The History Network

The Residency complex at Lucknow was under siege. It had been since late June 1857. It was now October. A small relief force had broken through from Cawnpore but it was then too weak to enable the combined garrison to break out. Dur: 23 mins File: .mp3

Throughout the Indian Mutiny of 1857-1858, a total of 182 Victoria Crosses were awarded; more than one third of those were awarded for actions in in the city of Lucknow. It is a place with which anyone who studies the history of military bravery should be intimately familiar. One of the most remarkable actions during that part of the conflict was the relief of Lucknow on November 16th, 1857. Dur: 28mins File: .mp3

In this second episode of the life of Charles V Holy Roman Emperor we continue the story of his reign and of the conflicts in the first half of the 16th Century that shaped Europe and the world. The ruler of an empire is forever in the saddle and so it was with Charles. Conflict began in the year of the Diet of Worms when the French under Francis 1 invaded Lombardy in Italy. Dur: 17mins File: .mp3

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor also known as Carlos was born in 1500 and he lived for 58 years, dying in the Spanish monastery of Yuste of malaria. As we list his titles, King of Spain, King of the Netherlands, Flanders and Belgium, Emperor of Austria and Hungary, ruler of much of Italy including Milan, Sicily, Sardinia and Naples and Emperor of the Americas, the listener is apt to think that his realm encompassed much of the known world, as indeed it did, but this does not take account of the periphery. Dur: 18mins File: .mp3

The Byzantines, the subjects of the Eastern Roman Empire, were great survivors. They outlasted their cousins in the west by a thousand years, withstanding the great waves of barbarian invasions and even managing to flourish amidst the chaos. Less than a century after the last western emperor was deposed in 476, the Eastern Romans under Justinian reconquered Italy and North Africa, and seemed on their way to restoring the entire Mediterranean to Roman rule. Dur: 30mins File: .mp3

On May 18, 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant achieved the objective he had sought for months. Union troops surrounded Vicksburg on three sides, and on its west side, Admiral David Porter's warships controlled the waters of the Mississippi. For three months Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had watched as Grant flailed about in the floodplain on various unsuccessful bayou expeditions. Dur: 18mins File: .mp3

On May 18, 1863, Major General Ulysses S. Grant achieved the objective he had sought for months. Union troops surrounded Vicksburg on three sides, and on its west side, Admiral David Porter's warships controlled the waters of the Mississippi. For three months Confederate Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton had watched as Grant flailed about in the floodplain on various unsuccessful bayou expeditions. Dur: 30mins File: .mp3

At the Battle of Cannae, 2 August, 216 B.C., Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca administered one of Rome's most crushing military defeats. Depending upon the ancient source, Roman losses on the Apulian battlefield numbered anywhere from roughly 50,000, as Livy relates, to around 70,000, as Polybius insists. Hannibal had enacted a double envelopment of the Roman army, a maneuver widely considered to be a tactical masterpiece that is to this day studied in war colleges around the world. Dur: 25mins File: .mp3

The last pitched battles on English soil were Sedgemoor in 1685 and Preston in 1715. But after that the army still needed to train and practice. The first land on Salisbury Plain was not bought for army training until 1897 and Catterick Camp was opened after the outbreak of WW1. So from 1853 when there was a renewed invasion scare, to 1914, there were many large scale army exercises or 'manoeuvres' all across the countryside of southern England. Dur: 26mins File: .mp3

When the first actions were gazetted in The London Gazette on February 24th, 1857, the first name to appear was that of Cecil Buckley. The action for his award was performed in May 1855 while he was a lieutenant but he had been promoted Commander soon after and so was the highest ranking naval officer gazetted in that initial list. Dur: 16 mins File: .mp3