Hanging with History

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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