The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast #24 – The Invasion Of Russia (Part I)
Posted on 28. Jun, 2007 by Cameron in Podcast
On June 24, 1812, the Grande Armée of approximately 600,000 men, the largest army assembled up to that point in European history, crossed the river Neman and headed towards Moscow. In this episode, we focus on the first few months, and follow Napoleon as he captures Vilna, Vitebsk and Smolensk.
We examine why Napoleon was so confident that the campaign would be a short one and why he was so very, very wrong. We also discuss what was happening in the Russian camp and look at the political implications of their retreat.
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WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PODCAST
Buy the official Napoleon 101 podcast t-shirt or coffee mug!
Go into iTunes and vote for the show and leave a comment about how much you enjoy it. CLICK HERE to open up our page in the iTunes store.
Thanks to everyone for your continued support and for all of the terrific comments we get every week!
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed:
- Subscribe to TPN :: Napoleon 1O1 by Email
- If you use iTunes, click here.
- If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
- If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.
- If you stumbled upon this episode of the show and you would like to start from the very beginning, go to our overview page for a full list of episodes.
The theme music is La Marseillaise. Yes, we know it isn’t necessarily relevant to Napoleon but it’s hard to beat when it comes to French themes!
The Napoleon Bonaparte Podcast #23 – The Road To Moscow
Posted on 21. Jun, 2007 by Cameron in Podcast
In this episode we explore the political events that resulted in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, the tragedy that formed the central events of Tolstoy’s War and Peace and which saw Napoleon raise the largest army in history up until that time, 500,000 – 700,000 men (historians vary on exactly how many there were).
Napoleon is often accused of being the instigator of this war (something Tolstoy, a Russian, was happy to suggest) but David and I examine the facts behind this perspective.
While this is a tragic and deeply moving period of Napoleonic history, it is also one of the most fascinating, both from a military and a humanist perspective.
Perhaps the best graphical representation of this unfortunate episode (or, in fact, one of the greatest use of informational graphics ever) is this image by French engineer Charles Minard:
Edward Tufte called it “the best statistical graphic ever drawn” and uses it as a prime example in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. (source)
PRESS PLAY
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PODCAST
Buy the official Napoleon 101 podcast t-shirt or coffee mug!
Go into iTunes and vote for the show and leave a comment about how much you enjoy it. CLICK HERE to open up our page in the iTunes store.
Thanks to everyone for your continued support and for all of the terrific comments we get every week!
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed:
- Subscribe to TPN :: Napoleon 1O1 by Email
- If you use iTunes, click here.
- If you use another aggregator, grab our RSS feed here.
- If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read this description in Wikipedia.
- If you stumbled upon this episode of the show and you would like to start from the very beginning, go to our overview page for a full list of episodes.
The theme music is La Marseillaise. Yes, we know it isn’t necessarily relevant to Napoleon but it’s hard to beat when it comes to French themes!
1815 Battle of Waterloo reenactment draws thousands
Posted on 19. Jun, 2007 by Cameron in Napoleon news
This story from the St Paul Tribune in Minnesota tells about a recent reenactment of the Battle Of Waterloo held on the site of the actual battle in Belgium:
History buffs from Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Holland and elsewhere said the Waterloo commemoration is one of the most important events on their calendars. The actual anniversary of the battle was Monday but the event was on the weekend.
Napoleon’s Marengo sword sold
Posted on 11. Jun, 2007 by Cameron in Napoleon news
The sword was carried by Napoleon — who was not yet emperor — into the battle of Marengo in June 1800, when he launched a surprise attack to push the Austrian army from Italy and seal France’s victory, sold Sunday for more than $6.4 million, an auction house said.