1796. April… May… June… Three months in which Napoleon Bonaparte has the Austrians on the run and forces Piedmont out of the war altogether… On the Rhine the two French armies struggle to make the same sort of progress… And parts of the Papal States are overrun by Bonaparte, who resists pressure from Paris to depose the Pope altogether. This is episode 18 of the Napoleonic Quarterly – covering three months in which the dynamism and energy of a 20-something upstart in north Italy begins a chain of events that will astonish the world.
[12:34] - Rick Schneid on Bonaparte's campaign against the Austrians and Piedmontese
[42:08] - Mary Robinson on the Papal States' humiliation at the hands of the French
[57:08] - Jordan Hayworth on the French offensive on the Rhine against the Austrians
Plus Charles Esdaile and Alexander Mikaberidze provide their usual analysis throughout, including an assessment of the political after-effects of the north Italian tumult.
Another high quality podcast which is providing a lot of interesting and thought provoking information. There podcasts have to do somehow with the spoken word, I find it quite shocking - yes again - axe to grind - how badly renowned professional historians anglisize and pronounce names, I did not know that Balu the bear did command the Austrians, wait a minute - ah you mean BEAULIEU, ok understood now, the same as the bridge of LODI or the battle of MONTENOTTE, maybe it would be not a bad idea to ask an Italian how to pronounce those places so they could be identified by just hearing them. Anyway - this may be a radical sugestion, but traveling the places of the Italian campaign in Italy would maybe also not only help the pronounciation of places but of other cultural aspects as well.
As to why those two poor chaps in Germany, Moreau and Jourdan couldn't orchestrate their armies better - compared to Bonaparte - has of course several reasons, and no they weren't imbecile generals or necessarily on an ego trip. Just looking at a map, where those two armies start and how far apart they wear, they did not have mobile phones then, nor video conferences - and maybe more importantly those were two generals, who would be in command - who would have the authority to order a delay of starting the campaign? Think about Italy, just imagine, Bonaparte gets part of the Armée d'Italie to deal with the Sardiniens and Messena to deal with the Austrians, what chaos and misfortune that would have had caused, despite their lines of communication between each other would be shorter?
Also they face Erzherzog Karl in Germany who is a much more dangerous opponent than Balu the bear, Wurmer and good knows who else. Bonaparte benefits as being the sole authority and in case he clashes with orders from Paris - he acts as it suits him best and ignores them in case of need, while the theater of war was much smaller and he was clever enough not to expand it - like not invading the Papal states in full scale.
About Beaulieu - wikipedia may help
So it seems he was a Walloon officer - so most likely a French pronounciation of his name?
well amateurs can do it better than trained and professional historians
he has a bachelor degree in history at Cambridge, so not an amateur.
Thank you, Paul
He is a former journalist and currently press secretary to the Leader of the House of Commons (The Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP) - I believe he has a long standing interest in the Napoleonic Wars on an amateur basis - he also seems to be a very nice chap.
He is on Linked in if you want to know more about his career - see
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/alex-stevenson-87b55a37
Out of interest, who is the host, Alexander Stevenson? There seems to be no information on the <napoleonicwars.net> website
It is soul lifting to see that anglo phones can do it outstandingly well, a joy to listen and to learn how to pronounce names, I recommend the whole series of videos.
Hans Karl - you should bear in mind that mangling of foreign names, French in particular - especially after copious of draughts of vang plonk- is an honourable British tradition being nobly upheld in this and neighbouring parishes.