The Napoleonic Quarterly

Bernie Campbell is joined by Rachel Blackman-Rogers, lecturer in defence studies at Kings College London, and Olivier Aranda, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Brest, to discuss a remarkable set of naval engagements, unique in many ways in the 1792-1815 period and the last of their kind during the French Revolutionary wars.

Is this the most significant opposed landing of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars? The assault on the beaches of Aboukir Bay by British forces under Abercromby [from around 13:00] was certainly a dramatic affair. So too was the Battle of Alexandria [from 23:15] which followed against the desperate remnants of the French expeditionary force abandoned by Napoleon Bonaparte less than a year and a half before. While this might not have been a strategically vital affair, it did provide the British with a bargaining chip ahead of the talks culminating in the Peace of Amiens. Phil Ball talks us through the Army-Navy bust-ups which preceded the landing, the fighting on the beaches and in front of Alexandria. Then from around [45:00] Phil offers some final thoughts in defence of amphibious operations like these.

Here's a link to the map mentioned in this episode:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Faden_1801_alexandria_battle.jpg#/media/File:Faden_1801_alexandria_battle.jpg

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

Charles Mackay reviews the experiences and achievements in Egypt of the extraordinary group of savants - engineers, scientists, mathematicians - who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte to Cairo and beyond in 1798 and whose findings laid the groundwork for modern Egyptology.

Marlene Daut, Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University, discusses the incredible 13-year period from 1791 to 1804 which saw self-liberated slaves, not least leader Toussaint Louverture, overcome French colonial rule to win freedom on Haiti. Including:

[01:00] - Reflections on the complexity of the Haitian Revolution

[05:15] - The intellectual roots of the Haitian Revolution

[09:30] - Metropolitan France's negative / imperialist attitudes towards Toussaint Louverture and Saint-Domingue

[14:00] - Bringing Haitian writers' thoughts and ideas to life

[18:00] - Competing narratives about the Haitian Revolution - and what the revolutionaries said themselves

[20:50] - Spelling out the end of slavery during the Revolution

[22:30] - The challenges of implementing liberty after centuries of enslaved labour (or, how it all went wrong)

[25:30] - Writing the biography of Henri-Christophe, the first king of Haiti

[28:00] - Race and racism in Haiti's Anglophone historiography.

Clemens Bemmann is joined by Zack White and Alex Mikaberidze to work their way through the Napoleonic Quarterly mailbag. Topics include Napoleon's motives in Illyria, the reasons behind British success, Alex S' 'Trump derangement syndrome', the chances of war and... flogging, actually.

1801. July... August... September... Three months in which the British mount an opposed amphibious landing against French forces in Egypt... on Saint Domingue Toussaint Louverture promulgates a constitution for the colony before getting the greenlight from Bonaparte... and tensions between the French state and the Catholic church are resolved but not before the Pope's representative warns Napoleon against dismantling religion altogether.

This is episode 39 of the Napoleonic Quarterly- covering three months in which all eyes are looking ahead to looming negotiations and the question of who will win the coming peace.

Rachel Blackman-Rogers is joined by contemporary Black Sea maritime scholar Prof Deborah Sanders of Kings College London to discuss the history and evolution of Black Sea Navies, the historical significance of the Black Sea itself, and the Black Sea's current importance in Russia's war with Ukraine.

[01:00] - to what extent has the Black Sea been a centre of great power competition?

[08:50] - given the vital role of the Bosphorus/Turkish Straits in giving Russia access to the Levant, did Turkey and Russia see the Black Sea in the same way?

[11:50] - what difference did the Montreaux Convention of 1926 make to maritime power in the region? what difference will President Erdogan's plans for a canal make?

[17:40] - how did Russia leasing Sevastopol in the post-Soviet era impact the development of the Ukrainian Navy?

[22:00] - how much has Putin deliberately targeted littoral states in his 21st century to help build his ability to project naval power?

[25:00] - what are the main maritime issues in the Black Sea since Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

[28:00] - China's role in the Black Sea: its Belt and Road initiative, and its role in rebuilding Ukraine

[34:30] - does the Black Sea grain initiative suggest the Black Sea could in the future be more like the Arctic, with a higher degree of international cooperation?

[39:00] - how does NATO better support its partners in the Black Sea?

[41:00] - do unmanned surface vehicles undermine the value of Navies, and is the Black Sea an incubator for a new type of warfare?

[48:00] - what does Russia's invasion of Ukraine teach us about the strategic relationship between land and sea?

Spain's story during the Napoleonic period is an Atlantic one, as Dr Mark Lawrence of the University of Kent has pointed out. Fresh from recording on the War of the Oranges, which you can hear in episode 38, here Mark discusses a range of topics including the legacy of the Spanish Empire and notions of the 'Black Legend' of anti-Spanish propaganda; South America during the Napoleonic Wars; Spain's position at the end of the 1792-1815 period; Spanish memoirs and source material on the Peninsular War; and Charles Esdaile's position in the historiography of Spain.

Rachel Blackman-Rogers joins Alex Stevenson to discuss the First Battle of Copenhagen - featuring some tricky navigation, the Royal Navy's superior bludgeoning rate of firepower, some brutal diplomacy and Horatio Nelson's infamous blind eye.

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