History Cafe

At least 50% of deaths from war in the last three centuries were civilians. In 2001 the International Red Cross calculated that in modern warfare ten civilians die for every member of the military killed in battle. In the two World Wars the vast majority of soldiers were “civilians in uniform” – conscripts or volunteers. But do we officially remember them? (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

One day after Britain goes to war - ‘at sea’ - on 4 August 1914 the first War Council unceremoniously throws out the army’s secret plan to send a few divisions to meet the Germans head on and win quick, painless glory fighting alongside the French. Only then do the four men who had single-handedly thrown away the chance of avoiding a general European war, understand what Britain’s most prestigious...

A right-wing anti-German contingent call their campaign for war, the weekend of 31 July-2 August 1914 a ‘pogrom’. All talks of peace are, in their words, a German-Jewish plot to keep Britain out of the war for financial reasons. They have the support of the Conservative party, the British and French military, the politician in charge of the Royal Navy, and the press. But how on earth does Grey per...

8pm German time the Kaiser orders champagne, halts the German advance towards Belgium, and sends a telegram of congratulations to his cousin George V at Buckingham Palace. The Liberal British Cabinet had voted to remain neutral on 31 July. Earlier on 1 August Foreign Secretary Grey met the German ambassador Prince Lichnowsky (one of a string of meetings that week) to tell him that France might als...

In 1912 a deal between War Secretary Haldane and the German chancellor Bethmann-Holweg to allow Britain to retain naval supremacy if they both remained neutral (if neither side had started the war), was rudely sabotaged. It involved lying to Cabinet that the Germans were demanding a full-scale Anglo-German alliance, which they weren’t. It meant throwing away what the majority of the Cabinet saw as...

How did what friendly chats between British and French generals since 1905 turn into a commitment to send a small British Expeditionary Force to France at the start of a war with Germany? A commitment that had not been agreed by Cabinet, Parliament or the Navy? (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We look at anti-German hysteria in Britain 1906-1909. The British publishing phenomena of 1906 was The Invasion of 1910 (by Germans), serialised in the Daily Mail and marketed by men walking around London in Prussian uniforms. This chimed perfectly with the anti-German clique at the foreign office. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain’s main problem by 1910 was Russian expansion towards its Persian oil and India, the jewel in Britain’s crown. So why did Britain go to war to SUPPORT Russia and AGAINST Germany which was its closest European friend and trading partner? (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years of negotiation and confrontation, Pope Clement VII was heard swearing unpapally over Henry VIII’s divorce. And no wonder. The history of Henry’s pope is a murky tale of code-breaking and ruthless sieges that involves Michelangelo and Machiavelli and a great deal of double-dealing. Pope Clement was trapped between a rock and a hard place: the only way to save his Medici family’s city of...

Most of what we think we know about Anne Boleyn turns out to be later invention, with no historical basis. We argue that she was a MacGuffin: she was necessary to the way things turned out for Henry, but unimportant in herself. We’re not even sure he was in love with her. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Ambassadors painting by Hans Holbein reveals the French horror at Henry’s decision in January 1533 to defy the pope and get remarried to a pregnant Anne Boleyn. But since Henry couldn't get an annulment he had no choice. No big-time European princess would marry him. With the Spanish seriously weakened by war, Turkish invasion and protestant revolt in Germany, and Henry’s French allies now nee...

In a dynamite French document from August 1530, still overlooked by historians, the King of France offers to send troops to England to defend Henry VIII against the Spanish. No French government before or since has ever promised to send troops to defend England. Does this explain Henry’s sudden move in August 1530 to go on the offensive against Rome and the clergy in England? (R) Hosted on Acast....

31 May 1529: Faced with France and Spain doing a deal and leaving England in the lurch, Henry races against time to begin his divorce trial in London, and then pulls the plug just before a verdict is reached. Meanwhile the pope and his cardinals are double-crossing each other. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1527: The pope is a prisoner of the marauding Spanish in Rome and yet Henry sends his man Knight on a madcap mission to ask Pope Clement VII for permission to marry a young woman he is already sleeping with. It’s the first of a whole series of crazy errands, asking the pope for the impossible. Does Henry have a hidden agenda? (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did Henry break with Rome in order to seize power over the wealthy, ubiquitous church in England? We find that the dates don’t add up. Instead we look at why in June 1525 Henry promoted his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy over the head of his heir Mary. And why Charles V broke off his engagement with 9 year old Mary to marry a Portuguese princess instead. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...

In 2010 a document from 1527 was found in which Henry admits to the pope that he is sleeping with the woman he wishes to marry instead of, or as well as, his Spanish wife Katherine. Very little of the traditional story can be believed. It’s Katherine who matters in the story of Henry’s Reformation, not Anne. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The events that followed Livingstone’s funeral are perhaps important for the light they shed on everything that Livingstone was not. Stanley, having declared that he would complete what Livingstone had begun, undertook three ‘momentous’ journeys. Whatever the cover stories he created, Stanley’s expeditions were intended to grab and occupy African lands, sometimes through fake treaties he claimed t...

Henry Morton Stanley, the New York-born journalist who was actually born in Wales, ‘finds’ Livingstone, although everyone knows he’s not lost. Stanley’s employer Gordon Bennett Jr of the daily New York Herald has spotted a fantastic money-making enterprise, pedalling fictitious stories of the romantic failures of the British explorer, Dr Livingstone. It was time for the Americans to take over the...

The British audience for Livingstone’s book 'Missionary Travels' can’t get enough of his ‘manly’ and ‘forcible’ style. He brings a very personal mix of far-away adventure and science to his stories. His account of being mauled by a lion – shaken like ‘a terrier dog does a rat’ and how the tartan jacket saves his life – are still vivid reading. But had he not glossed over the danger of malaria and...

Livingstone was the first European to record his visit to Smoke that Thunders on the Zambezi river. 100 metres of plummeting water, across the entire kilometre of the Zambezi’s width. He promptly named it after his queen, Victoria Falls. His ambition was to find a navigable river from the east coast of Africa inland. Although it was clear that Smoke that Thunders would put a stop to any trade boat...

Exploration changed in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Henry Morton Stanley met Dr David Livingstone. We discover that Livingstone isn’t remembered for anything he achieved. A missionary and medical doctor from a poor Scottish background – and an indestructible traveller - he learned to make accurate geographical calculations and used them to map a small part of Africa. Amazingly he did...

Did Robert Peary or Frederick Cook reach the North Pole first? In our 100th podcast, we weigh up what evidence remains after a ruthless campaign to destroy records and reputations. And we discover the new evidence that has begun to emerge from the most unexpected places.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A full year before US commander Robert Peary claimed he had been the first man to reach the North Pole, a younger, medical doctor, also from America, had beaten him to it. Or so he told the press. His name was Frederick Cook and he had expedition history with both Peary in the Arctic and Amundsen in the Antarctic. He not only treated the Inughuit well but also returned with credible latitude readi...

Robert Peary’s backers were the wealthy railway barons and bankers of New York. It didn’t matter to them whether Peary was the first to get to the North Pole or not. What mattered to them in 1909 was that he would say he’d reached the Pole, and then tell a strong, manly tale about it. In their eyes the future of Americans, as the tough frontier people, depended upon it. It may well have pushed Pea...

We may think the main controversy surrounding American, naval commander, Robert Peary’s claim to be the first to reach the North Pole on 6/7 May 1909 was whether he, and the other ‘invisible’ five men accompanying him, actually got anywhere near the Pole. However, it’s a much more complicated and sinister story than that…. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.