The Napoleonic Quarterly

It was always the plan that we would use this quieter period before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars to ensure the podcast is firing on all cylinders before we hit 1805. With the help of many listeners supporting the Napoleonic Quarterly with either their money all the time, that is exactly what we are now getting ready to do. So this week Alex and Clemens are revealing what those plans look like, sharing some inside info along the way, in the hope that some more of you might just come forward to offer assistance. Here are the main ways you can help: -Sign-up on Patreon or, if you already have, consider diverting an even greater proportion of your income to the general betterment of the Napoleonic Quarterly! -Leave us a five-star review wherever you get your podcasts. Especially if they happen to be Apple Podcasts or Spotify. -If you would be able to spare some time to help the podcast, there are a myriad of little jobs which could make a big difference. I mention quite a few of these in the episode, but here is a fuller list. You could… Help us create more social media content… Run a new You-tube channel for the podcast, potentially chopping episodes up into lots of different segments… Look after our existing content with some proper admin work - adding chapters to Spotify, improving the SEO of the show notes, that sort of thing… Give us some advice on how best to use Facebook ads... Contribute to the fledgling podcast website… Lend us your video skills by working on a trailer which would be the central intro to the project for new listeners… Come up with your own ideas for how to help push the podcast along… -Anybody contributing either financially or with their time is very welcome to get involved on the editorial side too. Would you like to have a go at doing one of our interviews? Is there a particular topic you would like to explore doing something on? Get in touch and we can work something out. -Failing all the above, it's great to have you listening and engaging with the podcast. Do send any questions or comments through, either via social media or napoleonicquarterly (all one word) at gmail dot com. Thanks for your support, and here's to the road to Waterloo! Vive le podcast!

Dr Graeme Callister, Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies at York St John University, joins Clemens and Alex S to explore the nature and character of battle during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

As we've reached the Peace of Amiens it felt like a good time to pause and review the French Revolutionary Wars... Charles Esdaile and Alexander Mikaberidze took questions from Quartermasters about a decade of fighting in which the French defied expectations, the allies never quite clicked and Napoleon Bonaparte emerged as a truly great military commander. Help us produce more episodes by supporting the Napoleonic Quarterly on Patreon: patreon.com/napoleonicquarterly

1800. January… February… March… Three months in which the British and the French finally end the war with the Peace of Amiens… The French force sent to reassert control over Saint-Domingue meets with an unfriendly welcome… And back home Napoleon Bonaparte is considering his next moves as the de facto ruler of France. This is episode 41 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months in which the revolutionary fight for freedom shifts to the Caribbean. [24:57] - headline developments [27:25] - Graeme Callister on the Peace of Amiens [44:27] - Marlene Daut on the fighting in Saint-Domingue [1:09:12] - William Doyle on Napoleon Bonaparte’s to-do list Help us produce more episodes by supporting the Napoleonic Quarterly on Patreon: patreon.com/napoleonicquarterly

Yes, it's time for the Festival of Structured Bureaucracy once again! From the makers of the 1800-01 planning meeting... there comes another laborious and sometimes painful process of determining what topics will be covered by each main episode's three segments... come for the occasional appalled reaction to less attractive ideas... stay for the poor pronunciation of certain Germanic words! If you want to know how the podcasting sausage gets made - a Napoleonic podcasting sausage made by committee, no less - then these Zoom audio-quality high-level talks are for you.

Bernie Campbell is joined by Rachel Blackman-Rogers, lecturer in defence studies at Kings College London, and Olivier Aranda, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Brest, to discuss a remarkable set of naval engagements, unique in many ways in the 1792-1815 period and the last of their kind during the French Revolutionary wars.

Is this the most significant opposed landing of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars? The assault on the beaches of Aboukir Bay by British forces under Abercromby [from around 13:00] was certainly a dramatic affair. So too was the Battle of Alexandria [from 23:15] which followed against the desperate remnants of the French expeditionary force abandoned by Napoleon Bonaparte less than a year and a half before. While this might not have been a strategically vital affair, it did provide the British with a bargaining chip ahead of the talks culminating in the Peace of Amiens. Phil Ball talks us through the Army-Navy bust-ups which preceded the landing, the fighting on the beaches and in front of Alexandria. Then from around [45:00] Phil offers some final thoughts in defence of amphibious operations like these. Here's a link to the map mentioned in this episode: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Faden_1801_alexandria_battle.jpg#/media/File:Faden_1801_alexandria_battle.jpg

1802. October... November... December... three months in which the longstanding contest between the British and the French switches from the battlefield to the negotiating table... After two complete years in power Napoleon Bonaparte's position looks increasingly secure... And the decision is taken to send a French fleet across the Atlantic with Saint-Domiongue's Toussaint Louverture in the firing line. This is episode 40 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months in which the curtain falls on the French Wars of the French Revolution. [16:52] - headline developments [21:05] - Graeme Callister on peace negotiations between Britain and France [41:30] - William Doyle on Bonaparte's first two years in power [1:07:30] - Marlene Daut on the decision to send a fleet to Saint-Domingue [1:20:52] - Season five closing comments from Charles Esdaile and Alexander Mikaberidze

Charles Mackay reviews the experiences and achievements in Egypt of the extraordinary group of savants - engineers, scientists, mathematicians - who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to Cairo and beyond in 1798 and whose findings laid the groundwork for modern Egyptology.

Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University, discusses the incredible 13-year period from 1791 to 1804 which saw self-liberated slaves, not least leader Toussaint Louverture, overcome French colonial rule to win freedom on Haiti. Including: [01:00] - Reflections on the complexity of the Haitian Revolution [05:15] - The intellectual roots of the Haitian Revolution [09:30] - Metropolitan France's negative / imperialist attitudes towards Toussaint Louverture and Saint-Domingue [14:00] - Bringing Haitian writers' thoughts and ideas to life [18:00] - Competing narratives about the Haitian Revolution - and what the revolutionaries said themselves [20:50] - Spelling out the end of slavery during the Revolution [22:30] - The challenges of implementing liberty after centuries of enslaved labour (or, how it all went wrong) [25:30] - Writing the biography of Henri-Christophe, the first king of Haiti [28:00] - Race and racism in Haiti's Anglophone historiography.

Clemens Bemmann is joined by Zack White and Alex Mikaberidze to work their way through the Napoleonic Quarterly mailbag. Topics include Napoleon's motives in Illyria, the reasons behind British success, Alex S' 'Trump derangement syndrome', the chances of war and... flogging, actually.

Rachel Blackman-Rogers is joined by contemporary Black Sea maritime scholar Prof Deborah Sanders of Kings College London to discuss the history and evolution of Black Sea Navies, the historical significance of the Black Sea itself, and the Black Sea's current importance in Russia's war with Ukraine. [01:00] - to what extent has the Black Sea been a centre of great power competition? [08:50] - given the vital role of the Bosphorus/Turkish Straits in giving Russia access to the Levant, did Turkey and Russia see the Black Sea in the same way? [11:50] - what difference did the Montreaux Convention of 1926 make to maritime power in the region? what difference will President Erdogan's plans for a canal make? [17:40] - how did Russia leasing Sevastopol in the post-Soviet era impact the development of the Ukrainian Navy? [22:00] - how much has Putin deliberately targeted littoral states in his 21st century to help build his ability to project naval power? [25:00] - what are the main maritime issues in the Black Sea since Russia's invasion of Ukraine? [28:00] - China's role in the Black Sea: its Belt and Road initiative, and its role in rebuilding Ukraine [34:30] - does the Black Sea grain initiative suggest the Black Sea could in the future be more like the Arctic, with a higher degree of international cooperation? [39:00] - how does NATO better support its partners in the Black Sea? [41:00] - do unmanned surface vehicles undermine the value of Navies, and is the Black Sea an incubator for a new type of warfare? [48:00] - what does Russia's invasion of Ukraine teach us about the strategic relationship between land and sea?

Spain's story during the Napoleonic period is an Atlantic one, as Dr Mark Lawrence of the University of Kent has pointed out. Fresh from recording on the War of the Oranges, which you can hear in episode 38, here Mark discusses a range of topics including the legacy of the Spanish Empire and notions of the 'Black Legend' of anti-Spanish propaganda; South America during the Napoleonic Wars; Spain's position at the end of the 1792-1815 period; Spanish memoirs and source material on the Peninsular War; and Charles Esdaile's position in the historiography of Spain.

Rachel Blackman-Rogers joins Alex Stevenson to discuss the First Battle of Copenhagen - featuring some tricky navigation, the Royal Navy's superior bludgeoning rate of firepower, some brutal diplomacy and Horatio Nelson's infamous blind eye. Please support the podcast on Patreon at patreon/com/napoleonicquarterly.

1801. April... May... June... Three months in which Horatio Nelson pulverises the Danish fleet at Copenhagen... Napoleon Bonaparte turns his ire on the pro-British Portuguese... and war breaks out between the piratical Barbary States and the fledgeling US of A. This is episode 38 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months which show that, despite the wider drift towards a French-dominated peace, there is still plenty of scope for conflict. 09:26 - Mark Lawrence on the War of the Oranges between Portugal and Spain 31:17 - Liam Gauci on Tripoli's declaration of war against the United States 1:00:55 - Rachel Blackman-Rogers on the Battle of Copenhagen

Assassinating Napoleon Bonaparte, it turns out, was on the minds of lots of people frustrated with how the French Revolution was playing out. Off the back of the Infernal Machine attempt on the First Consul's life we've got an episode here about William Wordsworth, that most revered of English Romantic poets, who was so frustrated by the unfulfilled promise of the Revolution that he dreamed of assassinating Bonaparte in his poem The Prelude. To unpick Wordsworth's direct experience of life in Paris in the early 1790s and his subsequent frustrations with French politics - frustrations which remained firmly locked up in his head at the time - it's great to welcome Ruth N. Halls Professor Emeritus of English Kenneth Richard Johnston to the podcast. Ken's biography The Hidden Wordsworth revealed how the young, radical WW was a strikingly different figure from the more conservative character he was to assume later in life.

Liam Gauci, Curator at the Malta Maritime Museum in Valletta, joins Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers to discuss the fascinating history of his very special island. This episode is sponsored by Heritage Malta.

1801. January… February… March… Three months in which the assassination of Tsar Paul stuns Europe… The Act of Union brings together Britain and Ireland... And Austria and France sign the Treaty of Luneville, inking in French dominance in western Europe. This is episode 37 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months in which the grisly drama of a court assassination sets the stage for the Napoleonic dramas to come.

Kathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, is an amazing historian whose books spanning a long and distinguished career reflect the breadth of her interests: she's written about Anglo-American relations over the decades, a biography of AJP Taylor, even a history of wine reflecting her own background growing up on a California grape farm. We cover off all the bases - and find out how they apply to the Napoleonic period - in this fascinating discussion.

Professor Alan Forrest of the University of York sat down with his long time academic friend Charles Esdaile to talk about the Napoleon Movie, the legacy of the Emperor and more.