Podcasts about french wars

Greg Jenner is joined in 16th-Century France by Dr Estelle Paranque and comedian Shaparak Khorsandi to learn all about controversial queen Catherine de' Medici.Catherine's life was dramatic from the moment she was born: orphaned when she was just a few weeks old, she was brought up by her uncle the Pope, and her childhood was shaped by the tumultuous politics of Renaissance Florence. At fourteen, she was married to the son of the king of France and shipped off to the French court, only to find herself involved in a literal ménage à trois with her teenage husband's older mistress. But after her husband became king – and even more so after he died and her sons ruled France – Catherine came into her power as queen and later queen mother. And through her children and the marriages she organised for them, Catherine's influence was even felt beyond the borders of France. She even corresponded with Tudor queen Elizabeth I!This episode traces Catherine's tumultuous personal and political life from orphaned child to grandmother of Europe, exploring along the way the terror of the French Wars of Religion, and asking whether the dark legend of Catherine 'the serpent queen' is deserved, or whether she has been misunderstood by history.This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

Donate (no account necessary) | Subscribe (account required) Join Bryan Dean Wright, former CIA Operations Officer, as he breaks down today's biggest stories shaping America and the world. Economic War: Trump Says Hang Tough, Democrats Cry Recession – First-quarter GDP shows mild contraction, largely due to a surge in pre-tariff imports. Trump blames Biden for lingering weakness but insists his tariffs are reshaping the economy for the better, despite fears of toy shortages and falling consumer confidence. White House Messaging Misstep? Bryan Urges Recommitment to “Economic Revolution” – With approval slipping and the press questioning Trump's strategy, Bryan argues the president must rally Americans daily with a clear mission and message: the Five Bucket Strategy is tough, but worth it. Ukraine Minerals Deal Signed - But with Strings – Trump's long-anticipated minerals deal with Kyiv includes no repayment of past aid, no troop guarantees, and unclear control over key nuclear facilities, raising doubts about its value beyond diplomatic symbolism. India-Pakistan War Looms – After a terror attack in Kashmir, the region teeters on the edge of war. Pakistan denies involvement while India considers retaliation. Both sides are nuclear-armed, and U.S. diplomats are racing to de-escalate the crisis. Spain's Blackout Linked to Solar Power Collapse – The cause remains murky, but critics say overreliance on renewables and lack of grid inertia left the country vulnerable. Germany may face similar risks. France Declares War on Cocaine Cartels – With cartel-linked violence spreading in French towns, lawmakers authorize a sweeping crackdown. Conservative momentum grows as citizens push back against the “Mexicanization” of France. Fake Video Hurts Coca-Cola Sales – A viral false claim that Coke supported ICE raids causes Hispanic consumers to boycott. The case underscores the power of Leftist misinformation—and the need for the White House to fight back with equal messaging intensity. "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32​

Greg Jenner is joined in 16th-Century France by Dr Estelle Paranque and comedian Shaparak Khorsandi to learn all about controversial queen Catherine de' Medici.Catherine's life was dramatic from the moment she was born: orphaned when she was just a few weeks old, she was brought up by her uncle the Pope, and her childhood was shaped by the tumultuous politics of Renaissance Florence. At fourteen, she was married to the son of the king of France and shipped off to the French court, only to find herself involved in a literal ménage à trois with her teenage husband's older mistress. But after her husband became king – and even more so after he died and her sons ruled France – Catherine came into her power as queen and later queen mother. And through her children and the marriages she organised for them, Catherine's influence was even felt beyond the borders of France. She even corresponded with Tudor queen Elizabeth I!This episode traces Catherine's tumultuous personal and political life from orphaned child to grandmother of Europe, exploring along the way the terror of the French Wars of Religion, and asking whether the dark legend of Catherine 'the serpent queen' is deserved, or whether she has been misunderstood by history.If you're a fan of scheming queens, scandalous royal love affairs and dramatic religious conflicts, you'll love our episode on Catherine de' Medici.If you want more from Shaparak Khorsandi, check out our episodes on Justinian and Theodora and the Ancient Olympics. And for more quality queens, listen to our episodes on Emma of Normandy and Eleanor of Aquitaine.You're Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Hannah Cusworth Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

This week we're delving into the often-overlooked intricacies of the Napoleonic Wars. Joining us is Rory Butcher, a PhD candidate from Leeds University, whose research on the fencible regiments sheds new light on Britain's military history.Introduction to Rory Butcher:- Rory shares his academic journey, from his fascination with muskets to his current PhD research at Leeds University.- Discover how a conversation with his master's supervisor led Rory to explore the largely uncharted territory of the fencible regiments.Debunking Napoleonic Myths:- Rory's rage centres on the misconception that the Napoleonic Wars are solely defined by the Peninsula and Waterloo campaigns.- He argues for the broader term "French Wars" to encapsulate the 25-year period of conflict from 1792 to 1815.The French Wars Explained:- An in-depth look at the seven coalitions and the global nature of the French Wars, involving multiple European powers and theatres of conflict.- Rory highlights Britain's role beyond just fighting the French, including engagements in North America, the Caribbean, and India.Britain's Domestic Front:- Explore the internal challenges Britain faced, from political opposition and suspended civil liberties to naval mutinies and the threat of Irish rebellion.- Learn about the social and economic impacts of the war on British society, including the role of the militia and the fear of invasion.The Role of the Fencibles:- Rory introduces the fencible regiments, tracing their origins from the aftermath of Culloden to their significant contribution during the French Wars.- Understand how these regiments, initially raised from Scottish clans, evolved to play a crucial role in Britain's military strategy.Conclusion and Final Thoughts:- Rory urges a re-evaluation of the Napoleonic period, advocating for a more nuanced understanding that goes beyond the simplistic narrative of Britain's victory at Waterloo.- He calls for the period to be seen as part of a broader, complex web of global conflicts and alliances.Follow Rory on Twitter @RMBHistory for updates on his research and insights into the fascinating world of the fencible regiments.You can follow History Rage on Twitter @HistoryRage or Paul individually @PaulBavill You can join our 'Angry Mob' on Patreon as well. £5 per month gets you episodes 3 months early, the invite to choose questions, entry into our prize draws and the coveted History Rage mug. Subscribe at www.patreon.com/historyrageFollow History Rage on Social MediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryRageTwitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryRageInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyrage/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/historyrage.bsky.socialStay Angry, Stay Informed Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Catherine de' Medici (l. 1519-1589) was the queen of France, mother of three kings and two queens and, between 1559 and c. 1576, the most powerful woman in France and, possibly, all of Europe. She was the strength behind the French throne for almost 20 years, maintaining the monarchy through the chaos of the French Wars of Religion and political intrigue

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

Commissioned by Louis I and completed in 1382, the massive Apocalypse Tapestry is a visual representation of the book of Revelation. Today, Stephen Nichols discusses the creation of this masterpiece and its eventual restoration after surviving damage during the French War. Read the transcript: https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/the-history-of-the-apocalypse-tapestry/ A donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Donate: https://www.ligonier.org/donate/ Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts

On one side, the Catholic majority, unwavering in their devotion to Rome. On the other, the Huguenots, French Protestants inspired by the teachings of Jean Calvin.  Caught in the crossfire of this religious divide was the monarchy, struggling to maintain order amidst growing tension. But their efforts often only fuelled the flames of conflict.And so, in 1562, the first shots were fired in what would become known as the French Wars of Religion. Over the next three decades, France would be engulfed in a series of bloody clashes between Catholics and Protestants, tearing the nation apart.Join us as we unravel the intricate tapestry of alliances, betrayals, and power struggles that defined this turbulent period. From the grand halls of royal palaces to the blood-soaked fields of battle, we'll bring to life the key events and personalities that shaped the destiny of France.Timecodes:Introduction05:15 - From Strength to Chaos17:34 - Instability and Crisis27:24 - War, War, War!33:53 - The Saint-Barthélemy Massacre41:05 - The Eighth and Final War47:55 - Henri IV - "Paris is well worth a Mass"52:06 - ConclusionMusic: Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs, composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, arranged and performed by Jérôme Arfouche.Artwork: "St. Bartholomew's Day massacre' by François Dubois (1572)Support the Show.Reach out, support the show and give me feedback! Contact me or follow the podcast on social media Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify Become a patron on Patreon to support the show Buy me a Coffee Get beautiful “La Fayette, We are Here!” merchandise from TeePublic

The French had been preparing for this moment since 1919, so what did they come up with? Contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to advertise on History of the Second World War. History of the Second World War is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introduction: 3 Reasons to Believe History Is Going to Go Down as Jesus Said (Matthew 24:32-35): The Signs are still happening. (Matthew 24:32-33) 184-280 - Three Kingdoms War (36-40 mil) 755-763 - An Lushan Rebellion (13 mil) 1206-1324 - Mongol Conquests (40-70 mil) 1562-1598 - French Wars of Religion (2-4 mil) 1616-1662 - Qing Dynasty Conquered Ming (25 mil) 1803-1815 - Napoleonic Wars (3.5 - 6 mil) 1850-1864 - Taiping Rebellion (20 mil) 1914-1918 - WWI (17 mil) 1939-1945 - WWII (60 - 85 mil) 2001 – Today - War on Terror (1.3 - 2 million) 2 Timothy 3:1-4 - But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God... Israel is still going strong. (Matthew 24:34) Matthew 23:33-36 - You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and dpersecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of gZechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between hthe sanctuary and ithe altar. Truly, I say to you, jall these things will come upon this generation. Jesus' Words still prevail. (Matthew 24:35) Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! Small Group DiscussionRead Matthew 24:32-35What was your big take-away from this passage / message?What was Jesus' point about the fig tree (Matt 24:32-33)? Which signs seem the most obvious to you?What did Jesus mean by “this generation” (Matt 24:34)? If He is indeed referring to Israel, how is the existence of Israel strong proof that history will close as the Bible tells us?BreakoutPray for one another. Want more eschatology teaching? Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through Revelation Catch up on the previous verse by verse teaching through 2 Thessalonians

At the end of the French Wars of Religion, a widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of a military captain who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide and theft against the villagers who lived around her.  But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?In this episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Dr. Tom Hamilton, whose new book is a dramatic account of the impact of the troubles on daily life for women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical studies.This episode was produced by Rob Weinberg.**WARNING: This podcast contains references to rape, violence and homicide**Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code TUDORS - sign up here >You can take part in our listener survey here >

David Pilling joins us to talk all about his new book on Edward I, Braveheart and how much the English and French hate each other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The massacre at Vassy exacerbated religious tensions that had been simmering for years, serving as a rallying cry for both Catholics and Protestants, each side seeing the incident as justification for their cause. Within just a few weeks of the massacre, violence erupted across the ...

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/french-studies

Paris, 1599. At the end of the French Wars of Religion, the widow Renée Chevalier instigated the prosecution of the military captain Mathurin Delacanche, who had committed multiple acts of rape, homicide, and theft against the villagers who lived around her château near the cathedral city of Sens. But how could Chevalier win her case when King Henri IV's Edict of Nantes ordered that the recent troubles should be forgotten as 'things that had never been'?  A Widow's Vengeance After the Wars of Religion: Gender and Justice in Renaissance France (Oxford UP, 2024) is an original and wide-ranging account of the impact of the religious wars on daily life. Based on neglected archival sources and an exceptional criminal trial, it recovers the experiences of women, peasants, and foot soldiers, who are marginalized in most historical accounts. Tom Hamilton shows how this trial contributed to a wider struggle for justice and an end to violence in postwar France. People throughout the society of the Old Regime did not consider rape and pillage as inevitable consequences of war, and denounced soldiers' illicit violence when they were given the chance. As a result, the early modern laws of war need to be understood not only as the idealistic invention of great legal thinkers, but also as a practical framework that enabled magistrates to do justice for plaintiffs and witnesses, like Chevalier and the villagers who lived under her protection. 

About The Guest(s): Dan Borvan is the newly installed pastor at Christ Reform Church in Anaheim, California. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Westminster Seminary, California. Dan has a passion for the French Reformation and has dedicated his studies to uncovering the rich theology and history of the French Reform Church. Summary: In this episode of Renewalcast, Colt Robinson interviews Dan Borvan about the French Reformation. The French Reformation is often overlooked in comparison to the Protestant Reformation in Germany and Switzerland. However, it played a significant role in shaping the theology and history of the Reformed tradition. Dan provides an overview of the French Reformation, starting with its origins in the 1520s and the influence of key figures like Nicholas Cop and John Calvin. He discusses the persecution faced by French Protestants, the establishment of churches, and the publication of the French Confession of faith. Dan also highlights the courage and resilience of the French Reformers in the face of intense opposition and persecution. Key Takeaways:The French Reformation was an organic movement that gained momentum in the 1520s and 1530s.The French Reformers faced intense persecution and were labeled as seditious rebels by the Roman Catholic authorities.John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and the French Confession of faith were influential in shaping the theology of the French Reform Church.The French Wars of Religion in the second half of the 16th century were marked by conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, as well as divisions within the Catholic camp.The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 was a turning point in the French Reformation, leading to widespread persecution and the continuation of the religious civil war.The Edict of Nantes in 1598 provided temporary coexistence between Catholics and Protestants, allowing the French Reform Church to flourish for a few decades before the repeal of the edict in 1685.Quotes:"We must commit as much as we can to stand for the truth, so that when those moments come for us, the Holy Spirit will empower us to stand." - Dan Borvan"Psalm singing was a great offense to the Roman Catholics. It was the original counterculture, anti-establishment, shake your fist at the man kind of music." - Dan Borvan

Part 2 in our series on the Wars of Religion. This episode looks at the French Wars of Religion, also known as the French Civil War, and looks at how a new monarch, Henry IV of France will put the interest of the state and his power above religious concerns. Do you want to get that 5?  Enter code “GO4FIVE” at checkout for 25% OFF the Lyndeurozone Online Resources! Online access expires June 15th, 2024. Lyndeurozone.com  Patreon If you use this podcast regularly would you please consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as a dollar a month?  The Euro Simplified Podcast has no advertising revenue and is produced by a public school teacher.  We love and appreciate our supporters on Patreon as our supporters help us meet the costs associated with the production of this free resource for students. Episodes will be released on the following schedule: Unit 1 and Unit 2 - August/September Unit 3: October Unit 4: November Unit 5: November and December Unit 6: January Unit 7: Late January & February Unit 8 : March Unit 9: April   If you have any questions you can contact Robert Lynde at Lyndeurozone.com.   Instagram: @Lyndeurozone  

Our guest today is Netherlander ⁠Thijs Brocades Zaalberg⁠! Thijs is a University Lecturer at the Universiteit Leiden and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. Before moving to Leiden, Thijs worked at the Netherlands Insitute of Military History in The Hague. He is currently the coordinator for the project Comparing Extreme Violence in the Wars of Decolonization, 1945-1962, at the Netherlands Insitute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Thijs earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Groningen, spent a year at Trinity College, Dublin, and then took his PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Thijs also spent ten years as an officer in the Reserve of the Royal Netherlands Army. Thijs is a specialist in colonial warfare, counterinsurgency, and peace operations. He is the editor, with Bart Luttikhuis, of Empire's Violent End: Comparing Dutch, British, and French Wars of Decolonization, 1945-1962 (Cornell), and is author of Soldiers and Civil Power: Supporting or Substituting Civil Authorities in Modern Peace Operations (Amsterdam), coauthor with Arthur ten Cate of A Gentle Occupation Dutch Military Operations in Iraq, 2003-2005 (Leiden), and coauthor with Frances Gouda of American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism (Amsterdam). He has also published over a dozen essays and articles in English and Dutch journals. Join us for a fascinating chat with Thijs Zaalberg. We'll talk about his parents and grandparents' experience in the Second World War, his rebellious turn toward history as a career path, the Dutch military experience, Beck, The Bear, being a war diarist in Afghanistan, Grolsch, and some BBQ basics. We're on a roll with Season 4! Rec.: 08/09/2023

Our guest today is Netherlander Thijs Brocades Zaalberg! Thijs is a University Lecturer at the Universiteit Leiden and Associate Professor in the Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. Before moving to Leiden, Thijs worked at the Netherlands Insitute of Military History in The Hague. He is currently the coordinator for the project Comparing Extreme Violence in the Wars of Decolonization, 1945-1962, at the Netherlands Insitute of Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Thijs earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Groningen, spent a year at Trinity College, Dublin, and then took his PhD at the University of Amsterdam. Thijs also spent ten years as an officer in the Reserve of the Royal Netherlands Army. Thijs is a specialist in colonial warfare, counterinsurgency, and peace operations. He is the editor, with Bart Luttikhuis, of Empire's Violent End: Comparing Dutch, British, and French Wars of Decolonization, 1945-1962 (Cornell), and is author of Soldiers and Civil Power: Supporting or Substituting Civil Authorities in Modern Peace Operations (Amsterdam), coauthor with Arthur ten Cate of A Gentle Occupation Dutch Military Operations in Iraq, 2003-2005 (Leiden), and coauthor with Frances Gouda of American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism (Amsterdam). He has also published over a dozen essays and articles in English and Dutch journals. Join us for a fascinating chat with Thijs Zaalberg. We'll talk about his parents and grandparents' experience in the Second World War, his rebellious turn toward history as a career path, the Dutch military experience, Beck, The Bear, being a war diarist in Afghanistan, Grolsch, and some BBQ basics. We're on a roll with Season 4! Rec.: 08/09/2023

आज़ादी की राह सीरीज़ की इस कड़ी में सुनिए ब्रिटिश राज में टीपू की हार से लेकर कृष्णराज वोडेयार के शासन और आज़ादी तक की कहानी वकील और इतिहासकार सिद्धार्थ राजा की झुबानी। हमने तो काफी मज़े लेकर सुनी, अब आप भी सुनिए। From the fall of Tipu to the times of Krishnaraja Wodeyar to independence in 1947, what was the state of the princely state of Mysore? We hear the fascinating history of one of the well administered princely states in colonial India from Siddharth Raja, a lawyer and a historian, who narrates it with ease. Listen in. ***** Useful links  ***** The letter written by Krishnaraja Wodeyar in three different languageshttps://twitter.com/seemay/status/1269890465786036225 Siddharth Raja narrates the Vellore mutiny:https://soundcloud.com/siddharth-raja-183671949/tipu-sultans-sons-and-the-first-sepoy-mutiny-at-vellore-1806 Vidurashwatha Massacre, the Forgotten Jallianwala Bagh of South Indiahttps://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/jallianwala-bagh-of-the-south-vidurashwatha-massacre-a-forgotten-chapter-in-the-history-of-country-s-freedom-movement-101618915177005.html ***** More in Azaadi ki Raah series  ***** भारत के सटीक नक़्शे कैसे बनें? The Himalayan task of mapping Indiahttps://youtu.be/Z27gbZlgq0I चलो याद करें संविधान की महिला रचयिताओं को। Founding Mothers of the Indian Republic ft. Achyut Chetanhttps://youtu.be/gkl389O21Ao आज़ादी की राह: स्वदेशी बनाम खुले व्यापार की १५० साल पुरानी बहस | Swadeshi vs Free Tradehttps://youtu.be/qny9dqwrDeg?si=WAVb4KdVxJ6djLhV ***  More Puliyabaazi on History **** EP73: 1857 की लड़ाई का आँखों देखा हाल. An Eyewitness Account of the 1857 War of Independence. https://youtu.be/E8SE6vSgQaQ?si=CYpCo6JfQ6BwpG8S ***************** Website: https://puliyabaazi.in Write to us at puliyabaazi@gmail.com Hosts: @saurabhchandra @pranaykotas @thescribblebee Puliyabaazi is on these platforms: Twitter: @puliyabaazi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/puliyabaazi/ Subscribe & listen to the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Castbox, AudioBoom, YouTube, Spotify or any other podcast app.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

4/9/12 - How to play Shuffleboard. Shuffleboard Table Care and Maintenance 4/12/12 - About the French Wars of Religion 4/13/12 - Foobar2000 shows the current time of the music in the status bar. 4/15/12 - The response to Christos Anesti 4/16/12 - Russia photoshopped people out of stuff before Photoshop existed. How Photos Became a Weapon in Stalin's Great Purge 4/17/12 - Stuff about the Henrician reformation 4/20/12 - the HTML element was implemented drunkenly after a discussion in a bar The origin of the tag | HTML Blink Tag – W3C | The blinking text element - Mozilla 4/22/12 - I can preserve VirtualBox settings across OS installs Extra Topic 1: Cap and Gown Pickup Day + MightyText and DeskSMS Extra Topic 2: Crazy schedules on 4/11/12 Extra Topic 3: Wisdom from a computer science professor Extra Topic 4: Spring Film Festival filming and editing Extra Topic 5: State of the Podcast and future episode plans! This episode's music comes from archive.org, the Free Music Archive, and YouTube free music repositories. Tracks featured in this episode include: Jason Shaw - 12 Mornings Kevin MacLeod - Silver Blue Light [ Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ] TrackTribe - A Brand New Start Doctor Turtle - The Kid In The Bins Doctor Turtle - His Last Share Of The Stars

In this episode, the "Christians Every Christian Should Know," may not be familiar. Marguerite d'Navarre along with her daughter, Jeanne d'Albret, helped lead the French Huguenots during the Reformation in France. Amidst the French Wars of Religion in which the Catholic Church persecuted and killed protestants, and even facing opposition from their own relatives of nobility, these brave women of faith used their position and their connections to further the Reformation in France, all while facing persecution themselves!Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!

Last time we spoke about the final battles to push the Qing forces out of Tonkin. The Qing, Black Flag and Vietnamese forces were fighting bitterly, on the open field and as guerillas to kick France out of Tonkin. The guerilla activity led to bloody months at the isolated outposts of Thai Nguyen, Hung Hoa and Tuyen Quang. To dislodge the Qing army from Tonkin, the French attacked them at Nui Bop and seized Lang son thus saving the outposts from being taken. After securing their outposts the French recommenced their offensive attacking Hoa Moc. But the Qing and Black Flag forces erected a siege at Tuyen Quang, to which the French beat them again. Then at Dang Dong, the French finally pushed the Qing forces across the Gate of China back to their homeland. The war over Tonkin was fierce, costing countless lives and all for a war never officially declared, but was it all won and done? Well we are about to find out.   #47 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 4: Of War and Peace   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. General Francois Oscar de Negrier took his 2nd brigade and absolutely smashed the remnants of the Guangxi army at Dang Dong, sending them fleeing back into their homeland. For good measure the French literally blew up the Gate of China, also known today as the “Gate of Friendship” which was the border between Guangxi and Tonkin. The customs building, walls, gate itself, all of it was blown sky high. Once this was done the 2nd brigade pulled back to Lang Son at the end of February of 1885. Thus by March the the Guangxi army had been pushed out of Tonkin by General Oscar, while the Yunnan army had been defeated heavily at Tuyen Quang and Hung Hoa by the 1st brigade of Giovanninelli.  Despite the sweeping victories, the Qing were not truly defeated by any means they still held considerable forces across the border. General Briere de L'isle thought about launching an offensive against the nearest target within China, such as the military depot at Longzhou, but he did not have enough men to really pull it off, he had to wait for reinforcements. Reinforcements would arrive in mid march. He sat down with his officers and devised a course of action. It was agreed the 1st brigade would attack the Yunnan army to push them beyond the Yen Bay while the 2nd brigade would hold its position at Lang Son.  The Guangxi Army in the meantime was rebuilding its strength and by March 17th had been bolstered to 30,000 men. Soon the Guangxi army was pressing upon the Tonkin border with two major camps at Yen Cua Ai and Bang Bo with over 9 separate military commands. At Yen Cua Ai were 10 battalions led by General Feng Zicai, around 7500 men strong. Behind Yen Cua Ai in the village of Mufu, 2-3 kms away were another 7000 men led by Generals Su Yuanchun and Chen Jia; another 15kms behind Mufu at the village of Pingxiang was another 7000 men led by General Jian Zonghan and Fang Yusheng. 50 kms to the west AT Aiwa village was 3500 men led by Wei Gang. 15 kms east in at Cua Ai sitting just a toehold within Tonkin was 3500 men led by General Wang Debang. And overall commander of the Guangxi army, General Pan Dingxian was at Haicun, over 30 kms behind Mufu village with 3500 men. General Oscar had around 1600 men to hold Lang Son, yes it was not looking good for the french boys. On March 22nd, Feng Zicai led a raid against a French outpost at Dong Dang. That said outpost was held by forces under Lt Colonel Paul Gustave Herbinger, someone we spoke a tiny bit about in a previous battle who made the rather idiotic decision to outflank the enemy by going way too far around, so far that his superior simply sent another force to attack the enemy. Herbingers french foreign legionnaires fought off the raid once the rest of the 2nd brigade came up to support his outposts defense. Upon driving off the raiders, General Oscar decided it was a good idea to strike back. He hoped to take the enemy by surprise and led the men to cross over to the Zhennanguan pass which held the Guangxi encampment at Bang Bo. Oscar did not intend for a major offensive against Guangxi province, his simple aim was to raid them back and give some breathing room for Dong Dang.  Oscar left a single company of the 2nd African battalion with some batteries to hold Lang Son and the 23rd battalion to hold Dong Dang which would act as his supply line as his main body marched to Zhennanguan. On March 23rd, 1600 men with 10 artillery pieces made their way. The next day the French were met with fierce resistance when they approached Zhennanguan. There they found the Guangxi army utilizing outwork fortifications. Along with the defense, Wang Debang sent his force from Cua Ai to launch a counterattack hitting the French right flank. Oscars men were able to repel the counterattack and seize the outworks and the next day he had his men launch an attack against the enemy's main at position of Bang Bo. He planned to hit the front while simultaneously sending men to sweep around the rear. The frontal defensive line of Bang Bo held a long trenchline which the french named the Long trench. To attack the front, Oscar sent the 111th battalion led by chef de bataillon Francois Leon Faure and for the rear attack, the 2nd legion battalion of chef de bataillon Digeut and the 143rd battalion of chef de bataillon Farret. Herbinger who was leading the 3rd regiment was ordered to guide Diguet and Farret to perform their rear attack maneuver. Unfortunately a thick fog hit the area causing Herbinger to get lost. Oscar, unaware of Herbingers plight mistook a Guangxi army column moving towards the Long Trench to be Herbingers 2 battalions, and promptly ordered Faure to launch his frontal attack.  Fauvre's 111th formed their line and charged into the fray. They immediately came under intense fire from Feng Zicai's infantry manning the Long trench and other Guangxi units manning nearby hills. Within seconds several officers were killed. Two companies made it to the trench and after a very short hand to hand fighting match were fleeing from a major counter attack led personally by Feng Zicai. The carnage was intense, and what saved many of the fleeing French was the Guangxi army's resolve to behead the wounded and plunder them of their arms.  Meanwhile to the right of the battlefield, Ferrets 143rd battalion and Diguets 2nd legionnaires leapt into the fray of battle, several hours longer than expected. They quickly seized a Qing held fort. At 3pm, Pan Dingxin after watching the 111th battalion flee for their lives saw Herbingers command and tossed a counterattack their way. Herbingers command was nearly encircled, in fact a single company of the 143rd battalion led by the Irish officer, Captain Patrick Cotter were completely encircled. Harbinger ordered the men to retreat and leave Captain Patrick's company behind, but the French foreign legionnaires ignored the order and charged at the Qing to break free the company. Despite the company being able to break free, Captain Patrick was killed in the action. Gradually Digeut and Farret's men fell back, performing a fighting withdrawal to keep the Qing onslaught at bay best they could.  During the chaos, the 3rd legion battalion of Lt Colonel Schoeffer had been ordered to stay on Tonkinese soil around Dang Dong to protect their flanks found themselves fighting desperately to keep a line of retreat for the incoming french. Schoeffer's men had to fight off both flanks enabling the rest of the army to fight their way back down the middle. General Oscar was leading the rearguard to try and maintain morale and was successful at stopping a complete rout of his forces. Oscar spent the majority of the late afternoon quelling disorder amongst differing commands, trying to keep the men together. The entire brigades morale was dropping as was their ammunition, so Oscar called for a general retreat back to Lang Son. On the night of March 24th they camped at Dong Dang  exhausted and shell shocked. Sergeant Maury of Digeuts 2nd legionnaires had this to say about the feelings of the men.  “The night was very dark. The soldiers marched in complete silence. We felt cheated, ashamed, and angry. We were leaving behind us both victory and many of our friends. From time to time, in low murmurs, we established who was missing. Then we relapsed into the silence of mourning and the bitterness of loss. And so we reached Dong Dang, without being disturbed. We slept in the field hospital huts, after drinking some soup. We were harassed and hungry. We had not eaten all day, and had drunk nothing since morning except a single cup of coffee. In spite of my weariness, I spent a troubled night. My spirits were haunted by the day's memories, by images of the fighting and phantasms of our misfortunes. I was shaken with spasms. I trembled as I have never done on the battlefield. I lay down, but was unable to sleep.” The French had 74 deaths, 213 wounded, amongst the dead were 7 officers. They estimated the Qing casualties to be around 1650. The defeat shocked France who were becoming accustomed to victory reports. Oscar kept the men marching back to Long San, as their coolies all abandoned them creating a sever supply issue. The Guangxi army pursued them the entire way, leading to another battle at Ky Lua on march 28th. This time the French had rested a bit and took up defensive positions behind earthworks. The rationale for the battle was to hold onto the road to Long San for as long as possible and they managed to repel an intense attack from the enemy. The French saw 7 deaths with 38 wounded but inflicted severe casualties upon the pursuing enemy. The French claimed to have seen over 1200 corpses scattered around the battlefield and perhaps wounded over 6000 Guangxi soldiers if its to be believed. Towards the end of the carnage, Oscar was severely wounded in the chest while helping his scouts find Qing positions. He was forced to hand command over to the most senior officer, Herbinger. At this point many officers had commented on his lackluster performance during the undeclared war, he had seriously messed up on quite the occasions. It seems Herbinger began his command in a rather panicked state, for despite the fact they had battered the Qing pursuers, he was convinced they were going to encircle the brigade at any moment. Against the majority of his officers' protest, he ordered the 2nd brigade to abandon Lang Son on the night he took command. They were to retreat to Chu and initially they were divided marching in two columns with Herbingers going towards Thang Moy and Schoeffer's going to Dong Song. Herbinger began to fear the men towing the artillery would slow down his retreat so he ordered the artillery pieces tossed into the Song Ki Cong river alongside their brigades treasure chest. At the same time Herbinger send a runner over to Briere de l'isle over in Hanoi claiming he did not have enough ammunition to fight a second battle for Lang Son and that he was retreating. His claim of not having enough ammunition would later prove to be incorrect.  Both Herbinger and Schoeffer forced a intense pace for their marches and by the time the men reached Thang Moy and Dong Song they were exhausted. Briere de L'ilse upon receiving the message from Herbinger was shocked he abandoned Lang Song. He prompted sent word back to Paris about the ordeal. The next day Briere de l'isle sent a message over to Herbinger demanding him to hold his position at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Herbinger thought it insane to do so, but he obeyed the orders nonetheless.  On the 30th, the French prepared their defenses at Thanh Moy and Dong Song. Herbinger tossed some cavalry patrols to figure out where the Guangxi army would hit them from and they came back with reports they were heading down the Mandarin road south of Lang Son. Harbinger sent word to Briere de l'isle, stating he believed the enemy would soon encircle them. The French defenders were told by Herbinger to fasten their bayonets and hunker down. Now it seems Herbinger's nerves were shot, because on the night of the 30th he told his fellow officers he believed they were all going to be massacred the following morning. He went to bed at 8pm and an hour later he began to hear firing from forward outposts. It would turn out to be a false alarm, but one officer rushed over to Herbinger to wake him up and report the action to which Herbinger allegedly said “'I'm sick, and the column is just as sick as me! Leave me alone!' Meanwhile Briere de l'isle was receiving Herbingers panicked reports throughout the night and he reluctantly gave Herbinger permission to retreat back to Chu at 10pm if in his words “if the situation demanded it”. That was more than enough for Herbinger who immediately ordered a retreat to Chu that very night. Harbinger's message back to Briere de l'isle read this 'I will take advantage of the night and the moon to retire, in conformity with your instructions”. And so the men packed up and began their trek from Thang Moy and Dong Song linking up along the way. Schoeffer's force were attacked by some Qing patrols, but it did not amount to much. Harbinger yet again, ordered artillery pieces to be spiked and abandoned believing they would slow down his column. However the gunnery officers disobeyed the orders and kept carrying the pieces all the way safely to Chu. At dawn the on the 31st, the Guangxi army caught up to the French near the village of Pho Cam, just as Herbinger received reinforcements, a squadron of Spahi cavalry. Upon seeing the cavalry, the French officers and soldiers rejoiced, seeking to direct them to charge into the forward Guangxi army patrols to break them down a bit, but Herbinger forbid a charge and instead ordered the retreat to continue at pace. Now, while Herbinger thought the entire Guangxi army was coming after him, this was not the case. Back on the 29th, the bulk of the Guangxi army was actually retreating back towards Zhennanguan. That was until some Vietnamese caught up to them, giving them reports the French were shockingly abandoning Lang Son and in a full retreat. General Pan Dingxin could not believe it, and he immediately ordered his battered army to turn around to seize Lang Son. Once Lang Son had been taken he sent out smaller forces to skirmish with the retreating French to prod them along, because the reality was his army was in no condition to fully attack them. When he received word his skirmishers were hitting the French around Pho Cam, he ordered his main body to occupy Dong Song and Bac Le, knowing they were undefended. Thus Herbinger had unknowingly lost everything gained during the last offensive to kick the Guangxi army out of Tonkin! On April 1st, the 2nd brigade finally got to Chu, exhausted and bitterly demoralized. Briere de l'isle had ordered the 1st brigade to depart Hung Hoa for Chu and told Colonel Gustave Borgnis Desbordes to take command of the 2nd brigade. On the 2nd of April Colonel Desbordes relieved Herbinger of his command and issued the following order to the 2nd Brigade,  “In view of General de Négrier's serious wound, I have been asked to take provisional command of the brigade. I have arrived with fresh troops and ammunition. I have been told by the general-in-chief that there is to be no further retreat. We are to remain here at all costs. And that is precisely what we shall do.” Minecraft Ompf sounds. Now the 1st brigade had not sat by idle while all the chaos and disorder befell the 2nd brigade. Back on March 23rd, the 1st battalion led by chef de bataillon Simon were ordered to depart from Hung Hoa to perform a preliminary reconnaissance of the village of Phu Lam Tao. The reason for this was because the French had been receiving reports the Black Flags along with remnants of the Yunnan army had begun occupying it. Simons men, 1000 strong went to the village discovering the reports to be true. Simon ordered his men to attack and disaster struck. According to Lt Colonel Bonifacy the troops quickly fell into disorder, tossed their equipment down, including rifles and fled the scene. A military report of the operation indicated 400 uniforms and large quantities of arms were abandoned. The French suffered around 50 casualties. Now while this was by no means a large engagement nor that significant of a defeat, in combination to the disastrous Long San retreat, it would lead to a devastating effect for France. The situation these two combined events created is known as the “Tonkin affair”. Briere de L'isle while in Hanoi had begun to plan moving his HQ over to Hung Hoa where he further planned to launch an offensive against the Yunnan Army believed to be still operating around Tuyen Quang. However the disastrous retreat of Herbinger combined with the defeat of Simon's force. This led Briere de l'isle to believe the entire Red River Delta region was threatened and he sent a fateful telegram, under duress which made its way to the French government on the 28th, here is the Lang Son Telegram, “ I am grieved to tell you that General de Négrier is seriously wounded and Lạng Sơn has been evacuated. The Chinese forces advanced in three large groups, and fiercely assaulted our positions in front of Ky Lua. Facing greatly superior numbers, short of ammunition, and exhausted from a series of earlier actions, Colonel Herbinger has informed me that the position was untenable and that he has been forced to fall back tonight on Dong Song and Thanh Moy. All my efforts are being applied to concentrate our forces at the passes around Chu and Kép. The enemy continues to grow stronger on the Red River, and it appears that we are facing an entire Chinese army, trained in the European style and ready to pursue a concerted plan. I hope in any event to be able to hold the entire Delta against this invasion, but I consider that the government must send me reinforcements (men, ammunition, and pack animals) as quickly as possible.” The telegram created a political crisis, the stock market plunged and many called for Jules Ferry to resign. Ferry dove into a heated debate calling for the need to avenge the loss at Lang Son and to secure Frances hold over Tonkin. To do this, Ferry demanded 200 million francs to be handed over to the army and navy which met a bitter rebuttal from George Clemenceau who absolutely tore Ferry for everything. Here is a bit of his speech, “We're completely finished with you! We're never going to listen to you again! We're not going to debate the nation's affairs with you again! We no longer recognise you! We don't want to recognise you!You're no longer ministers! You all stand accused (long pause) of high treason! And if the principles of accountability and justice still exist in France, the law will soon give you what you deserve!' A motion of no confidence was immediately tabled and  Ferry was voted down 306 to 149. Ferry left in absolute disgrace as all of Paris blew up blaming him for what became infamously known as “the tonkin affair”. The humiliating blow saw Henri Brisson become Prime Minister who started his premiership by trying to negotiate a peace with the Qing dynasty. Meanwhile back over in Formosa, the French were still effectively blockading its northern territory. The war in Formosa had never quieted down, Liu Mingchuan as you might recall received reinforcements in the form of Anhui and Xiang army units, by April of 1885 he had 35,000 men. They were also armed with more modern firearms such as the Lee Model 1879 rifle, Winchesters, Remingtons and Mausers. The french considered these forces to be the cream of the Qing military, well dressed, well armed, and noticeably tall and sturdy. Liu Mingchuan did not stop there, he began hiring more local Hakka militiamen and head-hunting Formosan aborigines.  On the other side the Formosa expeditionary corps had also been bolstered, now 4000 men strong led by Lt Colonel Jacque Duchesne who had gained fame serving a major defeat to Liu Yongfu's black flag army at the battle of Yu Oc. The two opposing forces skirmished quite often, until January of 1885 when a real offensive began. Duchesne ordered his men to seize Yeuh-mei-shan known as “la table” to the french. The offensive started out rough due to terrible torrential rain. The French and Qing forces fought for days at a place known as Fork Y, but in the end Duchesne's men were able to push the Qing out of the way and they continued to march upon La Table. By February La Table was seized and the Qing forces bombarded their position by mid february until the French silenced their artillery using their own. In March Duchesne launched a second offensive, successfully breaking the Qing encirclement of Keelung, delivering an outstanding outflanking maneuver. Duchesne's men pushed the Qing past the Keelung river losing 41 men dead and 157 wounded, while estimating they inflicted up to 1500 casualties on the enemy. The French seized numerous forts the Qing had built up to surround Keelung at Shih-ch'iu'ling, Hung-tan-shan and Yeuh-mei-shan, renaming them La Dent, Fort Bamboo and fort La Table.  It was an incredible French victory given the odds, but these feats were done at the same time as the famous Siege of Tuyen Quang and thus remained largely unknown to the French public. Alongside this, Duchesne's victories enabled Admiral Courbet to follow them up by landing marine forces from the Keelung garrison to capture the Pescadore islands in late March. Controlling the Pescadore islands allowed the French to thwart Qing reinforcement of Formosa, thus France was gradually consolidating its control over the entire island. But this also came right smack dab in the middle of the Herbinger Lang Son retreat disaster. Admiral Courbet almost had to evacuate Keelung to take the forces over to Tonkin to save the situation, but the peace talks had begun before he could do so. Imagine that, a French controlled Taiwan? What the alternate history peeps would do with that one I do not know.  So things were not going well for France, the French public were losing their minds over the Tonkin debacle forcing them to the peace table. However, things were going wildly worse for the Qing dynasty. Because if you can remember way back when, before we began this French adventure, the Qing were having troubles with Japan over Korea. The Gapsin coup had occurred in December of 1884 drawing the Qing attention towards the threat of Japan. Things in Korea were beginning to get much worse and to be honest, as grand a success as Herbinger had delivered the Qing during his disastrous retreat, in truth the Guangxi army was decimated by the war. Yes they grabbed their positions back within Tonkin, but holding them was another matter entirely. To add to their misery it looked like they were going to lose Formosa, thus Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the Qing envoys to the peace table.  The Qing sent Li Hongzhang to meet with Jules Patenotre and they opened up by agreeing to the provisions of the Tientsin Accord. The French would get their protectorate over Vietnam, but they were to drop the longstanding demand of reparations for the Bac Le ambush. Negotiations carried on into April of 1885 where they finally agreed to a preliminary peace protocol and an immediate ceasefire in Tonkin and Formosa. The French agreed to life their rice blockade and the Qing finally agreed to pull out the Yunnan and Guangxi armies from Tonkin with an official deadline stated for May of 1885. The Qing also made sure to pressure Liu Yongfu and his Black Flag Army to withdraw from Tonkin so he did not screw up their peace deal. By June of 1885 the new Tientsin Accord was signed.  A by product of this war, was the absolute destruction of a capable Vietnamese resistance movement. France added Tonkin and Annam to their holding of Cochinchina and would seize Cambodia by 1887 thus creating French Indochina. By 1893 Laos would also be added after the Franco-Siamese War, thus creating a large French Far east colonial empire. It would not be until the Pacific War whereupon France would lose its iron control over southeast asia.  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. And so, France had won an undeclared war over the Qing dynasty and in the process would control a large portion of Southeast Asia, known to them as French Indochina. The Qing had been dealt yet again another humiliating blow. 

Last time we spoke about the Sino-French War at Sea. Admiral Courbet's Far East Squadron dealt a decisive crushing blow to the Fujian Fleet at the battle of Fuzhou. 9 ships were sunk with another 12 severely damaged, forcing the Qing to toss the Nanyang fleet to meet the French menace. However the corrupt nature of the Qing fleets led to a disastrous situation and Admiral Wu of the Nanyang fleet would be quite a victim to it. He attempted to scare the French away, only to be attacked, then hunted down until his forces fled to Zhenhai Bay. The French erected a rice blockade trying to starve out their enemy and it seemed the Qing navy had nothing left to fight them off with. Meanwhile the Tonkin campaign was still a blood bath as the French forces tried to dislodge the Qing and Black Flags from the region.   #46 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 3: The Great Push out of Tonkin   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. General Oscar de Negrier spent considerable time thwart guerilla efforts against French outposts such as the ones at Thai Nguyen, Hung Hoa and Tuyen Quang. He dispatched Colonel Jacques Duchesne to neutralize Yu Oc to relieve the trapped garrison at Tuyen Quang. Duchesne managed to dislodge the black flag units there, but raids made by Qing, Vietnamese and Black flag units remained a constant nuisance. Tonkin was turning into a nightmare, the French needed quick victories before the Qing Yunnan and Guangxi armies coming over the border into Vietnam could consolidate control over northern Tonkin. The French military high command began to debate the issue and this led to the Army Minister General Jules Louis Lewal to order Oscar to launch a campaign against Lang Son. Lang Son was where the Guangxi army had established its main hq. From Lang Son the Guangxi forces ambushed some French Foreign legion forces east of Chu village at a place called Ha Ho. The legionnaires were able to fight their way out from a Chinese encirclement, but the casualties suffered were high. General Oscar tried to pursue the enemy, but they retreated to Dong Song with ease. At this point the Guangxi army knew their HQ at Lang Son was to be the next major target for a French offensive so the Qing tried to gain a toehold in the Luc Nam valley by sending 12,000 troops over a hill called Nui Bop.  Atop the Nui Bop hill, the forces led by General Wang Debang, a victor of the Bac le ambush event created a fortified camp. To support the men Wang Debang had his forces fan out, plundering all the nearby villages for food supplies, thus earning the hatred of them. This led some farmers and villages to come to the French on December 23rd, alerting them of the Guangxi army's presence atop Nui Bop. The news of 12,000 enemy units so close to their forward position at Chu threatened the French campaign soon about to launch against Lang Son in January, thus Oscar knew he had to neutralize them. Oscar took a force of 2000 men, drawn from the 1st and 2nd brigades of the Tonkinese expeditionary corps and began a offensive. Instead of directly marching east from Chu, Oscar decided to sweep to the southern bank of the Luc Nam river to try and outflank the enemy's left flank. To make sure the Qing did not see this coming he diverted a smaller force led by Chef de Bataillon Diguet to approach directly from Chu.  The main body departed Chu at 6am on January 3rd, making a arduous trek, until they came across the northern bank of the Luc Nam river, but it unfortunately was higher in tide than expected. The crossing took the French nearly 3 hours, and in that time Qing scouts saw them and reported the incoming attack thus the element of surprise was all but lost. Nonetheless, the French main body broke into 3 lines advancing towards the Qing left flank which was within the Phong Cot valley and ready for the fight. The French skirmished with the Qing within some heavy bush and had little trouble pushing them further back up the hill area. Soon the hills around Phong Cot were cleared. Oscar believed the Qing forces were greatly demoralized and decided to seize Phong Cot's town before midnight. They found the town abandoned, but the next morning came under heavy counter attacks, supported by artillery from a western fort. The Qing counterattacks were repelled, though at great cost and now Oscar pressed towards the village of Tay Toun which held a hill with a fort. The Qing seemed to be in disarray, allowing for a French bayonet charge across their trench defenses there. By 11:15am the French had taken the camp and found Krupp field artillery pieces, large quantities of modern rifles and war materials abandoned. What became known as the battle of Nui Bop amounted to 19 dead and 65 wounded for the French while they claimed to have found 600 dead Qing bodies and caused significantly higher casualties alongside it. The French soldiers scoured the battlefield for hours, using pistols to finish off wounded Qing soldiers, killing at least a dozen in this fashion. Oscars victory was outstanding, given he was greatly outnumbered. French military commanders estimated he had won a battle with the odd's being 1 out of 10 for a French victory. Having neutralized Nui Bop, General Brière de l'isle was not able to perform an offensive against the main Guangxi army base at Lang Son. It was going to be a 10 day march just to get to the frontline of Lang son, a march where the troops would being carrying all their equipment and provisions through heavy bush. Briere de L'isle knew all too well how formidable such a trek would be and waited until February gathering as many coolies as he could muster to help. Throughout January he got together 7200 troops and 4500 coolies. His Tonkinese expeditionary force held two brigades: the 1st led by Colonel Ange-Laurent Giovanninelli and the 2nd led by general de brigade Oscar.  On february the 3rd they began their long trek setting out from Chu, going over the Deo Van mountains to Cao Nhiat without seeing enemy units. The next day saw the first action at Tay Hoa. The 2nd brigade who were leading the march, found themselves face to face with a large fort. Oscar ordered the large fort to be seized as it threatened their campaigns timetable, and had his 3rd regiment to advance towards it. Lt Colonel Paul Gustave Herbinger leading the 3rd regiment of the 2nd brigade made an elaborate flanking maneuver that saw his forces exhausted and wasting valuable time. Oscar greatly annoyed by this, then simply ordered the 3rd French Foreign Legion battalion of the 4th regiment to attack the fort. The legionnaires scrambled up the mountain paths and quickly seized the fort as Herbinger's men continued to trek towards it looking foolish as hell. French casualties were 18 dead and 100 or so wounded, the heaviest the French had suffered to a single engagement up to that point in the war. The next day, the French assaulted a assortment of forts defending the Guangxi army camps at Dong Song and Ha Hoa. The 1st brigade hit the left sides while the 2nd took the right side. French soldiers tossed dynamite onto garrison barrack roofs, fired upon Qing trenches and unleashed hell with artillery to keep the enemy confused and dazed. On the 6th Dong Song was taken by late afternoon with very low casualties incurred for the French. Most of the Qing forces fled Dong Song heading through Pho bu valley towards Lang Son. The loss of Dong Son threatened the Guangxi Army's right wing holding a position at Bac Le, forcing them to pull back up the Mandarin road to Thanh Moy. Meanwhile at Dong Song, the French resupplied, taking great stores from the Guangxi army and continued their march by February 11th, coming into contact with the enemy at Pho Vy. The Qing were easily dislodged from the village by Herbinger's regiment, but soon he was met with a heavy counterattack that forced General Oscar to pull up reserves to help him. On february 12th, the French made it to Bac Vie, just a few km's south of Lang Son. Giovanninelli's 1st brigade was leading the way and took the brunt of the initial assault against the Qing lines of defense. The battle was fought in a thick fog, allowing the Qing forces to mount daring counterattacks that nearly repelled Giovanninelli's entire brigade. But the French were able to break through the center of the Qing defensive lines, isolating two wings who routed and began fleeing to Lang Son. The French received 30 deaths and 188 wounded or their efforts, the highest casualties of the campaign.  The next day the French forces entered Lang Son as the Guangxi Army had abandoned its main hq, only putting up rearguard actions as it did so. The Guangxi army was falling back towards the Chinese border, but put up a strong defensive position in the small town of Dong Dang within Tonkinese territory. In the words of Briere de L'isle about the Lang Son campaign, issued on February the 14th after capturing Lang Son “You have hoisted the French flag above Lạng Sơn. A Chinese army ten times your numbers has had to recross the frontier in complete rout, leaving in your hands its standards, its arms and its ammunition. It has been forced to abandon to you or to disperse in the mountains the European equipment on which it had so heavily relied to block our march. Glory to all of you who successfully measured yourselves with this army in the actions of the 4th at Tay Hoa, the 5th at Ha Hoa, the 6th at Dong Song, the 9th at Deo Quao, the 11th at Pho Vy, the 12th at Bac Vie and the 13th at Lạng Sơn, and chased it, despite its vigorous resistance, from the formidable positions which it occupied! Honour also to the officers charged with bringing up the food and ammunition trains. It is thanks to their devotion and indefatigable energy that you have been able to eat, and that our advances were not longer delayed” Now while the Lang Son campaign was coming to an end, back over at the isolated outposts of Thai Nguyen, Hung Hoa and Tuyen Quang, things went to shit again. As soon as Tuyen Quang was relieved during the battle for Yu Oc and the French pulled out, the Yunnan army and Black Flag went right back to work attacking it. Tuyen Quang was given a new garrison, 630 men strong led by Marc-Edmon Domine. Liu Yongfu's ever annoying Black Flag Army, roughly 3000 men strong at this point, were joined by a Yunnan Army force 9000 men strong led by Tang Jingsong. Tuyen Quang held a fortress, not too large in size, lying on the western bank of the Clear River next to the town of Tuyen Quang. The town held a citadel, barrack buildings, 300 yards of walls and was surrounded by wooded hills. The wooded hills made it extremely difficult for the garrison as enemy snipers were able to fire from their cover. When Dominee got the garrison job, he immediately went to work building a blockhouse on a hill 300 meters south of the towns citadel, defended by some French foreign legionnaires.  In early november the Yunnan Army made its way down the Red River, advancing upon Tuyen Quang building small encampments in villages as they did. By december, the Yunnan forces built 3 enormous fortified camps at Thanh Quan, Ca Lanh and Phu An Binh, for the purpose of raising a siege of Tuyen Quang. The French only saw minor skirmishes up to this point, then in January of 1885, the Qing and Black Flag forces began to squeeze the supply lines going to Tuyen Quang. On the 31st the Yunnan army began its initial attack, which was met with considerable losses. They would launch attacks again on the 10th of january and 26, but not meeting much success. Thus they began the age old tradition of sapping to mine the walls of the fortress. By the 27th their sappers had gone to work sapping towards the blockhouse. 3 days later the French foreign legionnaires knew they would be mined so they abandoned the blockhouse and the Yunnan forces quickly seized it. The Qing used the blockhouse as an advanced position to set up artillery to hit the French fortress, bombarding them nearly every day. The French were met with cannon, mortar and rifle fire from all sides of their position. Domine posted his best snipers along walls trying to inflict casualties on the attackers and occasionally used his artillery to hit the enemy. However the Qing snipers using the wooden hills were impossible to hit, but they inturn were not very successful at hitting the french.  The Qing continued to sap around the French walls, hoping to cause a large breach, but the French were well prepared for this. French counter sappers broke into the Qing tunnels on the 11th of february causing a underground revolver fight, that must of been terrifying. The French tried to flood the tunnel, but by the night of the 12th, the Qing exploded mines under a part of the fort walls. Luckily for the French the mine was weakened by the flooding, not resulting in a large enough explosion to breach. The next day another mine was exploded and this one did cause a 50 foot breach in a southwest part of the walls of the citadel. The Qing surged for the breach and were met by French foreign legionnaires who kept them at bay. By the 17th the Qing brought their artillery closer up to dislodge the legionnaires who were forced to pull back from their foxholes.  On the 22nd, the Qing delivered a major assault after they exploded a mine in another part of the walls acting as a feint to get the defenders to leave the 50 foot breach. The Qing surged again into the breach, but were repelled by a countercharge led personally by Dominee. Then a 3rd mine was exploded taking down 60 yards of wall, signaling a decisive moment. Hundreds of Qing forces surged out of their siege trenches towards the large breaches, met by rapid French rifle fire. As terrifying as it was for the outnumbered French in their trenches they managed to keep the Qing at bay. The breaches were too large, it seemed all was hopeless for the defenders, but word was received that Lang Son had just been seized. General Briere de L'isle left 3000 men to garrison Lang Son and  personally led the 1st brigade of Giovanninelli back to Hanoi and raced upriver to relieve Tuyen Quang. As he made his way, additional forces from Hung Hoa joined him giving him a total strength of 3400 men. The French knew the Black Flags and Yunnan army forces had established yet again a strong encampment at Yu Oc, this time in its gorge near the village of Hoa Moc. Briere de l'isle took the men directly through the Yu Oc gorge, forcing the Qing to mount a defense in Hoa Moc. Liu Yongfu took command of the combined forces there, 6000 strong manning 3 lines of trenches, with their flanks resting on the Clear River to the east and a rough mountain to the west. It was a well positioned defense, forcing the French to attack directly from the front. On the morning of March 2nd, the French approached what looked like deserted trenches, there were no signs of the enemy. Giovanninelli sent a platoon over to check it out and they were met with a volley at point blank range killing and wounding 30. Seeing the enemy, Giovanninelli opened up his artillery upon the left flank and sent a battalion forward to assault it. The Qing responded by exploding a mine in front of their trenches devastating an Algerian unit leading to the assault failing. Another assault was formed, but once they came within rifle fire the Qing overpowered them sending them reeling back.  Giovannenilli redeployed his artillery to hit another section of the first trench lines and then tossed a 3rd assault which broke through a section of the forward trenches. This prompted Liu Yongfu to launch a counterattack against the French left flank to try and distract them from advancing more, but it was driven off with heavy losses. The casualties had mounted up heavily for both sides and by night time it was unknown whether the French would have enough power to break through during the morning. Briere de l'isle and Giovanninelli were shocked by the enemies resistance and in the words of Lt Huguet, “The general-in-chief was sitting behind a bank, anxious, his head in his hands, surrounded by his staff, perhaps wondering whether he would have to retreat. Colonel Giovanninelli, who valued the life of the humblest soldier as dearly as his own, was pale and shaken as he watched the lines of bloodstained stretchers file past him, and kept exclaiming in a strangled voice, 'My children! My poor children!' The bullets whistled incessantly in the close air, and the groans of the wounded men lying in the rose bushes, inside the bamboo groves, and against the sides of the enemy works, rose ever more distinctly”. That night, Liu Yongfu ordered his forces to make a counterattack to try and take back the lost front line trenches. The French responded with a bayonet charge leading to a night brawl of hand-to-hand lighting until the Qing were driven off. The next day Giovanninelli was forced to bring up all the reserves and ordered an entire brigade assault against the stretch of forward trench lines still held by the enemy. The French began at a trot, then went into a full blown charge expecting to be met by a halestorm of volley fire, but instead found the trenches deserted. Liu Yongfu had pulled out after the failed night attack, leaving the way to Tuyen Quang clear. It was a bloody fight. The French had 76 deaths and 408 wounded, the highest casualty rate and largest loss of life in a single days fighting for the war. 6 officers were dead, 21 wounded, countless men would be tossed onto gunboats only to die in hospitals in Dap Cau and Thi Cau. It was a decisive victory as Liu Yongfu and the Yunnan army lifted their siege of Tuyen Quang, withdrawing further west. Briere de L'isle entered the brutalized outpost on March 3rd , and as told to us by Captain Jean-Francois-Alphonse Lecomte, “We approached the fortress. At the head of a group of officers we saw a captain with a long white beard, who was flourishing his cane and dancing an impromptu jig. The first man he met in the relief column was a bugler. He threw his arms around him. Then he embraced the second bugler. The band tried to keep its dignity, but to no avail. He then abandoned the buglers and fell on the neck of the first drummer. For a moment the drum stood between him and the object of his affections, but eventually he managed to plant two loud kisses on the drummer's cheeks. Then he made for the general-in-chief. There was a sudden hush, as when an orchestra falls silent at the end of a dance. He recovered himself, solemnly clicked his heels, and saluted General Brière de l'Isle. We recognised Captain de Borelli. "Good afternoon, Captain, how are you? We're delighted to see you!" "Indeed! Me too! Especially as I only just escaped being killed this morning!" The men of Tuyen Quang had 50 dead and 224 wounded during their defense of the town. It was estimated by the French that the Black Flag and Yunnan forces suffered 1000 deaths and 2000 wounded during the siege and battle of Hoa Moc. The fight to save Tuyen Quang would become the defining image of the Sino-French War and placed second only to the Battle of Camerone in 1863 for the roll of battle honors of the French Foreign Legion. Now when Briere de l'isle grabbed the 1st brigade to relieve Tuyen Quang, he left the 2nd brigade of Oscar to occupy Lang Son, but also to press forward to rid Tonkinese soil of the Guangxi Army. General Oscar had 2900 men and knew the enemy had left a last toehold at Dong Dang. That toehold turned out to be an extremely formidable one. They established a position on a 300 meter limestone plateau rising west of the Mandarin road and just a bit north of Dong Dang leading to what is known as “the gate of China”. The gate of china was a border gate, think of a less grand Great wall of China, that sits atop a large sheer cliff. It can only be climbed from its western approach and it was very well defended with artillery positions on its summit. The Guangxi army's position along the hills east of the Mandarin road were covered by numerous elevated infantry and artillery positions making it extremely difficult to attack head on. For a force to seize this they would need to assault the limestone massif and to do that one would first have to seize the town of Dong Dang. The town itself was the weakest point of defense for the Guangxi army, it held low lying buildings. There were also forts in the villages to the west of Dong Tien, That ke and Pho bu.  Oscar led the men out of Lang Son on February 23rd going up the Mandarin road. Along the way his vanguard reached the village of Tham Lon and the hamlet of Ban Vinh. There they engaged a small group of Guangxi units who were patrolling the area. They quickly fled to warn their forces at Dong Dang of the incoming attack. The French forces had to fight their way up the rest of the Mandarin road, being assaulted on their left and right flanks. The Guangxi army's artillery for once held a distinctive advantage because of the cliff positions and took a toll upon the French. This forced the French to assault multiple hills along the way to neutralize the artillery pieces until they fell upon the western town forts.  Upon seeing the defenses of the Guangxi army, Oscar knew they had to get them off the limestone massif. To attack that though, Dong Dan had to be seized, but to take that without losing half of his men he needed to neutralize the western forts. Oscar began by bombarding the forts with his artillery from a long range. Once the forts were silenced he turned his artillery upon the hills east of the Mandarin road, the idea was simple, he was trying to edge in with his artillery while avoiding as much of the enemy's as possible. By 3pm the western forts and their defenders seemed sufficiently battered, so Oscar ordered Lt Colonel Herbinger to seize them. The Guangxi defender upon seeing the charging French left the forts, opening the path to Dong Dang. The French began bombarding the towns buildings lighting them ablaze and leaving just a small amount of Guangxi units trying to skirmish. Herbinger ordered his men to assault the town and they began to advance over a km of open ground where the Guangxi army artillery atop the summit could fire down upon them. As the French marched towards the outskirts of the town they were met with intense artillery fire and the men hesitated. Their officers leapt from their horses, to push the men out of the firing range and this drove them into a charge of the blazing town. The soldiers charged wildly and disorderly through the town trying to get at the few Chinese skirmishes as their officers barked orders at them, but it was to no avail as the French soldiers were running for their damn lives under intense artillery fire and now the heat of fire from the town itself. The Guangxi skirmishers scared out of their mind fled the town and the French officers eventually regained their mens composure.  From here Herbinger ordered his men to march forward up the slopes towards the massif. They were met with intense artillery fire and men began to fall as they scrambling up the slopes as fast as they could. Despite mounting casualties, the French continued until they hit the most forward trench positions and only when a entire French battalion tossed its strength did the Guangxi defenders give way. The Guangxi army's right wing fell back to That Ke as the French continued towards the summit of the limestone massif. They reached the summit, finally gaining the vantage point and began to fire down upon the enemy near the Mandarin road. Now all that remained was a enemy position northeast of Dong Dang which blocked the advance up the Mandarin road. The French seized a hill due north of Pho Bu and began to use their artillery on it to hit the enemy. Seeing the right flank of the enemy fleeing to That Ke, Oscar ordered two forward companies to pursue them, while others seized the village of Cua Ai and finally the Gate of China. A french battalion reached the Gate of China which was protected by two flanking forts and trenches along the slopes of its neighboring hills. However all the forces allocated to these defensive positions had been moved forward at the offset of battle and when they ran back the French gave them little time to rally. Their lines quickly broke, allowing legionnaires to occupy the Gate of China with relative ease. The rest of the brigade gradually took Cua Ai, the hills east of the Mandarin road and all met up at the Gate of China as the Guangxi army fled to its homeland.  Believe it or not, the French claim to have lost 9 men dead and nearly 50 wounded, during this chaotic battle. The Guangxi army casualties are unknown but were probably in the hundreds. After clearing the Qing forces from Tonkin territory, the French literally blew up the Gate of China on february 25th. The Qing customs building, Tonkin-Guangxi border, were all destroyed. Oscar placed a wooden placard on the ruins inscribing in Chinese the words “'It is not stone walls that protect frontiers, but the faithful execution of treaties' I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The French had kicked the Qing forces finally out of Tonkin, so the war must be over right? One would think so, but there were still some surprises to occur in the undeclared Sino-French War of 1884-1885.

Last time we spoke about the descent into full scale war between the Qing dynasty and France because of the Tonkin campaign. The French sought to annihilate the Black Flag Army, knowing full well it might entice the Qing to war and so it did. The Tonkin campaign saw the battle of Bac Ninh which led to direct confrontation with Qing forces and soon both sides hit the negotiating table. The Tientsin accord was agreed upon, but no set deadline for the Qing withdrawal led to more conflict and it seems full scale war had finally kicked off. Admiral COurbet was ordered to hit Fuzhou and there he smashed the Fujian fleet utterly embarrassing the Qing dynasty leading to panic, chaos and outrage amongst the Chinese people. How will things change going forward now that France had landed a death blow to one of the Qing dynasties fleets? Could the sabers of war be sheathed?   #45 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 2: The Sino-French War at Sea   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. The battle of Fuzhou certainly made a splash. 9 Qing warships were sunk, several others were severely damaged and possibly 2-3 thousand Qing forces were killed. Admiral Courbet then went about the Min River bombarding all the forts and batteries he could before making his exit utterly humiliating the Qing. Now until the battle of Fuzhou the Qing and French were playing footsy under the table when it came to a full scale declared war. Basically everything up until now could be seen as an undeclared war. To give a example of this, think about China and Japan from 1931-1937. They were to be blunt fully at war, but neither side wanted to officially acknowledge it to the international community for a variety of reasons, thus it could be seen as an undeclared war. Here to we see France and the Qing dynasty not wishing to make formal declarations of war, for a variety of reasons. Now while it would remain undeclared, it by no means meant they were not at war.  News of the catastrophe and destruction of the Fujian Fleet were met with public outrage in China. Mobs began to attack foreign concessions, and in Europe the mood was sympathetic to the Chinese cause. The British, Germans and American military's began to extend their hand to the Qing dynasty offering advisers. Perhaps it was less about the Qing plight and more so to stick the middle finger to the French, as one does, but its the thought that counts. Over in Hong Kong, still a colony of the British empire, dock workers began to refuse to repair French warships like La Galissonniere in september of 1884. La Galissonniere had received some hits in August and came in for some work, but a strike occurred in September. Now a large reason for this was Chinese workers refusing to work and by proxy it hindered the British dock workers. Things got dicey and some riots and fights broke out prompting British authorities to deploy forces to defend their dockyards and workers from continuous harassment from Chinese. This by no means was organic by the way, the Qing government were pulling strings of their citizens to cause such conflicts to hinder any aid to France.  Now Admiral Courbet was given orders to smash Fuzhou, which he did, but if the Qing continued their “defiance” he was also ordered to go smash the port of Keelung in northern Formosa, modern day Taiwan. These actions of course were done to push the Qing to get their forces out of Tonkin as pertaining to the Tientsin Accords. Well the Qing were not budging, so Keelung was put on the menu. Admiral Courbet argued vigorously not to launch a campaign against Formosa, and instead to target major ports in the Liaodong region like Port Arthur or Weihaiwei. The French military planners thought these prospects to difficult to hit as the Far East Squadron was not large by any means and Keelung was a much easier target. In mid september the French cabinet after deliberating the issue decided to launch attacks against Keelung and Tamsui. Their rationale in the end was that the towns held nearby coal mines that could be seized to provide the Far East Squadron a wartime base. Thus on October 1st, Lt Colonel Bertaux-Levillain, haha that last name again, landed at Keelung with 2250 men taken from the Tonkin Campaign forces. They were to be called the Formosa Expeditionary Corps. They sailed out of Saigon escorted by the Far East Squadron and came ashore as Courbet's forces bombarded the shore batteries and Qing forces trying to mount a defense. The French casualties as usual were claimed to be small, 4 deaths and 12 wounded while the Qing casualties according to Formosans were around 100 dead and hundreds wounded. The first week of October saw French forces occupying several hills around Keelung and they sent scouts to look at the Pei-tao coal mines.  The imperial commissioner responsible for the defense of Formosa was Liu Mingchuan who could only watch helplessly as the French bombarded 3 shore batteries in the port of Keelung and began to prod the Pei-tao coal mines as his 2000 or so Qing troops were overwhelmed. Now knowing the French would likely hit Tamsui as well he tried to establish better defenses there by planting torpedo mines in the river approach and creating boat and stone barricades. He also armed locals to try and augment his Qing forces. These locals were known as Hakka hillmen and they were armed with primitive matchlock rifles, but despite being undergunned were deemed very brave warriors. Tamsui was protected by two forts west of the city, the White fort and a still under construction Fort neuf. The French were unable to enter the Tamsui River due to the barricade and mines and thus began bombarding the two forts on October 2nd. The forts and warships exchanged fire, but as usual the outdated cannons in the forts were no match and were silenced quickly. Testimony from a Canadian Presbyterian missionary named George Mackey, had to add this one being Canadian myself, who was housed in Tamsui said this of the bombardment. “When the bombarding began we put our little children under the floor of the house, that they might not be alarmed. My wife went out and in during these trying hours. I paced the front of the house with A Hoa, while shot and shell whizzed and burst all around us. One shell struck a part of Oxford College, another a corner of the Girls' School, and still another a stone in front of us, and sent it into mid-air in a thousand atoms. A little to the west of us another went into the ground, gouging a great hole and sending up a cloud of dust and stones. The suction of one, as it passed, was like a sudden gust of wind. Amid the smoke from forts and ships, and the roar and thunder of shot and shell, we walked to and fro, feeling that our God was round about us.” The French bombardment was not very precise and while the two forts had been neutralized, countless shells hit the town and surrounding area endangering civilians. The French followed up the bombardment by landing ashore forces to seize the forts from which they then could begin operations to blow up the mines and barricades in the riverway. Now the Qing defense of the city was led by General Sun Kaihua and General Zhang Gaoyuan. They expected the French to come from the direction of the seized forts and began to set up defensive lines and trenches to meet this. The Far East squadron anchored near the harbour entrance to support the men as they marched. However disaster struck. The men marched and many landed ashore at some beaches, but the sand dunes further inland made it impossible for the ships to see over them to support the mens offensive. As the French marched over the dunes, expected to see large rice paddy field terrain, it was actually thick woods and ditches everywhere. General Sun Kaihua was making great use of the terrain concealing his men everywhere he could and they ambushed the French as they made their way through the brush. The forward French units were thrown into chaos, quickly screaming for backup as General Zhang Gaoyuan sent his forces to smash their left flank. Zhang's men were able to push the French left flank into the main bodies position leading to the firefight extending to the entire French formation. The Qing and French forces were separated by a distance of around 100 meters. While most of the French forces kept the volley system accordingly, many sailor forces too excited by the mayhem began mindlessly firing into the brush wasting ammunition. French officers screamed to stop. General Zhang kept up the momentum by ordering his forces to push the French left flank even further into the main body. Meanwhile General Kaihua motioned forces to hit the French right flank. The entire French frontlines were engulfed in a battle between them and unseen enemies in the brush. After an hour of engagement, 2/3rd of the French ammunition had been used and casualties were mounting. The French commanders ordered the men to make a fighting withdrawal as General Zhang and Sun ordered their men to try and cut off the left and right flanks escape. By midday, the French were in full retreat back to the warships, nearly 1/10 were wounded, many dead. It was estimated the French had 17 deaths and 49 wounded. Captain Garnot of the formosa expeditionary corps had this to say about the failed attack, “There is no doubt that the main reason for the repulse was that the landing force was too small, but poor tactics also played their part. There was no vanguard to cover the advance of the line of battle. The firing line advanced without a preliminary reconnaissance into difficult terrain, under fire from Chinese snipers who were well dug-in and protected. Confusion and lack of direction was evident in the conduct of the battle. The courage and dash shown by our officers and sailors, who had not been trained for a land battle, cannot conceal the fact that we opened fire in a disorderly manner; that the reserves came up to join the line of battle prematurely, without orders; and that our troops lost our heads, firing wildly at the enemy and using up their ammunition in a few minutes. Infantry tactics cannot simply be improvised, as our landing companies learned by bitter experience.” Later on 6 French soldiers had their heads placed in the Tamsui markets, allegedly done by the Hakka hillsmen. The French commanders sent word to General Sun demanding they be buried. The French defeat at Tamsui heavily bolstered the hardliners back in the Qing court. The court convened in late october and Empress Dowager Cixi decided the undeclared war against France would continue until France agreed to withdraw their indemnity demands for the Bac Le ambush. The Qing relayed peace terms on November 5th, but they included some major demands such as outright canceling the Tientsin Accord; having France abandon their protectorateship over Annam and Tonkin and allowing the Qing to continue to occupy Lang Son, Lao Cai an Cao Bang. The mediator between the Qing and France, British foreign secretary Lord Granville said of the terms “the Chinese terms are those from a victor to the vanquished” and he promptly refused to even transmit them to France. Because of the setback the French were only able to enforce a limited blockade of the northern portion of Formosa as the Formosa expeditionary corps awaited further reinforcements. In January of 1885 command over the corps was handed over to Colonel Jacques Duchesne who augmented them with two additional battalions bringing a total strength of around 4000 men. However also because of the Qing victory, Liu Mingchuan was augmented by over 25,000 reinforcements taken from the Xiang and Anhui armies, the veteran troops of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang.  As grand as the ground forces boost was to Formosa, on the naval front things were entirely different. The Nanyang Fleet asked for some warships of the Beiyang Fleet to augment their strength to fight the French, but the commander of the Beiyang Fleet, Li Hongzhang himself denied the request. Again, none of the fleet commanders wished to risk any of their advanced ships to face the French and the commanders adamantly did not want other commanders to use their ships for that matter. This created a major divide in the fleet. The northern fleets and southern fleets refused to cooperate and in fact did a lot to oppose another. For example, the French Navy would obviously be operating more so in the southern sea, thus one would imagine the Qing would focus their overwhelming naval strength there. However the northern fleets would hinder this greatly by draining southern China of resources, warships and of course sailors who they began to enlist en masse. This all led to the benefit of the French Navy. Meanwhile the Far East squadron was receiving reinforcements beginning in 1884 and by february of 1885 was a lot stronger. Now in mid January of 1885, the Nanyang Fleet was ordered to try and relieve the French naval blockade of Formosa. On January 18th, the cruisers Nanchen, Kaiji, Nanrui, frigate Yuyuan and sloop Chengqing departed Shanghai for Formosa. The commanding admiral was Wu Ankang and he was supposed to receive additional aid in the form of the Chaoyong, Yangwei of the Nanyang fleet and two cruisers from the Beiyang fleet, but like I said, Li Hongzhang refused to release them and instead diverted them to Korea where Yuan Shikai was busy quelling the Gapsin coup. Admiral Wu's group sailed south hesitantly, fearing an actual engagement. In fact Admiral Wu had hoped by just publicizing the fact his force was enroute to Formosa would lead the French to pull out. When this failed to occur, Wu literally turned his ships around high, tailing it for the port of Ningbo. However the French had received word of the sortie and literally leapt at the chance of engaging such an enemy. Admiral Courbet sailed out of Keelung's water with the ironclads Bayard, Triumphant, cruisers Duguay-Trouin, Eclairuer, Nielly, gunboat Aspic and the troopship Saone. The French were not exactly certain where to find the enemy and first looked into the mouth of the Min River in early February. Not finding the enemy, the French then sailed north along the Chinese coast. On February 8th, Courbet's force were running low on coal so he was forced to dispatch the Duguay-Trouin back to Keelung. On the 10th the French squadron reached Chusen island and by the 11th they entered the Yangtze river scaring the batteries at Wusong, but still no sight of the enemy fleet. The French then received word from Qing newspapers that they had actually passed the Qing fleet on their way north and that they were near Sanmen Bay. Courbet immediately set sail south and by the 13th entered Shipu Bay where they caught sight of the Qing fleet. The French immediately bore down upon their enemy as the Qing took up a V formation led by Admiral Wu's flagship Kaiji. The French were exhilarated upon seeing the Qing formation coming right at them primed for a battle and then as the Qing closed in they suddenly broke formation and scattered. 3 Qing cruisers fled south, with Courbet offering pursuit while the Yuyuan and Chengqing fled further into Shipu bay. According to American naval officer L. C Arlington who was aiding the Nanyang Fleet he said “Admiral Wu had a personal grudge against the captains of the Yuyuan and Chengqing and deliberately tried to sacrifice them to save the rest of his flotilla”. The Qing cruisers were faster and thus outran their French counterpart, leading Courbet to turn right back around to hunt the Yuyuan and Chengqing. On the night of the 14th, the French sent torpedo launches under the cover of darkness which got with 100 meters to the two ships before they were spotted. The Qing began to use rifle fire against the small boats as the French crews frantically tried to spar torpedo the Yuyuans hull successfully crippling her. One French sailor died to rifle fire as they made their escape. Arlington was actually aboard the Yuyuan that night and had this to say about the event as he witnessed the spar torpedo hit and a shell lobbed at the nearby Chengqing. “The scene that now occurred almost beggars description. Some tried to lower the boats, some rushed between decks to try and save their possessions, many jumped overboard into the sea. It was, in fact, everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost. When I had time to realise what had really happened, a strange scene was unrolled before me. Just ahead of us lay the little Ching-ching slowly settling down beneath the waters; she had been attacked by the same torpedo boat that had sunk us. Our own ship was gradually sinking, her guns just level with the water's edge. Along the shore and in the water about us were seamen, soldiers, chickens, ducks, geese and baggage of every description. The fault rested entirely with the Chinese—even at the last moment, had they made any attempt to repel the torpedo boat they might have warded off the catastrophe, and possibly sunk the enemy instead. No such attempt was made, and the French escaped scot-free” The next morning the French scouted the bay finding the two Qing warships had sunk. Admiral Courbet continued to hunt for the wandering Nanyang fleet and on February 25th received orders to implement a “rice blockade”. This was to be a naval blockade against the sea transport of rice to Shanghai. By the 28th, Courbets squadron made it to Zhenhai bay enroute to Shanghai where he received reports  the Nanyang fleet was hiding in the bay. He hunted until march 1st until at long last he found some Qing warships and low and behold it was the 3 cruisers of Admiral Wu Ankang. Alongside the 3 cruisers were 4 other ships, the sloop Chaowu, wooden transport Yuankai and 2 gunboats. The entrance to the bay was likewise filled with sunken chinese junks blocking it. Courbet performed a reconnaissance with one of his ships, the Nielly which was met with Chinese shore battery fire and a few of the Chinese warships. The Nielly was nearly hit a few times, but managed to perform the survey and return to her squadron.  Courtbet met with his fellow officers and came to the conclusion attacking the Nanyang fleet within range of their harbor defenses was too large a risk to take. Instead he elected to perform a naval blockade of Zhenhai Bay. For over a month, a few ships of the Far East Squadron at any given time held the blockade, thus forcing over 7 Nanyang fleet warships to be stuck in the bay and useless to the war. The French claim this was a strategic victory, but the Qing saw it as a defensive victory for themselves, because of the thwarting of the Nielly from their point of view. Our American friend Arlington gives a colorful account of what occurred. According to Arlington, when Admiral Wu Ankang's 3 warships showed up to Zhenhai Bay, the authorities there begged him to leave so the French would not attack them all. Instead Wu threatened to take his ships up the Ningbo river to leave them high and dry to fight the French off by themselves. When the French appeared in front of Zhenhai bay the authorities demanded Wu sail out to attack the French using the 7 warships available, but he refused to do so. Arlington states that was a wise decision, because they would have been annihilated. While the blockade was going on, Britain officially closed off Hong Kong and other held concessions from the Far East Squadron to hinder them. The French in return upheld their rice blockade strategy against the Yangtze River, hoping to start out northern China. As far as the great battles of the sea were concerned that would actually be the end of it for the most part.  Now taking a look back to the land campaigns, after the naval battle of Fuzhou, Empress Dowager Cixi had given the greenlight for the undeclared war to kick off. This resulted in Qing forces from Guangxi and Yunnan provinces to advance into Tonkin to give battle with the French. General Millot's health took a turn for the worse and he submitted his resignation back in September of 1884, his last order of the day had describing himself as quote “a sick and disappointed man”. He was relieved by General Louis Briere de L'isle which greatly annoys me as I now will have to narrate that entire name each time haha. Little known fact I am married to a Quebecois woman who is throwing up hearing my anglo ass narrate so many french terms and names. Briere de L'isle's first task was to thwart the Qing forces invading the Red River Delta system. By late september a large Guangxi Army were advancing from LangSon into the Luc Nam Valley and managed to ambush two grinch gunboats, the Massue and Hache on October 2nd. They managed to kill one officer and injured 32 men, but the ambush did give up the element of surprise. French scouts reported 3 large groups of Qing forces: one around the village of Kep along the Mandarin road; one at Bao Loc; and one at Chu in the upper valley of the Luc Nam River. Briere de L'ilse deployed General Oscar de Negrier with 3000 troops to hit the Luc Nam Valley before the Qing could concentrate their forces. The Guangxi force was led by Generals Wang Debang and Pan Dingxin, two officers who were part of the Bac le ambush. The forces at Kep were led by Fang Yusheng and Zhou Shouchang while the forces at Chu were led by Su Yuanchun and Chen Jia. General Oscar transported his forces using gunboats to quickly hit the separate forces before they could consolidate. Oscar would lead men to his Kep with the bulk of his troops while his subordinate Lt Colonel Donnier took a column to hit Chu. Once Oscar had won at Kep he would then either help at Chu or move on to hit Bao Loc. On October 8th, Oscar's men smashed the forces at Kep sending them fleeing, and quickly got back to his gunboats to join Donnier at Chu. The battle of Kep saw the French losing 32 killed and 61 wounded and claiming to have inflicted 1600 casualties upon the Qing. This meant Donnier could be patient and await the reinforcements before seriously engaging the enemy at Chu, but on October the 10th his men were drawn into a bloody two day battle at Chu. Donnier was victorious, though it was a costly one, he had 21 deaths and 92 wounded while claiming to have killed 100 Qing and wounded a few hundred.  After these two victories, the Qing fell back to Bac le and Dong Song while the French consolidated their positions at Kep and Chu by reinforcing them with a total of 7200 soldiers and 4500 coolies. While Briere de l'ilse was consolidated and supplying his forces at Chu and Kep he also began ordering resupply missions to the outposts of Tuyen Quang, Thai Nguyen and Hung Hoa. The outposts were being continuously harassed by Liu Yongu's Black Flags and the invading Yunnan forces. These more isolated outposts began seeing attacks from the Yunnan army beginning on october 12th and by the end of the month the garrison at Tuyen Quang saw 170 of its 550 men unfit for duty.  Throughout october the French gunboats were trying their best to resupply the outposts, but the Black Flag Army occupied Yu Oc, which was between Tuyen Quang and Hung Hoa, thus cutting it off. By early november the French knew the lack of supplies getting through was becoming dangerous. The gunboat crews were continuously sniped at causing many fatalities. This led Briere de L'isle to launch at attack to dislodge the Black Flags at Yu Oc, while simultaneously making a resupply run for Tuyen Quang. Lt Colonel Jacques Duchesne was sent with roughly 700 men to take a small flotilla of junks escorted by 4 gunboats to land 7 kms above Yu Oc. The troops landed on november 18th and spent the day marching to Yu Oc, never seeing the enemy. At dawn on the 19th, the vanguard of the French column began to come under fire, but they could not pinpoint the enemy's location as a result of the deep bush. Duchesne ordered the front units to fan out a bit and they quickly found a Qing forward line of defense. For two hours a firefight ensued as the Qing gradually prodded different parts of the French column. At 10am a forward French legionnaire companies found a Qing fort that was firing down upon the French vanguard force. The legionnaires fixed bayonets and charge the fort coming out of a ravine. The Qing defenders fled their defenses before the French could surround them disappearing into the bush. The fighting continued on with the French gradually pushing forward until they found a citadel. The French quickly neutralized the citadel and thus the way to Tuyen Quang was opened again for resupply. The fighting cost the French 10 dead with 37 wounded, for the Black Flags and Yunnan forces the losses were estimated to be much higher. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. The French had basically won the war at sea, but the land forces had to fight bitterly against the Black Flag, Vietnamese and Qing forces in Tonkin. Would the French be able to push the Qing and Black Flags out of Tonkin to claim it for themselves?

Last time we spoke about the beginning of the Tonkin campaign of 1883-1886. Henri Riviere picked up after Garnier and got himself killed on the Paper bridge. In the face of a unauthorized and failed Tonkin Campaign, that should have been the nail in the coffin. But a new administration took hold in France and they were certainly more gung-ho about colonizing southeast asia. General Bouet picked up after Riviere, but he was met with some failure and uninspiring victories. He quit his job and it fell to Admiral Courbet to continue France's campaign to take all of Tonkin. However to defeat the Black Flag Army of Liu Yongfu was a tricky thing as the Qing were covertly supporting them. France had to decide if she would continue, for if she did it might mean another war against the Qing dynasty.   #44 The Sino-French War of 1884-1885 part 1: Battle of Fuzhou   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Admiral Courbet just received reinforcements in the form of 10,000 men, 6 gunboats and orders to attack Liu Yongfu and the Black Flag regardless of how it might drag the Qing dynasty into war. The Black Flag Army had set up camp in the fortified city of Son Tay which lay a few km's south of the red river. The city fort was in a pentagonal formation with walls 11 feet high, surrounded by a deep moat and within the center was a citadel. The french scouts estimated the fort had well over 100 cannons, this was not going to be a walk in the park as they say.  Liu Yongfu and the Black Flag Army knew the French would approach Son Tay from the east using their gunboats along the Red River. This was because the Black Flat had hired european engineers in advance to convert the town north of Son Tay blocking its approach into a impregnable strongpoint. Large dykes, water filled ditches, bamboo palisades and trenches surrounded it and offered the Black Flag Army extremely well positioned defensive lines. Thus to take a northern route meant the French would have to take Phu Sa. Liu Yongfu had roughly 3000 veteran Black Flag soldiers , 7000 local vietnamese troops led by Prince Hoang Ke Viem and an additional 1000 Qing troops led by Tang Zhiong. Hoang Ke Viem's men manned the citadel, Tang Zhiong's were inside the city and the walls and field were Black Flag Army's responsibility.  On the other side, Admiral Courbet deployed 9000 of his men for the campaign against Son Tay, distributed into two columns led by Colonel Belin and Bichot. Belin would lead 3300 men consisting of 2 Turco battalions, 1 marine battalion, some Cochinchinese riflemen, 1 foreign legion battalion, 3 marine artillery batteries and 800 Tonkinese rifleman. Bichot's group consisted of 3 marine battalions, some Cochinchinese riflemen, a fusilier-marins battalion and 3 artillery batteries. Both columns departed from Hanoi on December 11th. Bichot's group were transported up the Red River by the 6 gunboats and made it ashore on the western bank of the Day River, where they secured a pathway for Belin's column to march. By December 13th both columns met up 5 km's away from the forward defensive lines of Son Tay. On December 14th the French advanced from the east towards the Phu Sa positions, beating back some Black Flag sorties against their flanks. They opened fire with their artillery for 2 hours upon the Phu Sa gun placements. Then 2 forward battalions seized the most forward defensive position at Phu Sa, but from there they found no way to keep pushing forward. During this action the French had 68 men dead and around 250 wounded. Thus in a single day Courtbet had lost more men that Bouet or Riviere in all their battles put together.  Liu Yongfu hoped to exploit the French losses by ordering a night raid. This however turned into a disaster and not only did he loss many men to the combat, others began to abandon Phu Sa, fleeing for Son Tay. On the 16th Courbet ordered the men to try and prod Son Tay from the northwest. The French artillery softened up the defense before Coubet personally rode out to the forward position well within the Black Flag Army's fire range. Courbet led the men to attack the western gate of Son Tay which was demolished by artillery and explosives. Li Yongfu's men quickly withdrew into the citadel as the French stormed into the city. By this point it seems Liu Yongfu knew it was too dangerous to defend the city so he ordered his men to evacuate under the cover of darkness. The French had suffered 83 deaths and a few hundred wounded while the Black Flag were estimated to have nearly 1000 killed and another 1000 wounded if French sources are ever to be believed. The Vietnamese and Chinese troops had evacuated well in advance of the French storming the city and thus played only a minor role in the battle. Now the terrible losses the Black Flag did incur had significant consequences going forward. Liu Yongfu felt his men had intentionally been tossed to the lions by the Chinese and Vietnamese and he determined going forward that he would not again expose his army so openly. Liu Yongfu took his army from Son Tay over to Bac Ninh. Now at this point Admiral Courbet officially handed command of the land forces over to General Charles Thoedore Millot. Millot would take command of the 10,000 man force which included 2 Brigade commanders who had recently made their marks so to say in history. General Louis Briere de L'isle, the former governor of Senegal commanded the 1st brigade and the 2nd brigade was commanded by Foreign Legion general Francois de Negrier who had quelled an Arab rebellion in Algeria.  Now in Bac Ninh the 3000 strong Black Flag Army would have very powerful allies. The Qing governor of Guangxi province, Xu Yanxu was commanding over 20,000 Qing forces with his subordinates Zhao Wo and Huang Guilan. The soldiers were veterans of the Anhui and Xiang armies, ie; Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan's old forces. Half of the Qing forces were deployed along the Mandarin Road southwest of Bac Ninh and the other half were deployed east of Bac Ninh along the Trun son and Dap Cau mountains. General Millot gave each brigade two marching regiments each containing roughly 3 infantry battalions a piece. The 4 commanders of each regiment were Colonels Defoy, Belin, Duchesne and Bertaux-Levillain, interesting last name there haha. Now despite the numerical superiority, the Chinese forces were quite demoralized and Liu Yongfu intentionally was going to keep his Black Flag units out of the real fray of danger, and these factors came out to play in the battle.  The two brigades were to approach Bac Ninh from two different locations: the first brigade would depart from Hanoi and the 2nd brigade from Hai Duong. Millot's primary objective was to capture Bac Ninh, but he also hoped to annihilate the Qing forces in the process. To manage this he planned to seize some river crossing around Bac Ninh so the Qing forces would be unable to escape. These crossing were found north of Bac Ninh at Dap Cau and Phu Cam which led to Lang Son and Thai Nguyen respectively. On March 6th, the 1st brigade were ferried from Hanoi up the Red River to land just due south of some Qing defensive lines along the Mandarin Road. On land the 1st brigade marched  along the northern bank to head southeast of Bac Ninh to a village called Chi. Meanwhile the 2nd brigade advanced from Hai Duong going along the southern bank to Song Cau where they attacked some Qing forward positions at Do Son and Ne Ou. While the 2nd brigade met the enemy on land, their gunboat support went around behind the Qing lines close to Phu Lang to begin bombarding them. Upon seeing the French gunboats positioning, the Qing forward units made a withdrawal to Bac Ninh. This allowed the 2nd brigade to occupy some minor forts and gradually move towards Chi to meet up with the 1st brigade. The 2 brigades united and advanced upon Bac Ninh by March 12th. Forces of the 1st brigade pushed the Qing out of Trung Son while forces of the 2nd brigade seized the village of Xuan Hoa. The Qing made little resistance at these outpost, basically abandoning them when the French came into visual proximity. Then at 4pm the 2nd brigade alongside their gunboat support attacked Dap Cau just east of Bac Ninh. The arrival of the French at Dap Cau threatened the Qing's left defensive lines. The Qing's escape routes to Lang Son were being severed off by the seizure of Xuan Hoa, Lang Buoi and now Dap Cau. Thus the only concern the Qing commanders were thinking of was how to quickly withdraw their men to Lang Son before the roads were completely cut off. The Qing resistance began to collapse as a result, morale had dropped and many were routing. The French regimental commanders saw the Qing's left flank were breaking and believed they could encircle a large part of the Qing forces. At 5pm the French commanders noticed the Qing flag still flew atop the citadel tower at Bac Ninh, but between the city, Dap Cau and Trung Son all that could be seen was fleeing Qing soldiers. The 2nd brigade attacked Bac Ninh the next morning, capturing large sums of ammunition and curiously enough fully functioning modern Krupp artillery pieces that looked so pristine, they figured none had even fired a shot. Without waiting for the 1st brigade to come from Trung Son, the 2nd brigade forced their way into the city of Bac Ninh. In the meantime the efforts to encircle the fleeing Qing had been thwarted by tenacious rearguard actions by Qing forces fighting out of Dap Cau. Thus the majority of the Qing forces were able to escape north along the banks of the Song Cau river. While the Qing fled the French gunboats bombarded them inflicting heavy casualties.  General Millot was nowhere near done trying to trap the escaping Qing forces and send his two brigades after them. The 1st brigade pursued the enemy as far as Thai Nguyen where they inflicted casualties upon the Qing, Vietnamese and Black Flag forces until march 19th. The 2nd brigade annihilated a Qing rearguard force at Phu Lang Thuong and chased a large portion of the Qing right flank as they went to a town called Kep. Millot then called his two brigades to return to Bac Ninh by March 24th. The French state they had 9 deaths and 39 wounded while claiming to have killed 100 enemy units and a few hundred wounded.  The defeat of the Qing forces was an enormous embarrassment for the Qing dynasty and thus for its true leader, Empress Dowager Cixi. The Qing court and people of China met the news with shock, mostly because they had heard that for a few months the Black Flag Army had managed to inflict heavy casualties upon the French, but their professional forces had utterly failed. Empress Dowager Cixi in her rage punished several Qing officials, such as the governors of Guangxi and Yunnan, Xu Yanxu and Tang Qiong. Both men were dismissed from their posts, meanwhile the field commanders at the battle of Bac Ninh, General Huang Guilan and Zhao Wu were disgraced. Huang Guilan committed suicide at Lang Son on March 14th as a result of his shame while some of his chief of staff, Chen Degui and Dang Minxuan were beheaded in front of their troops at Lang Son on May 26th.  Now before the major losses, the Qing court had been debating the issue of whether or not they should wage a undeclared or declared war against France or keep out of Vietnam completely. The leader of the moderates was Li Hongzhang who sought diplomacy while the leader of the hardliners was Zhang Zhidong who continuously called for full-scale war. After losing Son Tay and now Bac Ninh, Empress Dowager Cixi began to see no other way to solve the situation than diplomacy and thus Zhang Zhidong lost favor and Li Hongzhang won it. Cixi ordered Li Hongzhang to begin talks, which would occur at Tianjin with Captain Francois-Ernest Fournier. The French demanded China withdraw her forces from Vietnam and respect Frances protectorate over Annam and Tonkin. This would mean China was officially relinquishing its suzerainty over Vietnam, which they capitulated. The result was the Tientsin accord of May 11th 1884.  To follow this up, 3 weeks later the new French Minister to China Jules Patenotre negotiated a revised treaty of Saigon. It was called the Treaty of Hua, done between France and the Nguyen dynasty which officiated the protecorateship of Annam and Tonkin. In essence it was the stepping stone to simply making Vietnam a colonial possession of France. The treaty was signed on June 6th of 1884 and followed up by a symbolic show where the French melted down a seal that was given to the previous Nguyen Emperor Gia Long by the Qing emperor. Now while the treaty of Hue and the Tientsin Accord should have ended all the conflict, well it did not. No it seems, Mr. Fournier was a bit of a moron when it came to diplomacy and he royally messed up with the Tientsin Accord. The crucial mess up was, while the accord stated the Qing had to withdraw their forces from Vietnam, it never stated a deadline. The French began to demand the Qing withdraw immediately, while the Qing argued they could not withdraw until all minor articles of the said Tientsin Accord were not concluded. Long story short it was a paradox of a situation and the Qing were simply using the accord's other minor issues to maintain their forces where they were. The entire situation was met with uproar from the Chinese public, and this bolstered Zhang Zhidong and the hardliners against Li Hongzhang who began calling for his impeachment. Now as much as I love Li Hongzhang, he sort of messed up during the Tientsin Accord agreement. He hinted to the French the Qing withdrawal would occur, but that it might see a few snags, this was verbally done of course. Thus the French assumed and it was a he said she said type of situation that the Qing forces would immediately withdraw and of course they didn't.  Thus on the ground, in early June a French force led by Lt Colonel Alphonse Dugene advanced to seize the cities of Cao Bang, That Khe and Lang Son. His forces formed a long column starting at Phu Lang Thuong as they advanced along the Mandarin Road heading to Lang Son, Phu Xuyen, Kep and Cau Son by June 15th. The march was grueling, it was extremely hot and some flooding made their way difficult as they had to continuously build bridges. They were forced to set up camp around Cau Son and a smaller town called Bac Le for a few days and when they continued their march they began to realize they were being watched by scouts. They sent out advance patrol parties and some of these were fired upon, but they had no way of knowing who was attacking them. It could be Nguyen forces, Qing forces, Black Flags or simple bandits for all they knew. Dugenne intended to continue nonetheless and by June 22nd they were on their way to Lang Son. At this point Dugennes men came up to a river and on the other side were Qing troops. Neither side fired upon another, and Dugenne figured they were stragglers from the Qing forces that fought at Bac Ninh. Thinking they would not oppose him he gave orders to cross the river, but little did he know, on the other side were 4600 Qing soldiers armed with modern arms like rapid-firing Remington rifles. Now both sides were well aware of the Tientsin Accord, but back in China, all the bickering against Li Hongzhang led to no official orders for the men to withdraw from Tonkin. In fact their regimental commander, Wang Debang's last orders were to hold their positions. On June 23rd, an advance guard led by Captain Lecomte crossed the river as some Qing infantry began to take up defensive positions on a hill 250 meters behind the river. The French went over the river unmolested, but as soon as they landed on the other side all hell broke loose. The Qing fired intentionally over their heads to scare them off, but Lecomte reacted by ordering his men to begin flanking the Qing. The French troops charged up the hill as the Qing pulled back, allowing the rest of the French forces to cross the river by 11am. Meanwhile a few hours prior, around 9am, three Qing envoys showed up to Dugenne with letters. The letters were from the Qing commanders in the field explaining to Dugenne, while they understood the Tientsin Accord articles, their officials' last orders were to hold their position so they were in quite a pickle. They requested Dugenne send a message back to Hanoi to seek further instructions.  Now Dugenne should have complied with this, but instead he sent word back to the Qing commanders at 3pm stating he would continue his march up the Mandarin road. Allegedly Dugenne did this because he assumed the Qing would just pull to the side and allow his force to pass. Dugenne gave orders to his men not to open fire explicitly unless he ordered them to do so and they marched. For quite some time the march went unmolested until the French were going around the Nui Dong Nai cliffs. Suddenly the Qing forces who had been shadowing the French column open fire upon both their flanks. The French vanguard deployed as best as they could as Dugenne tried to order a bugler to sound a ceasefire call, but it was to no avail. The Qing sounded their own bugles ordered more men to join the battle forcing Dugenne to plan a defense. Now Dugenne was leading 450 French troops and 350 Tonkinese auxiliaries, and to add insult to injury many of his forces were not veteran troops. His men formed a square formation, digging trenches and by the late afternoon had repelled multiple attacks and led some minor counter attacks. During the night the Qing brought forward more forces occupying the heights surrounding the French and in the morning attacked all sides of the French square. Dugenne made several counterattacks, but without significant numbers nor artillery support he knew they would soon be encircled and annihilated. By 11am he ordered a withdrawal to Song Thuong, abandoning the baggage trains and fighting each step they took. Despite the intense situation, the officers managed to keep the men orderly, and the withdrawal was done effectively. General Millot received word of Dugennes plight on June 23rd and immediately dispatched the 2nd brigade to save them. The 2nd brigade reached Dugenne's column near Bac Le on the 27th and set to make a counterattack to repel the Qing forces back to Song Thuong. However just as General Negrier was about to issue orders he received word from Millot ordering him to get everyone back to Hanoi at once. The French had suffered 22 deaths and 70 wounded during the ambush and allege they inflicted 300 casualties upon the Qing. News of what was called the Bac Le Ambush reached France prompting Jules Ferry's government to demand a apology in the form of indemnity payments and immediate implementation of the Tientsin accord from China. The Qing sought to further negotiate, but refused to apologize or pay an indemnity. Negotiations began again, but the mood in both France and China was pure outrage and the sabers of war were rattling. While negotiations were still going on the French government sent orders to Admiral Courbet to take his recently established Far East Squadron to give battle to the Qing navy at Fuzhou.  Admiral Courbet's Far East Squadron during late August consisted of 13 ships only a fraction of what it would be a bit later on; He had 5 ironclads on hand though they were all over the place performing missions, there was Bayard his flagship, Sharp, Atalante, Trimphanate and La Galissonniere. He also had cruisers Duguay-Trouin, Villars, D'Estaing, Volta, gunboats Lynx, Aspic, Vipere and two torpedo boats. The Qing Fujian Fleet had 11 western style ships and 11 chinese war junks in the region. The Qing flagship was the wooden corvette Yangwu, followed by scourt-transports: Fupo, Ji'an, Yongbao, Chenhang, Yixin, wooden gunboats: Zhenwei, Fuxiang, Jianshen and Fusheng and 12 Chinese war junks. In terms of crews the French would have 1780 vs 1040 for the Qing. In terms of firepower the French were overwhelming better armed with the Qing having only a few ships that were capable of return fire. Overall command for the Qing was led by imperial commissioner Zhang Peilun. Admiral Courbet arrived at the Fuzhou anchored near the port of Fuzhou on August 22nd, observing the Qing fleet deployed with a northern group of 8 ships and a southern group of 3 ships. Courtbet placed his squadron between these clusters and observed his enemy. The Qing ships were seen to swing with the tides, prompting Courbet to plan for his attack to commence at the top of the tide roughly around 2pm the next day. He deduced the Qing ships would swing away from his fleet presenting their vulnerable sterns. The Qing northern group seemed to be protecting her dockyards while the southern group seemed to be protecting a customs building. Assuming the Qing would not change their formations, Courbet hoped to begin battle at 2pm with his torpedo boats first then cannon fire by the rest. The next day, neither side made any attempt to redeploy or mess with the other and by 1:30pm the French crews were preparing for battle. The Qing seemingly did nothing upon witnessing the French clearly preparing their ships for a fight by 1:45pm, but at 1:55pm Qing mineboats began advancing towards the French ships. Courbet immediately raised flags for attack commencement, 5 minutes before the expected timetable. Torpedo boat no.46 surged forward hitting the Yangwu with a Spar Torpedo. For those of you who don't know what this is, picture a extremely long pole poking infront of your ship with a bomb on its end. The idea is quite simple you rush head first towards an enemy ship jab the pointed pole at the hull of a ship and detonate the bomb on the end using a fuse. Takes a lot of balls to pull this off to be sure. The bomb damaged Torpedo # 46's boiler and ruptured the hull of Yangwu. Meanwhile Torpedo boat #45 tried to do the same action to Fupo which was less successful in her venture.  As the two torpedo boats made their daring escapes under fire the French cruisers and ironclad Triomphante began opening fire. The Yongbao, Feiyun, Fushen, Jiansheng, Ji'an and Chenhang were lit ablaze or sunk from shellfire. Only the Fupo and Yixin survived the onslaught, forced to flee upriver as they were chased by the gunboats, Lynx, Vipere and Aspic. The Zhenwei received a shell hit from Triomphante causing a large explosion. Before the carnage had unfolded, the Qing had concentrated their fire upon the Volta, which Courtbet was forced to use as his Flagship as the Bayard did not make it in time for battle. The Qing clearly did this in order to kill Courtbet hoping it would be a decisive victory. Several crew aboard the Volta were killed or wounded, a roundshot smashed through her bridge nearly killing the captain Gigon. By 5pm the fighting had died down, but during the night the Qing made several unsuccessful fireship attacks. The next day Courbet ordered his ships to land some companies ashore to set up explosives to destroy the Fuzhou dockyards, but upon seeing the Qing left infantry to defend them was forced to cancel the plans. Instead he had his fleet begin bombarding the dockyards and outer buildings, but was unable to completely destroy the yards. The ships stayed at anchor another day as the Qing attempted a night torpedo attack as the gunboat Vipere who was anchored on the outside of the formation. Searchlights picked up the torpedo attempts and they were fired upon until they gave up. On August the 25th, Courbet took his forces down the Min River with Triomphante and Duguay-Trouin leading the way. For two days he had his forces bombard some Qing shore batteries defending the approach to Fuzhou followed by forts at the Jinpai pass. In the end the French had 10 deaths, 48 wounded due mostly to sniper fire with two ships receiving light damage. The Qing lost 9 ships completely with the others running aground, severely burnt or damaged in various other ways. The estimated death toll was estimated to be between 2000-3000. The Qing put up a memorial shortly after the war commemorating a list of 831 sailors and soldiers killed on the 23rd, but the list does not include deaths incurred during the Min River voyage. The captain of the flagship Yangwu, had abandoned his ship prematurely and was beheaded later for cowardice. Countless men lost their jobs, like the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang He Jing, the governor of Fujian Zhang Zhaotong and the director general of the Fuzhou dock yard He Ruzhang. Zhang Peilun who made no significant effort to direct the Fujian Fleet was degraded and replaced by our old friend General Zuo Zongtang.  The battle of Fuzhou, put simply was a shitshow for the Qing. There were numerous factors that led to the humiliating defeat. A major factor was Germany making excuses not to send the new Dingyuan and Zhenyuan over in time. Also the Fujian Fleet received absolutely zero help from the other fleets despite Zhang Peilun pleading for help from the Beiyang Fleet, Nanyang Fleet and Guangdong fleet, even with direct orders from Empress Dowager Cixi in hand. These fleets all had respective commanders who were loathe to see any of their assets damaged and thus held back. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. Incompetency and corruption led to a huge loss at the battle of Fuzhou. Now the Qing dynasty had really gotten herself into a mess and a full scale war with France was only beginning and about to get a whole lot worse.

When I published short series on John Chrysostom on the NNH of the faith series, I got hearty approval from my Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic friends. Remember, they venerate our friend John. But then Dax, the Greek Orthodox deacon, issued a challenge for me. He told me that it is traditional for every Orthodox church to preach a John Chrysostom sermon every Easter, so he challenged me to publish this message for all my Protestant listeners so that we can appreciate the richness of John's ministry. Challenge accepted. In the midst of this dramatic and dark series of the French Wars, I give you John's Easter, or rather Paschal Sermon. Here is the Sermon:https://www.oca.org/fs/sermons/the-paschal-sermon

When an opera is based on badly told history, you know Anna and Krista will call bullshit. That's just what they do as they review Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, loosely based on the events arround the French Wars of Religion. They also give you the lowdown on the BSO's 2023-24 season and give some love to the people of East Palestine, Ohio.

When King Charles VI of France suffered from severe mental illness, a council ruled in his place. And on that council was his brother, Louis of Orleans, and his uncle, Philip of Burgundy. As they vied for power, their rivalry would turn bloody, and ultimately, set France on the path to Civil War. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Merch! — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who is the "Serpent Queen?"Was she really "snakelike" or  wicked, was she even French? So… Catherine de Medici, a wicked Queen, a weak Pawn.  Either way, she is on the chessboard.  As we  explore the Italian woman that took 16th century France by storm, I want to reiterate the point that much of her role, influence, and legacy is subject to the text you read.  Some regard her as the actor, few others foolishly discard her to the margins.  Key Topics:  French Wars of Religion, Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Henry of Navarre, War of the Three Henrys, Queen Catherine de MediciRegular listeners, this one is a re-release, but it never hurts to go back and listen before yet another history dramady premiers! Support the show here and get access to all sorts of bonus content:https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=trueBe sure to follow me on Facebook at "Drinks with Great Minds in History" & Follow the show on Instagram @drinkswithgreatminds_podcastMusic:Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3845-hall-of-the-mountain-kingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Artwork by @Tali Rose... Check it out!Support the show

Part 2 in our series on the Wars of Religion. This episode looks at the French Wars of Religion, also known as the French Civil War, and looks at how a new monarch, Henry IV of France will put the interest of the state and his power above religious concerns. Do you want to get that 5?  Enter code “GO4FIVE” at checkout for 25% OFF the Lyndeurozone Online Resources! Online access expires June 15th, 2023. Lyndeurozone.com  Patreon If you use this podcast regularly would you please consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as a dollar a month?  The Euro Simplified Podcast has no advertising revenue and is produced by a public school teacher.  We love and appreciate our supporters on Patreon as our supporters help us meet the costs associated with the production of this free resource for students. Episodes will be released on the following schedule: Unit 1 and Unit 2 - August/September Unit 3: October Unit 4: November Unit 5: November and December Unit 6: January Unit 7: Late January & February Unit 8 : March Unit 9: April If you have any questions you can contact Robert Lynde at Lyndeurozone.com. Instagram: @Lyndeurozone

Today on the Almanac, Dan tells the story of the assassination of Henry III, the King of France, during the French Wars of Religion. #OTD #1517 #churchhistory — SHOW NOTES are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac GIVE BACK: Support the work of 1517 today CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (gillespie.media).

Samuel de Champlain's days of exploration were over, he had built up New France along the St.Lawrence into a profitable enterprise requiring constant management. Helene, his reluctant wife, joins him in Quebec and the colony begins to take on the character of French society, rather than a frontier outpost. Champlain's successes make New France a lucrative target to his personal enemies and the adversaries of the French Empire. All will be lost, but not for long. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osoa/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osoa/support

Jeanne refused . . . that is all. We've discussed the French Wars of religion through Catherine de Medici's own story and that of the Catholics. Now let's flip it and reverse it, taking a look at the conflict through Jeanne d'Albret Queen of Navarre's eyes and the side of the Protestants. Trust us, you won't be disappointed! From an 11-year-old bride kicking and screaming down the aisle to the obstinate Queen of Navarre with an alliance and marriage offer for her son that sounds a little too good to be true. And through it all Jeanne refused to be anything other than the headstrong political leader of the Huguenots. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Every villain has an origin story and this is where the Wicked and Evil Italian Queen is made: Catherine de Medici's evolution from powerless pawn and scorned wife to master manipulator and Regent of France beside her son, King Charles, has been rife with religious unrest. The French Wars of Religion between the Catholics and the Huguenots has ramped up and, even with a union of Protestant and Catholic royalty on the horizon, Catherine's own precarious strategizing will inevitably be her downfall and spark the flames that will forever tarnish Catherine's good name. Warning: this episode gets dark and terrible and, while we don't go into specific detail, we recommend you have a happy song/movie/podcast queued up and ready to go for after you've listened to Part III of Catherine de Medici. Rachel and I suggest the movie, Anastasia. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Les Huguenots was some five years in creation. Meyerbeer prepared carefully for this opera after the sensational success of Robert le diable, recognizing the need to continue to present lavish staging, a highly dramatic storyline, impressive orchestration, and virtuoso parts for the soloists – the essential elements of the new genre of Grand Opera. Meyerbeer and his librettist for Robert le Diable, Eugène Scribe, had agreed to collaborate on an epic work concerning the French Wars of Religion, with a drama partly based on Prosper Mérimée's 1829 novel Chronique du règne de Charles IX.  Coming from a wealthy family, Meyerbeer could afford to take his time, dictate his own terms, and be a perfectionist. The very detailed contract which Meyerbeer arranged with Louis-Désiré Véron, director of the Opéra, for Les Huguenots (and which was drawn up for him by the lawyer Adolphe Crémieux) is a testament to this.Purchase the music (without talk) at:Myerbeer: Les Huguenots (classicalsavings.com)Your purchase helps to support our show! Classical Music Discoveries is sponsored by La Musica International Chamber Music Festival and Uber. @khedgecock#ClassicalMusicDiscoveries #KeepClassicalMusicAlive#LaMusicaFestival #CMDGrandOperaCompanyofVenice #CMDParisPhilharmonicinOrléans#CMDGermanOperaCompanyofBerlin#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofBarcelonaSpain#ClassicalMusicLivesOn#Uber Please consider supporting our show, thank you!http://www.classicalsavings.com/donate.html staff@classicalmusicdiscoveries.com

The saga of Catherine de Medici continues with the death of Francis I and the ascension of Henry II and Catherine to King and Queen of France. Sidelined once again while her husband's focus remained on his mistress, Diane de Poitier and the overly ambitious Guise family her father-in-law warned him about, Catherine could do little but sit quietly and bide her time. After a series of unfortunate events and more of Henry ignoring the sage advice of those around him, Catherine was left widowed and fighting to defend the legacy of her children. Join us as we track Catherine de Medici's evolution from powerless pawn and scorned wife to master manipulator. We also discuss the epic prophetic death of Henry II (yes, it really happened!), tease the origins of Mary, Queen of Scots, and lay the ground work for the French Wars of Religion to come. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Kate Mosse is the multimillion-selling author of the Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel. With her new novel The City of Tears, the second in her series The Burning Chambers, just out in paperback, she tells the story of a family's fight to stay together and survive against the backdrop of the French Wars of Religion and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572.In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb talks to Kate Mosse about how she goes about writing historical fiction, researching the events of the past, imagining the characters who lived through them and, most particularly, conjuring up the places she finds inspiring - but as they used to be.Keep up to date with everything early modern, from Henry VIII to the Sistine Chapel with our Tudor Tuesday newsletter: Subscribe here If you would like to learn more about history, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit >To download, go to Android > or Apple store > See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today on the Almanac, we tell the story of a Queen blamed for the French Wars of Religion: Catherine de Medici. #OTD #1517 #churchhistory — SHOW NOTES are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac GIVE BACK: Support the work of 1517 today CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (gillespie.media).

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The royal wedding of Marguerite de Valois and Henri de Navarre on 18 August 1572, was designed to reconcile France's Catholics and Protestants - or Huguenots. But six days later, the execution of Protestant leaders led to a massacre by Catholics of thousands more Protestants in Paris and across France. In this edition of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by Dr. Sophie Nicholls - who is currently writing a popular history of the French Wars of Religion - to explore the events and tensions that led to one of the most frenzied and brutal outbreaks of religious violence in early modern history. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's time for Shots Heard Round the World!"On this round of the "Shots," as Kelly, Luke, Cullen, and Shari join me to discuss and debate everything from there is to debate about Catherine and Catherine... It's France v. Russia, it's Queen v. Tsar, it's Catherine de Medici and Catherine "da Great!" Key Topics: Renaissance, Enlightenment, Catherine the Great, French Wars of Religion, Catherine de MediciSupport the show here and get access to all sorts of bonus content:https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=trueBe sure to follow me on Facebook at "Drinks with Great Minds in History" & Follow the show on Instagram @drinkswithgreatminds_podcastMusic:Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3845-hall-of-the-mountain-kingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Artwork by @Tali Rose... Check it out!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=true)

Part 2 in our series on the Wars of Religion. This episode looks at the French Wars of Religion, also known as the French Civil War, and looks at how a new monarch, Henry IV of France will put the interest of the state and his power above religious concern. For more info on this free educational resource check out Lyndeurozone.com. If you use this podcast regularly would you please consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as a dollar a month?  Our goal is to keep the Lyndeurozone Euro Simplified Podcast a free resource for the students that use it, but our costs are substantial.  You can also make a one time donation in any amount at Lyndeurozone.com. Episodes will be released on the following schedule: Unit 1 and Unit 2 - August/September Unit 3: October Unit 4: November Unit 5: December Unit 6: January Unit 7: February Unit 8 : March Unit 9: April   If you found this podcast helpful, would you please consider giving the show a rating on Apple Podcasts and leaving a comment on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds and it really makes a difference helping to get the word out about the podcast. Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @Lyndeurozone  

Who is the "Wicked Italian Queen of France?"  Was she wicked, was she even French?  Listen to the latest episode on Catherine de Medici to find out more, as we approach the close of this season... It's the last Great Mind of Season 2, let's get to it! Key Topics:  French Wars of Religion, Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Henry of Navarre, War of the Three Henrys, Queen Catherine de MediciSupport the show here and get access to all sorts of bonus content:https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=trueBe sure to follow me on Facebook at "Drinks with Great Minds in History" & Follow the show on Instagram @drinkswithgreatminds_podcastMusic:Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin MacLeodLink: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3845-hall-of-the-mountain-kingLicense: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Artwork by @Tali Rose... Check it out!Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=34398347&fan_landing=true)

The Meeter Center is pleased to present our summer scholar presentation series, featuring this year's visiting scholars who are pursuing their research at the Meeter Center. The first of these took place on July 1, 2021, and our speakers were Amanda Eurich and Preston Hill. Dr. Eurich, our 2019 Faculty Fellowship recipient, is professor of history at Western Washington University. Dr. Hill, a recipient of our Student Fellowship award in 2020, received his Ph. D. from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland this spring. After each scholar spoke, there followed a time of questions and discussion. A brief summary of their presentations appears below. "Coras under Cover: Rage and Resistance in the French Wars of Religion" Presented by Amanda Eurich The sixteenth-century French jurist, Jean de Coras, is largely known to Anglophone audiences as the judge who presided over a notorious case of identity theft that seized the imagination of celebrated writers, such as Michel de Montaigne. In real life, Coras himself was playing a double game, just like the peasant, Pansette, who briefly managed to steal the wife and property of a companion-in-arms, Martin Guerre. In 1568, Coras was expelled from office, along with seven of his Protestant co-religionaries, all deemed guilty of heresy and treason and condemned to death in absentia. In exile, Coras joined the service of Jeanne d'Albret, titular head of the militant Protestant party in France, as her chancellor and superintendent of finance, overseeing the funding of the Protestant insurgency and its armies in the field. He also began honing his skills as a Protestant propagandist, publishing two highly inflammatory works, which situate Coras among the earliest proponents of Huguenot resistance theory. In _A Political Question: Is it legal for subjects to negotiate with their prince_ (1570), Jean de Coras developed a highly original challenge to royal power and authority that finds reverberations in Theodore Beza's _Du Droit des magistrats_ (1574). These philosophical connections along with the more personal exchanges that may have occurred between Coras and Beza frame the research I am doing at the Meeter Center this summer. “The Death of the Soul: Christ's Descent into Hell in the Thought of Calvin, Lefèvre, and Cusa” Presented by Preston Hill There currently exists a substantial lacuna in scholarship on the place of Christ's descent into hell in the theology of John Calvin. The impression given by this scarcity is that Calvin had little to say about the descensus or that what he did have to say is so obvious as to require only minimal secondary exposition. However, a mere glance beyond the Institutes to Calvin's other writings significantly unsettles such an opinion. Calvin devoted five times more space in his Institutes to explaining the descent into hell than any other clause of the Apostles' Creed, and this explanation repeats the same interpretation already developed in his first treatise the Psychopannychia. Although Calvin defended his interpretation throughout his commentaries, sermons, letters, and final edition of the Institutes, the secondary literature on this theme is virtually non-existent in scholarship to date. This presentation aims to show that the French Humanist scholar Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples' reliance on Nicholas of Cusa demonstrates an organic stream of teaching in the late medieval period within which Calvin's own theology of Christ's descent into hell is obviously situated. Calvin, Lefèvre, and Cusa all understood the descent into hell as Christ's experience of the second death, or the death of the soul. The major finding advanced here is that Calvin's descensus theology was far from novel despite suggestions to the contrary in many popular summaries of Calvin's theology.

Till second Carnatic war

Season 4 Ep. 14Circus freaks/side shows "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat." -- George Carlin    The “freak show,” or “sideshow,” rose to prominence in 16th century England. For centuries, cultures around the world had interpreted severe physical deformities as bad omens or evidence that evil spirits were present; by the late 1500s, these stigmas had translated into public curiosity.                   Businessmen scouted people with abnormalities, swooped them up, and shuttled them throughout Europe, charging small fees for viewings. One of the earliest recorded “freaks” of this era was Lazarus Colloredo, an “otherwise strapping” Italian whose brother, Joannes, protruded, upside down, from his chest. The conjoined twins “both fascinated and horrified the general public,” and the duo even made an appearance before King Charles I in the early 1640s. Castigated from society, people like Lazarus  capitalized on their unique conditions to make a little cash -- even if it meant being made into a public spectacle. Whether it was a person with dwarfism acting as a jester or clown for an individual monarch, or a person with a unique physical impairment displaying her body for the eyes of a curious and gawking public, freaking—exploiting the perceived peculiarities of your own body for an audience—was a means of support for some disabled people who might otherwise have died or struggled to survive. But until the 19th century, freak shows catered to relatively small crowds and didn’t yield particularly healthy profits for showmen or performers. It was in the mid nineteenth and early 20th centuries that freak shows had become a viable commercial enterprise in England and the U.S. alike. America and England both had men who would come into prominence by employing (or exploiting depending on whom you talk too)these types of folks for profit purposes. In England it was a man named Tom Norman. TOM NORMANTom Norman was born on 7 May 1860 in Dallington, Sussex and was the eldest of 17 children. His real name was Noakes and his father Thomas was a butcher who resided at the Manor House in Dallington. According to his autobiography he left home at the age of fourteen to seek fame and fortune on the road and before long he had found employment as a butcher’s assistant in London. Tom first became involved in showbusiness a year later when he went into partnership with a showman who had a penny gaff shop in Islington, exhibiting Mlle Electra(not a typo). However, as is often the case with Tom Norman, the facts are difficult to piece together from the legend and the first record we have for a showman called Norman from this time can be traced to the Agricultural Hall in Islington, the venue for The World’s Fair. Some of the showmen on view that day included the famous Tommy Dodd and his wife, "The smallest people in the world;" and a giant boy aged seventeen. Other showmen presenting attractions were Williams's Ghost Show; Chittock and Testo's dog and monkey circus and Mander’s Huge Collection of Wild Beasts. However, both The Era newspaper report and the handbill for the event note the presence of Norman's performing fishes, which reputedly could not only talk but also play the pianoforte; and Norman’s French Artillery Giant Horse. In his autobiography which was incomplete before his death in 1930, Norman states that he was fifteen when he first appeared at the World’s Fair. Therefore, the Norman mentioned could either have been a showman whose name Tom Noakes went on to use, or he was actually 13 years old when he first left home.By the 1870s the young aspiring showman had been involved in a number of careers including exhibiting Eliza Jenkins, the Skeleton Woman, a popular novelty show at the time, the Balloon Headed Baby and a whole range of freak show attractions as he stated in his autobiography:“But you could indeed exhibit anything in those days. Yes anything from a needle to an anchor, a flea to an elephant, a bloater you could exhibit as a whale. It was not the show, it was the tale that you told.”Perhaps one of the more gruesome shows he was involved with, was 'the woman who bit live rat heads off. 'In his autobiography Tom Norman describes the act a the most gruesome he had ever seen:“Dick Bakers wife, who used to be with me and gave I think now, the most repulsive performance, that I have ever had or seen, during the whole of my long career. it consisted of Mrs Baker, putting her naked hand into a cage, fetch out a live rat and proceed to bite its head off.”The effect on the audience was such wrote Tom that:“More than once, have I seen a member of either sex of the audience, fall forward in a faint during this extraordinary performance.”Tom Norman’s ability to tell the tale was the scene of one of his greatest compliments when in 1882 he was performing at the Royal Agricultural Hall. Unaware that the great showman P. T. Barnum(well get to him don't worry) was in the audience, Tom informed the crowd that none other than the greatest showman on earth had booked the show for its entire run. Upon meeting Tom Norman, Barnum pointed to the large silver Albert chain which he wore and said 'Silver King eh'. Despite being found out, Tom Norman took this as a compliment and from then on he became known as The Silver King.Throughout the 1880s his fame as a showman grew and by 1883 he had thirteen penny gaff shops throughout London including locations such as Whitechapel, Hammersmith, Croydon and Edgeware Road. He still continued to travel with his shows and Norman’s Grand Panorama was a highlight of the Christmas Fair for the 1883/84 season in Islington. It was at this time that Norman came into contact with Joseph Merrick through a showman called George Hitchcock who proposed that Norman took over the London management of the Elephant Man. This episode in Norman’s life is shrouded in controversy as Sir Frederick Treeves, the surgeon who reputedly rescued Joseph Merrick or John as he calls him, blackened the character of Norman in his autobiography published in 1923. There are differing accounts of the way Merrick was treated by Norman. Treeves maintains that he was treated poorly by Norman and simply exploited. There are others who claim that Norman treated Merrick extremely well and that Merrick was never healthier or happier than with Norman. The Elephant Man was managed by Tom for only a few months and after the London shop was closed by the police, Joseph Merrick was taken back by the consortium of Leicester businessmen and placed in the hands of Sam Roper, a travelling showman.Tom Norman’s career continued after the Elephant Man and over the next ten year he became involved with managing a troupe of midgets, exhibiting the famous Man in a Trance show at Nottingham Goose Fair, Mary Anne Bevan the World’s Ugliest Woman, John Chambers the Armless Carpenter and Leonine the Lion Faced Lady. In January 1893, the following advertisement appeared in The Era newspaper and seems to imply that Tom was thinking of leaving England for the Worlds’ Fair which was being held in Chicago. The advertisement appeared for the following weeks and although no details are available as to their final outcome they do give us a glimpse into the type of shows Tom Norman was exhibiting at the time. “Wanted, to Sell, 10ft Living Carriage, Light, One-horse Load, already Fitted for Road, £25, worth £35; also Novelty Booth, good as new, Size, 9ft by18ft, with Novelty and Four New Brass Lamps, with Filler and Oil Drum, by Mellor and Sons, £4; also Piano Organ, nearly New, scarcely soiled, TenTunes, by Capra, suit Waxworks or any Shop Exhibition, £7, worth £18; also Two Fat Paintings, Best on the Road, by Leach, Size 9ft by 10ft, ditto One, same size of Skeleton Girl, all good as new; also Two others of Fats, size 6ft by Thornhill, with large Case to carry the lot, £5, cost £20; also 9ft Square Booth for Performing Fleas, with Two Grand Oil Paintings for same, price £1; also Aerial Suspension for Child 15s; also the Largest Silver Albert in England, made expressly for me, £3, cost £6. The whole of the above to be sold together or separate. Can be seen any time. Reason, I am leaving for Chicago. Apply any Morning before 12.0 to TOM NORMAN, Silver King, Pearce's Temperance Hotel, Elephant and Castle, SE”.In 1896 Tom met and married Amy Rayner at the Royal Agricultural Hall and their marriage lasted until his death in 1930. At that time Tom was travelling his famous Midget show and the Ghost show he had bought from John Parker. Their first son Tom was born in 1899 and was soon followed by Hilda, Ralph, Jimmy, Nelly, Arthur, Amy, Jack, Daisy and George.Soon after the birth of his first son, Tom became an auctioneer and the first show he sold belonged to Fred and George Ginnett. His career as an auctioneer prospered and some of the most famous shows he sold included Lord George Sanger and Frank Bostock's.He advertised in both The Era and The Showman newspapers as the recognised Showman’s Auctioneer and Valuer throughout 1901 and early clients in 1902 included W. T. Kirkland who had concessions at Southport, Morecambe and New Brighton. He instituted the annual Showman and Travellers’ Auction Sales in London, Manchester and Liverpool from 1903 onwards and negotiated sales for showman such as Walter Payne, Edwin Lawrence and many others. His most famous sale to date place in 1905 when he organised the disposal of Lord George Sanger’s Zoo at Margate. This was followed by what Tom Norman described as the crowning point in my life as regards the auctioneering business, when he was called upon by Sanger to auction the whole of his travelling circus effects. The following tribute published in 1901 demonstrates the esteem in which he was held by the fairground fraternity:'Mr Norman believes in catering for modern tastes - brilliancy; brightness, cleanliness and order are Tom’s strong points'Tom Norman continued to travel with his shows and maintained his penny gaff shops in London while basing the auctioneering side of the business at his family home the Manor House Dallington. Although Tom did not reveal in his autobiography the reasons for changing his name, he obviously maintained links with his place of birth in order to base this part of his business activities there.In the period leading up the First World War, Tom was now the father of ten children, nine surviving and his sons Tom, Ralph, Jimmy, Arthur and George had inherited their father’s showmanship. Ralph Van became known as Hal Denver and travelled throughout Europe and America as a wild west performer, George and Arthur found fame as clowns in many of the world’s greatest circuses and Tom and Jim Norman remained on the fairground.By 1915 the family were firmly based in Croydon and Tom was starting to dispose of some of his business concerns when his eldest son Tom Jnr enlisted. The shops for sale included Tom Norman's New Exhibition with waxworks and novelty museum and the Croydon Central Auction Rooms. Tom slowly retired from the fairground business and although he maintained his auctioneering concerns, he mainly concentrated on buying and selling caravans and dealing in horses for circuses and pantomimes. After the end of the first World War, Tom became restless again and appeared at the Olympia Circus in 1919 with Phoebe the Strange Girl and exhibited at Birmingham and Dreamland, Margate in 1921. Tom also returned to the venue where he had first started, The Royal Agricultural Hall and worked there throughout the 1920s although he was living in semi-retirement at the family base in Beddington Lane, Croydon.Tom Norman left behind a comfortable professional birthright to become one of the leading travelling showmen of his day. The benevolence he showed to his fellow showmen, his association with the newly formed Van Dwelling’s Association and his role in the United Kingdom Temperance Association demonstrate the injustice done to his reputation by inaccurate accounts of The Elephant Man. He died in Croydon on 24 August 1930, while according to his son George Van Norman, making plans to travel to a large auction show around the country.The following tribute was published in the World’s Fair.'There are very few showmen who have not met the famous showman’s auctioneer, “The Silver King”, He has been a conspicuous and charismatic figure in our business for the past half a century and has conducted more showman’ sales than any other auctioneer in the country... During his fifty years with us, he has endeared himself to all section from the humblest to the highest. He was a charming personality with a commanding appearance that left a lifetime impression upon anyone that he met. All his life he has been a showman and as such he died.'So that's England's great showman, the man who really helped bring freak shows to prominence ther. But as i mentioned earlier, the U.S. had one as well. He was brought up earlier and I'm sure you all know who it is.. Good old Phineas Taylor Barnum, better known as P.T. Now, now i'm sure most of you know at least a little about him, or have at some point as a kid been to a circus with his name somewhere in the title. Some of you younger listeners may have missed out on the joys of the circus. Were gonna take a loom at his life and how he rose to prominence.P.T. BARNUMBarnum was born in Bethel, Connecticut, the son of innkeeper, tailor, and store-keeper Philo Barnum (1778–1826) and his second wife Irene Taylor. His maternal grandfather Phineas Taylor was a Whig, legislator, landowner, justice of the peace, and lottery schemer who had a great influence on him.Barnum was 15 years old when his father died, and the support of his mother and his five sisters and brothers fell largely upon his shoulders. After holding a variety of jobs, he became publisher of a Danbury, Connecticut, weekly newspaper, Herald of Freedom. Arrested three times for libel, he enjoyed his first taste of notoriety.In 1829, at age 19, Barnum married a 21-year-old Bethel woman, Charity Hallett, who was to bear him four daughters. In 1834 he moved to New York City, where he found his vocation as a showman. He began his career as a showman in 1835 when he was 25 with the purchase and exhibition of a blind and almost completely paralyzed slave woman named Joice Heth, whom an acquaintance was trumpeting around Philadelphia as George Washington's former nurse and 161 years old. Slavery was already outlawed in New York, but he exploited a loophole which allowed him to lease her for a year for $1,000, borrowing $500 to complete the sale. Heth died in February 1836, at no more than 80 years old. Barnum had worked her for 10 to 12 hours a day, and he hosted a live autopsy of her body in a New York saloon where spectators paid 50 cents to see the dead woman cut up, as he revealed that she was likely half her purported age. It was very common for Barnum's acts to be schemes and not altogether true. Barnum was fully aware of the improper ethics behind his business as he said, "I don't believe in duping the public, but I believe in first attracting and then pleasing them." During the 1840s Barnum began his museum, which had a constantly rotating acts schedule, which included The Fat Lady, midgets, giants, and other people deemed to be freaks. The museum drew in about 400,000 visitors a year.THE AMERICAN MUSEUM During the 1840s Barnum began his museum, which had a constantly rotating acts schedule, which included The Fat Lady, midgets, giants, and other people deemed to be freaks. The museum drew in about 400,000 visitors a year.[14]P.T. Barnum's American Museum was one of the most popular museums in New York City to exhibit freaks. In 1841 Barnum purchased The American Museum, which made freaks the major attraction, following mainstream America in the mid-19th century. Barnum was known to advertise aggressively and make up outlandish stories about his exhibits. The façade of the museum was decorated with bright banners showcasing his attractions and included a band that performed outside. Barnum's American Museum also offered multiple attractions that not only entertained but tried to educate and uplift its working-class visitors. Barnum offered one ticket that guaranteed admission to his lectures, theatrical performances, an animal menagerie, and a glimpse at curiosities both living and dead.One of Barnum's exhibits centered around Charles Sherwood Stratton, the dwarf billed as "General Tom Thumb" who was then 4 years of age but was stated to be 11. Charles had stopped growing after the first 6 months of his life, at which point he was 25 inches (64 cm) tall and weighed 15 pounds (6.8 kg). With heavy coaching and natural talent, the boy was taught to imitate people from Hercules to Napoleon. By 5, he was drinking wine, and by 7 smoking cigars for the public's amusement. During 1844–45, Barnum toured with Tom Thumb in Europe and met Queen Victoria, who was amused and saddened by the little man, and the event was a publicity coup. Barnum paid Stratton handsomely - about $150.00 a week. When Stratton retired, he lived in the most esteemed neighborhood of New York, he owned a yacht, and dressed in the nicest clothing he could buy.In 1860, The American Museum had listed and archived thirteen human curiosities in the museum, including an albino family, The Living Aztecs, three dwarfs, a black mother with two albino children, The Swiss Bearded Lady, The Highland Fat Boys, and What Is It? (Henry Johnson, a mentally disabled black man). Barnum introduced the "man-monkey" William Henry Johnson, a microcephalic black dwarf who spoke a mysterious language created by Barnum and was known as Zip the Pinhead . In 1862, he discovered the giantess Anna Swan and Commodore Nutt, a new Tom Thumb, with whom Barnum visited President Abraham Lincoln at the White House. During the Civil War, Barnum's museum drew large audiences seeking diversion from the conflict.Barnum's most popular and highest grossing act was the Tattooed Man, George Contentenus. He claimed to be a Greek-Albanian prince raised in a Turkish harem. He had 338 tattoos covering his body. Each one was ornate and told a story. His story was that he was on a military expedition but was captured by native people, who gave him the choice of either being chopped up into little pieces or receive full body tattoos. This process supposedly took three months and Contentenus was the only hostage who survived. He produced a 23-page book, which detailed every aspect of his experience and drew a large crowd. When Contentenus partnered with Barnum, he began to earn more than $1,000 a week($31,000 in 2020). His wealth became so staggering that the New York Times wrote, "He wears very handsome diamond rings and other jewelry, valued altogether at about $3,000 [roughly $93,000 in 2020 dollars] and usually goes armed to protect himself from persons who might attempt to rob him." Though Contentenus was very fortunate, other freaks were not. Upon his death in 1891, he donated about half of his life earnings to other freaks who Barnum retired in 1865 when his museum burnt to the ground. Though Barnum was and still is criticized for exploitation, he paid the performers fairly handsome sums of money. Some of the acts made the equivalent of what some sports stars make today. Between 1842, when he took over the American Museum, and 1868, when he gave it up after fires twice had all but destroyed it, Barnum’s gaudy showmanship enticed 82 million visitors—among them Henry and William James, Charles Dickens, and Edward VII, then prince of Wales—into his halls and to his other enterprises.  Barnum did not enter the circus business until he was 60 years old. He established "P. T. Barnum's Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan & Hippodrome" in Delavan, Wisconsin, in 1870 with William Cameron Coup; it was a traveling circus, menagerie, and museum of "freaks". It went through various names: "P. T. Barnum's Travelling World's Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show on Earth", and "P. T. Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth, And The Great London Circus, Sanger's Royal British Menagerie and The Grand International Allied Shows United" after an 1881 merger with James Bailey and James L. Hutchinson, soon shortened to "Barnum & Bailey's". This entertainment phenomenon was the first circus to display three rings.[25] The show's first primary attraction was Jumbo, an African elephant that Barnum purchased in 1882 from the London Zoo. The Barnum and Bailey Circus still contained acts similar to his Traveling Menagerie, including acrobats, freak shows, and General Tom Thumb. Barnum persisted in growing the circus in spite of more fires, train disasters, and other setbacks, and he was aided by circus professionals who ran the daily operations. He and Bailey split up in 1885, but they came back together in 1888 with the "Barnum & Bailey Greatest Show On Earth", later "Barnum & Bailey Circus" which toured the world.Barnum was one of the first circus owners to move his circus by train, on the suggestion of Bailey and other business partners, and probably the first to own his own train. Given the lack of paved highways in America at that time, this turned out to be a shrewd decision that vastly expanded Barnum's geographical reach. In this new industry, Barnum leaned more on the advice of his partners, most of whom were young enough to be his sons.Barnum became known as the "Shakespeare of Advertising" due to his innovative and impressive ideas.     Barnum went on to write his autobiography and do something interesting, more interested in publicity than profits, he made his biography public domain. This meant that anyone who wanted to publish his biography could do so without having to secure rights for it. In his 81st year, Barnum fell gravely ill. At his request, a New York newspaper published his obituary in advance so that he might enjoy it. Two weeks later, after inquiring about the box office receipts of the circus, Barnum died in his Connecticut mansion. The Times of London echoed the world press in its final tribute: “He created the métier of showman on a grandiose scale.…He early realized that essential feature of a modern democracy, its readiness to be led to what will amuse and instruct it.…His name is a proverb already, and a proverb it will continueThose are the stories, for the most part of two of the major players in the freakshow game. There were more, and maybe we will revisit the rest of the stories and the other folks involved at a later date but for now we are going to move on to what you all want…some of the coolest  freaks there were!!!LAZARUS COLLOREDOWe mentioned this fellow a bit earlier and it was time to bring him back. Born in 1617 in Genoa, Italy, Colloredo would exhibit himself all across Europe during his lifetime. Colloredo is among the earliest—and most extraordinary—recorded cases of parasitic twins. We found this description of Lazarus by Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholinus, as detailed in the 19th-century book, Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum: “I saw, saith Bartholinus, Lazarus Colloredo, the Genoese, first at Copenhagen, after at Basil, when he was twenty-eight years of age, but in both places with amazement. This Lazarus had a little brother growing out at his breast, who was in that posture born with him. If I mistake not, the bone, called xyphoideus, in both of them grew together; his left foot along hung downwards; he had two arms but only three fingers upon each hand: some appearance there was of the secret parts: he moved his hands ears and lips, and had a little beating in the breast. This little brother voids no excrements but by the mouth, nose, and ears, and is nourished by that which the greater takes: he has distinct animal and vital parts from the greater, since he sleeps, sweats, and moves when the other wakes, rests and sweats not. Both received their names at the font; the greater that of Lazarus, and the other that of Johannes Baptista. The natural bowels, as the liver, spleen, &c. are the same in both. Johannes Baptista hath his eyes for the most part shut: his breath small, so that holding a feather at his mouth it scarcely moves, but holding the hand there we find a small and warm breath. His mouth is usually open, and wet with spittle; his head is bigger than that of Lazarus, but deformed; his hair hanging down while his face is in an upright posture. Both have beards; that of Baptista is neglected, but that of Lazarus very neat. Lazarus is of a just stature, a decent body, courteous deportment, and gallantly attired: he covers the body of his brother with his cloak, nor would you think a monster lay within at your first discourse with him. He seemed always of a constant mind, unless that now and then he was solicitous as to his end, for he feared the death of his brother, presaging that when it came to pass, he should also expire with the stench and putrefaction of his body; and therefore he took greater care of his brother than himself.”Well then! That sounds like a fucking insane thing to see!!TARRAREThe walking manifestation of one of the seven deadly sins prowled the cobbled streets of 18th-century Paris, seeking only to indulge his endless hunger. Earlier in life, his dietary needs started out robustly, but were otherwise innocuous. However, things would soon take a sinister turn so far as this overzealous diner was concerned. According to contemporary accounts and existent medical records, his quenchless appetite continued growing to the point that his legendarily gluttonous gorging caused this ravenous Frenchman to ingest live animals and maraud morgues for sustenance. He was once even suspected of kidnapping and devouring a toddler.The crack team at Ripleys.com was able to speak with a doctor who specializes in science-based nutrition in search of a possible diagnosis, but first, let’s chew the fat on the life of this legendary cannibal and his strange circumstances of existence. Be warned, this is not for the weak of heart—but if you think you can stomach it, then strap in! PARIS, CIRCA 1788With a large, lip-less mouth stretched wide beyond human regularity and filled with stained teeth, he ate corks, stones, entire baskets of apples—one at a time in quick succession—and live animals (his favorite was snake) for the morbid amusement of repulsed onlookers that were challenged to satiate his seemingly interminable appetite.Like most modern competitive binge-eaters, Tarrare was diminutive in stature, weighing no more than one hundred pounds—prior to eating, at least. Despite all of his daily intake, he never seemed to keep any of the weight on. When empty, his stomach was loosely distended to the point that he could wrap it around his waist as if it were a belt made of his own, still-attached flesh. When full, it was inflated like a balloon—not unlike a pregnant woman in her final trimester. His hair was fair and soft, while his cheeks, when not engaged at capacity—allegedly able to hold so much as a dozen eggs—were wrinkled and hung slack to create premature jowls.Prior to life as a successful street performer, the individual is known only by his stage name, Tarrare, lived in destitution as part of a traveling caravan of criminal misfits. Born in the rural countryside surrounding the epicenter of the booming silk-weaving trade in Lyon, France in approximately 1772, his rapacious appetite was readily apparent from an early age. As the legend goes, a young Tarrare was capable of eating his own bodyweight in cow meat within a 24-hour period. Sadly, this boundless craving forced him out of his family’s home as a teenager, as they could no longer afford to feed him.After several years of touring the country as a vagabond begging for food, for a time Tarrare became the opener for a snake-oil peddling mountebank before taking off to Paris to perform as a solo act. With success came risk. Tarrare once collapsed mid-performance with what was later discovered to be an intestinal obstruction, requiring his audience to carry him to the nearby Hôtel-Dieu hospital. After being treated with laxatives, a grateful Tarrare offered to demonstrate his talents by eating the surgeon’s pocket watch. The surgeon agreed, but only under the condition that he be allowed to cut Tarrare open to retrieve it. Wisely, Tarrare declined.It was during the French War of the First Coalition when respected military surgeon Dr. Pierre-François Percy first made the acquaintance of the inexplicable Tarrare, now a soldier for the French Revolutionary Army. Barely twenty years old, this peculiar patient proved to be quite extraordinary. Unable to subsist off of military rations alone, Tarrare began doing odd jobs around the base for other soldiers in exchange for their rations and, when that proved to be insufficient, foraged for food scraps in dunghills. Despite all of his scrounging, Tarrare succumbed to exhaustion and was admitted to a military hospital under the care of Dr. Percy.There, even being granted quadruple rations failed to satiate his hunger. Tarrare began to eat out of the garbage, steal the food of other patients, and even chow down on the hospital’s bandage supply. Psychological testing found Tarrare to be apathetic, but otherwise sane.Percy’s report described Tarrare as having bloodshot eyes and constantly being overheated and sweating, with a body odor so rancid that he could be smelled from twenty feet away—and that’s by 18th-century French military surgeon standards. Woof. The smell only got worse after eating. Percy described it as being so bad he literally had visible stink lines.After eating, Tarrare would succumb to the itis and pass out. Percy observed this after preparing a meal made for fifteen to test Tarrare’s limits, which he predictably porked down. Percy continued this experiment by feeding Tarrare live animals: a cat—which he drank the blood of and after consuming, like an owl, he only regurgitated its fur—lizards, snakes, puppies, and an entire eel.Months of experimentation passed before the military discovered a way to put Tarrare’s unique ability to use: Tarrare was commissioned as a spy for the French Army of the Rhine. His first mission was to secretly courier a document across enemy lines in a place that it could not easily be detected if caught: his digestive tract. After being paid with a wheelbarrow full of thirty pounds of raw bull viscera—which he ate immediately upon presentation directly in front of what we can only imagine to be the incredibly revolted generals and other commanding officers—Tarrare swallowed a wooden box containing a document that could pass through his system completely in-tact and be delivered to a high-ranking prisoner of war in Prussia. As one might expect, an individual who smells like a foot and compulsively eats from the garbage would likely attract attention—not exactly the ideal, hallmark makings of a spy.Compound this with the fact that Tarrare did not speak any German and he was quickly caught, beaten, imprisoned, and forced to undergo the psychological torment of a mock execution before being returned to France.Again under the care of Dr. Percy, the trauma Tarrare endured left him incapable of continuing his military service and desperate to find a cure for his condition. Laudanum opiates, wine vinegar, tobacco pills, and a diet of soft-boiled eggs were all employed, but Tarrare was still forced to walk the streets fighting stray dogs for discarded slaughterhouse cuisine, drink the blood of patients who were being treated with bloodletting, and was even caught consuming cadavers from the hospital morgue multiple times. Eventually, a toddler went missing from the hospital and Tarrare, the suspected culprit, was chased from the premises before disappearing into the city.Dr. Percy is contacted by a physician of Versailles hospital at the behest of a patient on their deathbed. Sure enough, it was Tarrare, now brought to death’s door by what he professed to be a golden fork he had swallowed two years previously and was now lodged inside of him. It had been four years since Percy had last seen Tarrare, who hoped he could save his life by removing the fork. Unfortunately for Tarrare, it was not a fork that was killing him, but end-stage tuberculosis. Within a month, he passed.A curious colleague intended to inspect Tarrare’s corpse. However, fellow surgeons refused to partake and it quickly became a race against the clock as the body began to rot rapidly. Findings from the autopsy revealed that Tarrare possessed a shockingly-wide esophagus which allowed spectators to look directly from his open mouth into his stomach, which was unfathomably large and lined with ulcers. His body was full of pus, his liver and gallbladder abnormally large, and the fork was never recovered. So, what was the cause of Tarrare’s insatiable hunger? In short, we don’t know for sure. When contemporary medical procedures of the time included drinking raw mercury to clear out head demons (probably), should it come as a surprise that Tarrare received no suitable diagnosis or treatment in his own lifetime?However, some interesting theories have been suggested over the years. Ripleys.com was able to speak to Dr. Don Moore, a chiropractor certified in science-based nutrition and owner and operator of Synergy Pro Wellness, to get his take on things.Now, granted, there is a possibility that Dr. Percy’s personal documentation in the years following Tarrare’s death were exaggerated or falsified, but they were considered credible enough at the time of their publication to be featured in reputable medical texts such as The Study of Medicine, Popular Physiology, and London Medical and Physical Journal. Plus, Dr. Percy is considered the father of military surgeons, was Chief Surgeon to the French Army, a university professor, inventor of important battlefield medical implements, and is considered an all-around highly reputable guy. So, given we accept the above tale as an accurate representation of Tarrare’s symptoms, what does Dr. Moore have to say about it?“It can be broken down by category: He didn’t suffer from psychosis, so he was completely aware and cognitive. But that doesn’t rule out hyperactivity of hormones and dysfunction of components of the brain. His sensor that would let him know he was full was damaged. If he underwent a brain study, he would have probably been identified as having had an enlarged hypothalamus.” The hypothalamus regulates the body’s temperature and is responsible for causing the sensation of hunger. Given Tarrare was constantly overheated and in dire search of food, it’s a perfect fit. Dr. Moore also suspects a possible case of pica, which causes the eating of non-edible objects.As for why Tarrare never weighed more than one hundred pounds, Dr. Moore adroitly theorizes, based on his habitually eating raw meat: “He most likely had a parasite as well. The fact that he was of normal size means something else is being nourished, and the fact that he was constantly hungry leans towards him feeding a secondary organism. A parasite like a hookworm or roundworm, perhaps.”  FANNIE MILLSThis next one...i had to put in for obvious reasons! As far as freak shows go, Fanny Mills was one of the most unusual performers to ever step foot inside the sideshow tent. Known as the “Ohio BigFoot Girl,” Fanny seemed normal in every respect…except for her massive feet. Fanny was born in Sussex, England in 1860, and then immigrated with her family to Sandusky, Ohio. The condition that brought her notoriety was Milroy Disease, a rare disorder that causes lymphedema, in which the lower legs and feet swell with lymph fluid. Neither of Fanny’s sisters were born with the disease.Fanny was a petite woman who only weighed 115 pounds. Her feet, however, were 19 inches long and 7 inches wide. She wore a size 30 shoe made of three goatskins.Fanny started touring the country in 1885 as “that girl from Ohio” with the “biggest feet on Earth.” She traveled with a nurse named Mary Brown, who helped her get around. Her promoters advertised her to unwed men as “a boon for poor bachelors,” offering $5,000 and a well-stocked farm to any respectable man who would marry her.“Don’t permit two big feet to stand between you and wedlock tinged with fortune,” the ad read. Fanny eventually married William Brown, Mary’s brother, in 1886.She retired from show business in 1891 because of an illness, and died later that yearGRADY STILES JR.This guy is another famous guy. But you may not know his whole, incredibly crazy story! He’s the mutha fuckin lobster boy!!! The Stiles family was suffering from a peculiar physical condition known as Ectrodactyly, which is a rare congenital deformity that makes the hand look like lobster claws as the middle fingers are either missing or seemingly fused to the thumb or pinky finger.The family has been afflicted for over a century with ectrodactyly, a condition commonly known as the Lobster claw. It is an uncommon inherent distortion of the hand where the center digit is missing and the hand is parted where the metacarpal of the finger ought to be.This split regularly gives the hands the presence of lobster hooks in spite of the fact that cases run in seriousness. Frequently this condition happens in both the hands and the feet and, while it is an acquired condition, it can skirt an age. While the term ectrodactyly sounds medicinally clean when contrasted with ‘Lobster Claw Syndrome’.While many have viewed Ectrodactyly as a handicap, for the Stiles family it came with an opportunity. The physical condition stayed within the family and any newcomer to the family came out with unusual hands and feet.But one member from the family, Grady stiles Jr., would give the Stiles’ family a different reputation when he became a serial abuser and murderer.The home of Gardy Stiles, or popularly known as the lobster boy was an unpleasant place to be. During the carnival season in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Grady was one of the many sideshow performers who people came to gawk at some time in wonder and sometimes out of rudeness.Grady never concerned himself too much with the opinions of onlookers, he was only there to put on a show, his audience was impressed or not. Grady was born with a severe deformity that gave him the name, The Lobster Boy.GRADY STILES JR. A.K.A THE LOBSTER BOY (CREDIT: YOUTUBE)Lobster Boy was born in Pittsburgh in 1937, at that point his father was already part of the “freak show” circuit, adding his kids with the peculiar physical condition to the act.Because of the deformity Grady couldn’t walk and was confined to a wheelchair, his legs were almost flipper-like and unable to bear weight this resulted in him using his upper body to maneuver around usually in a wheelchair.All of the locomotion provided by his arms turned Grady into a rather strong man despite his downfalls but he didn’t only utilize his to make his life easier for himself but also to make other’s life harder.For most of his life, Gary primarily used a wheelchair — but also learned to use his power to use his upper body to pull himself across the floor with impressive strength.As Grady grew up he would become immensely strong, something which will cost his family later in life.At age 19 Mary ran off to join the carnival, escaping her old life, oddly enough she felt she belonged best there. Despite the fact that she was surrounded by people with shocking abilities and deformities but for her this was normal.Mary Theresa wasn’t there for the same reasons the performers were but the carnival always needed staff to keep the shows running. It was here that she met Grady Stiles.Mary Theresa didn’t see the monster in Grady as others had, she quickly fell in love with Grady and the two were married within no time. Together they had two children and, like his father before him, introduced the children with ectrodactyly to the family business.Grady added his children into his sideshow with him traveling as an act known as the Lobster Family, of the many issues that were in the family, money wasn’t one of them. The family would make $50,000-$80,000 per season and Grady was considered the major star of the show.There were no gimmicks with the lobster family no tricks or illusions, What the crowd saw is what the crowd got.Once the winter set in the show’s closed down and many of their performers including the Stiles family resided in Florida until the new season came around.Despite the pleasant weather and more free time, Grady still didn’t hesitate to inflict physical and emotional pain on his family.If Many only would have known when she was younger what she knew after marrying Grady perhaps it would have made a difference.Mary recollected that Grady was the best anybody could be, a genuinely honorable man however as soon he poured the liquor in his body, something in his brain changed and he would abandon a nobleman to a harsh spouse and father. He turned into a much more alarming man, a genuine beast, more noteworthy than the one others considered him to be. He was a real nightmare come to life.Marry was impacted in ways that she would never forget. She remembered that her husband was a great guy when he woke up in the morning by 8:00 am and started drinking by 10 and would be miserable for the rest of the day.In 1973, Grady-Mary’s marriage hit its first end when Mary decided that she couldn’t take the abuse any longer after Grday launched himself at her, took her to the floor, ripped her pantyhose, reached his clawed hand and ripped out the intrauterine device, a device used to prevent pregnancy, and used her hands to choke her – something they were seemingly designed to do well.Mary was so disgusted, horrified, and emotionally wounded that she wisely left him.The worst was yet to come after Mary was gone, Grady started drinking even more and when her teenage daughter, Donna fell in love with a young man that he didn’t approve of, he didn’t take the decision very well.Donna and Jack Lane were in loved and wanted to marry but Grady forbade the marriage threatening to kill Jack numerous times. Donna was unhappy with her drunk and abusive father and wanted an escape.Donna told Grady that if he didn’t approve the underage marriage, she would live with Jack anyway. This further enraged Grady who prided himself in the way he dominated his family and controlled them.Grady was home when Jack came home to see him on the night before Jack and Donna were to be married, thinking that maybe Grady has changed his mind and is now happy with our marriage.Instead of agreeing, Stiles picked up his shotgun and murdered his daughter’s fiance in cold blood. HE sat there while his daughter came and said ‘I told you I would kill him.’Grady went to trial where the defense attempted to get the jury to pity Grady and his condition. The defense played heavily into the fact that Grady had an unfortunate life driven to drinking and violence by the incessant struggles he faced.Grady even managed to shed some tears in the courtroom, his daughter Donna took the stand and told him that “she would see him at his grave.”The jury took three hours in deciding that Grady was guilty of third-degree-murder, Grady received a sentence of 15 years but not in prison but 15 years of probation.The state believed that their prison system even in their handicap accessible facilities weren’t equipped to handle the specific need for Grady Stiles: no prison could deal with his handicap and to restrict him to jail would be merciless and irregular discipline. He additionally, at this point, had procured liver cirrhosis from drinking and had emphysema from long stretches of cigarette smoking.So Grady got to serve his sentence from home where he continued to drink heavily and beat his children.For reasons that no one — either in the Stiles family or outside of it — has been able to understand, his first wife agreed to remarry him in 1989.Mary who left Grady earlier came back in his life again in 1989 and surprisingly enough forgave the monster for all his wrongdoings.As earlier Grady was decent for a while but after some time the monster in him came back to haunt the lives of Mary and her children. The violence surged back to the surface as did copious amounts of sexual assault.A couple of years after she remarried Stiles, she paid her 17-year-old neighbor, Chris Wyant, $1,500 to murder him. Mary Teresa’s child from another marriage, Glenn, helped her imagine the thought and complete the arrangement.One night, Wyant took a .32 Colt Automatic he had a companion buy for him. He went into Stiles’ trailer, Grady was watching television in his underwear, Wyant put 2 round in the back of his head at the point-clear range, killing him instantly.Freedom But with A CostPolice arrested Mary, her son Harry and the killer Wyant. The jury convicted Wyant of second-degree murder and sentenced him to 27 years in prison.Not one of them denied that they had intended to kill Grady Stiles. During the trial, his wife spoke at length of his abusive history. “My husband was going to kill my family,” she told the court, “I believe that from the bottom of my heart.”Unfortunately for Mary’s child Glenn, self-defense isn’t applicable when hiring a hitman and Glenn was convicted of first-degree murder and was given life-sentence without the possibility of parole for 25 years.At least one of their children, Cathy, testified against him as well.Mary was also charged with first-degree murder and her conviction was reduced to manslaughter and she was sentenced to 12 years behind bars.She unsuccessfully appealed her conviction and began to serve her sentence in February of 1997. She had tried to get Glenn to take a plea bargain but he refused. The court sentenced him to life in prison.Just as a significant portion of his living family was being tried for his murder, Grady Stiles’ body was put to rest. Or unrest, as it were: Lobster Boy was so disliked, not just in his family but within the community, that the funeral home could not find anyone willing to be pallbearers.That's a story that most people don't know about the Lobster Boy!!ELLA HARPERMost sources indicate that Ella Harper was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee around 1870 – although there are some conflicting reports. It has also been revealed that Ella had a twin brother, who died quite early. What is not argued, however, is the fact that Ella was born with an unusual orthopedic condition resulting in knees that bent backwards.  The nature of this unusual affliction is exceedingly rare and relatively unknown, however most modern medical types would classify her condition and a very advanced form of congenital genu recurvatum – also known as ‘back knee deformity’. Her unusually bent knees, coupled with her preference of walking on all fours resulted in her moniker of ‘The Camel Girl’.In 1886, Ella was the star of W. H. Harris’s Nickel Plate Circus, often appearing accompanied by a camel when presented to audiences and she was a feature in the newspapers of every town the circus visited. Those newspapers touted Ella as ‘the most wonderful freak of nature since the creation of the world’ and that her ‘counterpart never did exist’.The back of Ella’s 1886 pitch card is far more modest in its information: I am called the camel girl because my knees turn backward. I can walk best on my hands and feet as you see me in the picture. I have traveled considerably in the show business for the past four years and now, this is 1886 and I intend to quit the show business and go to school and fit myself for another occupation. It appears that Ella did indeed move on to other ventures, and her $200 a week salary likely opened many doors for her. For quite some time no further information was available on Ella following 1886, but recently a genealogist managed to not only trace Ella’s family tree, but also provide some information regarding her life after sideshow.On 28 June 1905 Ella Harper married a man named Robert L. Savely. Savely was a school teacher and later a bookkeeper for a photo supplies company.  A 1910 Census shows Ella and her husband living in Nashville, Tennessee with Ella’s mother and it also revealed that Ella and her husband had adopted a 3 month old child, but that the child passed away only 18 days later.We also now know that Ella died of colon cancer on 19 December 1921 in Nashville, Tennessee and that she was buried at Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville. A simple gravestone marks her plot, but she is surrounded by family.LEONARD TRASK THE WONDERFUL INVALIDSome human marvels are made, not born. Often their manufacture is accidental and painful, such is the case of Leonard Trask. Born on June 30, 1805 in Hartford, Maine Trask suffered a major neck injury in his 20’s when he was thrown from his horse. The story was that a pig ran under the hooves of his horse and, after being thrown from the back of his steed, Trask spent several days crawling back home. Despite the serious injury, Trask continued to work as a farm hand until his spine began to bow.Soon, Trask’s chin was pressed into his chest permanently, and subsequent injuries only exasperated his misery. In 1840 he took a nasty fall and in 1853 he was thrown from his wagon and broke 4 ribs and his collarbone. On May 24, 1858 Trask was involved in a high-speed coach accident, in which he and several passengers where thrown to the ground. In the accident, Trask struck his head and opened ‘a gash in his head five inches long’. The injury was severe, and he was not expected to survive, but he did and was even more disabled and miserable as a result of the injury.Through much of his adult life, his wife took care of him, and despite his physical limitations he fathered seven children with her. Unable to work, Trask was eventually able to spin his status as a medical curiosity into small career as a human oddity attraction to the general public. As “The Wonderful Invalid”, Trask was able to capture a small measure of fame. His 1860 self-published story A Brief Historical Sketch of the Life and Sufferings of Leonard Trask, the Wonderful Invalid, which included accounts of his activities like ‘Mr. Trask at the Circus’ and ‘Mr.Trask Going to Drink’ that were both amusing and sad.At the time of his death on April 13, 1861 Trask’s condition was still not officially diagnosed despite seeing more than 22 doctors during his lifetime. Today Trask would be diagnosed with Ankylosing spondylitis, a condition that affect less than 0.2% of the general populationJOSEPHINE MYRTLE COARBINFor all intents and purposes, Josephine Myrtle Corbin was a normal girl. Her birth was not marked by anything out of the ordinary, and her mother claimed to have had a typical labor and delivery, apart from the baby being momentarily in the breech position.The doctors who examined the baby after birth reported her to be strong and healthy, adding that she was growing at a good rate. A year later she was found to be nursing “healthily” and “thriving well.”Overall, Myrtle Corbin was a perfectly healthy, active, and thriving baby girl. All in spite of having four legs.Perfectly Ordinary (Almost)After being born with four legs, two normal sized ones on either side of a pair of diminutive ones, the doctor who delivered Myrtle Corbin felt it necessary to point out the factors they felt could have resulted in her deformity. First, the baby’s parents, the doctors said, were about 10 years apart in age. William H. Corbin was 25, and his wife Nancy was 34. Second, the doctors noted that the couple bore a striking resemblance to each other. Both of them were redheads, with blue eyes and very fair complexions. They actually looked so similar that the doctors felt it necessary to explicitly point out that the two were not “blood kin” in their medical reports.Despite the two factors the doctors listed, it seemed that the young girl was simply an oddity – her parents had had seven other children, all of whom were perfectly ordinary.Later, it would be determined that she was born with dipygus and her condition was likely the result of her body’s axis splitting as it developed. As a result, she was born with two pelvises side by side.With each pelvis, she had two sets of legs, one normal sized, and one small. The two small legs were side by side, flanked on either side by two normal legs, though one with a clubbed foot.According to medical journals written by the physicians that studied Myrtle Corbin throughout her life, she was able to move her smaller inner legs, though they weren’t strong enough for her to be able to walk on. Which, of course, didn’t really matter, as they were not long enough to touch the ground.In 1881 at age 13, Myrtle Corbin joined the sideshow circuit under the moniker “The Four-Legged Girl From Texas.” After showing her to curious neighbors and charging them a dime each, her father realized her potential for publicity and for cash. He had promotional pamphlets made up and began placing ads in newspapers for people to come see her.The promotional pamphlets described her as a girl with “as gentle of disposition as the summer sunshine and as happy as the day is long.” And, indeed, that appeared to be true.Throughout her time as a sideshow attraction, she became wildly popular. Eventually, rather than bringing the curious onlookers to her she began traveling. By visiting small towns and cities and performing for the public, she ended up earning up to $450 a week.Eventually, famed showman P.T. Barnum heard about her and hired her for his show.For four years, she continued to work for Barnum and even inspired several other showmen to produce fake four-legged humans for their own shows when they couldn’t get her. At 18 years old, Myrtle Corbin retired from the sideshow business. She’d met a doctor named Clinton Bicknell and fallen in love. At 19, the two were married.About a year later in the spring of 1887, Myrtle Corbin discovered she was pregnant. She’d gone to a doctor in Blountsville, Ala., complaining of pain in her left side, fever, headache, and a decreased appetite. Despite her unique anatomy (she had two sets of internal and external reproductive anatomies), doctors did not believe there was a reason she couldn’t carry to term. Though she became gravely ill during the first three months of her pregnancy, resulting in her doctor performing an abortion, she ended up giving birth to four more healthy children in her life.After performing in the sideshow and giving birth to her children, Myrtle Corbin’s life was rather normal. Though her case continued to pop up in medical journals around the country, she maintained a quiet existence in her Texas home with her husband and children.Eventually in 1928, she died as the result of a streptococcal skin infection. Though antibiotics make the condition easily treatable today, in the 1920s there was no such treatment available.SEALOStanislaus Berent  was an American freak who performed at many freak shows, including the World Circus Sideshow in 1941 under the stage name of Sealo the Seal Boy (often stylized to just Sealo). He was known for his seal-like arms, which were caused by a congenital medical condition known as phocomelia. In 2001, Mat Fraser's play inspired by Sealo called Sealboy: Freak debuted. Berent was born November 24, 1901 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He was brought up as a Polish Catholic and suffered from an extremely rare congenital disorder known as phocomelia, which caused his "seal arms".  He had no arms; his hands grew from his shoulders. Sealo started off his career as a newspaper seller, then was discovered by freak scouters.He  was a regular feature at Coney Island's freak show from circa 1920 to 1970[4] and was exaggerated as a human with a seal body on some promotional sideshow posters. Despite his genetic disability, Sealo was still able to carry out feats like sawing a crate in half and shaving with a straight razor on his own, as well as moulding animal figurines out of clay. His partner on-stage was Toby, a chimpanzee. Sealo had trouble getting up and down the performance stage due to his weak legs. He would spend the time in which he was not performing on stage selling pitch cards. After performing, he preferred resting at hotels to sleeping at the fairground. He performed at the World Circus Sideshow in 1941. He also toured around the world and performed at many other freak shows.Sealo's freak show career lasted for thirty-five years; he retired in 1976 and moved to Showmen's Retirement Village in Gibsonton, Florida. He returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh afterwards when his health started to decline.  He spent his final days at a Catholic hospital and died in 1980.GEORGE AND WILLIE MUSEThe Muse brothers had an incredible career. The story of the two black albino brothers from Roanoke, Virginia is unique even in the bizarre world of freaks and sideshows. They were initially exploited and then later hailed for their unintentional role in civil rights.Born in the 1890’s the pair were scouted by sideshow agents and kidnapped in 1899 by bounty hunters working in the employ of an unknown sideshow promoter. Black albinos, being extremely rare, would have been an extremely lucrative attraction. They were falsely told that their mother was dead, and that they would never be returning home.The brothers began to tour. To accentuate their already unusual appearance, their handler had the brothers grow out their hair into long white dreadlocks. In 1922 showman Al G. Barnes began showcasing the brothers in his circus as White Ecuadorian cannibals Eko and Iko. When that gimmick failed to attract crowds the brothers were rechristened the ‘Sheep-Headed Men’ and later, in 1923, the ‘Ambassadors from Mars’.As the ‘Men from Mars’ the two traveled extensively with the Barnes circus. Unfortunately, while they were being fed, housed and trained in playing the mandolin, they were not being paid.In the mid 1920’s the Muse brothers toured with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1927, while visiting their hometown, their mother finally tracked them down. She fought to free her sons, some 20 years after their disappearance. She threatened to sue and the Muse brothers were freed.The brothers filed a lawsuit for the wages they earned but were never paid. They initially demanded a lump-sum payment of 100,000. However, as time passed the Muse brothers missed the crowds, the attention and the opportunities sideshow provided. Their lawyer got them a smaller lump-sum payment and a substantial contract with a flat monthly wage. The pair returned to show business in 1928.During their first season back they played Madison Square Garden and drew over 10,000 spectators during each of their performances. They made spectacular money as their new contract allowed them to sell their own merchandise and keep all the profits for themselves. In the 1930’s they toured Europe, Asia and Australia. They performed for royals and dignitaries including the Queen of England. In 1937 they returned to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for several years and finally ended their career in 1961 with the Clyde Beatty Circus.The brothers returned to their hometown and lived together in a house they originally purchased for their mother. Neither brother married, though they were well known for their many extravagant courtships.George Muse died in 1971 and many expected Willie to quickly follow his brother. Those people were wrong as Willie continued to play his mandolin and enjoy the company friends and family until his death on Good Friday of 2001.He was 108 years old.These are just a few of the many many many circus freaks throughout history. We purposefully did not cover guys like The Elephant Man and other more popular ones as we wanted to bring you some interesting ones you may not know about, except maybe the lobster boy but that shit is crazy! There are some more interesting stories and Coney Island deserves its own discussion...can you say….BONUS episode!!!              

In today's episode Annie Sargent talks to Jason Sager about the difficult relationship between French Kings and the Catholic church. And we couldn't get through this topic without talking about the French Wars of Religion. And it’s not just Kings, all of France has a complicated relationship with the Catholic church, even today! Just this morning I was talking to one of my neighbors and she brought up the fact that she goes to church regularly but she’s not a grenouille de bénitier. I bet you’ve never heard that expression. A grenouille de bénitier is a person who goes to church so much that she’s compared to a frog who lives in the font where they keep the holy water at the entrance of a Catholic church. You don’t have an expression like that in English, do you? That’s because as far as I know there is no English-speaking country where being a "churchy" person makes you stand out as an odd duck. You’ll get a heavy dose of French history and French culture in today’s episode. French People and the Catholic Church To set the stage, in the early 1500s world-wide you have Columbus sailing off from Spain. A lot of Chateaux were being built on the Loire Valley. François I wanted to be Emperor (but didn't manage). Leonardo da Vinci moved to France. But this is also the time when the wars of religion were happening in France. The Reformation Martin Luther's reformation also happened at that time. 1517-1522 is when he was excommunicated from the Catholic church. This began as a German reformation movement but it moved into France rapidly with John Calvin particularly who started his own reformed church in France. French Protestants are known as Huguenots in France. Huguenots This is something French Kings didn't like to see because they saw themselves as the protectors of the Catholic faith and they didn't want to see a different religion thrive in France. And the Huguenots religion spread very quickly in France, which made it an even bigger perceived threat. By 1560 about 10% of France was already Protestant. Members of the nobility also converted to the new religion. A lot of Bourbons were Protestants. The King of Navarre became a Protestant. Henri II before he died in an accident established a "chambre ardente" with the goal to eliminate the Huguenots from France. He died too soon to see if it worked. By 1560 there were already a lot of Protestants in France. France was supposed to be "la fille ainée de l'Eglise" or the eldest daughter of the church. François I wanted to be called "the most Christian King" to reinforce his relationship with the Catholic church. Henry XVIII in England wanted the title "defneder of the faith" from the Pope to establish himself as an equal to the French King. A Dangerous Situation By 1560 there are a lot of tensions between the Catholics and the rising Protestant minority in France. When Henri II died an untimely death it rattled the structure of power in France. He had 3 sons, but they were too young, so his wife, Catherine de Medici, became the regent. She was terribly unpopular because she was Italian and also a woman. The king, François II was the official king, but he was always in poor health and died of tuberculosis 18 months into his reign. His brother Charles IX succeeded him, but he was also too young to reign by himself. The situation was volatile and uncertain, especially when you take into account the high level of religious strife. Catherine de Medici always tried to find compromises between the Catholics and the Huguenots because she didn't think eliminating the Protestants would work. On the other hand, the Guise family who were ultra Catholic really believed in eliminating the Protestants. Duc de Guise at Vassy The Duc de Guise went through the town of Vassy where Protestants were allowed so long as they didn't worship within the walls of the city. He realized that they were breaking the law and worshiping inside the city. He sent his men to stop them from doing so and a firefight broke out.  Several Protestants were killed and this is one of the events that ignited the French Wars of Religion. This event is what convinced the Condé family and the Bourbons that it was time to take up arms to defend their Huguenot faith.  The Wars of Religion were a series of civil wars that went on for about 40 years. St. Bartholomew's Day massacre The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre took place under Charles IX in August 1572 and it's a bit of a mystery what started it. The Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (who was a Protestant and had been advocating for war against the Dutch) was shot but not killed. And this set off a chain of events between Protestants and Catholics that turned Paris into a powder cake. It is probable that the King himself sent a message to kill all Protestants on the night of August 24th. He might have done that because his sister married into the Navarre family (who were Protestants) and a lot of high-ranking Protestants were in Paris for the occasion. He was hoping to eradicate the new religion that way. About 3000 Protestants were killed that night in Paris alone and another 10,000 died all over France in the next couple of weeks. The level of indiscriminate violence the Catholic forces used against Protestants is shocking. The Wars, Massacres and Troubles of Tortorel and Perrissin is one hard to find book that illustrated the horrors of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Henri IV and the Edict of Nantes Henri IV was raised a Protestant and only became a Catholic to suit his political needs. The Edict of Nantes was signed in 1598 and that's what attempted to give some freedom to practice the Protestant religion. The Edict of Nantes is seen as the official end of the Wars of Religion although it was rescinded by Louis XIV one hundred years later. In a sense the Wars of Religion didn't end until the late 1600s. Were the Wars of Religion truly about religion or were they a political conflict between powers?  It was probably both. The noble families were using religion as leverage to gain power. But there was also a lot of religious fervor at the time and a lot of violence was perpetrated by people who were acting out of fanaticism. There were people who saw their neighbors as a cancer just because they didn't share the same religious beliefs. Louis XIII and his Confessor Jean Arnoulx Henri IV was assassinated by a Catholic, Ravaillac, who didn't believe the King had truly converted. He is followed by another Regency (by his mother Marie de Medici) and then Louis XIII. Louis XIII is the young king who hired strong man Cardinal Richelieu to help his side-step the power of his mother. Both Jean Arnoulx and Richelieu wrote in opposition to the Protestant religion. They wanted to secure the support of the Catholic church for the French King because in the past the church said they weren't doing enough to get rid of the Protestants. There were pamphlet wars in which people accused one-another of being bad subjects to the King (and therefore bad French people) because they weren't Catholic. In their view, in order to be French you also had to be a Catholic. The retort to that was that no Protestant had killed a French King yet, that it was crazy Catholics who did this sort of thing. Catholics never had a good response to that because it was indeed true. The Catholic Church in France Even today when you visit France, you will see that there are giant Catholic churches in tiny villages. That's because everyone went to church back then.  The Church was the biggest organizing force in French life until the Revolution and by then French people truly hated the church. French Kings since Clovis have been defenders of the Church, so when the Monarchy went, the church went with it. Jean Bossuet, under Louis XIV said the King was the representative of God on earth. Everybody in France, even Victor Hugo, though that the Kings represented on the facade of Notre Dame were the French Kings. In reality they were the Kings of Israel. There was a complete conflation of church and State in France until the Revolution. And then the divorce was brutal. Louis XVI got in big trouble with the people of Paris because he didn't want the priests to have to pledge to the new Constitution. And this is one of the major reasons why he didn't survive the Revolution, because he was seen as continuing to side with clergy. Jason's Favorite Places in Paris The Basilica of Saint Denis: It is a masterpiece in many regards, but the stained glass is marvelous there. Notre Dame de Paris Walking through streets like Rue Saint Jacques and knowing what happened there in the 5th arrondissement (where rue Saint Jacques and rue Saint Germain intersect). Cluny Museum More episodes about French history   Email | Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter   Did you get my VoiceMap Paris tours yet? They are designed for people who want to see the best of Paris neighborhoods and put what they are looking at into historical context. There are so many great stories in Paris. Don't walk right past them without having a clue what happened there! You can buy them directly from the VoiceMap app or click here to order activation codes at the podcast listener discount price.   Discussed in this Episode What's grenouille de bénitier? Fille ainée de l'Eglise French Wars of Religion Duc de Guise and Vassy The Edict of Nantes Bastides were established with commerce at their center instead of the church No Protestant ever killed a French King but two Catholics did! The French King is branded as Christ on Earth Louis XVI refuses to subject priests to the new Constitution Jason's favorite places in Paris The Basilica of Saint Denis Notre Dame Cluny Museum Support the Show Tip Your Guide Extras Patreon Audio Tours Merchandise If you enjoyed this episode, you should also listen to related episode(s): Lourdes, Episode 100 A Great Visit to the Chateau of Pau, Episode 191 Read more about this episode Guest Notes  Category: French History

French Queen Catherine de Medici may or may not have introduced the artichoke to France. And yes, she may be at least partly responsible for starting the French Wars of Religion. But were the accusations Catherine was a homicidal poisoner true?

On this day in Tudor history, 15th September 1589, the Battle of Arques began. This battle was part of the final war of the French Wars of Religion, a series of conflicts in France from 1562-1598 between Catholics and Huguenots. It was fought between the new French king, Henry IV, and the Catholic League led by Charles of Lorraine, Duke of Mayenne, and looked bad for Henry until troops sent by Elizabeth I arrived - phew! You can find out more about what led to this battle, what happened at the battle, and what happened next, in this talk from historian Claire Ridgway. You can see this podcast as a video at the following link:https://youtu.be/Ytj-i6iEaHs Also on this day in Tudor history, 15th September 1500, John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, cardinal and Henry VII’s Lord Chancellor, died at Knole in Kent. He was not a very popular man with the English people due to his role in Henry VII's financial policies, and one tax rationale he's associated with is Morton's Fork, but was it really down to him? Find out the answer and find out more about this Tudor taxman in last year’s video - https://youtu.be/A6s_7o5jMj4 

16th Century Potpourri, Ottoman EditionThis episode is what I call a "Potpourri" episode, it's a mix of three short scenarios centered around the theme of either halting or re-directing European colonization of the Americas and Canada. It's also probably one of the few times I'll get to discuss the Ottoman Empire on this podcast.The next episode will be out in two weeks - around Sep 26.Opening Theme: "Another Place" by Score SquadOutro: From "Oh Canaduh" by Nomeansno, covering the SubhumansFor now, you can reach me at:Email: counterfactualcanuck@gmail.comTwitter: @CounterfactualCWikipedia should not be used as a source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_invasion_of_Otrantohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_ViennaPrinted material:Paul Lendvai - The HungariansCaroline Finkel - Osman's DreamMack P Holt - The French Wars of Religion, 1562-1629

Renewed Religious Struggle 1. How did religious conflict in Europe evolve over the course of the second half of the sixteenth century? The French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) 2. What caused the civil war between the Huguenots and the Catholics in France, and what was the outcome? 3. How did politics shape the religious positions of the French leaders? What led to the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, and what did it achieve? Imperial Spain and Philip II (r. 1556-1598) 4. How was Philip II able to dominate international politics for much of the latter half of the sixteenth century? 5. What were Philip II successes and failures? England and Spain (1553-1603) 6. What role did Catholic and Protestant extremism play in the struggle for supremacy between England and Spain? 7. What led to the establishment of the Anglican Church in England? Why did Mary I fail? What was Elizabeth I’s settlement, and why was it difficult to impose on England? Who were Elizabeth I’s detractors, and what were their criticisms? The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) 8. What toll did the Thirty Years’ War take on Germany? 9. Why was the Thirty Years’ War fought? Was politics or religion more important in determining the outcome of the war? What were the main terms of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648? 10. Why has the Thirty Years’ War been called the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict? Is this true? Were the results worth the cost of the war? General 11. Henry of Navarre (Henry IV of France), Elizabeth I, and William of Orange were all politiques. What does that term mean, and why does it apply to these three rulers? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

In Part I of their first episode, Jamie and Sofia discuss the very sparkly 1999 film Ever After: A Cinderella Story. Join them to learn new and exciting things about Leonardo da Vinci, codpieces, and selling servants to pay debts.  Sources: Ever After. IMDB. Susannah Grant, "Success Feels Better, But It Doesn't Necessarily Make You Better," Medium.  Leonardo da Vinci: Mona Lisa, The Met.  Mona Lisa, The Louvre. The Codex Atlanticus. "Flying Machine," LeonardodaVinci.net Leonardo da Vinci's Codex on the Flight of Birds. Smithsonian. Leonardo da Vinci, Head of a Woman, The Met. Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance. PBS. Leonardo da Vinci, Thoughts on Art and Life. trans. Maurice Baring, 1906. Jonathan Jones, "And the Winner Is," The Guardian. "The Other Vitruvian Man," Smithsonian Magazine.  Codpieces: Grace Q. Vicary, “Visual Art as Social Data: The Renaissance Codpiece,” Cultural Anthropology 4, 1 (February 1989) pp. 3-25. “What Goes Up Must Come Down: A Brief History of the Codpiece.” Selling People to Pay Debts: Henry Heller, "Bodin on Slavery and Primitive Accumulation," The Sixteenth-Century Journal Robert Kalas, "Noble Widows and Estate Management during the French Wars of Religion" Hoffman, "The Economic Theory of Sharecropping in Early Modern France"

They had the men and the power but you need more than that

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They had the men and the power but you need more than that

If you thought you properly understood how the Empire worked at long last – then think again! There was always some wrinkle or exception to the rule, but perhaps no rules were more important than those concerning the role of Electors. We touched on them in the last episode, but here we place them in their proper context, and unwrap what specifically made them so important to the functioning of the Empire. The Habsburgs, powerful though they were, depended upon the Electors for their legitimacy, and after the Reformation, the seven invaluable votes which could be offered were split along these lines. What was the solution? To a generation of Habsburg rulers, it was quite simple – maintain such a monopoly on power that the votes come in regardless. How to manage this feat? Marriage, of course!Into this examination we throw several wrenches, including the Julich-Cleve Crisis of 1609-14, which provided a dangerous training ground for the two ideological blocs of the Empire to square off. Another incident, the destruction of the city of Donauworth in 1608, and its capture by the Duke of Bavaria, also deserves mention. The Empire, stable though it somehow remained, was in danger of a major rupture if calmer heads did not prevail. Somewhere to the west, an individual was seeking an opportunity to capitalise, and bring his Kingdom to the front of the Emperor’s lists of problems. Henry IV, the King of France, had emerged triumphant from the French Wars of Religion, but this scion of the House of Bourbon had a way to go before he could sponsor the showdown with the Habsburgs that his son and grandson were to pursue. Tune into episode 3 to see exactly how Europe sustained such domineering personalities and powers!**********DON'T FORGET TO FOLLOW THESE LINKS!**1) To support the podcast financially in return for some extra audio content, check out Patreon!2) To find a community of history friends, look at our Facebook page and group!3) To keep up to date with us, follow us on Twitter!4) For everything else, visit our website, where you'll find the shop, archive, and much more!5) To purchase merchandise of all sorts, including mugs, books and clothing, check out our Merchants' Quarter! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries. Tensions between the crowns of France and England can be traced back to the origins of the English royal family itself, which was French (Norman, and later, Angevin) in origin. For this reason, English monarchs had historically held not only the English crown, but also titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English king's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away lands as the opportunity arose, particularly whenever England was at war with Scotland, an ally of France. Over the centuries, English holdings in France had varied in size, at some points dwarfing even the French royal domain; by 1337, however, only Gascony was left to the English. In 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne (later retroactively attributed to the ancient Salic law). In 1328, Charles IV of France died without sons or brothers. His closest male relative was his nephew Edward III of England, whose mother, Isabella of France, was sister of the deceased king. Isabella claimed the throne of France for her son, but the French rejected it, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right she did not possess. Furthermore, political sentiment favoured a Frenchman for the crown rather than a foreign prince. The throne passed instead to Philip, Count of Valois, a patrilineal cousin of Charles IV, who would become Philip VI of France, the first king of the House of Valois. The English had not expected their claim to meet with success, and did not press the matter when it was denied. However, disagreements between Philip and Edward induced the former to confiscate the latter's lands in France, and in turn prompted Edward III to reassert his claim to the French throne. Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt and Verneuil—raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph, and persuaded the English to continue pouring money and manpower into the war over many decades. However, the death of Henry V and succession of his infant son, with the dysfunctional government that ruled and the loss of Burgundy as an ally, prevented the English kings from ever completing the conquest of France. Starting in 1429, decisive French victories at Orléans, Patay, Formigny, and later Castillon concluded the war in favour of the House of Valois, with England permanently losing most of its possessions on the continent. Historians commonly divide the war into three phases separated by truces: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), and the Lancastrian War (1415–1453). Local conflicts in neighbouring areas, which were contemporarily related to the war, including the War of the Breton Succession (1341–1365), the Castilian Civil War (1366–1369), the War of the Two Peters (1356–1369) in Aragon, and the 1383–85 crisis in Portugal, were availed of by the parties to advance their agendas. Later historians adopted the term "Hundred Years' War" as a historiographical periodisation to encompass all of these events, thus constructing the longest military conflict in European history. The war owes its historical significance to multiple factors. By its end, feudal armies had been largely --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/allthingsplantagenet/support

The Hundred Years' War was a series of conflicts waged from 1337 to 1453 by the House of Plantagenet, rulers of the Kingdom of England, against the French House of Valois, over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. Each side drew many allies into the war. It was one of the most notable conflicts of the Middle Ages, in which five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought for the throne of the largest kingdom in Western Europe. The war marked both the height of chivalry and its subsequent decline, and the development of strong national identities in both countries. Tensions between the crowns of France and England can be traced back to the origins of the English royal family itself, which was French (Norman, and later, Angevin) in origin. For this reason, English monarchs had historically held not only the English crown, but also titles and lands within France, the possession of which made them vassals to the kings of France. The status of the English king's French fiefs was a major source of conflict between the two monarchies throughout the Middle Ages. French monarchs systematically sought to check the growth of English power, stripping away lands as the opportunity arose, particularly whenever England was at war with Scotland, an ally of France. Over the centuries, English holdings in France had varied in size, at some points dwarfing even the French royal domain; by 1337, however, only Gascony was left to the English. In 1316, a principle was established denying women succession to the French throne (later retroactively attributed to the ancient Salic law). In 1328, Charles IV of France died without sons or brothers. His closest male relative was his nephew Edward III of England, whose mother, Isabella of France, was sister of the deceased king. Isabella claimed the throne of France for her son, but the French rejected it, maintaining that Isabella could not transmit a right she did not possess. Furthermore, political sentiment favoured a Frenchman for the crown rather than a foreign prince. The throne passed instead to Philip, Count of Valois, a patrilineal cousin of Charles IV, who would become Philip VI of France, the first king of the House of Valois. The English had not expected their claim to meet with success, and did not press the matter when it was denied. However, disagreements between Philip and Edward induced the former to confiscate the latter's lands in France, and in turn prompted Edward III to reassert his claim to the French throne. Several overwhelming English victories in the war—especially at Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt and Verneuil—raised the prospects of an ultimate English triumph, and persuaded the English to continue pouring money and manpower into the war over many decades. However, the death of Henry V and succession of his infant son, with the dysfunctional government that ruled and the loss of Burgundy as an ally, prevented the English kings from ever completing the conquest of France. Starting in 1429, decisive French victories at Orléans, Patay, Formigny, and later Castillon concluded the war in favour of the House of Valois, with England permanently losing most of its possessions on the continent. Historians commonly divide the war into three phases separated by truces: the Edwardian War (1337–1360), the Caroline War (1369–1389), and the Lancastrian War (1415–1453). Local conflicts in neighbouring areas, which were contemporarily related to the war, including the War of the Breton Succession (1341–1365), the Castilian Civil War (1366–1369), the War of the Two Peters (1356–1369) in Aragon, and the 1383–85 crisis in Portugal, were availed of by the parties to advance their agendas. Later historians adopted the term "Hundred Years' War" as a historiographical periodisation to encompass all of these events, thus constructing the longest military conflict in European history. The war owes its historical significance to multiple factors. By its end, feudal armies had been largely --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/allthingsplantagenet/support

The second of three introductory videos that cover the background of the French Wars of Religion. This episode examines the reign of King Henri II of France, and how Protestantism continued to grow despite increased persecution from the government.

This is the first of three introductory videos that cover the background of the French Wars of Religion. In this video, I give a broad overview of the entrance of Protestantism into France under the reign of King Francis I.

Conclusion of the French Wars of Religion. On the death of all four sons of Catherine de Medici, the Valois dynasty dies out, leaving a committed Protestant, Henry of Navarre, as heir to the throne. He would go on to become Henry IV, founder of the Bourbon dynasty and one of France's greatest kings.https://aca.st/370288 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Fighting breaks out in France between Protestants and Catholics in a series of conflicts known as the French Wars of Religion. The most infamous event of all is the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre 1572 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Protestant Faith is spreading fast when Henry II (pictured) ascends to the throne of France in 1574. His early death destabilizes the French Crown See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This episode is a very “broad strokes” episode, where we cover some key events of the French Wars of Religion and basically just get a better idea of how that played into their new world activities. Or, to be more precise, how the civil wars curtailed their activities, most notably with the murder of Coligny … Continue reading Episode 27 – The French Wars of Religion

Weren't the Wars of Religion just a German affair? Find out about the French Wars of Religion in this exciting podcast with Prof. Mack Holt of George Mason University. Learn how the Bourbons got in power, who the Guises were, and why this is the bloodiest War of Religion you've never heard of.

Discuss the relationship between politics and religion by examining the wars of religion: Dutch Revolt, French Wars of Religion, and the Thirty Years' War. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Part 2 in our series on the Wars of Religion. This episode looks at the French Wars of Religion, also known as the French Civil War, and looks at how a new monarch, Henry IV of France will put the interest of the state and his power above religious concern.

Finally we’re here, at the end of the French War, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. Some cool show news: we’re registered for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. Which means I filled out a form at podcastawards.com. For that process to get any further, you folks need to head to podcastawards.com and nominate Safe … Continue reading Vietnam VII: Dien Bien Phu →

And here we are, finally, finally making it to the end of the French War. We still have Dien Bien Phu and the denouement to wrap up, which we’ll do in the next episode, maybe in the fastest-ever-produced next episodes, so fingers crossed there. Like last time, I’m covering pretty much all the material that I’m … Continue reading Vietnam VI: Learning Curve →

We’re getting into the French War proper now, and we’ll make it almost all the way to the outbreak of the war in Korea by the end of this one. I’ve got some videos whose audio I couldn’t use, for various reasons, in the show itself, but that might serve to give all of us … Continue reading Vietnam IV: The First Indochina War →

In this episode, we look at Flanders, it's alliance with Edward I, and the second phase of the Anglo-French War of the end of the 13th Century.  If you have any question, please feel free to contact me at leapoardandlilies@gmail.com, or at the Facebook page.  To help the show, you can leave the show a glowing review on iTunes or Google Play.

UGP #558 Broken In Body, Broken In Heart, But Never Broken In Spirit we live our lives in body, in mind (heart), and in spirit one or more may be in disrepair but which is the most important to keep up and running? #ugp  Next Sunday special guest Sean-Michael will talk to us about his new game he created on the French War and thier Maginot Line... come here this prodigy talk History and his game as well as a student lead civic group he has started...

Welcome back to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, we today we continue our exploration of the baddies of rhetoric.   Last week we talked about Thomas Hobbes and his rhetoric-hating ways for our first villain of rhetoric. Next in our series of the badnicks of rhetoric is Peter Ramus, or, if you will, Petrus Ramus. Ramus came before Hobbes, and he’s definitely one of the people that rhetoricians point to as a villain   As James Jasinski once said, "the range of rhetoric began to be narrowed during the 16th century, thanks in part to the works of Peter Ramus.”   And who was this villain? “ Ramus was born in Cuts, France. His father was a farmer and his grandfather a charcoal-burner. He became a servant to a rich scholar at the College de Navarre. Ramus was educated at home until he was 12 at which time he entered the Collège de Navarre in Paris. He graduated with a Master's Degree in 1536, defending a thesis on Aristotle. After graduation Ramus taught, first at the Collège de Mans, then at the Collège de l'Ave Maria in Paris where he taught until 1572.”     Walter Ong chonroicled the way in which Ramus kicked rhetoric down off in the trivium in his Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason The title of this book gives away pretty clearly what Ramus did: ramus wanted to decrease the importances of discourse to what he called reason. Remember when we talkeda bout the canons of rhetoric? In case you’re just joining us or you’ve forgotten: It’s what the Pirate says I alwys state my demands Invention, arrangement, style memory delivery. Ramus proposed moving the invention, arrangement and memory out of the rhelm of rhetoric into logic, under a new name: iudicium (judgment).   He redefined the trivium of grammar dialectic and rhetoric “Grammar’s two parts are etymology and syntax; dialectic’s two parts are invention and arrangement; and the two parts of rhetoric are style and delivery.”     Ramus's goal is to show that many of the categories that Aristotle came up with regarding rhetoric, which Cicero and Quintilian and others followed, are either arbitrary or actually false, because the divisions divide the subject at the wrong joints. I think Ramus is, for the most part, right, though he is being a little more strict than the subject matter allows [per Aristotle]. Ramus says: Quintilian has added all kinds of things to rhetoric that do not belong to it. Rather, these things might be necessary in rhetoric, e.g., grammar, or must exist in the good orator, e.g., virtue, but these are not what rhetoric itself is about, as an art. Ramus identifies rhetoric with what earlier writers call eloquence, limiting its scope to style and delivery. Invention, order, and memory, he says, belong more properly to dialectic (which ends up being very similar to philosophy). In this way, rhetoric seems to be separated from both the audience and the pisteis of the argument. This makes sense, but only so long as it is remembered that rhetoric [eloquence] is nothing without dialectic as its counterpart [per Aristotle]. Ramus evidently believes that rhetoric can be taught apart from dialectic, even though speeches and even literature and poetry are constructed out of both. Dialectic and rhetoric work together in "stirring the emotions and causing delight" (Newlands 124), but training in ethics is the better place to go to learn about the emotions properly.   As walter Ong says Prime inditement against Ramus as one whose work “could in no real sense be considered an advance or even a reform in logic” (5) because he was “living off the increment of intellectual capital belonging to others” (7)   “Ramist rhetoric […] is not a dialogue rhetoric at all, and Ramist dialectic has lost all sense of Socratic dialogue” (287), because, as Ramus says, “The art of dialectic is the teaching of how to discourse” (qtd. 160) and as for rhetoric “Ramist rhetoric relies more on ornamentation theory than perhaps any other rhetoric ever has “ (277).       In the place of rhetoric, Ramus recommended a type of logic that depends on what he called “Method”—“orderly pedagogical presentation of any subject by reputedly scientific descent from ‘general principles’ to ‘specials’” in bifurcated charts (11). These charts are familiar to us now, especially when we thinking about flow charts and technology branches. It’s also very familiar to those of us who grew up reading Choose Your Own Adcentures. It’s about splitting all of your options in to. For example Ramus creates a tree of cicero’s life. At the beginning, you have the two choices: life and death. Death is a dead end, but if you follow life, that splits into his birth and his parents on one hand and his learning on the other. Follow learning and you haveanother split between old age and youth. Follow old age and you’ll find his public career and his retirement. Following these branches, you can follow a yes or a no throughout Cicero’s life. This is a great sort of organization for computers to follow because of its bifurcation and it’s handy also when you’re following a taxonomy, but it isn’t the most useful for coming up with ideas that exists in non dialectical order. Still this method could be used for invention and memory, just as Ramus wanted. According to Yeates (1966): "...one of the chief aims of the Ramist movement for the reform and simplification of education was to provide a new and better way of memorising all subjects. This was to be done by a new method whereby every subject was to be arranged in ‘dialectical order’. This order was set out in schematic form in which the ‘general’ or inclusive aspects of the subject came first, descending thence through a series of dichotomised classifications to the ‘specials’ or individual aspects. Once a subject was set out in its dialectical order it was memorised in this order from the schematic presentation – the famous Ramist epitome." (p.232         “Ramus became a convert to Calvinism in the 1550s and in so doing became caught up in the politics associated with the French Wars of Religion between the Roman Catholics and the Calvinistic Huguenots. The Duc de Guise, a Catholic, took control of the royal family in Paris. This resulted in uprisings by the Calvinist Huguenots throughout France and a ruthless response by Duc de Guise. Near the end of 1562, the Calvinists were forced to leave Paris, and Ramus left with them. In 1572, after spending time both in and out of Paris, Ramus planned to return permanently to Paris under protection of the King. Despite this protection, during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in which a Roman Catholic mob attacked and murdered Protestant Huguenots, Ramus was assassinated. Following his death he became regarded by Protestants as a martyr.“   Ong argues that it was in part because of Ramus’ martyrdom that he became so popular in England and other Protestant                                                                                              Ramus was incredibly influential for centuries, first in the Protestant continent, and then in England and America (47). Most importantly, perhaps, “Ramism assimilated logic to imagery and imagery to locig by reducing intelligence itself, more or less unconsciously, in terms for rather exclusively visual, spatial analogies” (286).   Ramus was influencial, but he also limited the role of rhetoric to eloquence, to the style and delivery of ideas rather than the invention of them. It would take centuries for rhetoricians to wrestle these elements of the canon back to the rhelm of rhetoric but the idea that rhetoric equals style is still with us. Just think of how often we hear politicians say their opponents have lots of hollow rhetoric without any good ideas.   Next week we’ll go even earlier to talk about the renaissance debates about rhetoric, so we’ll have a whole super team of rhetoric villains, all plotting to limit the scope or influence of rhetoric. If you have an idea for a series you’d like to hear on Mere Rhetoric, why not drop us a line at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com? I’ll listen respectfully, because I am not personally a super villain.

What do the French Wars of Religion look like when we add the perspective of exile, both external and internal.

The Religious Wars: French Wars of Religion and the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean Presentation Online Giving

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He'd come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn't because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I've read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I'd never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley's Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He's mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he's done a marvelous job of it. My uncle's war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story.

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My uncle fought in Vietnam. He flew F-105 Thundercheifs, or “Thuds.” He bombed the heck out of an area north of Hanoi called “Thud Ridge.” He’d come home on leave and tell us that it was okay “over there” and not to worry. I didn’t because I was sure “we” would win and my uncle would come home a hero. Of course, neither of these things happened (though my uncle did come home). Since then, I’ve read many books about the war In an effort to try to figure out “what happened,” which is to say why it all went so horribly wrong. But I’d never read one quite like Mark P. Bradley’s Vietnam at War (Oxford University Press, 2009). Mark succeeds in doing something very unusual–and perhaps unique–in the American literature on the Vietnam conflict: he shows us the war from the Vietnamese point of view, and more particularly the North Vietnamese point of view. He’s mined Vietnamese archives, literature, and popular culture to see the war through Vietnamese eyes, and he’s done a marvelous job of it. My uncle’s war was very different from the one Mark presents. He fought the “Vietnam War”; they fought the “French War” and the “American War.” He saw it from a cockpit; they lived it on the ground, under the bombs. He was in their country; they were in their own country. He was sure he would leave; they were sure they would stay, and grasp victory once the invaders were gone. Now that I think about it, there is something strangely familiar about this story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous St Bartholomew's Day Massacre. In Paris, in the high summer of 1572, a very unusual wedding was happening in the cathedral of Notre Dame. Henri, the young Huguenot King of Navarre, was marrying the King of France's beloved sister, Margot, a Catholic. Theirs was a union designed to bring together the rival factions of France and finally end the French Wars of Religion. Paris was bustling with Huguenots and Catholics and, though the atmosphere was tense, the wedding went off without a hitch. And as they danced together at the Louvre, it seemed that the flower of French nobility had finally come together to bury its differences.That wasn't to be: on St Bartholomew's Day, four days after the ill-starred nuptials, so many Protestants were killed in the streets of Paris that the River Seine ran red with their blood. Was the wedding a trap? Who was to blame for the carnage and what impact did it have on the Reformation in Europe?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University and author of a new book: Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490-1700; Mark Greengrass, Professor of History at the University of Sheffield; Penny Roberts, Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In Paris, in the high summer of 1572, a very unusual wedding was happening in the cathedral of Notre Dame. Henri, the young Huguenot King of Navarre, was marrying the King of France’s beloved sister, Margot, a Catholic. Theirs was a union designed to bring together the rival factions of France and finally end the French Wars of Religion. Paris was bustling with Huguenots and Catholics and, though the atmosphere was tense, the wedding went off without a hitch. And as they danced together at the Louvre, it seemed that the flower of French nobility had finally come together to bury its differences.That wasn’t to be: on St Bartholomew’s Day, four days after the ill-starred nuptials, so many Protestants were killed in the streets of Paris that the River Seine ran red with their blood. Was the wedding a trap? Who was to blame for the carnage and what impact did it have on the Reformation in Europe?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University and author of a new book: Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700; Mark Greengrass, Professor of History at the University of Sheffield; Penny Roberts, Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the infamous St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In Paris, in the high summer of 1572, a very unusual wedding was happening in the cathedral of Notre Dame. Henri, the young Huguenot King of Navarre, was marrying the King of France’s beloved sister, Margot, a Catholic. Theirs was a union designed to bring together the rival factions of France and finally end the French Wars of Religion. Paris was bustling with Huguenots and Catholics and, though the atmosphere was tense, the wedding went off without a hitch. And as they danced together at the Louvre, it seemed that the flower of French nobility had finally come together to bury its differences.That wasn’t to be: on St Bartholomew’s Day, four days after the ill-starred nuptials, so many Protestants were killed in the streets of Paris that the River Seine ran red with their blood. Was the wedding a trap? Who was to blame for the carnage and what impact did it have on the Reformation in Europe?With Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University and author of a new book: Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700; Mark Greengrass, Professor of History at the University of Sheffield; Penny Roberts, Lecturer in History at the University of Warwick.