Napoleon’s Hundred Days

21 Apr, 2024 940 History of Europe

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Napoleon Bonaparte’s temporary return to power in France in 1815, following his escape from exile on Elba. He arrived with fewer than a thousand men, yet three weeks later he had displaced Louis XVIII and taken charge of an army as large as any that the Allied Powers could muster individually. He saw that his best chance was to pick the Allies off one by one, starting with the Prussian and then the British/Allied armies in what is now Belgium. He appeared to be on the point of victory at Waterloo yet somehow it eluded him, and his plans were soon in tatters. His escape to America thwarted, he surrendered on 15th July and was exiled again but this time to Saint Helena. There he wrote his memoirs to help shape his legacy, while back in Europe there were still fears of his return.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

  • Michael Rowe 2 episodes
    Reader in European History at Kings College London
  • Katherine Astbury 4 episodes
    Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick
  • Zack White No other episodes
    Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Portsmouth

Reading list

  • Napoleon's Hundred Days and the Politics of Legitimacy
    Katherine Astbury and Mark Philp (ed.) (Palgrave, 2018) Google Books →
  • The Battle of Waterloo: A New History
    Jeremy Black (Icon Books, 2010) Google Books →
  • Napoleon: The Decline and Fall of an Empire: 1811-1821
    Michael Broers (Pegasus Books, 2022) Google Books →
  • Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in power 1799-1815
    Philip Dwyer (Bloomsbury, 2014) Google Books →
  • Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle Rejected
    Charles J. Esdaile (Pen & Sword Military, 2016) Google Books →
  • Waterloo: Myth and Reality
    Gareth Glover (Pen & Sword Military, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Legend of Napoleon
    Sudhir Hazareesingh (Granta, 2014) Google Books →
  • Waterloo: The Campaign of 1815, Volume 1, From Elba to Ligny and Quatre Bras
    John Hussey (Greenhill Books, 2017) Google Books →
  • Napoleon the Great
    Andrew Roberts (Penguin Books, 2015) Google Books →
  • The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon
    Brian Vick (Harvard University Press, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Sword and the Spirit: Proceedings of the first 'War & Peace in the Age of Napoleon' Conference
    Zack White (ed.) (Helion and Company, 2021) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: m001y8fp

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001y8fp

Auto-category: 944.05 (France - History - 1789-1815)