706. Queen Victoria’s Revenge: Storming the Citadel (Part 2)

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inc and or its subsidiaries a commotion at the doorway brought me back to life trying to start up and failing thanks to the weight of those infernal clanking manacles as the door crashed shut again i was aware of a swing figure in the middle of the room bear to the waist how are you how are you my dear friend my best of friends cries this apparition whooping with laughter thank god i am well are you well ah my good friend my heart rejoices to see you for the friendship i have entertained for you has not diminished be of good cheer for though you are a friend of mine i am a friend of yours bound with fetters of samson and zedekiah were bound even with fetters of brass yet yet his voice trailed away muttering and and who else yeah joachim also was bound and manessa they were bound by the power of god and so was gozim who was sold for a servant whose feet they hurt with fetters and he was laid in iron and then he gave another crazy laugh and almost fell over but have no fear for the hour of your deliverance is at hand my eyes had recovered from the lamp glare but i could hardly believe them for the newcomer was theodore king of abyssinia and he was staggeringly drunk that was the great victorian hero sir harry flashman remembering the great victorian hero sir harry flashman remembering his first meeting with the emperor teodros ii in his memoir flashman on the march it is to reiterate a novel not a work of history but it is very very deeply rooted in all the historical records and in the book flashman has been sent on a secret mission to recruit allies against the abyssinian emperor teodros ii as part of a british expedition to rescue the abyssinian empire and he has been sent on a secret mission to recruit allies against the abyssinian emperor teodros ii as part of a british expedition to rescue several dozen european hostages and even though flashman's part of it as we've said is invented all the most jaw-dropping parts of the story in the novel teodros his mountain lair the british expedition are absolutely true and today we have reached the melodramatic climax of the story and dominic this is ultimately it's a british imperial version of the iranian hostage crisis isn't it yes and if only jimmy carter had paid attention to the lesson that could have been learned from uh from our glorious boys in 1868 the way that they solved the problem of uh hostages in the hands of an unfriendly regime so true tom i'm not sure his knowledge of uh victorian imperial history is as good as it should be i mean one of the one of the flaws he spent too much time fighting rabbits the key as far as i can tell is that is to um involve railways and elephants elephants which may be where carter went wrong definitely so let's remind people uh where and when we are summer of 1867 so for four years or so this crisis has been rumbling on in the mountain kingdom of abyssinia and at the root is the emperor teodros's simmering rage at the fact that queen victoria has not been answering his letters and he has taken a group of europeans hostage so most of the missionaries but also to remind people the british consul captain charles duncan cameron and the foreign office's agent homers rassam and he's holding them in his mountaintop lair his citadel of magdala and the hostages have been smuggling out these increasingly desperate messages reporting that teodros is descending into insanity and basically begging the foreign office to use force and last time he ended with lord darby's conservative government sending an ultimatum to abyssinia giving teodros three months to release them so let's pick up the story on the 19th of august in london we are at 10 downing street and chairing the cabinet is lord darby and lord darby is a proper victorian grandee formerly a conservative incredibly rich he has coal mines in lancashire he is classically educated he's a brilliant debater he's a man who likes shooting and horse racing he's sort of victorian politics bingo and he runs the government he's a man who likes shooting and horse racing he's sort of in cahoots with his sort of ally in the commons benjamin disraeli he was the um the longest serving conservative political leader ever um 22 years he was prime minister multiple times but only for very short spells yeah and he never had a majority no and he relied i mean he's in the lords and he relied on disraeli to run things in the commons anyway they meet his cabinet and they agree this cannot stand as british governments always do they blame their predecessors the liberals should have sorted this out however they didn't and here we are and we are being embarrassed in the eyes of the world in particular we're being embarrassed in the eyes of our subjects in india and in south arabia in places like aden and we cannot lose face in front of these people we cannot be humiliated by an african king so lord darby's ministers have already been in touch with officials in bombay to discuss an intervention plan the army in india has been put on alert and they've agreed that the british authorities in india will meet all the costs an important point although they do as flashman uh and his uh interlocutor were discussing in our first episode they do end up putting a penny on income tax to pay for it all british governments love uh raising spending to fund defense don't they they do well there's a lesson here for andy burnham i think anyway um they've also appointed a guy who will run the expedition and this is the veteran british commander-in-chief in bombay who is lieutenant general sir robert napier of the royal engineers oh he's a tremendous man napier is a tremendous man actually he's one of the stars of the british army and he's one of those in an age when british commanders actually quite often turn out to be unbelievably useless buffoons he is not a buffoon he's not a buffoon at all he was born in ceylon now sri lanka into an army family he'd fought in two wars against the sikhs he'd commanded the defense of lucknow in the indian he'd led troops into beijing in the second opium war he's incredibly popular with his men everyone agrees that napier is a charming polite brave level-headed very methodical commander who doesn't like wasting the lives of his men he looks as he should he's a big man he's got this incredibly kind of weather-beaten face and he's got this very large but also slightly sad melancholy um which again i think is uh in keeping but not an ineffectual man because he's an engineer isn't he yes exactly he gets things done he gets things built he doesn't faff around yeah and that's key to this whole story really i guess our american listeners will perhaps welcome a comparison with ulysses s grant who's been distinguishing himself at this time though he's not as corrupt as ulysses s grant not of course and uh and not as boring so i think the american listeners always enjoy it when we make those points he's 57 his wife his beloved wife to whom he's been very happily married has just died and so napier has ventured again into the into the lists and he's just got married to an 18 year old well i don't know what to say about that what do you make of that well i'm waiting for you to say the salient fact about this woman what is the salient fact she's from montgomeryshire she's welsh oh my word how did i overlook that so yet another series about welsh history oh mad that i missed that i'm my apologies go to the people of wales for missing that important detail yeah you're just blanking welsh history again dominic um and can i get to you one other amazing thing do you know when she died 1944 very close 1930 wow aged 89 that's bonkers isn't it that she lives so long it is isn't it she lived long enough to listen to jazz and to um go to the cinema to see king kong she lived a long time she saw the jazz singer she did that's what killed her yes all right so um napier this is quite a tough gig for napier now you may think are the europeans against um an african kingdom it'll be a walkover not a bit of it the history of european intervention in these years does not give great grounds for confidence so the most famous or infamous british intervention of recent years was probably the war afghanistan the first anglo-afghan war the retreat from kabul in 1842 an absolute shambles tens of thousands of british casualties an utter humiliation flashman's first adventure flashman's first adventure flashman then pitched up in the crimea in the mid 1850s now they're of course technically one but the british and french between them lost more than a hundred thousand men the campaign was notorious for disease terrible conditions kind of industrial slaughter very miserable and we will be talking about this in a month or so we will indeed while this abyssinian crisis has been brewing the world's attention has been on mexico where the french had intervened with their puppet emperor maximilian hapsburg friend of the show and the french had lost almost 10 000 men and again they had been defeated so european interventions in this period have a pretty checkered record and people say at the time this is going to be the hardest yet the abyssinian interior is not properly mapped it's mountains it's gorgeous it could not be more challenging uh intel is absolutely useless the climate is punishingly hot there's cholera there's typhoid there's lions the snakes baboons baboons everything could go wrong in bombay napier's officers prepare by going to every library in bombay and scouring every single history and travel book they can find for references to abyssinian and they write a report and the report concludes there are a few countries about which we know less that's reassuring so to give you some examples of what they don't know they don't really know where teodros is they don't know how much support he has they don't have any relations whatsoever with the local warlords the people who are rebelling against him they don't have any sense of which way they will jump they don't know where to land they don't know what route to take to magdala and they don't know how they're going to get out again without being attacked but as you said napier is an engineer yeah so he is the perfect man for the job really he plans this really methodically and he says well i'm going to go to the library and i'm going to go to the library all right let's work backwards what we would need we'd need 5 000 men to get these people out and what would those 5 000 men need they would need supply lines stretching back to the coast stretching for hundreds of miles so we'll need another 10 000 men to guard the supply lines then we'll need a coastal base and we ideally want two connections one going up the red sea to suez and another going across the indian ocean to bombay and to plan all this we're going to draw on the resources of the entire british empire so as philip marston says in his book the barefoot emperor from liverpool to woolwich chatham to bombay chatham that was a little gift to you oh great so this is really another story about chatham high street aiden to madras quartermasters and storekeepers technicians and chemists coolies and cooks design clerks bookkeepers and stevedores began to work towards freeing the captives from the grip of what the newspapers called the gorilla king and they go into incredible detail marston's book is brilliant on this they work out you know to the sort of last pound exactly how much salt beef salt pork they'll need how much vinegar and mustard how much rum and champagne and beer champagne they had take champagne with them that's essential isn't it of course they do you can't fight a war in abyssinia without plentiful supplies of champagne they stockpile bibles and prayer books and caxes and gunpowder and one of the things they stockpile very tellingly copper telegraph wire so this is going to be it's described in at the time as a campaign to rival the adventures of alexander the great or elan cortez or pizarro whatever but this is going to be the most technologically advanced military campaign in history so napier is taking seven photographers he's taking a portable telegraph system he's taking all kinds of water pumps and things he's taking flares to light up the camp in case they're attacked at night so it's kind of the great the great exhibition on maneuvers yeah the touring great exhibition like napoleon in egypt he's taking napoleon called them they call them savants named the french campaign so he's got geographers and meteorologists he's got a boat from the bombay zoological society he's got a geologist from calcutta he's got a british museum archaeologist who's coming along to kind of check for relics and the press are with them so we mentioned in the first episode henry morton stanley of the new york herald ga henty of the standard which is a london paper so they've got all that they also are going to take a lot of cash and this is an incredible story they will need cash to buy supplies when they get to abyssinia and also to pay off the local warlords and british agents in africa report they say well that neck of the woods in east africa there's only one commonly accepted universal currency and this is believe it or not the austrian silver tala which was minted first by maria theresa in 1741 how come it's so popular in abyssinia this i have been unable to um determine seems improbable so apparently the silver tala that they wanted most was the 1780 edition i don't know why but this is the silver tala that they wanted most and they this was the one that was regarded as the i was about to say the gold standard the silver standard that was very popular in east africa and mind-bogglingly people were still using this as currency in the 1950s goodness these maria theresa um silver coins and for some reason they have just become entrenched and accepted in east africa but they're no longer making them in vienna and napier's agents first of all napier sends agents to central europe to buy up as many of these old coins as they can and then he sends a representative to the official mint in vienna to persuade them he says the british will supply you with silver and can you produce these talas and the official mint in vienna is turning out 20 000 of these a week purely for the expeditionary force god amazing so all this takes a lot of money darby's government has set a budget of two million pounds uh even before they set off it balloons to four million and it ends up costing the british uh taxpayer 10 million pounds so when you do the calculation that is the equivalent of tens of billions of pounds today this was an extremely expensive enterprise by the standards of the day so can i just ask this is a surgical strike they have no plans to occupy abyssinia or anything like that it's in and out no talk of regime change no talk of anything yeah but the hostages and secondly they're doing this ultimately you think not for humanitarian reasons but to affirm the prestige of the british empire in the face of the ottomans the french that's that's ultimately the reason yes i think it's hard to distinguish those two things i think people at the time would have found it very hard to distinguish them in the same way let's go back to the comparison with iran in 1980 the um response to the iranian revolution and the hostage crisis the plight of the hostages in that story became you know tear-jerking it was in american newspapers and bulletins all the time but it is also about prestige but in the minds of the policymakers it's inseparable really i guess yeah um and i from the question of prestige and i think the same is true here ultimately i think they don't care that much about the hostages about some missionaries i mean it's brilliant for the press right the press care yeah but i think if you're lord darby or benjamin disraeli you care far more about british prestige britain cannot afford to be humiliated because it is billions billions and billions in today's spending yes and and we know we you know we see now how how governments hate spending money on the military they do but it was equally governments sometimes think that they there's a degree of face they cannot possibly lose the humorous magazine punch they got a joke yeah slightly unamusing rhyme um but dash the expense however immense we can nothing cheaper than fight and i think what they mean by that is the cost to the british people of losing face will ultimately be greater than that of the you know the balance sheet that actually in the long run it's better to pay the money now anyway let's move forward to the autumn of 1867 so by the final week in october the advance party which is made up of bombay marines and bombay like cavalry and engineers and sappers have landed in a place they call annesley bay and if you look it up it is now the gulf of zula in eritrea they've found an anchorage for 100 ships and then they send back measurement specifications for three large people and they send back measurements for three large people and they send back measurements specifications for three large people and then they send back measurements for three large which they will build to help them unload the ships and so in the next few weeks more men more supplies follow i mean it's mind-boggling the enterprise hundreds of tons of coal there are tramway sets there's pile driving machinery and so by the new year of 1868 they have landed 13 000 soldiers 20 miles of railway track and 44 elephants which were shipped across the indian ocean in transport that is seven more elephants than hannibal took really seven more to italy yeah hurrah for napier and while they're doing that their sappers are literally blasting away through the cliffs to find the best route to get to the highland plateau so they're going to have to head up 8 000 feet above sea level and then they're going to have to travel through the kind of gorges and the ravines for another 350 miles until they get to magdala on the 7th of january napier himself comes ashore from the ss octavia so they're going to have to head up 8 000 feet above sea level and then they're going to have to and napier like all proficient commanders has a great sense of theater political theater he is dressed in his full uniform he's got all his medals the ship's guns are firing a salute there's a marine band playing he comes ashore everyone cheers and napier is a i mean he's a very very proficient commander he's not bothered about the costs he says look the government of india will pay and the british government will back them up i want more mule drivers and my men need more boots and i want more mule drivers and i want more mule drivers and i want more mule drivers you know his men love him for this reason and within a couple of weeks they have started work on the railway and the railway will bring all their supplies inland from the coast and they've also set up i mean this is an incredible achievement they have basically a field telegraph all the way to their advance guard they'll travel with that the whole way basically unspooling copper wire as they go so by the 25th of january 1868 napier is ready to set off for the great trek to magdala and as planned he has a lot of work to do so he's going to have to travel all the way to magdala he has 5 000 men that will go ahead as the spearhead and behind he has 7 000 men who will guard his supply lines and as they set off they must look absolutely outlandish to you know the locals i mean they must look it must look like people have landed from mars or something because the british cavalry lead the way and when i say british this is british and indian there are sikhs there are recruits from across the indian subcontinent so there's lots of you know people in and stuff but they're all wearing their british army red jackets then there's a supply chain seven miles long behind them there are the 44 elephants who are dragging the field guns the kind of heavy guns god t.r dross would love that yeah i mean that's all his christmas has come at once and they have military bands playing the whole time so i mean they're basically like a sort of roaming orchestra and they they trudge into the highlands making very slow progress napier is of course conscious the big issue that they face is if people attack them on routes if the warlords attack them and the key moment really comes at the end of february so they've been on the road for a month or so and he enters the territory of one of t.r dross's key rivals who is a guy called raskasa who is the king of tigre and basically the road to magdalene runs through this this kingdom of tigre and napier he's a he's a great diplomat he waits for this guy he stops he waits he wants to greet him with full military honors he has his troops drawn up very smartly when this bloke arrives he says would you like to inspect our guns here i brought you presents i brought you an arabian horse i've got your rifle for you i've got some nice glassware for you um and he says to casa my troops will not loot they will not steal so much as a kind of you know a loaf of bread we will pay for every sack of grain if you help us i promise you the friendship of queen victoria and it works very well this guy says to him well you're a very impressive person he gives him a lion skin cloak and he says i will get i will bring you weekly supplies of food which he does and i think there's an implicit understanding here it's never written down and it's never explicitly stated but i think it's pretty clear and napier knows this man expects him to deal with t.r dross once and for all that that is the quid pro quo you've been comparing this to the conquistadors in america and this is a very familiar story isn't it yeah you know whether it's the aztecs or the incas that the local not necessarily even subject peoples but inferior rivals who want to throw off the hegemony of the local big power that they team up with the europeans exactly i think that's exactly it the difference i guess is that the british don't want to stay you know the conquistadors want to stay they have their own agenda the british really just didn't want to get in and get out now this is probably a good point to ask what has happened to the hostages we haven't seen them for a while so we last saw them in the summer of 1867 so almost a year ago what have they been up to they've been stuck in their huts at magdala they've been playing cards and i mean they're kind of manacled so i don't know how easy that is i suppose they're bent over i mean it's cards is one thing yeah if you're bent over they've to use all their old stores and actually so they've been eating very well at magdala because they brought up a lot of their old kind of stores and stuff so insanely they've been having like four course meals soup a starter a main course and stuff so that's all that's the good news the bad news is they're still in chains some of them are very ill they're very depressed but then in december 1867 a traveler arrived in magdala with a message for dr blanc and um this was the news that the british had landed on the coast the first british sort of engineers had landed on the coast dr blanc said later it was one of those exciting moments in a man's life that few can realize who have not passed through months of mental agony and then been suddenly overcome with joy so it's tremendously exciting for the hostages the british are on their way but of course they're now in a state of unbearable tension because teodros has been gone for years two years almost will teodros get back to magdala before the british and if so will he have them all killed or will he agree to see sense they don't know and this of course brings us to teodros himself as i said he's been gone for ages on campaign he has been um fighting rebels and stuff but that autumn 1867 he too began to head inland he left his northern capital to head back to magdala and with him he brought his army he brought a huge horde of camp followers and he was able to get back to magdala and he was a huge horde of prisoners that he had taken so he's got about 50 000 people with him and above all his favorite things which are his guns so listeners may remember that he was getting these swiss and german missionaries to try and build guns for him and they have finally managed to cast what he really wanted which is a giant mortar and this is a 70 ton mortar its mouth is two feet wide so it's a huge caliber and he calls it sebastopol because he loves the crimean war so napier had been told teodros has got these guns and napier assumed well when teodros goes back to magdala he'll obviously leave these guns behind because they're so heavy and he's not going to try and drag them but no teodros is dragging these guns back to magdala and he's very excited about the chance of using them can i ask dominic um these uh missionaries these swiss and german missionaries yeah obviously making guns we said in the first episode isn't really part of what they're about no but have they upped their game by this point um are these functioning well that is a great question and you know what we're going to find out we're going to find out what happens because teodros has not yet fired it teodros has experimented a little bit with these guns but he's never really fired them in anger okay exciting and this is something for listeners to look forward to now he knows at this point so let's say with the beginning of 1868 he knows the british have landed his agents have intercepted messages from napier to the local chiefs you know basically trying to get the local chief support teodros's reaction people who are fans of his erratic behavior will be pleased to hear that he reacts in a very peculiar way so first of all he says to his german missionary gunsmiths he says this is brilliant the one thing i've always wanted to see is a really disciplined european army and finally i'm going to get the chance so his plan appears to be that he's going to get the chance to get the chance to get the chance to get the he will get to magdala first he will line up all his guns then he will will test them against the British army. He thinks that when the British see Sebastopol in action, they will respect him and they will see what a great king he is and what an impressive person he is. And they'll definitely want to come to an arrangement with him and perhaps sign a treaty. This is his thinking. He tells his courtiers, he says, I've heard a prophecy that a European king will meet with an Ethiopian king in this country. And after this, a great king will come. But I don't know whether I shall be that great king or someone else. That's modest of him. Yeah. Even so, you know, he's very keen. He's very excited. He's also started re-bombarding his old crush, Hormuzd Rasam, the British agent, the guy from Mosul who used to be an archaeologist in the British descent. But is he still chained up at this point? He's chained up at Magdala in the mountain lair. But Teodros has started writing, sending him love letters again. I mean, the same thing to write to somebody who you're keeping as a hostage. How are you? How are you, my friend? The nearer I approach towards you, the happier I feel. Oh, my friend, do not think I bear any hatred towards you. I've placed you in a present position in order that I may come to know the people of your country. It's kind of the opposite of the Stockholm syndrome, isn't it? Yeah, where your captor. The captor falls in love with the captive. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And the mad thing, the maddest thing is that Teodros says to him, the thing I'm really looking forward to is I can't wait to show you Sebastopol. I have had a large mortar cast, which is to tame you on the road. But when I reach Magdala and you see it and admire it, I will forget all the trouble it has given me. So basically, Sebastopol for Teodros is a bit like the owl man for the Aztecs. Yes, it is. It's the ultimate weapon that will definitely win him the war. It will win him the war and also win him the undying affection of Rasam. Right. So finally, Teodros arrives at the mountaintop on the 27th of March, 1868. It's a very gothic scene. So a storm is breaking overhead, thunder, pouring rain. He arrives in the mountaintop and his guards immediately bring in Rasam. And Rasam is shocked to see that Teodros has aged a lot in the last couple of years. He looks very gaunt, very haggard. Now, Rasam probably hasn't aged brilliantly because he's been chained up in a hut. But Teodros has been off on camera. His mental health isn't great, to be honest. And he greets Rasam, his hostage, against the backdrop of the British invasion of his country with the mad greeting, today we must all be English. And what does he mean by that? God knows. Wear unsuitable clothing for the hot temperature. React to everything with sort of insouciant understatement. But that's not his style at all. No, he loves a voluble explosion. No, I think what he means by this, he means he's just, I think he just, he's just so excited that the British are coming in a weird way. And he says, I can't wait to show you Sebastopol. And he says, the two happiest days in my life are when Sebastopol was cast. And also today, when I get to see, when I get to see you again. I mean, it's so unsettling. Callum, our producer, will enjoy this reference. There's a scene in I'm Alan Partridge, when Alan Partridge is effectively taken prisoner by a crazed fan called Jed. And this is basically Rasam's, his situation. He's been taken prisoner by Teodros. But then Teodros' mood changes abruptly. And he says to Rasam, I hope Mr. Rasam, that when your people arrive, they will not despise me because I am black. And then a note of fatalism. One day you may see me dead. And while you stand by my corpse, it may be that you curse me for my bad conduct towards you. Rasam, I think, finds it hard to keep up with all this. Keep up. And the maddest thing of all, right? So Teodros, almost tearful with his love of Rasam and, you know, morbid thoughts and all this. And then as soon as his guards take Rasam out, Teodros turns to his courtiers and says very bitterly, Rasam has made asses of us and a fool of me. He's pretending to be my friend, but he's been plotting to slaughter us, ravish our wives and reduce our people to bondage. It's kind of, I'm a 16-year-old girl with a crush. I love him. I love him. He hates me. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. This is exactly his attitude to Rasam. Now, that's Teodros. General Napier, a very different kind of man. His moustache and his keen interest in engineering projects. Exactly. His men have now trudged all the way to the edge of the Jidda Gorge, which is about 50 miles from Magdala. We're now early April. So this is very sort of sun-scorched, barren terrain. It's hard work now. They're a long way from the coast. They've traveled more than 300 miles. And on the 6th of April, they get their first glance of the summit of Magdala in the distance. So one war correspondent said it rose like a great ship out of the surrounding billows. And Napier now sends ahead a messenger with a final ultimatum. By command of the Queen of England, I am approaching Magdala with my army in order to recover. I'm going to go to Magdala with my army in order to recover from your hands, Envoy Rassam, Consul Cameron, Dr. Blanc, Lieutenant Predo, and the other Europeans now in your majesty's power. I request your majesty to send them to my camp as soon as it's sufficiently near to admit of their coming in safety. There is no reply. But Teodros does know that the British are very close now. Every morning, Teodros very excitedly has been scanning the mountains with his telescope. Is that the telescope he got given? Yeah. He got given. He's thrown it away. But he didn't smash it. No, clearly it didn't break. He's been staring through his telescope. And on the 7th of April, which is the Tuesday before Easter, he sees the first red British uniforms on the other side of the Beshilo Gorge. And he shouts, perhaps unexpectedly, he shouts very loudly with excitement when he sees them. He shouts, hurrah, there go the donkeys. The donkeys are the British, not all these mules that Napier's had brought over. The British have got mules with them. So maybe that's what he's talking about. Who knows? And then he hands the telescope to this Swiss missionary called Theophilus Valbair, who he's very keen on. And he says to Valbair in a very jaunty way, there you will see your brethren who have come from England to kill me. Tra la. Yeah. So the next day is a Wednesday. Teodros gets up before dawn. Now, usually he dressed quite austerely with a white robe and a red border. But today, because the British have come, he's very excited. He's wearing, we're told, a silk gold threaded robe with white pantaloons. And Rassam said, rather disparagingly, he looked more like a harlequin than a sovereign. It's something really sad about that. That he, you know, he, he, he's trying to look regal. He's trying to make a splash only to be the victim of massive British snobbery. Yeah. He's, he's dressed inappropriately. And Rassam has obviously become very naturalized. You know who Teodros will get on absolutely superbly with? And it's a man we're always pleased to get back on this podcast. The Kaiser. The Kaiser. The Kaiser. He and the Kaiser would have gone on so well. There are similarities there. At this point, Teodros orders that all the prisoners be brought down. He's got a military camp lower down the mountain, and he has all the prisoners brought down. So this is the hostages, but also this great horde of Ethiopian captives. So these are, as I said before, captured rebels, rival chiefs, criminals, all of this. And these blokes he's treated very badly. They're ravaged by disease and half starved. And Teodros says, you know, it's a little gesture to the British. Choose 70 of these Abyssinian captives and let them go. And so they let these people go. They go off and head off towards the British. And then Teodros draws up his army and he gives a truly deranged speech to his army. He starts to inspire them. He says, the British are coming and be in no doubt, the British are much better than we are. They are better equipped and they're stronger. Their very dress is bedecked with gold, to say nothing of their treasures, which can only be borne by elephants. Are you ready to fight and enrich yourselves with the spoils of these white slaves? Or will you disgrace me by running away? I mean, that's a sort of a leap. He's gone from saying the British are better to saying we'll get all their treasure. And a kind of grizzled old veteran steps forward and says, only wait to your majesty until those asses make their appearance and we will tear them to pieces. And everybody shouts. Yeah. And Teodros greets them by saying to this man, you old fool, have you ever seen an English soldier? Before you know where you are, your belly will be filled with bullets. Oh my God. It's like Henry V attaching corps. So if you're one of his men, he's sending very mixed messages. He is. Yes, he is. Slightly deflated, I think. So the next day, Thursday, Thursday before Easter, Teodros has been drinking a lot of water. He's been drinking a lot of water. Probably too much, I think. And he drinks a lot that morning. And after lunch, he decides to retire to sleep it off. Now, before that, he said to his generals, OK, you can release all the remaining Abyssinian prisoners. Release them all now. Now, these people have all been shackled up as well. I mean, the people manufacturing chains in the kingdom of Abyssinia must be making an absolute killing. And it's taking ages to get all their shackles off. And about four o'clock that afternoon, he says, I'm going to go to Abyssinia. I'm going to go to Abyssinia. I'm going to go to afternoon. A very hungover Teodros is woken by the sound of prisoners complaining that the guards are taking too long to get their shackles off. Chodros goes berserk at this. He calls for a sword and he immediately stabs two of the prisoners to death. Then he says, how many are left? It's about 300 left. He says, bring them all up to me. They line them all up on the cliff. And then one by one, he has them thrown over the cliff to their deaths. And then he tells the guards, go down and finish all the survivors off. The whole thing takes two hours. It's a horrendous scene, obviously. But Chodros does feel bad about it afterwards because that evening, apparently one of his servants heard him praying aloud, telling God, confessing to God that he was drunk when he ordered the massacre and asking for forgiveness, saying, please don't count it against me because drink had been taken. I don't know what God's view of that was actually. I don't think very approving to be honest. Surely not. So we come to the crucial day and this is the 11th of April, 1868. It is Good Friday. Chodros knows that the British are very close now. He knows that they are about to reach in a few hours, the plateau of Arogy, which is just below the fortress at Magdala. They should be there by the afternoon and this will be it. This will be the moment of decision. And we will find out what happens in that moment of decision after the break. This episode is. sponsored by How the Tudors Lost Their Heads on National Geographic. You and I think we know the story of the Tudors, don't we? But this series puts them in a very different light because it asks, what if the biggest Tudor stories were investigated like modern true crime cases? A brilliant idea. So just to emphasise, this is very much not a traditional history documentary and we could not be more excited about it. So this is a series that explores some of the best known figures of the Tudor era and also some of the most famous figures of the Tudor era. So this is of the less well-known and it uncovers fresh evidence that shines a new light on the stories behind their demise. Yeah, I'd really love to get into some of these Tudor stories. You know that the one that's always fascinated me is Hem of the Eighth and his ulcer. I'd like to have forensic scientists looking at it, how he got the ulcer, how it was treated. I don't know if that's one of the cases they're doing, but I know they're doing the absolute best cases, so it probably will be. Well, Dominic, the only way to find out is to watch How the Tudors Lost Their Heads on National Geographic. This episode is brought to you by Atio, the AICRM. Gary here from Goldhangers, the rest is football. Football moves quickly now, teams have more data than ever, but the real skill is knowing what actually matters. And it's exactly the same in business. 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Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See MintMobile.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History, where it is Good Friday, 1868, and the Emperor Teodros is preparing for his final showdown with Lieutenant General Sir Robert Napier. And the two generals are very different characters, aren't they, Dominic? They are. They could not be more different. Napier's probably been studying engineering measurements overnight. Teodros drinking, feeling bad that he's been massacring people, throwing them off cliffs. He gets up early and he goes to church. Then he orders. All the European hostages are still at his lower camp. He says, I've changed my mind. Take them all back up to the top at Magdala. I mean, all they have been doing for about the past two years is trudging up and down this map. It's a miserable business. They've had a very confusing time, I think. Yeah. Rassam, who's still on speaking terms with him, says to him, please, this is probably your last chance to ask General Napier for terms. And Teodros says, I will do no such thing. As he has been sent by a woman. Meaning Queen Victoria. So he was all talk about Queen Victoria beforehand. Yeah. It's not very gallant at all. No, exactly. He's let himself down there. That's very poor from Teodros. Teodros now divides his forces. He will stay on the heights with his guns, which he's very excited about. And the rest of his men, so he's got about 7,000 sort of loyalists, he wants them to charge the British as soon as the British arrive on the plateau. And he gives them. A slightly disconcerting send-off, as is his wont. He says to them, take leave of your families, for today you will have the honour to die with the king. So Churchillian. Now, meanwhile, Napier's men are climbing onto the plain of Oroji, and they're climbing up through this valley in punishing heat. It's a really gruelling march. I mean, they've come a hell of a long way. They're wearing these very heavy packs. They haven't got much water. The weather, I mean, you know, the gods have written the story. There is thunder. In the air, the storm is going to break. It's a very ominous atmosphere. And of course, I already mentioned the best-known British intervention overseas at this point is probably still 1842 Afghanistan. You know, this is the obvious parallel. They know that these things don't always end well, despite their technological superiority. Henry Morton Stanley, war correspondent, said at the time, you know, he remembered this terrible, suspicious silence as they arrived on the plateau. And he said, you know, this is the obvious parallel. And he said, up the valley onto the plateau. And I think a lot of them probably are thinking this has got kind of Afghanistan Mark II written all over it. At some point, people will emerge over the horizon and we will all be butchered. I mean, part of the kind of the vibe of the Afghan war was British soldiers in red uniforms being shot at by snipers from behind rocks and things like that. This is a key moment in the history of the war. It's a key moment in the history of the war. It's a key moment in the history of the because they are not wearing their red coats. Exactly right. Exactly. They have brought along with them for the first time in combat khaki battle uniforms. As you say, previously, they had worn their kind of bright, resplendent red, but they finally decided to compromise with reality and to bring, and this is the first time that a British army has gone into combat wearing khaki. They don't all wear khaki, I think, but certainly a proportion of them do. So they're now stumbling out. It's about four o'clock onto this plane from the valley. And on the heights above, Teodros has been watching their advance. And now he sees them coming and he shouts to his men, be not afraid of these English soldiers, because they are like the Philistines who made war against David. But remember, David smoked them. And in the name of God, I shall conquer. Look at those slaves. They're women. Look at them. They bring you clothes and riches and pay. Go down and help yourselves. And at this moment, you know, proper Hollywood stuff. The storm breaks. There's a great crash of thunder overhead. And at that moment, Teodros shouts to his gunners, open fire. And the first shells shriek through the air towards Napier's men. So some of the guns are working. And at that point, down below, the Abyssinian troops that have been waiting gave a great kind of cheer and a kind of war whoop. And they charge onto the plane themselves, some of them on horseback, some of them running. They've leveled their spears. They're singing their war songs. It's the kind of ride of the Rahirim at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields or something. And a tremendously rousing and exciting moment as they race towards the British. And for a moment, you know, if you're watching the film of this, it looks as if Teodros' plan has worked. It looks as if the British have walked right into a trap. They've walked into the guns, they've walked into the charge, and they're going to be swept off the plateau. But it doesn't quite work out that way. So first of all, the guns. These guns that he loved so much. I mean, never get a missionary to build you a gun. That's the lesson of history. It is the lesson of history. A Swiss missionary. The guns are so inaccurate that the shells just sail over the heads of Napier and his men. Has he fired Sebastopol at this point? I don't know that he ever does fire Sebastopol. Oh, no. Actually. But one of the guns. guns early on, one of the guns explodes, it bursts. And at this point, I think some of the gunners lost heart. Shoddy Swiss workmanship. Shoddy, exactly. So often the way with the Swiss, isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? Now, meanwhile, his assault troops or whatever are charging at the British. Now, the British are taking aim with their rifles. But the Abyssinians know, yeah, they've charged guns before. They've charged riflemen before. They know that basically what will happen is the riflemen will fire, but then they'll have to reload. That's a massive faff. It takes them ages. And you can be on them and you can butcher them. But what they don't know is the British have a secret technological advantage. The British have bought, for the first time, state-of-the-art Snyder breech-loading rifles. So these are rifles that you can reload with a breech in seconds. Yeah, we have got the Snyder breech-loading rifle and they have not. Correct. And that means that collectively the British line can fire about 30 to 40 rounds a second. And there's no let-up in the rate of fire. And so the Abyssinians are charging towards them, thinking at some point they're going to stop and they're going to reload and that moment never comes. The first to fall are the Abyssinian chiefs and kind of captains because they are wearing bright red kind of scarlet shirts. That is ironic. So they're sitting ducks. They are shot down. Their men keep coming and then the bullets, just a hail of bullets, just knock them down in their hundreds. And they keep charging. They keep charging again and again. The British just keep on firing. It is a total bloodbath. And from the heights, Teodros is watching and he just cannot believe it. So this continues for the next couple of hours. The last dusk begins to fall and the fighting dies down. And the survivors straggle back to Teodros' camp. And in the dark, he calls out to them, where is so-and-so, where is so-and-so, naming his chiefs. They're all dead. All the people he knows by name are dead. So in all, he's lost about 1,000 men, just under 1,000 men, thousands more wounded. The British have lost two men killed and about 20 wounded. I mean, you could hardly imagine a more lopsided battle. Teodros is stunned. I mean, the weird thing is he always kind of knew, I think, that the British would be a tough challenge, but he didn't think they'd be this tough. And he retires to his tent in that sort of terrible silence. He doesn't know what to do. Does he free the hostages? Does he start killing the hostages? Does he try to run away? Well, when in doubt, send another of your letters to Rassam, I think is his general approach. So he sends Rassam another of his mad notes. How have you passed the day? Thank God I am well. I, being a king, could not allow people to come and fight me without attacking them first. I have done so, and my troops have been beaten. I thought your people were women, but I find they are men. I fought very bravely, seeing that I am unable to withstand them, I must ask you to reconcile me to them. And Rassam scribbles him a note and says, I completely agree. At dawn, I think you should send a delegation to Napier. Maybe send that missionary, the Reverend Flad and Lieutenant Predo, and they can carry your peace offer to Napier. So that night, nobody can sleep because there's just a lot of wailing as the Abbot says, and the Abyssinians mourn their dead. And at four o'clock in the morning, Teodros summons Flad and Predo, as Rassam suggested, and says, I want you to go down to the British camp and discuss peace. So they go down the hill. They get onto the plane. The plane is covered with bodies, many of them being mangled by hyenas. So that's a bit disconcerting. Under their white flag, they get to the British camp, and when the soldiers see them coming, the soldiers will start cheering. And they're taken straight to Napier. And they say to Napier, we've come from the emperor. The emperor wants peace. And Napier says, brilliant. And Napier dictates a very gracious reply. He says, your majesty has fought like a brave man and has been overcome by the superior power of the British army. It is my desire that no more blood may be shed. If therefore your majesty will submit to the Queen of England and bring all the Europeans now in your majesty's hands and deliver them safely this day in the British camp, I guarantee honourable treatment for yourself and for all the members of your majesty's family. And he says, Teodros has 24 hours to decide. So the delegation go back to Teodros. And he says, I don't really understand what he means. What does he mean by honourable treatment? Do they mean to treat me honourably as a prisoner? Or do they intend to assist me in recovering my country from the rebels? And I think this is when he's got a real shock at this point because I think he always thought that the British would fight him, be impressed by him and his big gun. His guns, yeah. And then they would help him and they would be great friends. And now he thinks, I don't want to be taken as a prisoner back to London. That is the last thing that I want. So he dictates this very rambling reply. No mention of the hostages. A lot of mention of how terrible the Abyssinian people are. A land of heathens, he describes his own country as. He says, you are brilliant people. You're a people governed by discipline. I'm very impressed with you. But he doesn't really give Napier a clear, clear answer about the hostages. He sends this message to Napier's camp. Then he goes and sits on a rock alone. His men see him praying. They see him bow three times. And then to their horror, they see him pull a pistol from his belt and put it in his mouth and go to pull the trigger. And his officers rush at him and they yank his arm away. And he does fire, but the bullet just grazes his ear. I mean, you say to their horror, but I mean, he has led them into a complete disaster. They're all loyal to him. But they must be horrified because they stop him shooting himself. Yeah. Because you'd think with all his ranting and his lunatic general behavior. Yeah. They might think this isn't really the greatest war leader we've ever had. You might think that, but maybe some of them just think it's fun. You know, it's, you never know where you are. No two days are the same. I don't know. Because he's busy chopping off hands and feet, isn't he? And throwing people to hyenas. Looting manuscripts. Yeah, he's doing that, of course. Maybe it's that. I don't know. He now throws himself to the ground. He's sobbing. He's disconsolate. He's just in floods of tears. And then he tosses himself down. And for about the 17th time, he says, bring all the Europeans down from the mountaintop. It is hard to keep up, isn't it? It is. Yeah. I mean, you find it hard to keep up. Imagine having to make the notes. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Trying to keep track of where everybody is. I thought you were going to say, imagine being a hostage, but no, you're the victim here. No, I'm the real victim in all this. Let's be clear. So the hostages are dragged back down. They're completely bewildered. It's very dark. It's a very sort of ominous scene. They're convinced that Teodros has gone completely mad and is going to kill them all. They get halfway down and then a guard stops them and he says, Mr. Rassam, please, the rest of you stay here. Teodros wants to speak to Rassam alone. Rassam, who's very nervous, finds the emperor standing alone by the edge of the cliff. And Teodros, who's a broken man, says to him, you know, Mr. Rassam, that you and I have always, always been on good terms. I've always had a high regard for you. It's true I behave badly towards you, but that was because of the behavior of bad men. And Teodros says, tomorrow, when I'm taken prisoner, please stand up for me in the British camp. Put a good word in for me. I want you to bear this in mind. Unless you befriend me, I should either kill myself or become a monk. Now, goodbye. It's getting late. Try to come and see me tomorrow if you can. And they shake hands. And Rassam sees tears in Teodros' eyes. And Rassam goes on down the path. And Rassam is terrified that when he goes on down the path, he will find that all the other hostages have been butchered. But no, he meets up with the other hostages, and they all now trudge on towards the British camp. And they pass through the British lines, great cheering. They've all been freed. It's an incredibly emotional scene. They're shown to Napier's tent. The British agent in Aden, who was called, Colonel Meriwether, has brought loads of champagne along just in case. See, I'd mentioned the champagne. Oh, so that's why they brought the champagne, right? So they open the champagne. You know, it's all over. Or is it? Not quite. The next day is Easter Sunday. Teodros is still, you know, up on the hill. Sends Napier another letter. Very erratic. He tells Napier that he's tried to kill himself. Satan placed in me the thought that I should die by my own gun. He says there's a peace offering. I'm going to send you a thousand cows and 500 sheep, which he does. And as the livestock is being led towards the British line, Teodros says to his officers, surely it is peace now. They've taken my power from me. Surely it is peace. But now the tragic turning point in the story. Napier refuses to accept the cows and the sheep. And I think the reason he does this is he knows that under the local custom, if he accepts them, that means it's all over and he's accepted peace. And when Teodros sees Napier turning them away, he says bitterly to his courtiers, these people having got what they wanted, they now want to kill me. He flirts with the idea of fleeing. He says, you know, maybe we could run away. Maybe we'll get to Lake Tana. But his men say to him, no, we're not going to flee with you. You've got to make peace now. We will stay with your majesty till death. But you must listen to our advice and come to terms with the Farengis, with the foreigners. And SureTrust is definitely devastated by this they won't run away with him and that night he kind of wanders alone on the mountain staring down at the british campfires now napier meanwhile is down with his senior officers thinking about what to do deep down i don't think they want another battle his men are exhausted they've gone a long way they're hundreds of miles from a home they have of course now got the hostages they could just turn around and go back at this point the reason they don't is it's the point that you made earlier on yeah the similarity with the fall of the aztecs they would have to go through lands controlled by rival warlords and he knows those warlords expect him basically to finish teodros off so basically the deal is he has to finish teodros off or else they risk being cut up as they march back to the coast exactly right exactly and i think finishing teodros off might well involve taking him prisoner and bringing him back to london and teodros is probably frightened that he's going to be dragged through the streets in chains like a captured you know general in a roman triumph which probably would not have been the case he would probably have had tea with queen victoria osborne house and then been sort of incarcerated in a in some country house in hampshire i mean worst case scenario you're being exhibited at a freak show in the east end no that wouldn't they wouldn't do that no of course they wouldn't of course they wouldn't well as we will discover in the bonus episode about what they do with teodros's son they send him to public schools so anyway monday morning teodros has been outside all night and he climbs back up to the fortress and his men are huddled around their campfires and they watch him in silence and teodros says come on death or glory one last stand let's attack the british bring your weapons and follow me and he leads them out of the citadel down this path they get about halfway down the mountain and then a lot of them say hold on no this is mad i'm not attacking the british again we would rather seek death in magdala they say and a very deflated teodros says fine we'll go back so they trudge back up again god it's up and down isn't it i mean it's all this story is i know constant he's getting his steps in that's for sure a lot of his men slip away yeah they know this is all over so by the afternoon of easter monday he's in magdala with a dwindling band of loyalists and they're sort of stacking boulders against the outer gate meanwhile napier has ordered his guns to start shelling the abyssinian citadel and the shells are getting closer and closer by about four o'clock in the afternoon the first british troops were advancing up the path towards the sort of outer gates and the shells are now landing inside the walls between the inner and outer gates so teodros and his remaining loyalists begin to fall back towards the inner gate at this point the british brought scaling ladders with them and they start to scale the ladders and to climb the outer ramparts some of them get to the outer gate and they start to force open the doors with kind of crowbars and stuff now teodros and his companions are kind of firing at them from the inner gateway but it's completely pointless there are now hundreds of british soldiers streaming up the path and towards the outer gateway and it's at this point that teodros shouts his last order to his men he shouts flee i release you from your allegiance but i shall never fall into the hands of an enemy and he pulls out a gun and he puts the end in his mouth and he pulls the trigger and bang that's it he falls to the ground and within moments his men have melted away the gates have opened and the british troops are pouring in and they see his body lying on the ground in the dust and he's of course quite dead and by his side lies the gun with which he took his own life and they pick it up it is the silver dueling pistol that he was given as a gift from queen victoria the one you told us to remember exactly he's killed himself with his present from queen victoria you are like agatha christie putting the candlestick on the mantelpiece in chapter two that checkoff's gun i introduce the gun in act one and it's going to recur in act five yes um so that is the end of teodros the emperor dr blanc who had been his hostage did the post-mortem and dr blanc said later death that gave an air of calm grandeur to the features of one whose career had been so remarkable whose cruelties are almost unparalleled in history i mean i think that's unfair actually but who at the last hour fought like a brave man and killed himself rather than surrender and it was actually mr rassam who organized the funeral which was held in the coptic church on the magdala hilltop the next day teodros would have he would have loved that he would have loved that that's what he wanted i mean he died as he would have wanted in some ways and he got the funeral he would have wanted devised by by his beloved the only thing he'd have liked i think he'd have liked queen victoria to have been there i think no i think it's all about rassam yeah maybe don't forget he'd been very rude about queen victoria being a woman he had yes he had so at the end the other defenders surrendered almost immediately and this was the cue for the british to start piling into the manuscripts the relics and the treasures now as we said this is not an entirely straightforward british bad guys plundering stuff story because of course this was stuff that teodros had basically accumulated in his campaigns and he had an absolutely mad collection so he had religious relics and vestments and crowns and goblets he had a lot of manuscripts he had musical instruments he had weirdly a collection of staffordshire pottery he had umbrellas he had cases of wine he had carpets he had lion skins he had toy soldiers and a collection of cameras all of which ended up in the uh in the baggage of all these british soldiers there was a massive looting free-for-all which only ended when napier himself arrived came up the path and he came up with a military band playing god save the queen and see the conquering hero comes and napier said now come on we're british we don't want a massive free-for-all we will distribute the booty properly and basically they doled out all the cash to all the troops and then a few days later he held a gigantic auction where all the sort of relics and stuff and the cameras and the staffordshire pottery was auctioned off to the highest bidders so we can talk possibly in our bonus about some of the loot well the notorious one is the tabots isn't it yes they're not books exactly they're kind of tablets aren't they held by the british museum i think aren't they and there's one um held by westminster abbey i think so we talk about some of the loot in our special bonus episode on this for rest is history club members we also talk about what happened to some of the hostages like hummus rassam and we talk about two other characters that we haven't really mentioned so one is a guy called captain speedy who was uh one of napier's deputies literally speedy that's not his nickname that was his name captain speedy but captain speedy before this had been teodros's military advisor so he had he had an extraordinary career he knew all about the guns he did and the other person is teodros's son prince alamea who and he was sent back to england he was introduced to queen victoria and he ended up as a boarder at rugby a flashman's old school so we'll talk about him and his extraordinary trajectory but back to napier now we talked before about comparisons with um other military expeditions perhaps particularly those launched by our american cousins and the difference with napier is napier has absolutely no interest in installing a client regime in sorting you know making abyssinia safe for democracy any of that sort of stuff his orders were to get in get the hostages and get out again and that is precisely what he's going to do he's not interested in abyssinia at all he sends a message to his um army the day after the auction he says the queen and the people of england entrusted to you a very arduous and difficult expedition to release our countrymen from a long and painful captivity and to vindicate the honor of our country we've done it we're going home the message that jimmy carter never got to deliver exactly right so the result of this actually is that abyssinia is left leaderless and the result is 20 years of chaos because basically it's like they've gone in and they've kicked over an ant heap isn't it yeah complete chaos you sort yourselves out i mean the thing it what could they have done they could have chosen a client king it would probably have all ended in disaster frankly i think they absolutely did the right thing in getting out there's there's 20 years of civil war there's then the war in the sudan which spills over the mardi our old friend general gordon and it only ends really at the end of the century under a guy called menelik the second and he really establishes himself as a kind of abyssinian hero by beating the italians at the battle of adwar in 1896 which is seen as a kind of landmark moment where he's going to go to the battle of adwar in 1896 and he's going to go to the battle of adwar in 1896 and he's going to go to the battle of adwar in 1896 and he's going to go to the battle of adwar in 1896 we rejoice that the honor of the british flag and the dignity of the british name have been vindicated asiatics will ponder and talk over the fate of a man who imprisoned british subjects and they'll think twice about challenging the power that triumphed over the black king so quite pungent stuff from british editorials napier is given the thanks of parliament he's given a reception by the queen he's promoted to field marshal and he's given a hereditary peerage so he becomes baron napier of magdala and there's still a baron napier of magdala today and when he dies in 1890 he's a national hero and there's a statue put up in kensington a queen's gate you can still see it today but talk of statues we should end in abyssinia so teodros in abyssinia or rather ethiopia as we now call it is a cult figure today so in his brilliant book on this philip marston talks about going to the markets in addis ababa and seeing teodros t-shirts and badges seeing his image stenciled on the walls of bars he's now seen as a patriotic hero who died fighting european imperialism a kind of symbol of ethiopian independence and the most obvious reminder of him you can go to emperor teodros square which is in the center of addis ababa and basically this is a giant roundabout and unbelievably this roundabout is situated on of all things churchill avenue who was at the battle of omdurman who was at the battle of omdurman exactly he was no stranger to a sort of horn of africa battle now there is no statue of teodros but you will be pleased to hear that in the middle of this roundabout there is a replica of his beloved giant gun sebastopol oh fabulous so you could go and see this if we haven't done the rest of this history trip to um addis ababa we'd obviously go to the but what about the actual the actual gun well this here is the thing the real sebastopol still exists 250 miles away from addis ababa it's half buried on the barren mountaintop of what was once the fortress of magdala there's nothing there now and it was never fired no one ever worked out if it worked it shows no sign of ever having been fired oh god so there it sits this forgotten relic of this bizarre episode in british and indeed african history and the mad thing about the whole business as sir harry flashman rightly puts it in his memoir it could all have been avoided if only queen victoria had answered her letters well on the subject of um queens behaving badly and disastrous consequences ensuing um next week we are back with the french revolution and specifically with the terror so the most dramatic the most celebrated um episode in the whole of the french revolution this is tumbrils guillotines blood flowing in the streets the deaths of marie antoinette danton robespierre just incredible drama and a completely blood-soaked climax and that if you are a member of the rest is history club you will be getting all six episodes this coming monday and if you're not and you would like to hear the slicing of the guillotine for six solid episodes you can go to the rest is history.com so huge excitement for that but i think dominic before we go massive thanks for telling uh this forgotten but incredibly dramatic story simultaneously tragic and darkly comic as is so often the case with british imperial history poor old do you feel sorry for george ross i don't really like him you wouldn't like him if he shackled your no i wouldn't have wanted to be a hostage but i tell you what i liked about him i liked his style as a letter writer yeah i would have loved to get a letter from him and unlike queen victoria i would have replied and become his pen pal maybe rest his history listeners if those people who you know feel fondly disposed to tom why don't you send in your letters to him in the style of teodros ii and there'll be a prize for the the prize is uh tom will take you just the two of you on a trip to sebastopol to inspect the mortar in the middle of nowhere in ethiopia what could possibly go wrong take some dueling pistols with us as well it'd be great anyway dominic thank you that was great thank you for listening bye-bye bye-bye for adults with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms every choice matters trimfaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start trimfaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks if your doctor decides that you can 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