Ed

Hey everybody, this is Ed. And this is Kara. And this is your day's dumpster fire. Yay, we did it.

Kara

We got it to work.

Ed

The first thing we did when we logged on was have audio issues. As per us, it's fine. Yeah, I feel like that's like a mandatory thing to have in any episode that we do is like we we hop on and nothing works.

Kara

Yep. Even if you don't touch any setting at all, any knob.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Or volume key or whatever.

Ed

Yeah, and then like even though we had just fired up the computers to hop on and do our recording, something doesn't work, and then we have to end up like restarting the computer, anyways.

Kara

Yes.

Ed

Even even though we just fired it up. Yes.

unknown

Facts.

Ed

And then of course, me, like, I'm I'm like yelling into a microphone, and you still can't hear me. And then like, oh wait, I forgot to turn on my phantom power. Because certain some mics out there require an extra uh 48 volts to run like a cloud lifter or a Fedhead or something like that to get that extra gain out. And um yeah, I'll that'll do it. That'll do if you don't have that 48 volts turned on, nothing works, like you're just silent.

Kara

It explains why my test YouTube video is extremely loud in my ears, but I couldn't hear you. Anyway.

Ed

So yeah. Well, we've got we got an interesting one here. Uh uh, you the you the audience may know, like we've been on a little bit of a French Revolution kick. Uh, I know we have our uh transatlantic telegraph or yeah, telegram episode in there, but uh Kara, myself, and Deja, we kind of like wanted to do a multi-part series on the French Revolution and how it was just like kind of like one dumpster fire after another. And Kerry, you did that two-parter on King Louis the 16th. Yeah, yeah, that guy was that was something else. I'm like, how's a dumpster fire about a guy getting his head cut off? Uh everything that led up to it.

Kara

Special?

Ed

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's uh he's a special kind of special. And then we also have his wife, Marie Antoinette. Uh, she got implicated.

Kara

She got screwed.

Ed

Uh, yeah, yeah. History really did not do her justice. Uh, yeah, so she had a bit of a gambling problem, but not enough to sink the entire nation into debt. And she had absolutely nothing to do with the nation being horribly in debt.

Kara

But no, that was Louie and Louis and Louis.

Ed

And his predecessors.

Kara

Yeah, Louis and Louis and Louis.

Ed

Yeah, Louis one, Louis two, and Louis three. Exactly. So, so yeah, we're uh Deja's been working on that one, but she's got she's been uh, I don't know, dealing with she's dealing with stuff. Yeah, it's like a uh like adulthood attacks people differently at different times. And like right now, Kara and I are like smooth sailing, and then Deja's got all the all the life happening to her, and then like once she gets all that resolved, then one of us will get hit again.

Kara

Yeah, it's just a cycle, it's fun, yeah.

Ed

Yeah, it's we're working on it. Yeah, it just makes more for more content for the show. Um, so we're gonna skip her. We'll eventually get to Mary Antoinette just because she is a very fascinating figure. Uh, but I'm going to talk about Napoleon, and this is more than likely gonna be a two-parter. And what's so ironic about Napoleon is that when you look at you know what sparked the French Revolution and how everybody was like, hey, we just want a constitutional monarchy, but then once they couldn't even get that through King Louis's head and make that stick, then they just got pissed off and they're like, okay, we just don't want a we don't want a monarch, we don't want a king, we don't want an emperor, we don't want one person in charge of everything, all of that, right? If you had a big fancy name or big fancy title, or you just had a lot of money, uh yeah, you republic your head cut off, and uh they just wanted average people running the show, and it turns out that when you have just average people running a country, uh things don't go as smoothly as you would think.

Kara

And then you mean we don't need all the mathematicians and economists and war generals to plan things for the country?

Ed

We we need their input at the very least. Uh that this was more like you know, we look at like Robespierre, right? That guy, he he just used that guillotine for everything, and it got to the point where even if you started to speak up against the the convention or this new government they're trying to build, then you would get your head cut off.

Kara

Yeah, that 10 months was pretty rough.

Ed

Uh yeah, yeah, and it eventually resulted in Robespierre, he got like shot in the face or something like that.

Kara

Well, he tried to take his own no, he no, Robespierre was beheaded by guillotine.

Ed

Yes, but yeah, but he had a he had a blown-out jaw because he tried to take his own life, but he missed, yeah, and that didn't kill him, so then they beheaded him. Fun times, yeah, good times. So, like what was so ironic or so interesting about all of this is how France went from having a king to not wanting a king to having a king all over again to then getting rid of that king and then basically going back to a monarchy all over. It's a it's a full revolution. I can now see why they call it the French Revolution. I guess it's very cyclical, you know, you know, kind of like our lives. So, so yeah, Napoleon was a fascinating figure because he he kind of stepped in and he just looked at how things were going in France with the directory and how like nothing was getting done, and even though he was like a newly minted general, he just had a knack of just getting things done, and he had a knack of pushing reforms and all sorts of stuff, and it resulted in him basically becoming a monarch, but he was very careful about his titles, so he never called himself a king. Uh, he we prefer the term consul, right? And then instead of having a directory or any sort of anything pertaining towards having one person in charge, he set up a consulate where you have three consuls, and then he was like consul for life, and then he kind of just made himself emperor, so like he never really like you really can't say he was a monarch, but he had every other title under the sun going that that he basically put together that fine, he wasn't a monarch, but he was very synonymous to a monarch. Yeah, this is gonna be a two-parter, and we're gonna break it into the first part, kind of like how how like the French Revolution kind of was a dumpster fire in that you know they purposely put in a guy into a position that France actively tried to vow never to have again. And then the second part is um like all of Napoleon's because hey, you can say what you want about the guy, he was a brilliant tactician, and he just knew how to read a battlefield better than anybody else, and he was very, very good with artillery, and he was a fantastic tactician, and the second part is gonna be like, Hey, I'm this emperor now, I'm going to take out Russia, and the invasion of Russia is quite possibly one of the most disastrous military campaigns in human history. Like, he walked into Russia with over 600,000 soldiers, and literally only a hundred thousand made it out, and out of those hundred thousand, only like twenty thousand were fit to fight.

Kara

One does not simply just walk into Russia.

Ed

Well, Napoleon did, and he actually did very well-ish at first, compared to the other guys who tried it, right?

Kara

I guess.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he actually took Moscow and all that stuff. The the issue was is that he was fighting a very different war than what the Russians were fighting, and that's a very weird statement that will make sense in in part two. But first, let's kind of dive into uh Napoleon's life a little bit. Uh one of the interesting things I always found about Napoleon was that he wasn't actually French. He was Italian. Yeah, he is Italian, no. Yeah, he was born on the island of Corsica on August 15th, 1769. So his whole family was Italian. And his father, Carlo Bonaparte, fought for the Corsican freedom from France. So, like, you know, his family fought for its own um like separation from France, but then like Carlo became friends with the French governor, uh Charles Louis de Marbouf. Yeah, I butchered that.

Kara

Good hey, better than what I can do.

Ed

Yeah, it's uh it's not Charles Louis de Marboeuf uh Charles. You have to say it a Charlotte Did you know there was a French king named Charles who thought that he was made of glass?

Kara

Yes, there's also an English king who thought he was made of glass. I believe he was also a Charles.

Ed

Okay, that would make sense. There was a time when all the kings were French.

Kara

Um that was during the Hundred Years' War. So they were fighting against the French.

Ed

Yeah, uh yeah, it gets it gets very confusing. So, yeah, um Bonaparte's dad, Carlo, uh kind of befriended the French governor, and because of this, he was kind of like Carlo Bonaparte was kind of protected, and it's almost as though like Carlo saw like this whole uh Corsican revolution or rebellion or whatnot wasn't going very well, so Carlo kind of like picked the side that he thought was gonna win, and as a result, he picked the right side, but then obviously there was no home for the Bonaparts in Corsica because like they kind of viewed him as a bit of a turncoat. But because of this uh friendship with the governor, uh Napoleon was basically put into a military academy. He didn't even know French, so he was in like junior high or high school or the equivalency of, and he only spoke Italian and he had to learn French very, very fast. And of course, he was picked on because he didn't look French, uh, whatever that means. I don't know what the French look looks like or the Italian look, but you know, maybe they could tell. So yeah, he uh when he was nine, he enrolled into a religious school, and then eventually, like when he became fluent in French, which when you're nine, you can learn it really, really fast. He moved into the Brian Le Chateau, which is a boys' military school, and for the most part, like he he was very studious, he wasn't very outgoing, he just kept to himself. Uh, and he excelled in history, math, geography, literature, and anything else, like engineering, like anything that was deemed academic. He was a bookworm, and he just studied everything. When you don't have friends, you tend to read a lot. In 1784, he transferred to the Ecole Militaire, uh, where he was trained as a military officer. Uh, he graduated from that, I think it was like in 17, yeah, 1785. Uh he became a second lieutenant, and by the time the French Revolution broke out in 1789, he was like what 19, 20 years old, and he saw France completely, the whole monarchy, just fall apart overnight. And he he was trying to figure out what to do, what how to make a name for himself and all that. So he tried to like go back to Corsica and try to like patch things up there. And the guy, uh, his name was Paoli Paoli. Uh, he was the guy that was leading like the Corsican revolution who got stamped down, but by this time he was still kind of a prominent figure. Uh, Napoleon was gonna go there and try to like patch things up. Of course, Paoli was like, get out of here, like the turncoat. You are not welcome here. In fact, all the Bonaparte family was not welcome, and all the leaders got together and condemned the Bonaparte, and the family had to flee, right? So imagine getting out of college, going back home, finding out that nobody likes you, and you have to leave literally like in the course of a night, and you are being chased out for fear of death to go back into a country that has no government, and people are getting their heads lopped off left and right. Yeah, true.

Kara

Um, but yeah, yes, that's but that's aside from the point.

Ed

That's a fun thing. Yeah, once we once we like once we do away with like timeline stuff, it's uh it all happened at once when you get rid of time. 1793. The Bonaparte family had to obviously move out of Corsica. Uh so I think by now, yeah, by now uh King Louis was dead, right? So yeah, he he was in uh the uh southern town of Toulon or Taulon, if you're American. At that time, he was a light colonel or a lieutenant colonel, and he was approached by well, this convention, or better yet, what would be known as the directory, and he was approached by these guys, and it's like, hey dude, thanks for siding with the revolution. So Napoleon picked the right side there. That's gotta be scary when you really think about it. When you have random people that you don't know necessarily, or you don't know their allegiance, and they're coming up to you and then asking you, like, what side are you on, and you just have to guess because you don't know.

SPEAKER_01

50-50 shot.

Ed

Yeah, it's it's to me that's scary. They're like that movie uh Civil War that came out last year. Uh, there's a scene in there where like you, as the viewer, you have no idea who's who, you really don't. And the main characters are asked all the time, what side are you on? And if they didn't guess right, they could get themselves shot. So that's gotta be kind of intimidating to live in a world like that where hey, if you're just like a peasant farmer or whatnot, like I don't think that had much to do with you. But if you're a lieutenant colonel and you did not pick the right side, yeah, you could be in trouble. But, anyways, as a lieutenant colonel, he was approached and uh by the director, and they're like, Hey, thanks for sticking with us. Do you want to take on a command? And this is where Napoleon set himself apart. Basically, Toulon was a port in the Mediterranean, like in the southern part of France. And how do I want to word this? It's funny because the British had taken it over. All right, there was a garrison of I think 15 or 20,000 British troops or marines bunkered in this fortress in Toulon, and it was used to offload and load British ships, like because you know, at this time in British history or European history, Britain was the world superpower when it came to the Navy. They just had like it seemed like unlimited ships. So Toulon was taken over, and Toulon, the basically, and I think you mentioned it in your episodes, Kara, where hey, King Louis was kind of taken down, but other monarchs in Europe wanted him reinstated.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Even though they could have been like conflicting, they like a monarch will support a monarch.

Kara

Yeah, they were worried that revolutionary ideas would reach them, and then they were afraid for their own position at that point.

Ed

Yeah, and it and it's also too from a strategic standpoint, it probably just works out better. Like, hey, I know what this one guy is gonna do, versus say, like, five guys.

Kara

Yeah.

Ed

Right. So uh Britain obviously wanted King Louis put back in, and they took over this port, and this was gonna be staging ground in case Britain needed to get more and more involved with getting uh getting the royal family brought back in and and whatnot. So clearly, if you were on the revolutionary side, you really didn't want a massive British presence in the southern end of your country. So they gave Napoleon an impossible task. Uh basically, they said, Hey, do whatever you gotta do, take too long. And Napoleon's like, okay, and and this is part of his genius. This is what I gotta give him credit for. He's like, you know, like everybody in the directory, they're all arguing and bickering and what they're supposed to do, who's supposed to take what, how are they gonna chase all these guys out? Meanwhile, Napoleon's like, guys, just take out the ships. You sink the British ships, then that garrison has nowhere else to go, and they'll have no choice but to surrender. So, all right, fine. If you think you make it work, make it work. So that's what he did. He got there months earlier, and he just hung out, like he just observed, and he would dress himself up as a uh like a peasant, and that way he could travel, he could travel the uh the streets and all that stuff. And the first thing he did was uh he started scouring the countryside looking for cannons, and he found a whole bunch of cannons, and then he tore them all down. So he found a bunch of cannons that were just laying out in these fields, and he had them brought back, and they melted the cannons down, and they made a whole bunch of smaller cannons, like a cannon that could fit on somebody's back, it would probably still weigh like a hundred pounds, but a buff dude could carry it up a ladder.

Kara

Nice.

Ed

So, yeah, it's it's it and it's like, what are you doing? Like, what? Okay, fine, whatever. Um, in the meantime, he was taking French troops and having them. Dress up as just average folks so that the British wouldn't be any wiser to it. And it kind of helped too that he knew Toulon because him and his family had been living there for a hot minute from uh being chased out of Corsica. And what he did one night is he he dressed up like in full French military regalia. He sent his men out with a couple of like giant kegs of gunpowder, and they went to this fortress that the British had taken over, and they positioned um these kegs of gunpowder against like the thinner parts of the walls, and in the middle of the night those kegs were lit, and it was like helms deep. Remember that scene from um the two towers? Helm's deep.

Kara

It's been a long time.

Ed

Remember how they broke in? How the orcs of the URC broke into Helm's Deep?

Kara

Nope. It's been a long time.

Ed

Yeah, it's one of the most iconic scenes in the whole movie. And what it was is the URC, they couldn't penetrate these walls because they were like 20 feet thick. So they ran in a whole bunch of explosives into like the waterway that drained out from underneath Helm's Deep. And then they took like an orc and gave him this torch and just ran him inside, and then he lit the powder on fire, and then boom, it just blew open all of Helm's Deep. Got it. Kind of makes me wonder if uh uh Gerald Tolkien took inspiration from something when writing that.

Kara

Yeah, that would make sense.

Ed

Yeah. So he in the middle of the night blew the crap out of this whole garrison, which then the British were like, what in the world is going on? By the time the British even realized what was happening, the French already had ladders uh in place, and they were scouring up to the rooftop of the garrison, and they brought these cannons with them, these smaller cannons. And the goal was this you're not going to outnumber the British, you're not going to even outfire them in terms of their like their Marines were highly trained, and you know, if you squared up to them, like phalanx to phalanx kind of fighting, uh, Napoleon would have lost. Instead, what they did is they rushed through the roof, they shot anybody that got in their way, and they then turned the big cannons around, and there was probably 24, I believe, 24, 30 giant cannons. Like these things had like cannons that could shoot cannonballs like eight inches in diameter, as well as explosive charges and whatnot. So these cannons were pointed out towards the north, towards the countryside, waiting for a French incursion to take place. Napoleon was like, nope, turn them around, turn all the cannons around. We want to face everything, all the cannons need to face the ports. And he used those smaller cannons that they melted down and made to fit on a soldier's back. They used the smaller ones and they filled it with a substance called Hotshot. And this is kind of like a Spanish design. The Spanish were notorious for this, and it was kind of a uh a douchebaggy method. It wasn't an honorable way to fight a naval battle, but Napoleon wasn't fighting a naval battle. Hotshot basically is when you fire it, it's like a shotgun on steroids, but the projectiles that are coming out of it are on fire.

Kara

Sick.

Ed

And so what he did is he aligned the shorter cannons up because obviously they're gonna have a short reach, and he started firing this hot shot on the British ships that were docked, and it of course incendiary rounds on a wooden ship. Kablooy, yeah, yeah. It's a or at least a a barbecue, right? It's uh and and the this hot shot would burn through the sails, so they couldn't even net like they couldn't even drop sail and try to get out of that dock. So that prevented the retreat from um that aspect, and then there was a whole bunch of ships that were still in the harbor uh that weren't docked, and that's when he used the bigger cannons and started firing on them. And in one such ship, uh, if you watched uh the Napoleon movie, they actually do a really, really good job showing you this attack. Like they were aiming and they hit the uh powder casings in uh these uh British ships, and you hit those powder storage rooms, and it is like a nuclear bomb. That ship just vaporizes into shards of wood and splinters, and in that night, Napoleon sank like most of the ships in that harbor. The British surrendered real fast because they have nowhere to go now. And needless to say, Napoleon was kind of viewed as a hero, like out of nowhere he came from being an artillery officer to like wow, this guy single-handedly took out Toulon. He was also made more famous for uh when he started to ride in to join the battle. Because I will give Napoleon credit, he's not afraid to get into the fight. Uh, he will get in the thick of it, he will uh be like the only guy on horseback fighting, which makes him an absolute target. But yeah, he wasn't afraid to do that. And when he was riding in to go climb the walls, a cannon uh fired off and hit his horse like right in the chest, and it exploded the horse.

Kara

I don't like that.

Ed

Yeah, and it it blew Napoleon off like five, six feet, landed on his back, and in the process, too, of climbing up the ladders, he got shot in the leg. And so obviously it wasn't fatal because well, he uh he hangs out for a little bit, but uh yeah, he did all this while shot in the leg and his horse blown out from underneath him. And like there's a scene in the movie, and I kind of want to see if it's true or not, where like after he's promoted to like brigadier general the next morning, he goes up to his dead exploded horse and he reaches into the chest cavity and then he pulls out the cannonball and he wipes all the blood off of it, and then he tossed it to his brother, and he's like, Here, give this to mother, as like a uh I'm safe kind of a thing. Because mothers really don't like it when their kids go off to war. And he, I think he had like four brothers, and they were all in the military, like so, like, yeah, he's like, Take this cannonball, give it to mother, let her know that I'm okay.

Kara

It's a really to avoid the saving private Ryan uh issue.

Ed

Yes. Well, in in this case, yeah, it kind of did work out in that way because the brothers were all over the place. In fact, I don't think he ever rode into any particular battle with his other brothers with him. Uh, when he invaded Russia, he had one brother in and he had him like in like fourth or fifth command, like he was way up there. Uh, but yeah, Napoleon wasn't a big fan of having all the brothers together within one burst of grape shot away of all being dead, kind of a thing. Um, that too long was taken over, and now Napoleon was on a meteoric rise through the ranks, and he just continued to set him apart time and time again. 1774, the revolutionary set up a convention. Yeah, they they were gonna put together this convention and try to, you know, make things happen. They were gonna put all these policies into place and they were gonna do all these reformations and all that stuff. That is a complete waste of time, and that's a different conversation. However, though, the there were a loyalist or the royalists, one of the two, uh, basically, these were the people, oh yeah, the royalists, these were the people that wanted to overthrow the convention and bring back a monarchy, or at least a constitutional monarchy. And they kind of became a problem, which is the reason why after the reign of terror, actually during the reign of terror and and even afterwards a little bit, like so many people were put in jail, and because they just didn't know, and if you were wealthy, it was just understood that you're probably a a uh royalist, and they just threw you in jail. And yeah, it was kind of like uh that's probably the best way, but then again, though, there was mass hysteria. I could kind of see why.

Kara

I mean, if it was during the reign of terror, heads are being lumped off left and right, you're probably thankful you're in a prison and not on the guillotine.

Ed

Yeah, but usually you're you were one step away from going to the guillotine if you were in jail.

Kara

Yeah, but it's still one step away.

Ed

Yeah. I'd rather be in that jail cell than standing on that that scaffold. I I I I have to admit that is yeah, there not everybody wishes they were in jail, but that would be a time where okay, I'm good where I'm at.

Kara

Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not great, it's not a great situation either way.

Ed

Yeah, and no matter what, dude. If I had to choose, and and when you're in that jail cell, you do not make a scene. Like no, you do what you're told and you're quiet, and it's down with the king, down with monarchy, like and I'm pretty sure a lot of people switched sides uh pretty fast. And and wasn't there a great deal or a number of people originally, like they were wealthier, almost like politicians that helped overthrow the monarchy.

Kara

Yeah, the bourgeoisie. Yeah, the entire like aristocracy that belonged to the peasant class, essentially.

Ed

Okay.

Kara

So these are so you know, merchants, traders, okay.

Ed

So these weren't like dukes and stuff like that, but these were very wealthy people in society.

Kara

Yeah, correct. Because at this time period, we're starting to get, you know, people who are making a lot of money off of their trade or off of what they are trading. Um and they're starting to get to a point where they can buy their way into nobility.

Ed

Got it. Okay. And and so the people put their faith in them because they kind of came from the streets, they came from the average broke and work their way up.

Kara

Yeah, like they felt that they had a better understanding of what was going on because they weren't in Versailles, they were in Paris, so they were a lot closer. It's no, they're not nobility, but they're still rich.

Ed

Okay. So got it. Okay. So August of 1795, a they the they call it the convention. I think it was really the directory, but this was basically a meeting uh of them trying to fix France and all this other crap. But they got Don Wind that there was going to be a royalist overthrow, and they asked Napoleon, like, hey bro, uh, can you like use your men and stop this from happening? Like, if the like, obviously, we don't want to kill a bunch of people in the streets if we don't have to, but you know, maybe maybe just stand out there and look tough, right? And Napoleon's like, I don't have to dedicate any of my soldiers for this cause. And they're like, What what do you mean? He's like, give me a handful of cannons, I'll take care of it. And that's what he did. He set up cannons outside of the government building, and they were all filled with grape shot. I have in my notes here, like I have it squared off, highlighted in brackets. Like, take a few minutes to go over canister and grape shot. So, grape shot is both of them are very similar. Canister and grape shot are very, very similar, and they are absolutely horrific inventions of humanity. Basically, a grape shot is where you take these mini cannonballs, they're probably about an inch to two inches in diameter, and then you basically loosely tie them together, and so you go like maybe five, six rows deep, and then each row would have like three, four of these cannonballs in there stacked up, so you could have like 24 of these cannonballs, and you would fire them out of the cannon, and it's like a a crazy version, an overkill version of a shotgun. These these things are flying at you, you know, three to four thousand feet per second, and uh they will go through you, they will go through the person behind you, and the person behind them, and the horse that could be back there as well, and they would hit with such force, yeah, it would it could just split you in twain.

Kara

I was gonna say grape shot's scary because all the weight that's held by the little grape balls, and then you have that line that just cuts through everything between that, yeah.

Ed

And and I think canister shot is even scarier. So, like when you when you think of grape shot, you always think of like those little miniature, like a whole bunch of those tiny little mini balls that are like a half inch to three-quarters of an inch in diameter.

Kara

Uh, I think of the string that holds them together.

Ed

Okay, so okay, yeah, that is that true grape shot, is where it's a bigger cannonball and it's like an inch to two inches in diameter, and there's probably 24 of them that are loosely held together. Canister shot is imagine like taking a soup can and then filling it full of little lead balls, uh and I think it muskets back then. I think they were a 68 caliber, meaning that they were 0.68 inches in diameter, so a little bigger than a half inch. And they would take like 50 or 60 of these bullets, and then they would put them in a can, and they would, you know, obviously ram a whole bunch of gunpowder in there, and then they would take these soup cans full of the bullets, run them into the can and fire that into the crowd.

Kara

So essentially a grenade.

Ed

Uh yeah, well, much, much bigger and a lot more spread. Yeah, like grape shot uh was absolutely devastating, but it was more focused. Whereas a canister could take out, you know, like a 75 to 100 yard swath of people, but they wouldn't penetrate as far. Whereas like grape shot could have a very narrow range, like it'd only take out like 10 feet, but it would go like three, four people deep. Whereas the canister would only go maybe one or two rows deep, but it's like a 75-yard wide spread. So, either way, horrible, yeah, yeah, horrible, horrible stuff. And Napoleon had his cannons loaded with that, and the crowd came up, the crowd started throwing rocks, you know, they wanted the king back, and then Napoleon's like, just fire. And a couple shots of this stuff, and literally like hundreds of men, women laying in the streets, blown to pieces, bleeding out. A lot of them were still alive, and they slowly died, but it was such a horrific event that left such a bad taste in people's mouths. They're like, Yeah, we're not doing this again. Like, this is and this was kind of like the end of Napoleon's involvement with like a direct involvement with the uh French Revolution. So, like, here now, if you wanted more details in terms of like what went on during the revolution, especially after King Louis died, like this is where you'd probably want to listen to the previous episodes because it it gets really wacky. It seemed like every week there was a different government going into effect.

Kara

Yeah, it's kind of like um that weird that weird in-between stage between World War I and World War II in Germany where the Reichstag is taken down, then they put back up, put back up again. It's kind of like that.

Ed

Yeah, it's like they could kind of make up their minds. Or no, they would make up their minds and then quickly change their minds, I feel like. Yeah, yeah, no, it worked out great for them. Yeah, they eventually figured it out.

Kara

Meanwhile, America is a They eventually figure it out, yeah.

Ed

Yeah, we just had an election, it was weird, but we're okay. Because, you know, in the 1790s, America well, 1797, that's where we're getting up to here. Is you know, America was just had the Constitution written. They were in the Articles of Confederation, which was a disaster. That would be a good episode. That would, yeah, the Articles of Confederation, like it meant well, but just it wasn't enough. So yeah, like in America was actually all things considered pretty peaceful. But because of this uh little escapade, the Royalist Uprising was kind of put down for the foreseeable future, and now the directory is like, okay, we've got Napoleon in our back pocket, let's let's use it to our advantage. So they gave him the army of Italy, because I didn't know this prior to studying this, but like France really had a lot of control of Italy uh prior to all this. So that would make sense, right? Because Napoleon was born and pretty much raised in, or not raised, but he was born in Corsica, and uh they were fighting for their independence from France, so yeah. Uh so basically Napoleon was given 20,000 men to fight Austria because Austria wanted to get into Italy, and it's just like everybody, everybody just wanted to attack everybody, it seemed like. So basically, think like um, you know, like the war on terrorism, right? America comes in and they take over Afghanistan in like a week, and then they take out Iraq in you know a little longer than a week. And, you know, yes, the terrorists are still there, but the Americans are still fighting him and defeating him pretty readily. But then there's a point where America now has to reconstitute that land. You've got to set up a new government in there that one is gonna favor America and two be stable enough to kind of like control everything. And this is where Napoleon he got involved with that, and he yeah, he kind of learned how to deal with taxes and how do you fund militaries, and how do you manage economies, and how do you keep your people fed? And in the in the process of doing all this, he especially in Italy, he kind of learned like this isn't that difficult. If you figure out a way to get goods into your country and you keep your people working and making money, they'll like you. This isn't rocket science. Like, why did King Louis not figure this out?

Kara

Like he kept he I have no excuses for that, man.

Ed

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kara

I will say it wasn't entirely his fault.

Ed

So, yep, Napoleon was figuring out statescraft. Uh, he was figuring out how to run a country. It's like this is easier than people thought. So, one of the things that I don't know if you knew this about European history, Kara, but the French and the British fought a lot. I know. It's a little known thing in history that the British and the French often did not get along. What? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's wild. I know. It's just it's a it's just I didn't know that. Uh yeah, I know it's late. And uh if if you are just now finding out about this and and you're like eight or nine, that's okay. If you are if you're older than say uh 15, and this is new to you, let's read some books.

Kara

Yeah, watch some YouTube documentaries.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Let's get at it.

Ed

Yeah, put Fortnite down and uh let's get to work. Um so yes, the the trend of always fighting each other, uh, that were the the British and the French fighting each other, that continued even into the 1800s, and Napoleon was trying to figure out a way to fight the British, and he came up with a bit more favorable idea, right? There is no way Britain were or no way that France was gonna hop into a bunch of boats and just go take England.

Kara

That's not gonna happen.

Ed

No, he even even in World War II, Hitler could bomb all he wanted, and he just didn't have the ability to take that island. So what Napoleon decided to do is like, okay, let's fight the British, but let's hit them where it hurts. Let's hit them in their economic aspects. And this is where the campaign of Egypt starts. And the idea was hey, I'm gonna show up into Cairo and I'm gonna be like a savior, and um, I'm gonna be the Egyptian savior, and my goal is to push out the evil British Empire and restore order and in the chaos and make it so that the Egyptians would love France and trade with them rather than the British. He kinda yeah, he goes there and he yeah, like he he does. He comes in almost like Jesus in a way, and he found that obviously the the side of the Egyptians or the Egyptian side that favored Britain is like there this is like no contest, like one canon, and it yeah, it it freaks everybody out. And no, it is a myth. Napoleon did not do target practice on the pyramids. Okay, uh, that's not the reason why the pyramids look the way they do. The reason why they look the way they do is because a lot of of the stones that were used to build that nice shell on the outside were used for other construction purposes, so that was more like recycled than anything. But no, it is a myth that Napoleon uh shot the crap out of the pyramids. But he did kind of get himself into a little bit of a of a military stalemate, and yeah, in a way, Egypt was in yeah, it was kind of like a dumpster fire, and he was almost I I don't want to say like he was looking for a reason to leave, but yeah, it wasn't going the way he thought it was, and Napoleon is very much a battlefield leader. Give me an army and then give me an army to attack, and I will be victorious. But if I've got an army and I'm dealing with a very complicated economic, slash political, slash religious scene, like he couldn't navigate it. He he just rode the struggle bus on that.

Kara

He's a checkers guy, not a chess guy.

Ed

Uh yeah, yeah, that's that's probably a good way of putting it. So, like, when word kind of came out to him that his wife, Josephine, uh let's just say she wasn't being very faithful.

Kara

Okay.

Ed

So Josephine was like his best friend, and even after their marriage fell apart, they were still very, very good friends. The the problem with Josephine is that she could not seem to get pregnant. And um, here we go again. Like this this whole idea that you have to have a boy in order to carry the line and blah blah blah blah blah.

Kara

It's just uh it continues on and on and on. It just it is what it is.

Ed

Yeah, and I hate to say it, but I've even kind of seen that a little bit to this day. Like, you know, when I had both my daughters are like, oh sorry, didn't you want a boy? I don't care what I have. Like I'm I'm not gonna live my life like man, I would give anything to to I'll trade these two girls in for a boy. No, that's not how I'm gonna play. That that that's just too antiquated for me.

SPEAKER_01

That's fair.

Ed

So, yeah, he found out about his wife being unfaithful, and he immediately returned to Paris, and technically he abandoned his post. Like, yeah, he didn't finish the job, and it's not like the directory called him in. Like, yeah, what he did was kind of a court-martial offense. And when he got there, the director was obviously pissed, but he's like, guys, what is going on here? And they're like, Well, we need to court-martial you because you abandoned your post. And he's like, Okay, I left France in a state of chaos, but it was being governed in a way that we would get through the chaos. I come back and it's worse than it was before. And so instead of like being worried about being court-martialed, he just like teed off on the directory and basically said, You guys can't court-martial me because you're failing literally everything that you're doing.

Kara

You have no idea what you're doing.

Ed

Yeah, it's like I I refuse to be court-martialed by people that are this incompetent. He didn't quite realize that, hey, we need to have a monarchy for hundreds of years, it's gonna be a process of converting that over. But again, Napoleon just had a way of just, you know, just getting straight to the heart of the matter and fixing crap. So instead of being court-martialed, he played up the fact that he was in all the French newspapers and that people loved him. He was considered a war hero, and people, the average people just loved Napoleon.

Kara

Propaganda, gotta love it. My favorite thing is if you look up the French propaganda, he's like super awesome and he's big and he's rich and he's powerful. And then if you look at the British propaganda, he's little and he's tiny, yeah, tyrannical, like crazy, he doesn't know what he's talking about. It's great. I love it.

Ed

Uh, yeah, because neither one is accurate. No, it's it's something in the middle, somewhere in the middle.

Kara

It's so great.

Ed

Yeah, I know. It's it it is pretty funny to uh see that, and it's kind of like uh you you see it today where certain political figures are like you know, nailed to a cross, and you're like, no, no, that that's not how that works. Or or like you see those other, like they're almost like memes, but you see like a George Washington riding a griffin with a machine gun in one hand and an American flag in the other hand, and he's got like a six-pack, and you know, he's just ripped, and it's just like Abe Lincoln Zombie Killer. Uh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Kara

That was a fun movie. I'm not gonna knock that movie.

Ed

Really? I've never seen it.

Kara

It was so dumb, but entertaining.

Ed

Yeah, the book was pretty good.

Kara

I think it was it was it zombie killer or vampire killer? I don't know. Either one.

Ed

It was it was vampire, it was vampire. Yeah, Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter, or something like that.

Kara

Yeah, something like that. It's so stupid, but it's it's entertaining.

Ed

Yeah, it's one of those things like the book had a lot more meaning to it, whereas the movie was just You just Abe Lincoln killing vampires, chopping people chopping up vampires, yeah.

Kara

That's it.

Ed

It's like Abe Blade Lincoln. That's what it was. There you go. So anyway, yeah, so basically, instead of getting court-martialed, he just walked out of that directory room, and he just relied on the will of the people, and he started getting stuff done. He decided to hang out in like their parliament, you know, he started to hang out in their committee meetings, he started to get involved with all these discussions, and he would just be like, instead of like you and I, like we would see something like this, and we just kind of stay to the side and not want to draw attention to ourselves. Uh, Napoleon would be like, Whoa, whoa, wait, what no, no, just stop talking. We're gonna do it this way, and a lot of times his way works, like yeah, he he did solve a lot of the problems. He created some, as we will get into here shortly, but yeah, like he just had a knack for getting into the heart of the matter and just fixing it, and eventually he got the attention of the people so much that he's like, okay, let's do away at the directory, and he actually used the military for this. Uh, basically, he staged a coup in November of 1799, and yeah, he used the military, and he had the directory um at that time, what was left of them, he had them all arrested or kicked out, and it wasn't a bloodbath, he was real big on that. Like, no, we're not pulling out the guillotine, we're not gonna be executing everybody. I'm eliminating the inefficiencies, and I am going to put in instead of having like five, six people run the show, we'll just have three, and these three will be known as consuls because Napoleon was really, really, really a fan of the Roman Empire, and he it's anything with Hitler, he wanted to like recreate that Roman Empire and the glory that came with all those military conquests and all that kind of stuff, and he also loved the order that it brought with it for when it worked-ish, sort of for when it worked, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kara

It was around for a while, yes, it was.

Ed

It was also a republic and then turned into an empire. And yeah, what it is so fascinating to think like the Romans were around for what almost almost a thousand years.

Kara

Yeah, are you gonna count the Byzantine Empire too?

Ed

No, I'm just talking about up to when it officially collapsed. What was that? Up to 479. 479, yeah. And then it started at around 600, 600, 700.

Kara

So a little less than a thousand years if my math is.

Ed

Yeah, so about 800 years.

Kara

But if you count the Eastern Roman Empire, it was around for more than a thousand years.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

So it depends on what you want to count.

Ed

Yeah, how how you want to define it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could see that. But like, when you think about it, America has been around for what uh 250 years-ish. 240 years, somewhere around there.

Kara

It's late. I don't want to math.

Ed

To me, it's just fascinating. Like, oh yeah, America's been around for this such a long time. Like, no, I'm young. Like, Egypt was around for thousands of years.

Kara

Like if you if you wanna, listeners, if you wanna see a society or a civilization that has been around forever, look up the ancient Egyptian timeline. It's crazy.

Ed

Oh, it's wild.

Kara

And the Chinese history is just like Ancient China is is up there too.

Ed

Yeah, so I don't know. To me, I just find it fascinating. Like, oh yeah, America's been around longer than everybody else. Like, no, no, it hasn't.

Kara

It's in the sense that I've never heard anybody say that.

Ed

It's because our government is so stable. So if, like, okay, by definition, like when the when Queen Elizabeth died and her son took over, that is actually a change of government.

Kara

It's still the same type of government, though.

Ed

It's still the same type, but it is a change of government.

Kara

I guess it depends on how you want to look at it.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. Um, so like in terms of like America's democracy, it has actually been around longer than any other developed nation.

Kara

I don't know. I uh the historian in me wants to really hard pass disagree.

Ed

Well, this is from historians.

Kara

So well, meaning like there are countries that are older than America just because of the change of government happens.

Ed

Well, yeah, there's countries older than America, but that doesn't mean they've had the same democratic government from the beginning.

Kara

No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about the age of the country.

Ed

Oh, yeah, no, yeah. You can have, and that I'm not talking about America has been around longer than anybody else. I'm saying that the government that America has in place has been around longer than most other countries.

Kara

Oh, that's where I got confused. I was like, who what?

Ed

Yeah, no, no, no. Like America, and even I think Britain and France would see is like America is like a puppy. Like, yeah, yeah, guys, we've been around since like the Roman times. Like, don't we don't want to hear? But no, what I'm talking about is like the government itself has been pretty stable, all things considered, for a very long time.

Kara

Now I'm with you. That that really took me a second.

Ed

Okay, so back to Napoleon. Um, he basically staged a military coup in 1799, and he got rid of the directory, and he basically set up um a console, and he kind of wanted to style that off of the whole Roman Empire thing, so much so that when they had him and then they had two other guys as consuls, but Napoleon was like, you know, I'm doing air quotes, voted in as like first consul, and the first consul would be in charge of the military, and the public wanted that, and when you have the military like that, you're kind of the one who's in charge of everything. It was Napoleon that kind of had the real power, and the other two, the second and third consoles, were kind of like I don't know, they were kind of just like along for the ride. Uh, it's kind of like whenever you watch, uh, I love watching video feeds of like the North Korean government. So you got like Kim Jong-un sitting at the like the very front on this table, and then like their General Assembly has like a thousand guys in it, and they all are voting on some law that Kim Jong-un introduces, and like, oh yeah, it's it's uh a unanimous approval. Like, no, no, I don't I don't think that's legitimate. We're kind of like when Putin gets re-elected term after term after term with like a 99.8% approval rating. I it's yeah, it just that doesn't scream democracy to me.

Kara

No, not at all.

Ed

It doesn't add up at all, but and and that's kind of how Napoleon got in. Okay, yeah, yeah. So like that that was he was he said that everybody voted for him. Yeah, it was let's just face it.

Kara

It it was you're really you're really selling him to me right now because like you you know he I'm not his biggest fan.

Ed

Oh, and I'm really gonna irritate you now because he did make a lot of changes to the judicial system, right? Like nominating judges, streamlining laws. Uh he he did do a lot of like I mean, set up schools. Uh, he wanted everybody to be educated. Like, there was a lot of stuff that he did. Schools for boys. That was pretty cool, unless you were a girl. So, yeah, if you were a girl, like you had no rights. Uh, women couldn't vote, uh, they had no say in a marriage, like they could not turn down their husbands. So if husband wanted to get it on that night, she couldn't say no. And if she did say no, then well, she could be put in jail. They couldn't decide on if they were gonna have kids or not. Uh, they had no say in the raising of the kids. So, husband decided if they're gonna go to school or not, husband decided who was gonna stay at home or who was gonna leave. Like, wife had no say in any of that, and it got it got so crazy that like infidelity, right? So, if a woman was caught cheating on her husband, you know, like the hammer came down, and she would just be absolutely destroyed. However, though, it was accepted that a husband could bring home a side piece, and this woman could even live in their house, and the wife couldn't say anything.

Kara

I'm not impressed. I'm not impressed.

Ed

So uh, yeah. Yeah, like it's one of those things it's like, man, he did a lot, but then like, why did you have to ruin it with this?

Kara

Yeah, I know, and the hard thing too is I have I can't stand the guy. I really don't like him. But I also really try hard to not look at people's decisions through a contemporary lens. Despite that, still don't like him.

Ed

Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to get past that. Yeah, I'm uh I'm I'm Rita with you. I'm the kind of guy that like look at even the worst leaders, they had something to offer, but it just seems like man, why like you if you just kept going with all your reforms and and didn't tarnish it with like your treatment of women, yeah, like you probably would have gone down as a beloved hero of Europe. Instead, yeah, you're kind of viewed as a tyrant. Did yeah, with with yeah, with the uh a bit of uh of a complex towards women.

Kara

So yeah, he's got some things to work through.

Ed

Yeah, well, I mean, thankfully he was very rarely ever in France for that long of a time. Most of it, he like well, okay, in 1804, December 2nd, 1804, he was consecrated as the Emperor of France by Pope Pius the Seventh. And yes, it is true that the Pope went to crown him, and Napoleon took the crown out of the Pope's hand. And he put the crown on his own head, and he's like, now I am the emperor. Like, I picked this crown up off the ground, I dusted it off. France is back, and we are now forced to be reckoned with. And this is all primarily because as much as of a like a politician that he he tried to be, he went first and foremost, he was a military commander. That was his thing. And the Roman emperor in him basically said, Okay, now that I'm the emperor, now I need to take over all of Europe.

Kara

This always goes well.

Ed

This always goes well. And and actually, for a long time, it does kind of go well. Uh from 18, what is it? Yeah, 1804 to 1812 is what is known as the Napoleonic Wars. And this was just one massive victory after another. And like a lot of Europe still like disliked him, like uh Prussia, I think Warsaw, then you had the Austrian Empire. Like there was a lot of countries that were kind of mostly would be classified as Germany, um, when they all united. Um, but he realized, or I don't think he realized it, but he's just like, okay, cool. I'm now the emperor, I finally have France under control. Now it's start, let's take over the rest of Europe, and basically let's turn Europe into one unified country, and this one unified country could refuse to trade with England, and then England would have no choice but to starve to death. That it was called the continental system, and uh that would that's what he tried to put in place to try to get all of Europe on one page. That didn't work out so well, as we will see when he tries to take out Russia. But in the meantime, the Napoleonic Wars. Uh this is where he was at his height, and the only way to really keep his fame and all this stuff because he really didn't like the politics and just sitting around dealing with stuffy old men and wigs. And I guess he got bored of mistreating women. He decided to go back out and unify all of Europe. So most of his enemies, and what's funny, these enemies would later become his allies. And again, I put that in air quotes because it's really hard to like absolutely decimate and conquer somebody, and then expect them to be your ally afterwards, as we will see with like Austria, Russia, uh, Prussia, you know, the works. And his biggest threat was Britain, and what Napoleon wanted to do was unify Russia, Austria, and Prussia, and even Spain. He wanted to just unify all these major areas, and that would then put him in a position where he could go to Britain and really, really hurt them, at least economically.

Kara

I like how this whole thing is because he wanted to stick it to Britain. Well, I mean I know he really wanted the power, but it just the way you put it, it sounded pretty funny. We're gonna go through all these things just to stick it to Britain.

Ed

I mean, what else are you gonna do?

Kara

We're gonna rule Europe like Charlemagne did before all these countries were countries.

Ed

Well, yeah, and that and he did actually do uh, like I said, uh he did do a lot, like he set up universities, he set up schools, he set up like the idea that hey, religion can be practiced outside of government, like you don't have to have the two intertwined.

Kara

Yeah, what's going on before him? Yes, there were universities before him.

Ed

Yes, but they were the same ones that had been around for decades to centuries. He built new ones and he wanted more development, so to speak. Whereas, you know, even in the 1800s, a lot of Europe was like, hey, the ones who get educated are the rich and the wealthy can get educated. Uh Napoleon was a firm believer in that now a lot of people, anybody should really be getting an education. And I think that was the Thomas Jefferson in him, because Thomas Jefferson, I think, was the guy that really started the French Revolution with this talk of Thomas Paine. Uh well, yeah.

Kara

Before Jefferson.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. But Jefferson, remember, he spent a lot of time in France and filled their heads with you know, revolution and a better life, and this and that, and but that that's a whole different story. Um, but yeah, no, you're right. There's a lot of stuff that was going well beforehand, and that they didn't necessarily need him. But again, Napoleon was the kind of guy that wanted to speed things up. And what happens to history whenever you get a guy with too much military power who wants to speed things up?

Kara

Usually they're super, super successful, and then they crash more than they can chew, and then and then they crash and burn.

Ed

Yeah, and it's and then you end up on this podcast. Yes. So uh to kind of just go over a few things of the Napoleonic Wars, uh, 1805, October 21st, is the Battle of Trafalgar. Um epic naval battle. This was the largest naval battle in the world up to this point. Uh, this is the battle that established Britain as the world's number one oceanic superpower. And um uh after this battle, that this is the one with Horatio, uh Horatio Nelson and outnumbered and all that kind of stuff. Nelson just absolutely destroyed the French fleet. And uh it was a disaster for for Nelson because he died during this, but uh it basically uh established the fact in Napoleon's head that okay, we are not like uh me as the Emperor of Europe, I am not gonna beat Britain in the ocean. And so he kind of gave up on the idea of a navy, and he's just like, okay, the only way I'm gonna be able to get to Britain is I have to starve him out by unifying all of Europe on land. So I could kind of see the strategy there, and it would probably work if he just went about it in a little more diplomatic way. So, yeah, Battle Trafalgar, fascinating battle. If you're a uh naval hist uh a history naval nerd like me, um 1805, December 2nd, probably one of Napoleon's most insane victories. He had 68,000 troops, and they absolutely decimated 90,000 Russian and Austrian troops. Uh he split the Allied line in two and used artillery masterfully to victory. So it was like a three, four-day long battle. If you watched the Napoleon movie, probably the uh the what you see in the Battle of Austerlitz was like the final day. And he hid his artillery, he hid his men underneath like white tarps and all that stuff, and it was in the snow, and nobody could see anything, and he used uh lanterns uh to like send coded message uh messages all over the place. So basically, what he did is he waited for the Russian and the Austrians to think that they had the upper ground and attack him, and in doing so, he was able to surround them while he was on the true upper ground, and then he sent in his cavalry, absolutely just caused mayhem, and suddenly the Russian and Austrian line started to break up, they started to retreat, and probably what is most famous out of this whole thing was he used his cannons, knowing that the Austrians and the Russians were running over a frozen lake, and so he used his cannons as they were retreating. He used the cannons to just break up the ice, and the entire army basically sank. And they were cut off, there was no way they could retreat. The only thing they could do was surrender. This is where Austria then became a part of uh Napoleon, and as well as Russia became a part of uh Napoleon's economic or uh continental system by destroying them and invading them. So this is where the Treaty of Pressburg uh formed, and it forced Austria and Prussia to be a part of France. Not that they wanted to be a part of it, they were forced into it. October 14th, 1806. Uh, this is the Jena and Auerstadt uh fought in modern-day Germany. 122,000 French defeated 114,000 Prussian and Saxon troops, which resulted in the Treaty of Tilsit and Prussia losing half of its territory. So, like, yes, you you have Australitz, uh which kind of put Prussia in a slight bind. Austria was worse off, but now Prussia was like they lost half of the land uh to France. Like now it's it wasn't even Prussian land, it was now France's land. It wasn't Prussian that is aligned with France. No, it's like Prussia's cut in half, and these are now Frenchmen that live there, kind of a thing. Uh, this is where we also were hit Hitler, oh my gosh, I I combine the two all the time. This is where Napoleon was introduced to Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and he was kind of a boy, sort of very inexperienced, and Napoleon thought that this guy would be a pushover. This would bite him in the butt later on. Uh, June 14th, 1807, uh, you've got the Battle of Friedland, right? Second battle led to the Treaty of Tilsit. So you have Jena and Auerstadt, and then you have Friedland. Uh, these two kind of combined it that formed the Treaty of Tilsit. 80,000 French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, and German versus 58,000 Russies. Russies, Russians. The treaty formed a shaky alliance between France and Russia, and Napoleon warded the the treaty or worded the treaty to unify Europe and blockade Britain. So the idea was that okay, we are now going to now that I defeated you, you are now going to be my ally. And the relationship with Russia was very, very sketchy. The Russian people did not like this agreement, uh, and it really put Russia in a tough spot. Um, because they wanted to trade with England. That's how they made their money was trading with England. And this is where they had their most of their livelihood was trading with England. And now Napoleon told Russia, like, nope, you can't trade with England anymore. In fact, nobody in Europe can trade with England, which is funny because everybody did, anyways. Why? Well, because Napoleon didn't have a navy that could fully blockade all of Europe. So it's one of those things where, like, fine, we won't trade with England, and then hey, captain of such and such ship, when you go out there, change your flag to say something else. And that way, if a French ship saw them, uh, they weren't Russian, they're somebody else. So it was it was one of those things like it was like the 55 mile an hour speed limit where nobody followed it. But yeah, that this whole thing, if you if you really followed it carefully, uh the Russians were really screwed, right? At least, you know, Prussia and Austria, Warsaw, um, you know, Spain, Italy, all these other lands, they could trade with each other, but a lot of them didn't. A lot of Europe kind of treated Russia as like these weird outcasts. Uh, uh one way you could look at it is if you watch the Game of Thrones series or read the books, the Russians are very much like the North. They're very much, they're very independent, they do their own thing, they don't really want to be involved with everybody else. The rest of Europe kind of viewed Russia as like, yeah, you're a part of Europe, but you're also like way out in the fringe. So it's not like Russia was thoroughly embraced into European zeitgeist, if that makes sense. It's not like it's not like they really they went out of the way to include Russia. And they were now put into a very tough spot where they their money, like I think their inflation went up like 1600%. Um, they were running out of food, they had no supplies coming in, and they had no choice but to actually start trading with England again. And it was one of those things like, well, if Napoleon finds out, Napoleon finds out what's the worst that could happen? And Napoleon was like, okay, if Russia starts trading with England, it's going to be war. And I will go in and I will take out Russia, and I will own them once and for all, and I will make my dream of conquering all of Europe, minus Spain. Uh, Spain was another one of Napoleon's uh dumpster fires that we could do another episode on. But this leads us up to 1812, and this is where we're gonna leave off, right? The French Revolution ended in a dumpster fire by starting off as a dumpster fire and chopping off a bunch of people's heads to get rid of a king and queen and a monarchy, and now they've ended up with a king, or in this case, an emperor for a life. And so it's like we've got that full revolution, and then in our next episode, we're going to look at Napoleon's cluster of an invasion that on paper looks epic. Like he had everything going for him, and he ends up with 20,000 men after losing like 700,000. In in the period of like seven weeks.

Kara

I'm just saying, you don't just walk into Russia.

Ed

Well, you can if you know what you're doing, and and it's kind of a myth that oh, it was the Russian winter that killed them all. No. Uh, very it's actually very small portion of Napoleon's forces were killed by the Russian winter.

SPEAKER_01

We'll get there.

Ed

We'll get there. Most of what killed them was disease and heat.

SPEAKER_01

We'll get there.

Ed

Yeah, there's there's a lot of misconceptions about the invasion of Russia that we will kind of dive into. But yeah, the winter didn't help Napoleon's cause, and Russia kind of manipulated Napoleon from day one. So that will be part two uh this cluster that we call Napoleon. Sweet. Yeah, now it's time to wake up, Kara. It's time to do your part now. Got housekeeping stuff. Housekeeping. Like, oh gosh, that's too much volume.

Kara

I I I did draw a blank. Um, okay. If you have an episode idea, you can either text us on that nifty text thingy, you can email us at the daystumpsterfire at gpal.com, or you can message us on Instagram at the Daystumpster Fire. Either one. Uh, also, if you could leave a review for us on wherever you listen to the podcast, that would be amazing. That's very helpful to us. And that's all I got.

Ed

Yeah.

Kara

Grab people's phones and don't take it because then you'll be arrested.

Ed

Yeah, yeah. I mean, don't we we don't need assault and battery or anything like that or theft, but like, hey, bring up the podcast, say that you know one, and like you know some people, like you can text them. Like, hey, I know some podcasters I can text right now, in fact, if I wanted to. And that will be a great conversation starter. And then, like, hey, if you want to listen to it, let me see your phone. I'll get you signed up for it. And it's really easy. We're on Spotify, we're on Amazon, we're on iTunes, we are on now YouTube. Uh, we're not doing video podcasts, we're sticking straight with audio because I don't think anybody really wants to look at us talking, at least me. I just have a face for radio.

Kara

Let's just say it's 11 p.m. I'm in my jammies.

Ed

Yeah, I'm not I'm not doing much better myself, so yeah, we're not gonna be doing too much video. Not to mention, I don't know how to edit video in the slightest bit. But um, yeah, yeah, go out there, start conversations. Um, if uh you like what we do, spread the word and um show people what to do because most people probably don't even know how to get a podcast going or what to use or what's a podcatcher or anything like that. Hey, put yourself out there and uh let them know. If you uh work in an office, this would be a great opportunity because a lot of office workers like to listen to music while they're plugging away at their computers. Well, you can also have them listen to our podcast as well. So at least this way, after a long, tough day in the office, they may have learned a thing or two in the process. Yes, don't be afraid to talk to people about the episodes. You mentioned, Kara, that uh you can email us in ideas. I believe our fan Nathaniel has reached out to us uh with an idea, and it's some guy that I've never heard of, and I kinda want to see what this is about. Uh Willem Barents and his mess.

Kara

Perfect. We'll look into that.

Ed

Should I do an Dutch Explorer William Burnets, the third voyage, where on the good side he discovered the island of Spitzbergen in Svalbard, along with Bear Island south of the Archipelago. Archipelago, yeah, that cluster of islands. But on the bad side, the idiot died on while leaving the Russian Navoya Zemla, which he discovered in his prior voyage. Funnily enough, after being stranded for a year with this crew of six. Yeah, and he really wants us to, he really wants to hear us try to pronounce Scandinavian words.

Kara

Okay, that's fair.

Ed

Sounds like a good time.

Kara

Yeah, I butchered the French words, so I'm down to tackle the Scandinavian words.

Ed

So, yeah, that's all I got for today. So I guess in the uh in the meantime, uh tell people about us and uh keep it a hot mess. Thanks for listening.