Is it just me or are these shows gradually getting longer? 🙂
When we last left Napoleon, he had concluded the Italian Campaign with the treaty of Campo Formio and was a national hero. In this episode we talk about the Egyptian Campaign of 1798-99:
- Too soon for his political move in France
- The invasion of England postponed
- In the footsteps of Alexander, off to Egypt!
- Taking and re-making Malta
- Reading the Qu’ran
- The Rosetta Stone
- The Battle of the Pyramids
- The Battle of the Nile
- Talleyrand’s Betrayal (the first of many)
- Into Syria (Israel)
- The Battles of Acre, Jaffa, Aboukir
- The execution of prisoners
- The sudden return to France!
In our next episode, we will watch with bated breath as Napoleon executes the coup of 18 Brumaire and becomes 1st Consul of France!
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Longer? Why Cameron, whatever do you mean? 🙂 I plead guilty as charged but hope that folks don’t mind too much. 😉
Dear Cameron and David,
You both did again a wonderful job, make your episodes as long as you want. You covered a lot of important stages during ‘Napoleon and Egypt’ and did a great job in showing the true Napoleon…I was surprised to hear about ‘the technology mistake’ of Napoleon, I didn’t know it. The next time we ‘meet’ will be when First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte marches into World History, although he is himself word history since the day he was born!
Continue your great work!
Vive l’Empereur!
Tim
Thanks Tim! Really appreciate the feedback as always. Good to know that someone other than David and I are enjoying this series! 🙂
great show guys!
However you did have one small, probably irrelevent mistake, but an annoying one nonetheless. When talking about Jaffa (yaffo in hebrew) you mentioned that its next to Tel-Aviv Israel’s capital. Well Israel’s capital is Jerusalem, not Tel-Aviv.
still this was just a minor matter in a otherwise great show…
Gidon
I thought that as well Gidon but as David is very much my senior and he’s actually BEEN to the country, I dared not comment. 🙂 Thanks for keeping our facts straight!
Thanks for another interesting show. I especially appreciate the effort to show some of Napoleon’s harsh Egyptian campaign decisions as something other than a heartless and pre-calculated bloodbath, the way it seems to be normally portrayed. He was human despite what anti-Bonapartists will say. Kudos.
Well I’m not a history buff like you two but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the whole series. From someone who knows close to nothing about Napoleon, you’ve made learning about him extremely interesting and helped me through a few long workdays as well.
Keep up the good work!
Dear Cameron and Markham,
Now, I’ve been trying to find this, but I havn’t met with much success: what plague were Napoleon’s troops afflicted with?
cheers!
Nicholas Stark
Philadelphia
This qestion is really pointed more to Monsieur Markham. M. Markham, I was looking through your book, Napoleon’s Road to Glory, which I might add you so gratiously donated a signed copy of to my school, and I noticed a bit of trouble with your map in the front cover. It traces Napoleon’s route to Egypt as going between Sardinia and Africa, while the map provided in Chandler’s ‘The Campaignes of Napoleon’ has the route traced between Sardinia and Italy. Might I inquire which would be more accurate? It doesn’t seem to be a small enough discrepency to be negligable, so I woud appreciate any information you might offer to clear this matter up for me. Thank you. Keep these great podcasts coming!
-Stark of Philadelphia
Have either of you gentlemen had a look at Juan Cole’s new book on Napoleon in Egypt?
Cole also has a blog for the book.
Excellent podcast, which I am just getting into! I am very grateful and wish there were more podcast series as involved, educational, and fun to listen to as this.
I am left a little confused by some of the topics in this episode though, particularly regarding Napoleon’s treatment of prisoners and conduct in his Egyptian campaign (at Jaffa and Acre in particular.)
I just finished reading today the short Osprey book “French Soldier in Egypt 1798-1801: The Army of the Orient,” by Terry Crowdy, which describes two separate accounts by soldiers under Napoleon’s command of the massacre of not only prisoners but at least hundreds of women and children by French soldiers- the impression imparted is that this was done under Napoleon’s command. (I’m happy to quote at length from the book.) I found this not reflected in this episode and am left wondering just how culpable a student of history should find Napoleon for these (what would be termed today) war crimes?
This podcast is very informative, and your chemisty was great, but it would have much better if Cameron was of the an anti-Napoleon perspective. I’m open to the pro-Napoleon position, but hearing David jump through any hoops necessary to show Bonaparte to be a virtuous genius whilst Cameron nods appreciatively can be grating.
Haha. I’m listening in 2018 now… and enjoyed the nod to future listeners — and also the conversation about the invasion of Iraq. Twelve years later, this conversation still holds up! It seems the recurring tale is one where leaders insist on marching large armies into dangerous places and then retreat once too many people have died. Vietnam, Napoleon’s Russia campaign, and Iraq come to mind.
So I would have been 16 at the time this was recorded — this is a time when I hated history class (and napoleon) — but finally I get to ask my own questions, and your podcast has all the answers! Thanks for putting this together!
-john
-also from Philadelphia!