Has There Ever Been A Better Advert For Anusol? | The Battle of Waterloo (9/10)

Piles and pigs, the two things you didn't know you needed for warfare. The Napoleonic Wars (Part Nine) This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code FVH for an extra 4 months at ⁠https://surfshark.com/fvh⁠ The show for people who like history but don't care what actually happened.  For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening and early access to series, become a Truther and sign up to the Patreon ⁠⁠patreon.com/fintaylor⁠ Chapters: 00:00 - Horses, Onions 05:42 - You Had One Job 10:04 - Charlie’s Friend 13:48 - Carjitsu 15:38 - Tough Not Effective 20:49 - Grouchy Is Grumpy 23:12 - Wade In The Water 28:03 - The War Pigs 34:21 - What You On About? 39:25 - Sucks To Be You! 42:35 - Warxiety Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:10Speaker 00

  Welcome back to Fin vs History. Horatio Gould here.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  And it's the Battle of Waterloo, the greatest battle of all time.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  The Battle of Battles.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  The Battle of Battles.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  The Club World Cup.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Of Battles.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:24Speaker 00

  This does not get any better than this.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  Cole Palmer's involved.

• 0:28Speaker 00

  Cole Palmer was at Waterloo, famously.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  That's why he speaks like that.

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Because the injury sustained.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  The injury sustained to his brain when he fell off a horse is why Cole Palmer speaks like that. This, dads, if you've been with us the whole way, I don't know how you're gonna cope.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Going into normal life after the series ends.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  This is almost grandad stuff. This is the dad of dads. This is, this is the dad of the dad dads.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  This is your dad's dad. This is your grandad. How are you gonna re-enter normal life?

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:58Speaker 00

  After you've been in the Napoleonic Wars for a month.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02Speaker 00

  10 episodes, and now you know that when you get that sad train in to Waterloo Station, you know why it's called that now.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Because of this battle.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15Speaker 00

  We needed a name for a station for the saddest franchise of British trains, South West Rail.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21Speaker 00

  It is the most depressing franchise. Everyone on those trains looked like they want to kill themselves.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Where are you going on South Western Rail?

• 1:27Speaker 00

  We should replace, um, where, wherever, Chertsey with, uh, Belsum and just give them a break. They all wanna die on those trains.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Restart the camps for the commuters.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  For South West Train franchise.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  For commuters into Waterloo.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it is the most.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  That's a compassionate Holocaust.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  Holocaust is the wrong word for it.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Jollacost.

• 1:49Speaker 00

  Jollacost. The Jollacost. Horatio Gould, 2026. The Jollacost. His words, the Jollacost. And in many ways, Waterloo is a jollacost.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Because it's a, it's a bloodthirsty battle.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  But it's glorious.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Fuck me, it's good reading.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  My god.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Has a, has a battle ever been more glorious than this?

• 2:12Speaker 00

  No, I really don't think there has.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  And it's after this that, um, you know, this is where we start. All, all Britain and London's sense of itself comes from Waterloo, basically.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  The architecture, the victory monuments.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, the victory monuments, for sure.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Um, so now, we left off.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  So the World War II, part of the reason why we love World War II is because it has such a satisfying narrative, right?

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  And Napoleon at Wars, which I wouldn't posit as being more interesting than World War II, I would never say that. But it is underrated and it has a very satisfying narrative. And this is, as the culmination of all these years, it is sort of the perfect ending.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Yes, World War II's ending is slightly too frantic, whereas this is a, I mean, it's like, ah.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  Oh no.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  It's more like, um, and then he woke up, sort of, you know, when you're writing a.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Huh?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  When you're writing a story, something you're taught early on is, don't end it, it was all a dream, because it's too easy. And it's kind of like that, when you're like, boom.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Night, night. In our last episode, Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. He then fought a fantastic rearguard action.

• 3:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  Um, because he's French and they're the gay side.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  And then he was sent into exile in Elbe.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  He was cucked while he was there because he's cucked wherever he goes.

• 3:33Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  And he has now escaped exile.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  You take the cuck out of France, you can't take the cuckoltry out of the Frenchman.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  Thank you. You've nailed it. Say it again?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  You can take the cuck out of France, but you can't take the cuckoltry out of the Frenchman.

• 3:45Speaker 00

  And also the jollacost. Two huge Gouldisms early on in the episode. So Napoleon, uh, is on the march through the south of France.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  My mother's born in Cuckfield, by the way.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Yes, Cuckfield, there's a great antiques fair near Cuckfield called Arding Live, but we're getting sidetracked.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  Very much getting sidetracked.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  This is, this is, look, men have had 10 wanks, they've had eight wanks in a day.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  It's Red Raw.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  And they're now like, oh, no, please stop. What do you mean a ninth? Well, we're giving it to you, fellas.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  The moisturizer has run out.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  And they look. We're gonna have to do it dry. There's no more spit left.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  I'm gonna have to beef Wellington myself. I'm gonna have to shit on my own cock and then.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Christ. A lot of us are such filth.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  It's all been filth.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Hello, we've just gone straight back in.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  Right. Napoleon, uh, is coming back from exile. Uh, 20th of March, 1815, one year after the Allied armies had marched into Paris, Napoleon rides back without a single shot being fired.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  How does he do this?

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Uh, what?

• 4:57Speaker 01

  We already covered that.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  We covered that.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Horses.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Hey?

• 4:59Speaker 02

  Horses.

• 5:00Speaker 00

  Horses, onions, you know the drill. He's fast because he just is. That's the key thing about Napoleon.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Because he is.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  He's fast because he is. Onions, horses.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  The three tenants of Napoleon's victories. Now, Louis XVIII, the fattest king France had had.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Fat pig.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Fat pig, that was his words. He declared, two days before Napoleon comes into Paris, "I would rather die defending my throne than flee like a coward." 48 hours later, he's on the boat, he's back.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  He says that to huge cheers.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  He's sat on a throne where his feet don't even touch the ground.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Bo, bo, bo, bo.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  And yeah, 48 hours.

• 5:35Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't suggest I run away.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Fucking two days later.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  He's been rolled away.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  Rolled away. Uh, now, very quickly, Napoleon knows that he's come back and they're not gonna like this.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Right? So he immediately forms an even more ragtag army.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  What?

• 5:54Speaker 02

  No, it just sounds like, I was reacting to what you said.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  You can't do that when you're the producer, because it sounds like none of the cameras are on. That was such a visceral, oh no.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  That was, I've lost my job, oh no. And also, when have you ever reacted to the story?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  It's episode nine, you've never reacted.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  This is exciting.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  You only just found out Napoleon was French?

• 6:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you thought he died because loads of rabbits attacked him. Remember?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Is that how he died?

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Fucking hell.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  How did he get away with that, though?

• 6:23Speaker 00

  What?

• 6:23Speaker 02

  How'd you get, how did he get away with the rabbits?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I imagine it was not a lethal amount of rabbit attack.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  I think he just gunned them all down. Just massacred them.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  They've all got myxomatosis now. Do you know that?

• 6:33Speaker 00

  What?

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Myxomatosis is like a unique, um, disease only that.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  I know, I know. What's your point?

• 6:38Speaker 02

  They've all got it now, apparently.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  Rabbits.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, we artificially, um, introduced it into the wild to cull populations, but it's gone out of hand.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Listen.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  So while Napoleon sweeps into power, manoeuvring like no one else in history, I think we are kind of the opposite of that.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Where every single hurdle we fall over.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  This is World War I. This podcast is World War I. We're trying to advance and then we just push back, back to the trench.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. So this is their ninth wank of the day, they're having to do it dry, we cannot start talking about myxomatosis.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Come on, come on. Ah. So, uh, Napoleon reclaims Paris. Immediately, a 12-nation coalition, the seventh coalition, Nick Clegg's coalition declares war on Napoleon, not France, on Napoleon.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Okay? You fucked it. You've had seven chances.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  No more.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  They have, to be fair, they've given him a lot of chances.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  Fool me once, show me, fool me twice, fool me seven times, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you still here? We gave you a model village off the coast of Italy. Meanwhile, the British man who'd been mean to guard him, that, I mean, he must be thinking, oh, fuck.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  I mean, that's sort of the definition of you had one job.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it is. And he was, he was too busy beef Wellingtoning his, his Italian girlfriend. So, uh, France is rearming, but we all know the strategy by now, okay? The strategy is, we need to strike at the Allies before they can amass and unify.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  That's the classic.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  The Congress of Vienna, 1815, they declare Napoleon an enemy and a disturber of the peace of the world.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you're attacking a polycule, you've got to sow seeds of discontent.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  You've got to attack them individually, you cannot deal with them as a group.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  She's your least favourite.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Start sowing seeds.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Start sowing discord amongst the polycule. That's the problem with a polycule, is that it's too many troops to defend.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  You know, you're, you're, you're oversized.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  You're gonna get outflanked.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:34Speaker 00

  You know, your rear.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  A couple is nimble.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Your couple can defend its own rear, as we said, back to back in bed.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  A miserable married couple could defend its rear.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  No one's getting bummed. No one's getting bummed. You know? This episode of Fin vs History is brought to you by Surfshark. Guys, look, you've heard it from us before.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:53Speaker 00

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• 8:54Speaker 01

  No homo.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  I love Surfshark.

• 8:55Speaker 01

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• 9:00Speaker 00

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• 9:04Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 9:05Speaker 00

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• 9:07Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  It's what took down George Michael, it's what took down.

• 9:11Speaker 01

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• 9:11Speaker 00

  OJ.

• 9:12Speaker 01

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• 9:12Speaker 00

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• 9:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 9:18Speaker 00

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• 9:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:24Speaker 00

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• 9:27Speaker 01

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• 9:27Speaker 00

  For the digital world.

• 9:28Speaker 01

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• 9:29Speaker 00

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• 9:31Speaker 01

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• 9:34Speaker 00

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• 9:42Speaker 01

  Your dirty hole.

• 9:43Speaker 00

  It dirty holes is another way of saying it.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 9:45Speaker 00

  Please, secure your digital life. I am sick of people coming up to me complaining that they.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  They are, they always come up to you.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  I, my digital life's insecure.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 00

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• 9:56Speaker 01

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• 9:57Speaker 00

  Come on.

• 9:57Speaker 01

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• 9:58Speaker 00

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• 10:01Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 10:01Speaker 00

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• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's nothing manlier than a male, you know.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Than Surfshark.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Surfshark, yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  VPN is like creatine, it's like.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Monster truck.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Monster, monster trucks, it's like doing weights in a prison yard.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  It's, Surfshark's cool.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  There, I said it.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  I said it. VPNs are cool.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, all the kids hanging out at the skate park, what are they talking about?

• 10:26Speaker 00

  They're talking about VPNs.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  I've got a, I've got a special belt for my VPN. I carry it around.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  What holster?

• 10:32Speaker 00

  I go, hey kids, look at this.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  And they can't believe it.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  They're like, whoa.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Fuck, that's cool.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Whoa, can I shake your hand?

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Achingly cool from Finn Taylor.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  I've got a T-shirt with my VPN on it. That's how cool it is.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:43Speaker 00

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• 10:51Speaker 01

  Foxtrot vagina hotel.

• 10:54Speaker 00

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• 11:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Now, just one of the many reasons I'm not in a polycule is that someone's bum is at stake. The Congress of Vienna, the Allies agreed, this time, you know, the eighth time lucky, we're gonna get him. Okay. Now, this is Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, and a bunch of other Italian and German fucking states.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  England, England.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  England and England, of course.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Austria and Austria.

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Now, because the monarchs were quite bored during this Congress of Vienna, the Austrians hosted hunts in Imperial Parks. They slaughtered over 10,000 animals.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  It did shock me hearing this. I don't quite understand. So, yeah, they funneled animals to be in front of.

• 11:47Speaker 00

  Like a cricket pavilion where they were just sat outside drinking.

• 11:50Speaker 01

  Shooting it. Yeah. 10,000 does seem a lot.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:53Speaker 02

  Have you ever killed an animal? Like a mammal, a proper mammal?

• 11:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I moved a deer off a road and as it, as it moved, its neck broke and I sort of felt it die.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  What did you want from that question, Charlie? What did you want from that question?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  I don't know. I didn't think you had that in you. My friend Nelson drowned a pig.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  What? Go on, I'll bite. How?

• 12:20Speaker 00

  It's just a matter, you know, six words and I don't predict any of them, you know?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Even the fact he's called Nelson.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  My friend Nelson drowned a pig.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Why?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  I think it was a run and he had to drown it in a big bucket.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a, that's, was he a farmer?

• 12:33Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:36Speaker 00

  The thing you expect. Right. So why is, why is your friend Nelson drowning a pig in a bucket?

• 12:43Speaker 02

  I didn't, I never, I never found out why.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't follow up.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  I know it was weak. It was a weak pig.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  Oh, it was weak, fine.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  But he did feel like the sort of guy that, that would have done that. He did have it in him. It didn't, it made complete sense that he had done that.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Right. But he wasn't a farmer?

• 12:57Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  No.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  He lived in the city.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  A man in the city drowning a pig?

• 13:02Speaker 00

  That's suspicious, if you ask me. If you ask me, that's a cause for concern. If a city-dwelling man is drowning a pig in a bucket.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  That's real country stuff.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  Something's not right there. Was he wearing a barber jacket? Well, he did it.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  I think he might have been topless.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Okay, well now it just feels like there's something very horny going on there.

• 13:19Speaker 00

  Okay, anyway, so the Congress comes to a halt when news reaches them that Napoleon is marching on Paris. So they all go, oh, fuck it.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Again.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  How have we let this happen?

• 13:31Speaker 00

  How have we let this happen for an eighth time?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 00

  Where's Nick Clegg? Get him in. And so begins the Hundred Days, okay, which is actually 100, I don't know, Hom actually 111 days. But there's no time for Hom actually's. It's the ninth wank of the day. This is between the 20th of March and the 22nd of June, 1815. Okay, this is where it's a montage. There are factories making muskets. There are young boys with bum fluff, putting big hats on. Horses are being seized from farms. Retired veterans are forced to re-enlist.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  An old woman gets pushed to the canal. It's unrelated to the montage.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  It's too busy, we're busy. Sorry, I'm sorry.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  I don't know why it's in there.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Not another one! Conscription is scraping the already very thin barrel of young men in France. Now, so it means the standards that you have to have to get into the army are very low. However, because during the French Revolution, consensual sex between adult men was decriminalized. France was one of the few European countries where homosexuality was not a criminal offence. So homosexuals, basically, they're like, right, we've killed all the straights.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  We're gonna have to bring it.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  We're down to the gays. Get the gays in for Waterloo.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  But if you want someone to do a rearguard attack.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Well, this is why Waterloo is so exciting, because the French are down to their gays and who are they facing but the straightest man has ever been. And so Wellington, at the eve of Waterloo, he looks out and he sees the French, and he thinks, my God, they're coming for my rear.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  It might finally happen.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  It might finally happen. My God, I will not be bummed by a Frenchman, but this.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  That morning, he apologizes to God. I'll try everything.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  What have I done? What have I done? I know I've made a fatal mistake shitting on that woman's face.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I didn't take anything off at the time.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  Montgomery, Monty's broadside against homosexuality being decriminalized in the 60s as a thing that the French do. I think it comes from.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  18th century decriminalization in the French Revolution.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Because the, yeah, the, the history of homosexuality in France being legal is quite an old and venerable one.

• 15:39Speaker 00

  And Napoleon gathers a ragtag bunch of guys and the Seventh Coalition, it's like, fuck, he's down to the gay ones. We've got to stop this right now. This is the greatest military alliance Europe had yet assembled. 1 million soldiers in total. You've got to remember this is 1815.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 00

  Okay, so a million is a lot in 1815. Now, we should place 1815.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  We should.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  After the Renaissance?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:09Speaker 00

  And it is before.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Renaissance Fair.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Is that when people start going to Renaissance-themed events?

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, sort of is what, it's any sort of, it's a historical theme park in America, but they just call it all Renaissance because they're thick.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  Right, okay, fine.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It's after the first Rennes Fair, which I believe was in the 70s. I was watching a documentary about the guy who did it.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 16:33Speaker 02

  Karjitsu. It's before Karjitsu.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Before Karjitsu, thank you. Is that people, they start in seatbelts and they have to do jutsu in a car?

• 16:43Speaker 01

  This is, this is literally Napoleon trying to get a Wellington's arse.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  It is. This is live footage from the Battle of Waterloo. Wellington is fighting deep rearguard action. Wellington's in red, as you can see there. And, yeah, it's a seismic battle. Anyway, the Congress of Vienna establishes there will be no negotiation. This is all-out war on Napoleon, all on him. Okay?

• 17:07Speaker 01

  So if I was Napoleon, I'd feel quite personally attacked.

• 17:09Speaker 00

  Yes, I would.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  I think there's a character assassination going on here.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  All right, all right. Well, no, please, you're ganging up on me.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Now, they knew by this point, you know, this is post-Trachenburg Plan, they knew that if they waited,

• 17:25Speaker 00

  they, if they waited, then Napoleon would just pick them off. Napoleon knows that if he waits, then they're all gonna gang up on him.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, Napoleon says every sunrise is a victory for the enemy.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Because it's basically.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  Because he's French and he speaks poetry and all that nonsense. Anyway, so Napoleon just starts, gets his boys, gets his woo, and they just start trotting north into Belgium, all right? Because there are two main armies that are, are in Belgium at this point. Wellington with a, with a, with a, say, a third, a third of his force are British, the rest are Dutch and, I don't know, Belgian?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  I guess. Dutch?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Russians.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Maybe they're Russians? Anyway, and then Blucher, who is the Prussian. And these are the two forces that are basically Napoleon's going for. He's gonna try and knock them out one by one. Now, on the 15th of June, Wellington, you know, conservative that he is, is hosting the Duchess of Richmond's Ball, which is high society, Allied officers, they're gathered in Brussels for a lavish gala. Dispatches arrive mid-dance, revealing that Napoleon has crossed the river into Belgium. Wellington says to his staff, Napoleon has humbugged me by God!

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Christ, so that's the first time he's uttered a swear word?

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Exactly. This is humbugging, a terrible crime, okay? Humbugging is to force a straight man onto his face and to try and enter his rear. So officers immediately are running away from the dance floor, marching straight to the front lines while still dressed in velvet coats and silk slippers.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Okay, so we're on the back foot. 16th of June, 1815, the Battle of Ligny. Napoleon attacks Blucher at Ligny and this is Napoleon's final victory.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  So he's still picking up victories.

• 19:15Speaker 00

  Still picking up victories because one-on-one, he's very good.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So let's talk about Blucher.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Because he is a key character in the story.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Blucher!

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Blucher. Well, he's a Prussian.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  He's a Prussian.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  And his, many ways, his battlefield victories do sow the ground which will eventually will reach Hitler, right? The Prussians, right? But he's 72 years old. He's a tough, he's a tough old bean, but he seems to be pretty crap whenever, tactically, right? Does he do anything of any good? Because even at Leipzig, which he ends up being successful at.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Look at that face.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  He fucks up his cavalry charge.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Yes, he does. But he's a 72-year-old man.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Who is perhaps slightly insane at this point.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yes, he is. He's sort of Joe Biden, kind of.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Sleepy Joe on a horse.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  He thinks, he believed he had been impregnated by a French soldier and was going to give birth to an elephant. Okay.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is the kind of guy that Tucker Carlson is interviewing.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Yes. Now, he leads a desperate cavalry charge at the climax of Ligny. His horse gets shot out from under him. He's pinned to the ground. He only survives because a soldier throws a cloak over him so the French don't recognize him.

• 20:24Speaker 00

  But the Prussians retreat.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  So he's tough, but he's not effective.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  No.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  His main asset seems to be that he doesn't give up, basically.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  Yes. He, now, the Prussians retreat. Napoleon defeats them at Ligny. Now, this is very important, okay? Napoleon says to 20,000 of his troops, under Field Marshal Grouchy, that's what he's called, can you go and follow the Prussians? And Field Marshal Grouchy's like, no.

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Do I have to do that? And so Grouchy thinks he's gonna just move, just follow Prussians into, back over the Rhine.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Napoleon underestimates Ploucq because he thinks he's, the Prussians are cowards and will retreat, basically, to the safety of Germany.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Now, he then, Napoleon then moves on to, no, it's not this Napoleon, it's Marshal Ney.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Ney.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  Ney. Marshal Ney then invades Wellington's, or attacks Wellington's forces at Utrebar or Catrebar?

• 21:32Speaker 02

  Catrebra.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  Catrebra. A vital Belgian crossroads, if you can picture such a thing. Wellington basically holds them off decently, but then retreats back to a field and a series of farms that the year before, he had been travelling and thought, he'd been walking the ground before it was hallowed, right? Thinking-

• 21:56Speaker 01

  That's a great general there, if you pre-walk the ground of history. I mean, that's the truce.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  Well, that's a real ace up your sleeve. If you can walk the ground before the ground has been walked, I mean, you're gonna win the battle, aren't you? So Wellington basically was just looking, just sort of nosy, right? He was looking for battlefields and he spots this place with a gentle incline, where he goes, "This would be a very good place for a battle." "Because I could whip out my reverse slope tactics."

• 22:25Speaker 01

  So he is a dad on holiday, but he is actually a commander as opposed to most dads who work in accounting.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  So it's a dad on holiday in Belgium going, "This would be a good place for battle."

• 22:35Speaker 00

  This would be a very good tactical place for a battle. And what they're saying that about is they're saying that about like a concourse in a shopping centre. They're going, "I could shoot them from M&S there, and I'll take cover behind the escalator, then I'll take out TK Maxx, that'll be easy because they're idiots."

• 22:50Speaker 01

  So what's interesting about this is this is actually practical application of something that all men do.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  All men are doing this anyway. They're doing this anyway, you know? You're going to a shopping centre going, "How would I kill everyone in this?" You know? Don't push me into doing it.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  So Wellington realises that this gentle slope would be a great way to conceal his army on the rear side. Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Put his armies up his sleeves.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Exactly. Always protecting his rear, so that he could surprise Napoleon with his number of forces. So let's get in to the topography of Waterloo, okay?

• 23:28Speaker 01

  So this is Wellington's view with this, because this is quite a tactical innovation, because he's not showing off. But it's the straight male arse. You make it as small and irrelevant as possible. Of all of the sexual precurities and gender combinations, the straight man has the least celebrated arse, right?

• 23:44Speaker 00

  But then there are some of us straight men who have been blessed slash cursed with an incredibly juicy arse.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  You might need to hide that behind a ridge.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Exactly. I am, every day I'm fighting my own Waterloo. I need to find a ridge to hide my arse behind.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Okay? So he retreats after Catrebra to Waterloo and Napoleon advances. And now Wellington does not know at this point whether he's going to make a stand, but then he gets a message at night from Ploucq, a 72-year-old man with broken ribs, okay? Who's just been trampled by a horse.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  He thinks he's about to give birth to an elephant.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Right. He says to Wellington, "Much as Blair said to Bush in 2001, we will be with you no matter what."

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Shoulder to shoulder. He says that if he makes a stand at Waterloo, the Prussians will arrive to help. He, I don't really quite know how Grouchy loses the Prussians, but at some point-

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't get it either, yeah.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  I think Grouchy's very grumpy and doesn't want to, he doesn't like the job he's been given. Anyway, the fatal miscalculation is that Napoleon doesn't think the Prussians are coming.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:07Speaker 00

  So, we get to dawn on the 18th of June, 1815. This is after the Renaissance, it's before Kajitsu. Two allied armies converge on this position. There are three isolated farm complexes. Ladies, what are you doing here? Wellington has concealed his infantry lines behind the slope, okay?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  But this is making, this is driving Napoleon nuts.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  He's fucking thirsty.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Like, "What arse is behind that hill?"

• 25:40Speaker 00

  "There's gotta be an arse there."

• 25:41Speaker 01

  "There's gotta be an arse, god, it could be Jesus."

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, and all his gay troops are like, "Where's, you know?" There are three isolated farms. Wellington has hidden his troops behind the slope, okay? Facing Napoleon. Now, on Wellington's right flank, Napoleon's left, is the farm at Hugamon.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  The most famous of the three, right?

• 26:01Speaker 00

  This is the most famous one. This is a walled chateau surrounded by orchards and thick woodland. What Wellington has done, much as he learned in Spain, is he has made that fucking impenetrable. He has fortified that with 1,200 British men. Maybe they're Scottish, I don't know, there's got scars there. And this is a real precursor to Rorke's Drift, okay? This is why I love this so much, it's just-

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Sorry, I just turned into a black woman there, just by accident. I just went, "Mm-hmm." Like, I wasn't trying to do that on purpose, it came out of me.

• 26:36Speaker 00

  It's Waterloo, brother. Let it out. Let the spirit out.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  This is what the dads are doing in the shed.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Yes, lad.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  "Wait in the Waterloo."

• 26:52Speaker 00

  So, Hugamon is basically Rorke's Drift. Now-

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Hugamon.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Weegamon, Charlie.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Weegamon. Now, it has been raining, okay? This is very crucial as well. There's been torrential rain, so the battlefield is very muddy. So Napoleon thinks, "Well, because I'm attacking, I'm gonna wait a few hours for the ground to dry." Again, giving away crucial time for potential reinforcements to arrive.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Every hour delay, it's a benefit to Wellington.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Wellington will spend maybe 48 hours out of like 55 on a horse. Napoleon can't sit on his horse because devastatingly, he has piles, okay? This is potentially the most impactful piles has ever been. I think Waterloo is piles' greatest peak in history. Has piles ever been-

• 27:51Speaker 01

  More decisive.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  More decisive. Now, what you don't want is decisive piles.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Now, I am very lucky, touch wood, I've never had piles.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  You will, you will have piles. You eat like a dog.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Do you understand, do you understand why that's so devastating? Can you relate? Explain the experience of it?

• 28:08Speaker 00

  Well, sitting down on a cushioned surface with piles is uncomfortable at best.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  At best.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  If you're on a hard chair, the kinds they would have had in the 19th century, that would be actively painful.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Excruciating.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  If you're riding a fucking horse, night-night sayonara, okay?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  What about, what's those X-sized balls you can bounce on? You know the ones we kids?

• 28:33Speaker 00

  Exactly. Space hopper thing.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  Are they called space hoppers? The ones you sit and bounce like that?

• 28:36Speaker 00

  Pregnant women sit-

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Well, if I was Napoleon, because a huge, yeah, well, there's the ones you can hold as kids with the handles. What are they called, Charlie?

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Pregnant women sit on them.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. I think, the problem is, is that Napoleon needed to be on his horse checking his flank, you know? Instead he was lying down. He couldn't get on his horse, but he should have been using a space hopper.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  He should have been using his piles. Is that what you mean?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  No, what I mean is it's something soft and bouncy to travel with.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  No, that still would be very painful with piles.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  Okay, well, maybe if his piles got big enough, he could use those.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  That's what I mean. If his piles were big enough, then he could have space hopped around on his piles, surveying the sea. What I will say is that I've never had decisive piles.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  I've always thankfully had incidental piles, where the piles are a discomfort, but they're not deciding the course of my day.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Or history.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Or slash world events. You know, Houston isn't called that because of my piles.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  You know? That's how, really, it should be called pile station, okay? Because also everyone on those trains has piles and they're sad, right? Napoleon can't sit on his horse because of his hemorrhoids and it's muddy. Now, at 11:30 AM, the fighting starts. Napoleon sends his brother Jerome, hey man, to attack the farm at Hugamon to try and weaken Wellington's centre. So he thinks Wellington will pull his reserves to fortify Hugamon, right? And then I will have weakened his centre and I can thrust my centre. However, he doesn't know how strong Wellington's centre is because he's hidden it behind a slope.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  Okay? Now, the fighting at Hugamon quite quickly becomes insane. Because the Brits do not give this up. They Rorke's Drift it, okay? It becomes, over the course of the day, a 14,000-man death trap.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  The ultimate redoubt.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  This is the ultimate redoubt. There is a point where the French end up sending in a fucking massive guy called l'enforcer-

• 30:42Speaker 01

  A berserker.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  A berserker with an axe. He breaks down the gates of the farmhouse. About 40 Frenchmen pile in, but then the British guardsmen manage to shut the gates, lock it again, and then they just all kill all the French that had got through, apart from maybe like a little drummer boy? 15-year-old drummer boy, who I'm-

• 30:59Speaker 01

  He's still got swallowed up by Wellington's arse, never to be seen again.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Exactly. There's a drummer boy in Wellington's arse. Because the chateau was a working farm, right? Screaming flaming pigs are charging about during the battle, right? Which is perhaps why your friend Nelson tried to put it in the bucket.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  Flaming pigs running around.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  It'd be horrible.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, to be a pig at Waterloo, you really don't know what's going on there.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  But bear in mind, this is miles away from where the pig forest is in the Ardennes.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  I mean, this is the 200 years of history where pigs are just, they're really getting it.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  There's a real demon feel to pigs. When pigs squeal, and not in the kind of cartoon way, in the kind of-

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  That's like, that combined with them on fire is really scary stuff.

• 31:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Very scary.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Should we listen to some?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Just a quick one?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  No, no, this is pretty, this is pretty chilling.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  This is good stuff.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Pig sounds.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Okay, so this is giving us atmosphere to Hugamon, right?

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Keep going. And then get men groaning as well, Charlie.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  The pigs sound quite happy here. Okay?

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Okay, okay, fine. The pigs, I would say, I don't think the pigs sounded that happy. They just sort of don't really know what battles going on. So, because the brick walls surrounding the farm are loopholed, because the British had poked holes in it to stick their guns out of, the French basically get...

• 32:31Speaker 00

  They're not glory holes.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  They kind of are.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Hey?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  They kind of are glory holes.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Well, this is when a glory hole was glorious. This was an actual glory hole, okay?

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Well, putting a musket through it and shooting a Frenchman.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Before fucking gay men started shooting their dicks through it in service stations. This is the original redoubt, okay? It's when, you know, you drill a hole in a cubicle wall, so you could put a musket through it and shoot a French guy. Yeah? And now the West has fallen, and it's just people shoving their dicks in it, yeah?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, to be sucked off by a Frenchman.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  To be sucked off by a Frenchman, okay? No thank you, EUSSR.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  Anyway, so the French, the bodies were piling up outside, and then the French would just use the bodies of their fallen comrades to climb over and then get fucking shot or bay netted at the top. So Jerome, Bonaparte's brother, is so ego-driven that he's trying to win this battle for himself, to prove himself, even though it's just sucking more and more men away from Napoleon's main force.

• 33:29Speaker 00

  So, Wellington is watching from the ridge behind Hugemon, and he believed, much like Nelson did, that your duty is just to not flinch and to be completely unshaken.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, he's right.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  He is right.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  You don't want to be looking...

• 33:46Speaker 01

  I don't know, um, yeah.

• 33:48Speaker 00

  Oh, fuck, like watching a boxing match.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've got to look like you know what you're doing.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, by midday, Napoleon has gained nothing on his western flank, and yet thousands of elite French soldiers are being killed, okay? So, he judges that by about 1.30pm, Wellington's centre must have been weakened. In fact, Wellington has not sent any reserves to Hugemon. So he orders the attack he believed will win the battle, okay? So 20,000 French infantry charge Wellington's ridge, right? Initially, there's some-

• 34:21Speaker 01

  So that's past the three farms?

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Yes, that's past the three farms.

• 34:24Speaker 01

  The ridge behind.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  Also, there's been some artillery at this point, which does do a bit of damage to the Brits, but not much, because they can't see them, so they're just firing blind. It would take roughly 1.4 million to 2.8 million pigs to defeat Napoleon's 72,000-man army at Waterloo, assuming each French soldier could defeat 20 to 40 aggressive, average-sized war pigs. War pigs, what's a war pig?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  We've got a history of war pigs, please.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Can you get a brief tangent on the history of war pigs, please, Charlie?

• 34:52Speaker 00

  Does Napoleon have a corps of war pigs? They are real animals used as tactical measures in ancient military combat and the iconic-

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Countermeasures against elephants. Interesting.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  Countermeasures against elephants.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Flaming pigs!

• 35:06Speaker 00

  Flaming pigs are a thing.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Magarians doused pigs in combustible pitch resin or crude oil and set them on fire, driving them towards opposing Macedonian war elephants.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  The squealing and blazing pigs caused elephants to bolt in panic, trampling large numbers of their own soldiers.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  That's amazing. The only way to beat a war elephant was with a war pig.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  With a flaming war pig.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  Send in the war pigs.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  That's pretty cool. So, hidden on the reverse slope, Wellington's British troops unleash a deadly, close-range volley fire. Are you familiar with volley fire?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yes, where you're going up and down while one reloads.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  First rank fire, second rank fire, third rank fire.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Now, the Scots-Grays, who are cavalrymen, they charge downhill directly into the disordered, out-of-line French infantry. They cause an absolute massacre, they get carried away, they ride too far down the hill, and then the French-

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they were so successful, they then just are so jeed up that they-

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it's all adrenaline.

• 36:05Speaker 01

  And they're like, let's go fucking, let's go for Napoleon's centre.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, fuck him.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Even though that's not how Wellington commanded them to do, or what he would have done.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  And actually, there are, there are times during the battle where people are asking Wellington, "I've got a clear shot on Napoleon, should I take it?" And he's like, "Absolutely not, absolutely not, that's not how we do things, that's not cricket."

• 36:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  They gallop towards the French lines, but they get surrounded and cut down. And now supposedly, while this is happening-

• 36:29Speaker 01

  So this has really pissed Wellington off.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Supposedly, Wellington's second-in-command, Lord Uxbridge, is riding next to the duke when a stray piece of French grape shot explodes the duke's right knee. Uxbridge says, "By God, sir, I've lost my leg." And Wellington says, "By God, sir, so you have." And then carries on, okay, because he's not to be flustered. He gets taken to a farmhouse where his leg is amputated, and then the homeowner asks if he could keep a leg and bury it in his garden.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  French guy.

• 36:55Speaker 00

  And then after Waterloo, he charges, he tickets it and charges entry to go and see a leg.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Ticketed events.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Belgians are fucking weird, aren't they? Anyway, as the afternoon wears on, we get, the battle is in the balance, okay? Because-

• 37:10Speaker 01

  It's gone back and forth.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  This is why this is so exciting, is that at no point is it clear who's really winning.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Napoleon is making tactical mistakes, but he has such, he has a lot of troops, and he's attacking.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  And they are making gains.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  They are making small gains. So, French Marshal Ney believes Wellington's army is about to retreat, and so he launches a mass cavalry charge against the Allied ridge.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  This is about 10,000 French horsemen, one of the largest cavalry assaults in European history, and then Wellington, who has anticipated cavalry, okay, because he's a straight man, orders his infantry to form hollow squares just at the right moment, and then, this is probably the best moment visually of the battle, have you seen the 1970 film Waterloo?

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I've seen that bit, yeah.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  We'll talk about that on the Patreon when we talk about in the film review, but that drone shot is awesome.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  So is this, is the key thing, because obviously, as you said, it's like a rock and scissors, about trying to make sure you're in the certain formation that goes against a certain thing, is it, is it the ability to go from a line to a square quickly?

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Yes, because you basically, if you do it too early, the cavalry will just, the cavalry will just pull off, and they'll just shell you, and you'll get mauled. If you do it the right time, you'll form a square just as the cavalry hits you.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  You're surrounded by cavalry, and then they're not on artillery.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  They can't do anything, and then you can just stab them on horses. So two hours, there are horses just constantly being bay netted by British men defending their rear in infantry squares. His cavalry is basically destroyed from Wellington's effective defensive tactics. So this happens for two hours. Meanwhile, Hugemon is still being held, and more and more troops are going into it.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  Regiments have been fighting at this point for over six hours. Artillery horses are collapsing from fatigue.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Really put a lot of stank on the fat in that.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Fatigue, fatigue. Yeah, these are fat horses, these are French fat horses.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Fatigue.

• 39:15Speaker 00

  Now, Napoleon is getting covered in mud, and his soldiers don't recognise him and keep shoving him out of the way. The aura is starting-

• 39:23Speaker 01

  They keep trying to cancel him for blackface.

• 39:24Speaker 00

  The aura is starting to go. 33,000 French soldiers, right, who had marched into Belgium are nowhere near the battle, okay? This is Marshal de Grouchy's detachment. They are meant to be pursuing the Prussians. Now, they hear on the morning of 18th of June, heavy cannon fire coming from Waterloo, but Grouchy goes, "Nah."

• 39:47Speaker 01

  "I made a promise." Both Grouchy and Blucher did make promises, and they both stuck to them.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Yes, it's a very faithful story. So about 4.30pm, it's still completely in the balance here, right? At some point, the French take the central farm of Aysant. And this is where they then move their artillery up and start shelling Napoleon, shelling Wellington from close range.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  At the squares.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  At the squares. So this is now looking quite dangerous.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  This is scissors on paper now.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  This is scissors on paper, okay? So at this point, Wellington thinks, "Fuck, we may actually be overrun here."

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Is he annoyed about that?

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Hey?

• 40:29Speaker 02

  And he's annoyed about that?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  I imagine he's very annoyed about it, yeah, yeah.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Some more disappointed.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  Sad?

• 40:36Speaker 00

  I don't think Wellington gets sad.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  No. He cut that part of his brain out.

• 40:40Speaker 00

  And also remember, you know, Napoleon's thinking, "This man's fucked all my exes." You know?

• 40:46Speaker 01

  So there's a personal thing going on.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  There's a personal thing going on.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  He's done it personally.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  And Wellington's thinking, "I fucked all of his exes."

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  So of course I'm not sad.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  I'm not sad. I don't care if I lose this, I fucking fucked all your exes. So they take that village of Aysant, but then at about 4.30pm, there is, they look to their, Napoleon looks to his right and sees, "Who is it? Blucher's coming in with the chair!" The Prussians have arrived on Napoleon's right flank, and Blucher looks at Wellington and goes, "I have made a promise." And Wellington, and they look at each other like this.

• 41:18Speaker 01

  "My son, he will be an elephant." What?

• 41:21Speaker 00

  And Wellington's like, "What the fuck are you on about?"

• 41:25Speaker 00

  But they look at each other and they reckon they're like, oh.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  I got you, bro.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  And then he's, Wellington's having a real moment and Blucher's just completely cross-eyed.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  Nature at the end.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  No idea what that is.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. So Blucher has finally arrived at 4.30. Napoleon thought this wasn't possible.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  And then words spread through the French troops that, oh, it's okay, because Grouchy's coming. Grouchy's not coming.

• 41:49Speaker 01

  Grouchy's nowhere to be seen.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Grouchy's fucked off. So as evening approaches, the Prussians pour onto Napoleon's right. Wellington's line is still holding. And so this is where Napoleon plays his final card. The Imperial Guard.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  They had fought at Austerlitz. Ah, Jena. Oh, Borodino. Ah. Wagram, we never even talked about.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  I don't know what Wagram is.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Wagram is, um, Wagram is the bloodiest battle of, in Poland. We didn't even talk about that. It's not Waguin, Charlie.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Battle of Waguin.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Battle of Waguin was Napoleon in Jamaica. We didn't get to that. Anyway. This guard, the slogan is, the guard dies, it does not surrender.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  So this is an iconic guard that has never, no matter what's happened with Napoleon, they've never been defeated.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  No.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's his best troops. They're all over six foot as well.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Are they?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Like, he selected them for their height.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Over five foot six.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Over five foot six, which is six foot in.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  So, uh, he commits them only at the decisive moment. So 5,000 guardsmen march up towards Wellington's centre. Wellington is waiting until the French are within range before saying, now, Maitland, now's your time. Up, Guards, and Atom. And the British Guards rise in the long grass.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  And these are the British best soldiers as well.

• 43:03Speaker 00

  Yes. It's not Emily Maitlis, Charlie. It's, um, Maitland.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Maitland.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Anything, any, no connection?

• 43:11Speaker 00

  I, I don't think Emily Maitlis has got any connection to the Battle of Waterloo. Please, please find out if I'm wrong. Because if, if she does, I will evaporate into cum right now. If you're telling me Emily Maitlis's ancestors, I will become mist in a second.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  You'll be the submersible, the Titanic submersible.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  The hat will just fall to the sofa.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  There is no known public genealogical, well, thank God.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  For the rest of this podcast, thank God.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Well, for the listeners as well, because, I mean, they wouldn't be able to.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  If we broke that.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  They'd listen to a mist, a cum mist to a podcast.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  They would become cum mist as well.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  And their wives would be like, where did my husband go?

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  So the Imperial Guards, uh, they rush forward, but then the British Guards shoot them from point blank range. And for the first time in their history, the Imperial Guards fall back.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they're using these, these quite cheap muskets or like, they're called like besses, which is like a, a name for a common.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Brown bass.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Brown bass, common woman.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 01

  But, uh, they have no accuracy, but from close range, they're brilliant. Because they kind of work almost like shotguns, basically.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  And so within minutes, the French start to collapse. Napoleon has been unable to send reinforcements because he's having to deal with Blucher on his right flank.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Marshal Ney says, I'm not fleeing. Come and see how Marshal of France dies. Come on, everyone. No one follows him. He dies.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Embarrassing.

• 44:28Speaker 00

  Embarrassing. Sucks to me, you mate. You fucked it. And then, uh, the Emperor is persuaded to leave the battlefield before he gets captured.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  I mean, it's classic. Napoleon, he is a man who will always leave.

• 44:39Speaker 00

  Always leaves.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  Always.

• 44:40Speaker 00

  Always fucks off.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Always.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  Right?

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Because fundamentally, he's not dying for France. He's only for himself.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  So as soon as number one.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  And so by dawn, this man, this proto Hitler, is racing back towards Paris. And Wellington has won a famous victory. And it really is, I mean, this is like Waterloo. It's, it's United Champions League.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Or it's, I wouldn't say it's Istanbul, but it's like, you really don't know who's going to win.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Until the final hour of the battle.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  It's more, yeah, I guess France, Argentina, the way it went back and forth.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yeah. Yes, Charlie.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Do you think there's any sort of, um, you know, if you get anxious after a night out? Do you ever, is there any of that in war, where like you kind of feel a bit weird the day after?

• 45:31Speaker 00

  I imagine.

• 45:32Speaker 02

  Like at dawn, you feel like you were being weird.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  Well, you've got anxiety.

• 45:34Speaker 02

  Was I being weird last night?

• 45:36Speaker 00

  War, war's I T.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wonder.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Felt like I was a bit, I was a bit much.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get the Sunday scaries.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, was I a bit much when I ripped that man's head off? Uh, yeah. I guess maybe you would get that a little bit.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Like booze doom.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Like, yeah, I just watched my best mate get destroyed by a cannonball.

• 45:58Speaker 00

  Is it offensive to call PTSD the Sunday scaries? Would be my question.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I guess it's sort of the everyday scaries.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Decompression in Cyprus after you fought in Afghanistan. No, what's wrong then, mate? Got a bit of a case of the Sunday scaries, have we?

• 46:13Speaker 00

  Why don't you try exercising? Go for a run.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Go for a run.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Go for a run, you'll forget about it. Um, when darkness falls on the Battle of Waterloo, 50,000 men are dead. 10,000 horses lay dead, nay their name. Uh, and this is across only a few square miles. Wellington's horse, who was called Copenhagen, had carried the Duke for 17 hours. Okay? Copenhagen then died in 1836. Wellington buried him with full military honours and then a hoof, uh, was removed as a memento. And Wellington's family turned it into an inkstand. Lovely.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Lovely.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  So again, this is a victory won by Anasol.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  This is, Waterloo was sponsored by Anasol. Now, why, why, I have long campaigned for, uh, piles creams to sponsor this podcast.

• 47:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:04Speaker 00

  And I was really hoping one of them would fucking bitten by now, because this was a battle.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  It's the perfect time.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  Never has piles been more decisive, or rather the lack of piles.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Also, you could do the perfect ad. You do it in full cinematic.

• 47:17Speaker 00

  Dressed like this.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Portrayal of the Battle of Waterloo, about 45 minutes long. Basically, the end of the Battle of Waterloo. You show, you re-film that.

• 47:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  In a way that's never been filmed before, really high budget. And at the end, it goes, Anasol.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  We've got you and you need us or something.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  No, he shows Napoleon going, ah, ah, like that. And then Wellington's just on its horse, like.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Anasol.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. Staying piles free when you most need it.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  So, uh, this is one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleon. Fucking hell, Charlie.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  Tens of thousands of human corpses. Now, uh, because everyone just kind of fucks, shuffles off and just leaves the dead.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  They're just, um, they're just, they're just groaning.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Like, there's just a field of men, just, ah. It's much similar to, at the end of this podcast series, our listeners would be like.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Just a field of, ah, ah. Many of them just sort of die there of infection in the sort of days afterwards.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  There's a lot of looting going on.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, they, basically, don't the British steal all of, uh, the corpses teeth? Waterloo teeth is a thing, isn't it?

• 48:27Speaker 01

  It becomes like a fad, weird Victorian fad.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  So teeth are extracted from the corpses, packed into barrels, shipped to London and Paris, and then crafted into high-end dentures known as Waterloo teeth. There's a bone harvest in the 1830s where European companies quietly pay contractors to dig up the mass graves, harvest the skeletons and grind the bones into dust and then sold to British farmers as crop fertiliser.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  How mu, yeah. How effective is it, human bone mill as far as, like, is it just?

• 48:56Speaker 00

  I imagine it's very good.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  You know, we are, we are, we are the same, aren't we?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  That's not the best use of it, no?

• 49:03Speaker 00

  The best, yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  It's not the best use of the body. Just put it in the, put it in your series.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Nose to tail sort of stuff.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, we will be dealing with grave snatchers on the Patreon, Birkenhead. And so this, listeners, is why that station is, that you hate, is called that.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  Which you go to every day of your.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Get a miserable pasty.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  You get a very, one of the saddest pasties in Britain.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  From, what, was it West Country Past?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Upper Crust?

• 49:28Speaker 01

  No, it's the West Country Pasties, is it?

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Brew dog. There's a brew dog at Waterloo.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  Fuck me, the West has fallen.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Now, this is the greatest battle there ever was, and now there's a fucking brew dog in it.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Cornwall Pasty Company, that's it.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Upper Crust.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Upper Crust is the worst of the lot, I reckon.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  Do you think?

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Pretty crap.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's pretty tr- trash. I don't want to be responsible for Upper Crust.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Any, any food outlet that cannot survive outside of stations is not good.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  No.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Because they've got a sort of monopoly of convenience, right?

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Yes, totally.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  An upper crust could not stand on its own two feet on a high street, could it?

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Absolutely not.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:04Speaker 02

  It's very expensive and the bread's wet.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  And yet, this is the food that, uh, schlubby commuters are eating daily.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Okay? That's why they're so bloated and sad all the time, is that they're living off Upper Crust.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  Okay? And this great, this heroic battle, you know, I really think we should campaign to have Waterloo changed. We should call it a different station.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Because it is the saddest station.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  London Fat Commuter.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  London Fat Commuter Station.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Sad station.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  So, uh, this battle basically ends the Napoleonic Wars.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  At the end of this, Napoleon is forced back to Paris. What are the Seventh Coalition going to do with him now? We'll find out in our final episode of the Napoleonic Wars series, which is already on our Patreon. Charlie, uh, would you like, have you, would you do any kind of, uh, we could maybe have a poem about Waterloo to sum it up? For our listeners, this is the most impactful battle Britain will fight. To be honest, it's the most impactful battle, um, probably we've had since, because the, the British in World War One and Two don't have this kind of, um.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but also it sets up the world order for the next 100 years till World War One, after this.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Completely.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  And I don't even know, it's not been 100 years after World War Two yet, and already that's sort of, sort of.

• 51:27Speaker 00

  That's gone out the window.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  That's already going out the window now. So it could be the most impactful battle for longevity ever.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  You now say that Napoleon met his Waterloo.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  You know, that's what that means.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  Um, I've got one.

• 51:38Speaker 00

  Okay. To, to listeners, to play us out from this historic battle, the Battle of Waterloo, when Britain finally conquered the Bonapartist French. Charlie, with a poem.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Waterloo.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Good start.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Water who?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 02

  Water me and water you. Don't water me. I'm not a plant. I'm a mammal. I'm your aunt. Only messing. I'm a water pig. War pig.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  Set me on fire.

• 52:19Speaker 00

  You don't know where to stop, do you?

• 52:21Speaker 01

  That was good. You know, he didn't have very long to come up with that. That was very short backlist on that.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  Very good. Very good.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Maybe just kill it. Only messing. I'm a water pig. I'm not a water pig. I'm a pig. Drown me in the thing. Drown me in the bucket. Now.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  Moving, moving stuff from Charlie there.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  No better tribute to the veterans that lay down their lives at Waterloo.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Uh, thank you very much for joining us. We will see you for the conclusion of this epic series next time. Goodbye.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Goodbye.