and glory of Empire and the Reaction that follows.  Goethe is the literary Talleyrand, the carefully controlled spark of Romanticism, that could be said to spring into flame when Germany is born.

Talleyrand's career spans the Ancien Regime, Revolution and the Empire and the Restoration and the July Monarchy that follows.  

This episode follows Roberto Calasso's Talleyrand, and hi...

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We cover Napoleon's sneaky invasion of Spain, its preamble and Napoleon's motivations.

 This is followed by a look at Wellington's invasion of Portugal and the battles of Rolica and Vimeiro, which lead to the French surrender of Portugal via the Convention of Cintra.

The Spanish royal family is an arguement against traditional monarchy.  Napoleon despises them and Manuel Godoy, the sausage making, Prince of the Peace.  Napoleon wants to make Spain great again and believes he has a working formula.  Howe...

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This covers the 1807 Campaign in Poland and the eventual Treaty of Tilsit.  This is the true apex of Napoleon's glory and possibly the happiest time of his life.

Also covers Junot's 1807 Campaign in Portugal.  This is notable for many reasons including the fact that Portugal did not resist, such was the power of Napoleon's reputation in 1807.

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After Austerlitz Napoleon keeps the Grand Armee together in Central Germany.

This allows him to rip up the map of Germany and redraw it to suit himself.  But this attitude towards Germany leads to a number of steps including dangling Hanover in front of Charles Fox and the Johan Palm incident, which drive the Prussians to declare war, despite totally inadequate preparation.

Meanwhile the Guerilla war in Calabria breaks out, but it is different from 1799, the British intervene briefly, leading t...

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1805, Ulm and Austerlitz and the events that lead up to the War of the 3rd Coalition.  These are events that reveal genius in action.

This means the Pichegru and Moreau plot.  The subsequent murder, or sorry, completely legal execution of the young prince of the house of Bourbon-Conde.  "It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder."  This all hastens the inevitable - the crowning of Napoleon as Emperor.

It is as Emperor that Napoleon goes out to smash the...

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Wellington, Jarlsberg, battle of the Wooden Shoes, Norge.  Such excitement.

The Danish Navy is simply too large in the world of 1807 to simply sit there, stored up in ordinary in København's harbor.

And the Danish merchant fleet, providing a carry trade to the world, cannot be left outside of Napoleon's economic warfare with Britain.  

Therefore, since the current situation is untenable, either France or Britain will have its way with Denmark.  The process is unpleasant, to say the...

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The 2nd of the 3 episodes on Copenhagen.  

This covers Nelson's attack on Copenhagen and the Danish defense.  The controversies about the battle are all explored in depth, the death of Tsar Paul, who was involved and who knew what when.  The signaling fiasco between Admiral Parker and Nelson, and Nelson's decision to reach a cease fire rather than continue with his annihilation victory.  

There is a good deal of perspective from the Danish side as well.  

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First episode of a 3-episode arc on the British attacks on Copenhagen.

This covers Danish history and Copenhagen history through the long 18th century.  Conflict with Sweden, intervention and peace making by Britain.  
the long neutrality, Denmark as a Russian client state.  "The League of Armed Neutrality will save us!"

The Palmy Days and how Denmark octupled its trade, rose to the 2nd largest merchant fleet in the world, and then sailed too close to the wind.  The Danes bene...

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The defense of England is reviewed in terms of manpower, construction and engineering and advanced technology.

We start off with the empirical philosophy of Smith and Hume, look at the WWI level of mobilization Britain was able to achieve, a level of mobilization 3-4 times that of France.  This was the real Levee En Masse.  

We get some scale for Britain's financial intervention and subsidization of her allies.

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One of the most important things that ever happened was this thing that never happened.  And that of course was Napoleon's invasion of Britain.

French preparations for the invasion ad numerous consequences, one of which was the training and creation of the Grand Armee.  The weapon Napoleon used to dominate Europe from 1805-1807 was forged in the Camp of Boulogne.

This is that story.

It is also the story of Napoleon's invasion plans, the 1805 plan and the 1812 plan.  And...

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Britain begins the war and many of the French banks teeter on the edge of destruction as a consequence.  

This episode covers the opening moves of the war, now the Napoleonic Wars, including the very controversial ones, the imprisonment of all Britons in France, even the tourists and the British seizure of the Spanish Treasure Fleet without declaring war.

Most of the episode takes a look at the situation from the perspective of Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain as well a...

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We take a look at how the Napoleonic Wars broke out.  

Napoleon had a different understanding of the world situation than the Addington government and the British public.  We also examine the failure of Russia to mediate between the two powers.

We go into both the understanding of the British for why restating the war was a good idea, and Napoleon's of keeping the peace.  In the end Napoleon would have had to concede a commercial treaty, but he was con...

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Napoleon, from his bath, angrily threw a snuffbox at his brothers Joseph and Lucien.  Worse, a lot of the nice warm bathwater splashed out, right onto Joseph's shoes.....
With the naval armistice of late 1801, Napoleon quickly put together a huge invasion force to retake Haiti.  
American food and natural resources, rich exotic crops from Haiti and the Windward Islands, manufactures supplied by France.  This was his dream of increasing the 180 million francs a year in revenue for the French government that had bee...

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A peace that leads to War?

We look at the clash of realities from philosophical to practical questions of empire between France and Britain.

From the beginning, key British decision makers like George 3 and Pitt the Younger, saw the peace as an experiment.  It wasn't likely to work, so much against it.   However, the war had run on too long.  The people were demanding peace, the mob both demanded peace and associated the decline in wheat prices with the naval arm...

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We are covering 1801.  The 3 key issues are:

Pitt resigns over catholic emancipation.   He is replaced by his friend Addington.   Pitt is to Addington as London is to Paddington.  This strange interlude is illustrative that though Pitt may not be in office, Pittites commonly are for the rest of the 2nd Hundred Years War.

Napoleon begins his peace offensive.  It starts with the end of the Quasi War with the United States.  but extends to the Concordat and ends up with France...

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"I was between the devil and the deep sea."

The Royal Navy's nightmare was that a powerful French fleet would break out of blockade and fall upon inferior blockading squadrons down the coast, destroying Royal Navy squadrons while a combined Franco-Spanish fleet only gets larger and larger.

Bruix almost pulled it off.  He arrived at Cadiz.  Admiral Lord Keith was blockading with 15 ships of the line.  Bruix had 25 ships of the line and there were 21 Spanish ships in Cadiz, ready to...

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This covers the year 1800.

We get Napoleon's first year as First Consul, and the two campaigns that drive Austria out of the 2nd Coalition.  

On the British side we get the Act of Union and the combination of the Irish and British Parliaments.  Naturally, we get Catholic Emancipation as a consequence.

What? NO? we don't.  Oh, that's gonna be weird.

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A rapidly thrown together expedition to the Batavian Republic in expelled by the French.

And yet, there were key successes and innovations that point the way to the future.  We'll focus on these as we cover the events of the invasion itself.

The new Light Infantry doctrine of the British Army, that John Moore and the Duke of York push through the Army, over all their resistance to change, is part of the package that makes British infantry the best i...

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This covers the 1799 campaigns in Italy and Switzerland and Suvorov's art of war.  The title is a play on Clausewitz's work on the topic, and Clausewitz is a major source.

Massena, Moreau, Joubert and Jourdan try to fight campaigns dominated by the presence of Suvorov the greatest Russian commander of all times.

Suvorov dominates Italy, defeating three French armies in 3 major battles.

Archduke Charles begins the campaign in Switzerland, defeating Jourdan, eventually driving him into retirement.  But Massena is...

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We take a look at 1798, a year when Clausewitz defines 5 French outrages that would have led to a general European war.

1. The occupation of the Papal States, followed by the kidnapping and death of the Pope.

2. The conquest of Malta, from the Order of Saint John of the Hospital.  A clear violation of international law, as it stood at the time.  It drew Tsar Paul into the war.

3.  The invasion of Switzerland and formation of the Helvetic Republic.  The...

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The last invasion of Britain and Napoleon's Rivoli campaign along with his final drive towards Vienna obviously deserve to be in one single episode.  Not.

It is merely the conceit of combining all the land warfare of 1797 into a single episode that allows this.  The Fishguard invasion is only rivalled for drama, action, and intensity by the Texas Chicken War of 1719.  

The Rivoli campaign is truly a marvel of Napoleonic warfare.   Napoleon defeats a 50,000 man Austrian army and turns it into...

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Napoleon reveals to the world his multi faceted genius and Archduke Charles has a hell of a Rhine campaign, defeating 2 armies, both larger than his.

Napoleon defeats 4 different armies, and creates, and uncreates republics in Italy.  He shakes down Pope Pius and Tuscany for millions in cash while doing it, and begins the whole process f looting Italy's great art treasures.
   He accomplishes all this with his own underfunded, under equipped, 2nd priority theatre.  His talent for warfare, is rivalled only by h...

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Pichegru and Jourdan try taking the Austrians on the Rhine in a pinser move.  But Pichegru's march on Clerfayt's magazine in Heidelberg is a disaster witnessed by Davout.  Was it treachery?

The French are driven back across the Rhine as Wurmser builds up a new army.

The Spanish fronts see a collapse as the French break out of the Basque country into Navarre and Castille.  The Treaty of Basel ends the war on good terms for the Spanish.

The...

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1794 from the Pyrenees fronts, with massacres of Basque villagers to the Battle of the Black Mountain.  
The Italian front has Napoleon, as a mere artillery general, plan a maneuver to get the Piedmontese out of their Alpine fortifications, Massena executes it successfully.
The Rhine front sees the French struggle with the river crossing and when they do cross the Austrians defeat them.
This year reveals the way the Revolution destroyed the human capital of the Royal French Army, and how it i...

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The focus is on Nelson's great victory, but we also cover the Battle of the Pyramids, the Siege of Acre and the Battle of Mount Tabor.

The strategic choice of Egypt as a way to defeat Britain, may sound crazy, but we go into French thinking.  This is Napoleon's and Tallyrand's best thinking on the subject.  It may not be that hopeful, whole lotta steps involved, but it's te best they got.  

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This covers most of the colonial wars with the French and Dutch during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  

You get a cumulative effect of seemingly slow British progress, that in the end removes all French influence overseas by 1811.  Then, problems with the Americans predominate.

There is a good deal of discussion about Elphinstone's campaign to take Capetown and the Battle at Saldana Bay.  

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The 1797 mutinies went hand in hand with financial crisis.  This was the most dangerous period for Britain and the miracle during the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Royal Navy spent most of 1797 convulsed and unable to sail.  Fortunately, the French were in no shape to come out after the events we covered in the last few episodes.  

The Dutch were a different story..  They had a fleet at Texel, 16 ships of the line ready to set sail.  But the British squadron, based...

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The new French and Spanish alliance is ascendant in the Mediterranean.   The strategic move the Spanish make is more dictated by the royal revenue requirements and political strategy rather than naval strategy.
  
The outcome is the Battle of Cape St Vincent, where Nelson makes an enduring reputation.  We then cover the remarkable career of Admiral Jervis, he is a hero of reform and an irresponsible villain who leaves France unprepared and vulnerable to Napoleon's planned invasion of 1804.

and we finish with...

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We cover some of the heroic events that increased pride and self confidence of the Royal Navy:  Pellew's defeat of a 74 with 2 frigates and Cornwallis' Retreat.  

We also have Richery's expedition which demonstrates the capabilities of the French.  They were not always incompetent.

The 1795 Great Winter Campaign, the Battle of the Groix and the 1796 attempted invasion of Bantry Bay are the core events of this episode.

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This looks at the Glorious First of June campaign, covering all the engagements with extra attention to the 1st of June  

Was it a French strategic victory or was the Royal Navy the winner in this series of battles?

We also do some comparing and contrasting the of the Marine National and the Royal Navy.

It's all so very nautical.

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1793 is a year of opportunities thrown away.  The allies dominate the poorly disciplined French army, but waste the summer in pointless sieges, even after the road to France is wide open.  All the allies are narrowly focused on selfish interests rather than interested in setting France to rights.  The siege of Dunkirk reveals the British are also not ready for war.

The battle of Neerwinden and the other major actions of the war in Belgium.  There is also coverage of the Pyrenees Camp...

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This covers the first year of the War of the First Coalition, which ends with the "homicidal philanthropy of France."

Brunswick's invasion, the battle of Valmy, the battle of Jemappes, Dumoriez's conquest of Belgium.  The creation of the Army of Italy, operations in the Rhineland and what life was like for those occupied by French Revolutionary armies.

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The Priestly Riots, also known as the Birmingham Riots, were part of the Church and King riots, that were part of the disgust reaction against French inspired radicals in Britain.

The four wars: The Russo Swedish War, the Theatre War, the Russo Turkish War and the Austro Turkish War, were all consequences of France dropping out of the concert of Europe, due it its weakness.

Towards the end of 1792, the British were striving to avoid war, but the French seemed...

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The French Revolution was the most exciting thing to ever happen for some radical intellectuals.  But gradually the murderyness, the chaos, mob rule and savage cruelty began to turn people away from the Revolution.

Church and King societies swept across Britain, and Church and King riots as well.  Thomas Paine was burned in effigy thousands of times across England. 

Reflections on the Revolution in France, was a key text of the time laying out arguments against radicalism, arguing tha...

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We close the French Revolution at the Thermidorean Reaction and the execution of Robespierre.  We treat the conspiracy to overthrow Robespierre as a self fulfilling prophecy.  Once you know Robespierre is against you, he will kill you, so you begin a conspiracy against him.

But first we go into some of the cultural changes driven by the Revolution.  Sculpture, public exposure to art, the calendars and measurement systems, and fashion.  

Then we go into the Cult of Reason and the Cult...

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Only 24% of French priests are willing to take the constitutional oath putting their allegiance to the state above that to Jesus and the Pope.  The Vendee is extra religious because of their relatively recent conversion from Calvinism. 

We have the the flight to Varrenes, Louis XVI’s failed escape attempt, which leads to the Champ De Mars massacre.  We have the Pillnitz Declaration, leading to the war with Austria and Prussia, the Prussian invasion leads to the August 10 coup d’etat and the Sep...

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Only 24% of French priests are willing to take the constitutional oath putting their allegiance to the state above that to Jesus and the Pope.  The Vendee is extra religious because of their relatively recent conversion from Calvinism. 

We have the the flight to Varrenes, Louis XVI’s failed escape attempt, which leads to the Champ De Mars massacre.  We have the Pillnitz Declaration, leading to the war with Austria and Prussia, the Prussian invasion along with the Brunswick Manifesto (and some serious revol...

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The first year of the French Revolution the way it is conventionally dated from the fall of the Bastille.  We have had bloody violence and sensible reforms, the loss of privileges for the first and 2nd estates were a really good idea.  The establishment of the departments, also sensible, a reform that has lasted to the present day.  But we’ve also got craziness, a captive king, who really can’t do his job in any idea of a mixed constitution of shared power.  Growing...

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The Regency Crisis shines a light British Resiliency during the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.  We end up in a situation where a spiritual testing of the king occurs in the most public way possible.  And the vast majority of the British public responds with joy, also in a very public way.  Everyone knows that everyone knows.  

We explore the madness of George III, his recovery and the nation’s reactions.  There are anecdotes followed by an analysis of 3 quantitative measures that te...

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The Nootka Sound Crisis of 1790 has a confrontation of 4 powers in the Pacific Northwest; Britain, Spain, Russia and America.  This is profoundly affected by the French Revolution, both in the diplomatic part of the crisis and its resolution in Britain’s favor.  Later the Revolutionary Wars distract Britain from exploiting its victory here, to the great benefit of the infant United States.

This features the two largest empires in the world, in geographic extent, Russia and Spain, tussling at the extreme limits of t...