Hanging with History

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 traditi...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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, de...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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.&qu...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 Br...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 ce...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 Pa...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 with...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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, an...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 crop...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. "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 a...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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, t...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 pu...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 dominat...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 th...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 intensit...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 t...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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...

You can send a text, include contact info to get a response. 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 t...