The History of Russia Podcast

The Vienna police are kept busy, Tsar Alexander meets 'the naked angel' and 'the white pussycat' and you all get to have some bromide in your tea...

Napoleon puts together yet another army, the Coalition powers redraw the map of Europe and a number of rail/metro stations would soon end up with some familiar names.

Napoleon gets busy on Elba, Alexander finds redemption, the 7th coalition is formed and down in south-east Asia there is a humungous explosion.

This week's episode features a diplomatic game that Napoleon somehow found a way to lose.The invasion of France itself, an abdication, exile and the last shots of a six-year war fought by two men who didn't know it was already over.There is also a parallel drama unfolding in Washington and Baltimore plus the status quo gets rearranged in Scandinavia.

It's 1813 - Napoleon is back in Paris and he has put together a new army.But... a new coalition has been formed and as the year progresses things start to look increasingly desperate for the French.Also and as per usual, we will be spending some time observing what was going on in the Caucasus, North America and the Iberian Peninsula plus, this time around, Northern Germany and Denmark will also get a look in.

In the sixth and final part of this min-series we follow the remnants of Napoleons Grande Armée as they plod they plod their way, half-starved and half-frozen, back towards safety.But, up ahead, at a river called the Berezina, three Russian armies were converging from three different directions, and this time there would be no cautious shadowing.

Napoleon had sat in an empty, burned-out Moscow for weeks waiting for a response from Alexander.But the Russian emperor had stayed silent and so Bonaparte had decided it was time to head back west.What he didn't know is that his retreat would become one of the biggest military disasters of all time.

Today we are going to see how and why Napoleon reached Moscow so easily But, here's the question. Would he be able to do the second of the two things he wanted to do and force Alexander to the negotiating table and get him to surrender? We’ll also be making short visits to Iberia and the Caucasus, and then for no other reason than I think it’s interesting and it puts things into context in terms of events happening on the global stage, we’ll cover a couple of slight diversions that had taken place over in the UK and the USA, which would involve an assasination and the start of yet another war.If you have any comments, questions or suggestions then you can send them across to me via good old-fashioned email -nordicworld@outlook.com

This week we follow the Grande Armée on the road to Moscow. However, in between Napoleon and Russia's ancient capital was the village of Borodino which Kutusov had occupied and this time it looked like the Russians were going to stand and fight.We'll also be taking a brief look at what was going on in Spain and the Caucasus and I offer my thoughts on why Napoleon was aiming for Moscow and not St Petersburg and what it was actually like to be an ordinairy soldier in a Napoleonic era army Please note that from now on, the 1812 mini series is going to become increasingly grim so perhaps best not to listen when little ears are around.