1803… April… May… June… Three months in which war once again breaks out between Britain and France… American negotiators worrying about Louisiana’s future get an unexpected offer from the First Consul… And on Saint-Domingue, General Jean-Jacques Dessalines unifies resistance to the struggling French expedition.This is episode 46 of the Napoleonic Q…

Liam Gauci, Senior Curator at the Malta Maritime Museum in Valletta, returns for another conversation about Maltese history, this time with the goal of planning a future visit by the Napoleonic Quarterly to the 'crossroads of the Mediterranean'. This episode is sponsored by Heritage Malta, whose support for the podcast is enormously appreciated. Li…

What led to the Louisiana Purchase, one of the most important territorial acquisitions in world history? Prof Peter Kastor of Washington University in Saint Louis describes the build-up all the way to the negotiations in Paris, which we'll cover off in our main episode on Q2-1803 (out Wednesday 2nd 2025).…

We're very excited, after such a long time working on this concept, to bring you the pilot for our new approach to battle episodes. Given 1802-4 is relatively quiet in military history terms, we're going to use this period to work our way through some of the key battles of the 1796 campaign, beginning with Bonaparte's victory at Montenotte in April…

1800. January… February… March… Three fateful months for the Hapsburgs, for Austria, and for the patchwork of territories east of the Rhine… In Switzerland the French impose a revised settlement in a bid to end years of unrest… And in the interior of modern-day Sri Lanka the Kingdom of Kandy is ready and waiting for the British as the ill-fated red…

Ravindra Rathee's first book True To Their Salt wouldn't have come about without the extensive research he'd undertaken into the military career of his grandfather. The result is a fascinating study of the role Indian soldiers played in supporting the British, and in this discussion with Josh Provan Ravi reflects on elements of the complex dynamic …

Bonaparte's decision to intervene in Switzerland in 1802 after years of unrest with the French-imposed Helvetic Republic led to a return to the kind of localist, cantonal government which the Swiss had always been more comfortable with. This bonus episode with Biancamaria Fontana of the University of Lausanne tells the story all the way up to the A…

Modern-day Germany was at a turning point in the Napoleonic period, with the French Revolutionary Wars prompting an enormous shake-up in which its various small-scale secular and ecclesiastical entities were gobbled up by bigger states. The change marked something of a no-going-back point for the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, and its historical r…

1802. October, November, December… Three months in which the full brutality of the French approach on Haiti becomes abundantly clear… Potential threats to British control of India are worrying Richard Wellesley… And in the wastes of Afghanistan a weakened empire is creating an opportunity for Richard Wellesley to exploit. This is episode 44 of the …

What were Napoleon Bonaparte's biggest achievements during the Consulate period from 1799 to 1804? Prof Emeritus Alan Forrest of the University of York sizes up the greatest hits: ending the Revolution, domestic reforms in administration, education, finance and justice - and one or two flops along the way, including a very partial resolution of the…

Bernie Campbell is joined by Rachel Blackman-Rogers and Olivier Aranda for a deep dive - pun intended - into the Battle of the Glorious First of June and the first major fleet action of the French Revolutionary Wars.

(**spoiler alert below**) Hilary Mantel's novel A Place Of Greater Safety is, according to Oxford History of the French Revolution author William Doyle, one of the two greatest books about those turbulent years in Paris and France. Its exploration of the fascinating relationships between three of the revolution's most important figures - Georges-Ja…

1802. July… August… September… Three months in which Napoleon Bonaparte outmanoeuvres France’s Senate to move even closer to absolute power… In St Petersburg Russia’s new Tsar seems to have got over the distressing circumstances of his predecessor’s murder… And on both sides of the English Channel the Peace of Amiens is starting to look more than a…

Season's greetings to Quartermasters everywhere! This festive edition sees participants including Charles Esdaile and Alex Mikaberidze nominate, steal and veto Napoleon-themed presents from each other, even as the process is disrupted by the sinister influence of Fouche himself... Take a look at some of the objects mentioned in the Twitter thread h…

Of all the biographies of Napoleon, Philip Dwyer's three-volume masterpiece is the one Charles Esdaile is the keenest on. Philip, who is Professor of History at the University of Newcastle in Australia, has since moved on to establish the Centre for the History of Violence, and much of this conversation is informed by this later work. But he also h…

The Ottomans played a critical role in the 1792-1815 period, but we haven't been paying too much attention to them - until now. The signing of a peace treaty with France is the hook for this bonus episode which introduces us to the Ottomans and the challenges facing their reforming leader, Sultan Selim III. He faces a tough challenge in shaking up …

1802. January… February… March… Three months in which republican resistance on Saint-Domingue falters and the French commanders’ well-laid plans appear to be succeeding… France makes peace with the Ottoman Empire, as Sultan Selim III faces some tricky questions… And back in France Bonaparte adds the so-called Organic Articles to the Concordat deal …

It was always the plan that we would use this quieter period before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars to ensure the podcast is firing on all cylinders before we hit 1805. With the help of many listeners supporting the Napoleonic Quarterly with either their money all the time, that is exactly what we are now getting ready to do. So this week Alex …

Dr Graeme Callister, Senior Lecturer in History and War Studies at York St John University, joins Clemens and Alex S to explore the nature and character of battle during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

As we've reached the Peace of Amiens it felt like a good time to pause and review the French Revolutionary Wars... Charles Esdaile and Alexander Mikaberidze took questions from Quartermasters about a decade of fighting in which the French defied expectations, the allies never quite clicked and Napoleon Bonaparte emerged as a truly great military co…

1800. January… February… March… Three months in which the British and the French finally end the war with the Peace of Amiens… The French force sent to reassert control over Saint-Domingue meets with an unfriendly welcome… And back home Napoleon Bonaparte is considering his next moves as the de facto ruler of France. This is episode 41 of the Napol…

Yes, it's time for the Festival of Structured Bureaucracy once again! From the makers of the 1800-01 planning meeting... there comes another laborious and sometimes painful process of determining what topics will be covered by each main episode's three segments... come for the occasional appalled reaction to less attractive ideas... stay for the po…

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 for…

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 Sa…

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 [05:1…

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 n…

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…

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;…

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. Please support the podcast on Patreon at patreon/com/napoleonicquarterly.…

1801. April... May... June... Three months in which Horatio Nelson pulverises the Danish fleet at Copenhagen... Napoleon Bonaparte turns his ire on the pro-British Portuguese... and war breaks out between the piratical Barbary States and the fledgeling US of A. This is episode 38 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months which show that, …

While France was thrown into chaos by the revolution, the political situation in Britain wasn't exactly calm either. Bernie Campbell sat down with Jacquelin Reiter and Neil Gregory Howe to talk about the tumultuous mood in Britain during the 1790s, Pitt's policies and much more.

Assassinating Napoleon Bonaparte, it turns out, was on the minds of lots of people frustrated with how the French Revolution was playing out. Off the back of the Infernal Machine attempt on the First Consul's life we've got an episode here about William Wordsworth, that most revered of English Romantic poets, who was so frustrated by the unfulfille…

Liam Gauci, Curator at the Malta Maritime Museum in Valletta, joins Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers to discuss the fascinating history of his very special island. This episode is sponsored by Heritage Malta.

1801. January… February… March… Three months in which the assassination of Tsar Paul stuns Europe… The Act of Union brings together Britain and Ireland... And Austria and France sign the Treaty of Luneville, inking in French dominance in western Europe. This is episode 37 of the Napoleonic Quarterly - covering three months in which the grisly drama…

Kathleen Burk, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, is an amazing historian whose books spanning a long and distinguished career reflect the breadth of her interests: she's written about Anglo-American relations over the decades, a biography of AJP Taylor, even a history of wine reflecting her own backg…

Professor Alan Forrest of the University of York sat down with his long time academic friend Charles Esdaile to talk about the Napoleon Movie, the legacy of the Emperor and more.

Louis Sarkozy talks to Bernie Campbell about his upcoming book on Napoleon's Library, the cultural influence of the Emperor and how his legacy is seen today in France.

Professor Emeritus Michael Broers of the University of Oxford, biography of Napoleon and historical adviser to 'Napoleon' (2023), sat down virtually with his old chum and sparring partner Charles Esdaile. In this conversation they covered: [02:00] - their shared outsider perspective on the French Revolution [06:00] - the usefulness of the Napoleoni…

A Napoleonic professor is despatched to the field hospital, delaying our next main episode by a month. But we have lots of bonus episodes in the meantime.

Dr Rachel Blackman-Rogers is joined by King's College London colleague Professor Andrew Lambert to discuss the current conflict in Ukraine and how lessons from history can be applied to contemporary challenges in containing Russian aggression.

Bernie Campbell takes us on a whistlestop tour of the world as it was at the turn of the 19th century, in the company of Professor Alexander Mikaberidze of Louisiana State University-Shreveport and the NQ's intrepid Quartermaster-Patreons.

Here's a deep dive into the Battle of Hohenlinden, in which Moreau decisively beats the Austrians under Archduke John. Thanks to David Hollins and Hans-Karl Weiß for talking us through it!

1800. January… February… March… Three months in which Jean-Victor Moreau’s snowy victory at Hohenlinden takes the Austrians out of the war… Napoleon Bonaparte survives the world’s first car bombing attempt in Paris… And across the Atlantic those huge swathes of land west of the Appalachians change hands between the European powers once again, causi…

Could some of the decisions made by those making Sir Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon' (2023) be better understood by the generally disappointed Napoleonic community? Alex Stevenson is joined by James Topham, who knows a thing or two about screenwriting, to conclude their analysis of the film. Yes that's right, it's the Napoleon Movie Quarter-Hourly - taki…

Could some of the decisions made by those making Sir Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon' (2023) be better understood by the generally disappointed Napoleonic community? Alex Stevenson is joined by James Topham, who knows a thing or two about screenwriting, to analyse the film in 15-minute chunks. Yes, that's right, it's the Napoleon Movie Quarter-Hourly - ta…

Could some of the decisions made by those making Sir Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon' (2023) be better understood by the generally disappointed Napoleonic community? Alex Stevenson is joined by James Topham, who knows a thing or two about screenwriting, to analyse the film in 15-minute chunks. Yes, that's right, it's the Napoleon Movie Quarter-Hourly - ta…

Could some of the decisions made by those making Sir Ridley Scott's 'Napoleon' (2023) be better understood by the generally disappointed Napoleonic community? Alex Stevenson is joined by James Topham, who knows a thing or two about screenwriting, to analyse the film in 15-minute chunks. Yes, that's right, it's the Napoleon Movie Quarter-Hourly - ta…