76. France: a hard nut to crack

Having dealt with all the background, in revolutions both French and Industrial, in this episode we move into the War of the First Coalition, Act I of the long series of Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that ended at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

In passing, in this episode, we deal with the height of the Reign of Terror in France, culminating in the execution of its main architect, Robespierre. To give credit where it’s due, we also talk about how he pulled off one trick which at the time was beyond the anti-slavery lobby in Britain: he banned slavery in all French territories.

Finally, we take a look at the early stages of the irresistible rise of a Corsican artillery officer soon to be known as Napoleon Bonaparte.

Illustration: Capture of the Dutch Fleet by French cavalry at Den Helder on 23 January 1795, by Léon Morel-Fatio. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License