100,000 British soldiers – a massive army in the annals of human history; that’s how many soldiers The United Kingdom sent to Palestine in order to quell the budding revolt of the Israeli nation. It didn’t work. Thousands died. Tens of thousands of Arab and Israeli soldiers clashed. Hundreds of thousands of people lost everything they owned – reduced to nothing – an illustration for the dictionary entry on “penury.” This is their story. It’s a story that tells of the hopes of hundreds of generations suddenly, unbelievably, finding fruition. And it’s also the story of a nation sinking low. As always: there’s blood, there’s pain, there’s insights for all of us – insights about politics, international law, man qua wolf and man qua angel. The truth is man is neither an angel or a wolf. He is both. And this is the story of his heavenly dirge, his dismal symphony. And it’s yours, too.

It’s all for free and it’s all on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its socio-political impact. This show is dedicated to Ricky from Omaha – who gave so that we could enjoy this show. I’m very thankful for Ricky and I’m thankful for you who are reading this.

Download episode 44 here: Download

Maps

Music Notes

Today’s show featured the song “Missing You” by At 1980. Check out the music here: https://newretrowave.bandcamp.com/album/a-thousand-lives

References

The Arab-Israeli Wars by Chaim Herzog

American Judaism by Nathan Glazer

A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to our Time, 3rd edition by Howard Sachar

A History of the Jews in the modern world by Howard Sachar

A History of the Jews in America by Howard Sachar

A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson

A History of the Jewish People by Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson et al. 

1948: A history of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris

An introduction to Judaism by Nicholas Robert De Lange

The Israel/Palestine reader by Alan Dowty et al. 

Righteous victims: A history of the Zionist-Arab conflict by Benny Morris

The other Israel : voices of refusal and dissent by Jonathan Shainin, Roane Carey, et al.

The peace movement in Israel, 1967-87 by David Hall-Cathala

The Israel-Arab reader : a documentary history of the Middle East conflict by Walter Laqueur and Dan Schueftan (editors)

The Israel-Palestine conflict : one hundred years of war by James Gelvin

The war of atonement : the inside story of the Yom Kippur War by Chaim Herzog and Michael Herzog

Israel in search of a war : the Sinai Campaign, 1955-1956 by Mott Golani 

The two o’clock war : the 1973 Yom Kippur conflict and the airlift that saved Israel by Walter Boyne and Fred Smith

The Yom Kippur War : the epic encounter that transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich

The Yom Kippur War 1973 (two volumes) by Simon Dunstan

The Six Day War 1967: Jordan and Syria by Simon Dunstan

The Six day War 1967: Sinai by Simon Dunstan

A History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield

Lebanon: A History, 600 – 2011 by William Harris

Syria From The Great War To Civil War by John McHugo

Syria: A Modern History by David Lesch

Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak by Tarek Osman

A History of Egypt: From the Earliest Times to the Present by Jason Thompson

A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel by Walter Laqueur

Why the Jews? by Dennis Prager, Joseph Telushkin, et al.

Making Israel by Benny Morris

The Arab-Israeli Conflict by Efraim Karsh

100 Hours to Suez by Robert Henriques

Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe

The Seventh Day: Soldiers’ Talk about the Six-Day War by Avraham Shapira

The Hope by Herman Wouk

“Into the Valley of Death” by Zen Read. Haaretz.com. https://www.haaretz.com/1.4962016 

Today’s show is the story of modern military medicine. It’s burns. It’s amputations. It’s disfigurement. It’s the story of medical staff and wounded in war zones – the horror, the deaths, the exhaustion. It’s a brief history of pain and it’s all for free on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and it’s sociopolitical impact.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc-43final/BC43final.mp3

Download episode 43 here: download

Modern War Wounds – A Visual Tour: View Presentation Here

References:

365 days by Ronald Glasser

On Killing by Dave Grossman

German soldiers in the Great War: letters and eyewitness accounts by Bernd Ulrich et al.

Americans at war: eyewitness accounts from the American revolution to the 21st century by James Arnold et al.

Bleeding blue and grey by Ira Rutkow

The killing zone by Frederick Downs

Aftermath by Frederick Downs

Civil War medicine : a surgeon’s diary by Robert Hicks

On call in Hell: A doctor’s Iraq war story by Richard Jadick and Thomas Hayden

Combat medic, World War II by John Kerner

Paradise General: riding the surge at a combat hospital in Iraq by Dave Hnida

War surgery 1914-18 by Steven Heys and Thomas Scotland

The reconstruction of warriors : Archibald McIndoe, the Royal Air Force and the Guinea Pig Club by E.R. Mayhew

Medical and surgical care during the American Civil War, 1861–1865 by Robert Reiley available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4790547/

Hiroshima diary : the journal of a Japanese physician, August 6-September 30, 1945 by Michiko Hachiya

This republic of suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

Emergency war surgery by Borden Institute US Army Medical Department Center and School Health Readiness Center of Excellence Fort Sam Houston, Texas, 5th edition.

War surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A series of cases, 2003-2007 by Shawn Christian Nessen (Editor) et al. Available at: https://www.cs.amedd.army.mil/borden/bookDetail.aspx?ID=0a2c5bb0-6574-4c0c-93d9-cd278271584f&pageTitle=War%20Surgery%20in%20Afghanistan%20and%20Iraq,%20a%20Series%20of%20Cases,%202003-2007

Tactical combat casualty care: Lessons and best practices by United States Army

Practical pathology of gunshot wounds by J. Scott Denton, Adrienne Segovia, and James Filkins in Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Volume 130(9), (Sep 2006): pages 1283-1289

In May 1968 the nation of France came apart at the seams. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooded into the streets. Strikes across the nation brought production to a standstill. Veteran politicians fled the country. Protestors met police in the streets: club versus bat, stone versus grenade. This is the story of the month France turned the corner and rushed headlong into post-modernity. It’s all here and it’s all for free on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its sociopolitical impact.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc-42-final/BC42%20final.mp3

Download episode 42 here: Download

References:

Mai 68 par celles et ceux qui l’ont vécu by Christelle Dormoy-Rajramanan, Boris Gobille, and Erik Neveu

1968: de grands soirs en petits matins by Ludivine Bantigny

Mai 68: une histoire du mouvement by Laurent Joffrin

Mai 68 : l’événement Janus by Jean-francois Sirinelli

Mai 68 : l’héritage impossible by Jean-Pierre Le Goff

May ‘68 and its afterlives by Kristin Ross.

La saga des intellectuels français by Jean-Pierre Le Goff

1968 in Europe by Marin Klimke and Joachim Scharloth

Le Conflict by Julien Freund

Mai 68 vu d’en face: les vrais les rebelles n’étaient pas ceux qu’on croit… by Bernard Lugan

Les slogans de 68 by Jean-Philippe Legois

Prelude to revolution: France in May, 1968 by Daniel Singer

1968: The Year That Rocked the World by Mark Kuransky

A Concise History of France by Roger Price

“10,000 millionaires left France last year” by Ivana Kottasova. https://money.cnn.com/2016/04/01/news/millionaires-fleeing-france/index.html

Today we’re diving back into a war that has touched all our lives – the Mexican Drug War. It’s the deaths behind so many parties across the length and breadth of North America – the sin behind the fun – the endless pain that birthed endless euphoria. It’s a war that lays bare our true values, our real core beliefs. It’s a war that shows us the true meaning of politics; and it’s a war with violence out of a Dario Argento film. I’m going to introduce you to the Pozolero – the stew maker – who liquidated bodies in large vats of bubbling hot caustic soda. I’m going to tell you about Decena Guzman, who turned an elite special forces squad into one of the most feared and dangerous cartels in the history of mankind. Today’s show has crucifixions and decapitations – heads sewn onto soccer balls – and it all stems from you and me – from American and Canadian and even Australian drug users. It’s all free and it’s all on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast about war and its sociopolitical impact.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc-41/BC41.mp3

Download episode 41 here: Download

References:

Associated Press. (2020). Mexico’s president says ‘El Chapo’ had same power as if he led country himself. Fox News. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/world/mexico-president-says-el-chapo-had-same-power-as-president

Ricardo C. Ainslie. The Fight to Save Juárez: Life in the Heart of Mexico’s Drug War. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2013.

Malcolm Beith. The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord. New York: Grove Press, 2010.

Charles Bowden. Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields. New York: Nation Books, 2010.

Howard Campbell. Drug War Zone: Frontline Dispatches from the Streets of El Paso and Juárez. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2009.

Isaac Campos. Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.

George W. Grayson and Samuel Logan. The Executioner’s Men: Los Zetas, Rogue Soldiers, Criminal Entrepreneurs, and the Shadow State They Created. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012.

Ioan Grillo. El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011.

Paul Rexton Kan. Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2012.

Jerry Langton. Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels from El Paso to Vancouver. Mississauga, Ontario, Canada: J. Wiley & Sons Canada, 2011.

Sylvia Longmire. Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico’s Drug Wars. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

David A. Shirk. The Drug War in Mexico: Confronting a Shared Threat. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

George Grayson. The executioner’s men : Los Zetas, rogue soldiers, criminal entrepreneurs, and the shadow state they created

Mexico’s Drug War (Viewpoint Series) by Margaret Haerens (editor)

Malcolm Beith, “Mexico’s Drug War: The Battle Without Hope,” New Statesman, August 8, 2012.

One Man Dissolved Dozens of Bodies and Dumped Them in This Mass Grave in Mexico by Laura Sánchez Ley. Vice News. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne35zg/one-man-dissolved-dozens-of-bodies-and-dumped-them-in-this-mass-grave-in-mexico

Grillo, Ioan. “Why cartels are killing Mexico’s mayors.” International New York Times, January 16, 2016.

Jorge Castañeda, “A US War with Mexican Consequences,” Cato Unbound, August 5, 2009.

Executive Office of the President of the United States. 2016. National Drug Control Strategy. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-research/prs_2016.pdf

Breslow, Jason. “The Staggering Death Toll of Mexico’s Drug War.” PBS.org. July 27, 2015. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-staggering-death-toll-of-mexicos-drug-war/

Tonight we’re going back to Scotland – back to the front line where Robert the Bruce  is going to roll the dice and gamble it all – facing down the gathered strength of England. He traded wine and women – a comfortable chair by the fire – for the bitter cold of water-drenched journeys, bloodshed and pain. It’s the story of a puzzle called the United Kingdom. I’m going to tell you about the time the corner piece fell off. I’m going to tell you the story of Robert the Bruce.

It’s all for free and it’s all on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its sociopolitical impact.

This is part two of a two part series. Check out part one here: Braveheart: William Wallace

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc-40/BC40.mp3

Download the Outlaw King – Robert the Bruce here: Download

References:

Robert the Bruce, King of Scots by Ronald Scott

Robert Bruce: Our Most Valiant Prince, King and Lord by Colm Mcnamee

King and Outlaw by Chris Brown

Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson

A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins

Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, 1297-1298 by Pete Armstrong

In the Footsteps of William Wallace by Alan Young and Michael J. Stead

Freedom’s Sword by Pete Traquair

William Wallace: The King’s Enemy by D.J. Gray

William Wallace: The True Story of Braveheart by Chris Brown

William Wallace: Man and Myth by Graeme Morton

Medieval Britain, c. 1000-1500 by David Crouch

William Wallace is an enigmatic figure – most of what we know about him was written by his enemies but tonight we go deep down the rabbit hole to find every shred of evidence that we know about his life. It’s an epic tale complete with guerilla warfare, vicious torture, and the making and breaking of several kingdoms. Many houses will rise and many will fall – it’s like Game of Thrones but it all really happened. It’s all here and it’s all for free on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its sociopolitical impact.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/ia601500.us.archive.org/11/items/bc39final/BC39final.mp3

Download Braveheart episode 39 here: Braveheart download

Maps/Pictures:

References:

Scotland: The Story of a Nation by Magnus Magnusson

A Short History of England by Simon Jenkins

Stirling Bridge and Falkirk, 1297-1298 by Pete Armstrong

In the Footsteps of William Wallace by Alan Young and Michael J. Stead

Freedom’s Sword by Pete Traquair

William Wallace: The King’s Enemy by D.J. Gray

William Wallace: The True Story of Braveheart by Chris Brown

William Wallace: Man and Myth by Graeme Morton

Medieval Britain, c. 1000-1500 by David Crouch

Dunkirk. It’s a battle that has inspired countless filmmakers, novelists, and historians – a battle that saved a nation, and quite possibly, the modern world as we know it. As a direct result of the actions of the men you will hear about in this episode, Great Britain survived to fight another day. The cornerstone of the modern world order was laid and mortared with the blood and sweat of the hundreds of thousands of men in today’s show. It was their sacrifice which built many of your civil rights. It was their blood that made possible the tens of thousands of bureaucrats growing fat on the largesse of the United Nations. 

We often hear about the hundreds of thousands saved off the coast of France – the lucky ones who made it across the channel. But we rarely hear the story of the cooks who transformed into heroes, of snipers who dueled in the dusk – where two men entered a village but only one walked away; it’s the story of men who lost their minds defending key highway intersections against thousands of battle-hardened German veterans. And it’s the lamentable story of the men left behind, the men shattered and broken, breathing their last ragged breaths on a fetid beach before darkness finally fogged their eyes. In today’s show we’ll hear them all. Their stories will live again like a second resurrection.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc38final/BC38final.mp3

Download Dunkirk here: Dunkirk episode 38

Maps and Pictures:

References:

To Lose a Battle: France 1940 by Alastair Horne

The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940 by William Shirer

The Fall of France: The Nazi invasion of 1940 by Julian Jackson

Dunkirk: The men they left behind by Sean Longden

The Miracle of Dunkirk: The True Story of Operation Dynamo by Walter Lord

The Times Atlas of the Second World War by John Keegan

History of the Second World War by B.B. LIddell Hart

Supplying War by Martin van Creveld 

The Second World War by John Keegan

During the Boer War the British laid waste to huge swaths of South Africa. Homes were burned. Children starved. Battle raged across the countryside. Entire populations were imprisoned in concentration camps. Thousands died. This is the story.

This is part 2 of a two part series. You can find part one here: Boer War part 1

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc37final/BC37.mp3

Download episode 37 here: Episode 37

Maps and Pictures:

References:

The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham

The Afrikaners: Biography of a People by Hermann Giliomee

Scorched Earth by Fransjohan Pretorius

The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by Donald Morris

God Does Not Forget by Deneys Reitz

A History of South Africa by Frank Welsh

A History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson

The Boer War 1899-1902 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

A Military History of South Africa by Timothy Stapelton

Letters from Kimberley: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

Letters from Ladysmith: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

The Cambridge History of South Africa by Robert Ross et al.

De La Rey – Lion of the West by Johannes Meintjes

General Louis Botha: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes

President Steyn: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes

The Boer War was fought across the length and breadth of modern-day South Africa. It started as a conventional fight but degenerated into a protracted guerilla war that cost the British people 230 million pounds, approximately 27 billion pounds in today’s money. But the war left another legacy in South Africa – a legacy of concentration camps that left tens of thousands of women and children dead. It was a modern war – a war of trenches and machine guns. It was a war that wiped two nations off the face of the planet and almost destroyed the Boer people as a distinct nation. The British thought the war would be a walk in the park. What they got was a promenade through hell. This is the story.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc36final/BC36.mp3

Download episode 36 here: Boer War Download

Maps and Pictures:

References:

The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham

The Afrikaners: Biography of a People by Hermann Giliomee

Scorched Earth by Fransjohan Pretorius

The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation by Donald Morris

God Does Not Forget by Deneys Reitz

A History of South Africa by Frank Welsh

A History of South Africa by Leonard Thompson

The Boer War 1899-1902 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes

A Military History of South Africa by Timothy Stapelton

Letters from Kimberley: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

Letters from Ladysmith: Eyewitness Accounts from the South African War by Edward Spiers

The Cambridge History of South Africa by Robert Ross et al.

De La Rey – Lion of the West by Johannes Meintjes

General Louis Botha: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes

President Steyn: A Biography by Johannes Meintjes

The war for the Holy Land – the First Crusade. On today’s show, we’re taking the besieged crusaders all the way from Antioch to Jerusalem. It’s an epic story filled with war, savagery, and even ghosts the whole way. It’s the story of the Holy Lance of Christ and the bloody conquest of Palestine. It’s Greek Fire and cannibalism. It’s cults and trial by fire. Get ready, because this show will make your headphones drip with blood. This is part 2 of a two part series. You can find part one here: First Crusade part 1. It’s all free and it’s all on Battlecast – the world’s foremost podcast on war and its socio-political impact.

http://media.blubrry.com/429895/archive.org/download/bc35_20191129/BC35.mp3

Download here: download

References: 

Dana C. Munro, “Urban and the Crusaders”, Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History, Vol 1:2, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1895).

Thomas Asbridge. The First Crusade.

Thomas Asbridge. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land.

Kenneth Setton. A History of the Crusades. Volumes 1-6.

Anonymous. Gesta Francorum.

H.A.R. Gibb. The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi.

Albert. Albert of Aachen: Historia Ierosolimitana, History of the Journey to Jerusalem. Oxford Edition.

Fulcher of Chartres. Fulcher of Chartres, A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095-1127.

Raymon Ibrahim. Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.

Rene Groussett. Histoire des Croisades. Volumes 1-3.

A. Krey. The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants.