History Cafe

• #25 'Here lieth the Toad' - Ep 2 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

  We take a look at James I’s shadowy chief minister Robert Cecil who manages to implicate most of his Catholic enemies in the plot. Cecil was so desperate to improve King James’s dire view of him (his father had caused the execution James’ mother, Mary Queen of Scots) he would stoop to anything. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #24 'There is no state trial so totally devoid of reality' - Ep 1 Blowing up the Gunpowder Plot

  We look at the story the government published as The King’s Book, more than 500 witness statements and other contemporary sources and conclude, like the Victorian antiquarian Jardine who wrote up the trial from the State Papers, there is no reliable corroborating evidence for the gunpowder story we’ve been told. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #66 The British who cheated on the Somme - Ep 6 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

  At the southern end of the line, next to the French, British units took all their objectives on the first day of the battle. They succeeded mainly because their maverick commanders had learnt from the French how to bombard the Germans accurately, putting them out of action long enough for the infantry to mop up. They’d also been assisted by the French big guns. By lunchtime some of these units were being served a hot meal in a newly occupied German trench. It’s a remarkable story the British Army has done its best to forget. Some military historians say, with all that French help, they cheated! (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #65 Haig's war crime on the Somme - Ep 5 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

  The French decided they only had enough artillery to attack on a 9-mile front if they were to neutralise the German guns so that their infantry were not needlessly slaughtered. Haig had fewer guns – enough for perhaps 4 miles of front – but he chose to attack across 16 miles. 57,000 British soldiers died on the very first day, 1 July 1916, and no ground was gained. The French achieved all their objectives and lost 1,500 men. This is not a story that’s usually told (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• #63 The generals never studied how to attack trenches - Ep 3 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

  The British Army wanted to throw men against machines. Its generals had not thought about how to cross 100-200 yards of open space with wire entanglements. They had been offered plenty of designs for armoured tractors with caterpillar tracks but had ignored them. It was Churchill, head of the Royal Navy, who eventually funded the development of the first ‘tank’. But they arrived late at the Somme and were so badly deployed they couldn’t save lives. And that wasn’t the worst of the problems the British army had created for itself. (R) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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