Let’s go back to the year 1702, a time when Spanish treasure ships still sailed the open seas. Let’s go back to the age of sails and cannon, of Sun Kings and wars of succession. To a time when the Royal Navy was just coming into its own, and the Bourbon navy was about to find out what the cost of maritime power would be. Let’s go back to 1702, 23rd of October, and the battle of Vigo Bay!

Let’s go back to the year 1700, a cold gray late November day in Estonia. Let’s go back to the age of muskets and bayonets, of dragoons and hussars. To a time when the Lion of the North, the Last Viking, young Charles XII of Sweden was sizing up his first meal, Peter the "not yet" Great of Russia. Let’s go back to the battle of Narva!

Let’s go back to the year 1014, a late summer in the Balkans where Basil II, of the Byzantine Empire, has brought his army to destroy his oldest foe. Let’s go back to the final days of the Bulgarian Empire of Czar Samuel, seventy years old and still willing (and able) to lead his army into the fight. Let’s go back to the battle of Kleidion!

A little bit of a pivot this week; instead of the Battle of Kleidion (which will just get pushed back a week) you’ll be listening to a chat between myself and Brett from the Whiskey Tango Podcast. I’ve got a nasty little cold, if you listen close you can hear me getting sick, and that’s keeping me from recording. Brett and I have been talking about doing a joint show for a while and we finally got one recorded. I had a blast and getting to actually speak to someone instead of the wall of my recording closet was a nice change of pace. Ipsus is a fantastic battle to cover and I think you guys will enjoy it! Make sure you follow/rate/review and subscribe to the Whiskey Tango Podcast guys, and enjoy!

This week on cauldron we are going back to good friday, April 23 1014, to the emerald isle itself - Ireland. On the beaches just north of Dublin Brian Boru defeated an uprising and the existential viking threat, saved his kingdom and country, and lost his life. Let’s go back to the Battle of Clontarf.

Let’s go back to Late Antiquity, to the steel blue waters of the Baltic Sea, where two lines of Long Ships entangled in a desperate struggle, the winner lives, the loser drowns. Let’s go back to September 9, 999/1000A.D., the Age of the Viking and the Battle of Svolder.

I am (as you all probably guessed) a huge Dan Carlin fan and I often find myself re-listening to his different series. Recently I put fresh ears on his King of Kings episodes about the ancient Persians. One rough quote, or paraphrase is probably more accurate, from historian Pierre Briant that stuck with me is “you must believe in ancient history, even if it never happened.” As I put this episode on Troy together this idea keeps slamming me in the head. I’m not sure there is an episode in military history that better encapsulates the sentiment Briant is trying to get across than the Trojan War and subsequent fall of the great city itself. There isn’t a hell of a lot of evidence, but, if you don’t believe the siege of Troy occurred, ancient history becomes a much less human, colorful, and tangible world. Now, you don’t need to believe gods like Athena and Apollo fought alongside the Trojans and the Achaeans, but damn if that doesn't make for a hell of a story!

From Megiddo to Kadesh almost 200 years passed with Egypt at the pinnacle of its power. From modern day Sudan to the southern border of modern day Turkey, Egypt reigned supreme. They weren’t unchallenged and certainly, like their life-giving river itself things where often in flux; uprisings, rebellions, and border fighting happened regularly and territory was lost just as often as it was gained, but even so the people of the Nile maintained their control over much of the modern Middle East. The chariot, brought to Egypt on the conquering tide of the Hyksos invasion and retooled and perfected by the Egyptians themselves, was in large part what brought Egyptian freedom from the foreign oppressors at home and victory and Egyptian dominance abroad. At Megiddo, this engineering marvel, the Egyptian war chariot, showed the world what it could do to an unequal enemy. At Kadesh, the last great clash of chariots showed the world that this unique weapons system had reached its peak and would soon (in relative historical terms) be outdated and surpassed. But for one glorious late May day on the plains outside of Kadesh, the Pharaoh Ramses the 2nd, who would later be known as the Great Ancestor, saved his army and his reputation from the back of his chariot. Or at least that’s what he wanted us to think…

Megiddo is an interesting story; by bringing along court scribes Thutmose III allows us to follow along in his footsteps and see the battle as he saw it. Now, obviously we can’t take everything the scribes wrote at face value; propaganda is as old as written history, and probably older, but at least, for the first time, we can paint a historical battle with color instead of just black and white. And the drama of Megiddo is real and intense. The pharaoh’s choice to take the middle route and risk his army being picked off, man by man, would be a bold decision in any time period. The Canaanites fleeing the field and having to be hauled over the city walls is the very picture of comical desperation. At Megiddo, whether it all happened as the scribes said or not, history comes to life.

For the re-launch of Cauldron I've chosen the fight between Umma and Lagash as our starting point. Certainly not the first battle in human history but in my humble non-historian opinion the first that we can really get a clear narrative picture of. It’s ancient ancient history, 2,116 years before Alexander crossed the Hellespont, so dates, facts, and numbers are loose when present at all. But, there are character archetypes we’re familiar with; a great and greedy king, a ravenous blood-thirsty god, and there are recognizable themes; revenge, jealousy, pride, and lust for power. All this means is we can only broadstroke the battle given the lack of information and facts, truly a glimpse of the past, our past, through Tuchman’s “distant mirror”. But, a picture can be formed, however loosely, of that long gone version of ourselves and we can start to tell our history, the history of war, if not from it’s beginning then somewhere closeby. So, let's get In Medias Res, and get stuck in with episode one the battle between Umma and Lagash!