1801 recap: Making war and making peace

Our recap episodes, which offer a synthesis of our 1792-1804 coverage one year at a time, have reached 1801 - a year in which Britain and France make peace, despite a widening canvas of war spreading across from Europe across the globe. Chris Sloan talks presenter Alex Stevenson through specific key clips he's picked out from our old episodes grouped around four themes which, we argue, help frame the period and shape our understanding of it in a whole new way. We hope this will provide a helpful refresh for longstanding listeners - whilst at the same time offering an 'entry ramp' to the podcast for those who want to get up to speed relatively easily before we crash full-speed into the intensity of the Napoleonic Wars.

This episode covers a 12-month period in which Napoleon Bonaparte, having secured a Concordat with the Catholic Church, sends troops to recapture Saint-Domingue and gets himself elected president in Italy. Russia's League of Armed Neutrality is thwarted by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen before Tsar Paul's assassination prompts a change of course in St Petersburg. The British are on the offensive in Egypt and in India, but William Pitt resigns as Prime Minister. Thomas Jefferson is finally elected President and the US is fighting the first Barbary war... and there's the War of the Oranges between Spain and Portugal as well. Is this a winding-down year? No - it's one of the most dramatic of them all.

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