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Apologies for the birdsongs in advance...
We've got a real treat for you in the latest episode of the Korean War guys, as niche diplomacy and underrated tales become our prime focus. Here we examine the tales of Turkey and New Zealand, and their journey towards intervention in the Korean War...
Episode 27: Avengers Assemble tackles two fascinating case studies in the allied intervention in the Korean War. We ask here why did Turkey and New ...
2018-07-08 23:08:41 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Have yourself the latest installment of 17th Century Warfare series ad-free on me - happy Friday!
Our series on 17th century warfare continues with a look at how French armies were constituted, and how their attitudes towards certain tactics changed. We begin with an examination of the massive increases of European armies across the board, but we soon refine our focus, and examine the machinations of King Henry IV of France (r. 1594-1...
2018-07-06 15:09:44 +0000 UTC
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Episode 26: United We Stand is out now, and within it we continue to surge ahead with our narrative of the Korean War through the lens of the body of the United Nations. We look at how it coped with the progress of the North Koreans throughout the summer, and how its members were eventually persuaded to pass a few important resolutions, and to send armed delegations of their own. In this episode, we see collective security come to life, and it is a fascinating sight to behold.
2018-07-01 18:41:57 +0000 UTC
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Another Imre Nagy pun must mean it's time to get back into the story, as I complete your serving of 1956 for the month!
Episode 1.11, Gone But Nagy Forgotten looks at what happened after Stalin’s death, when Moscow decided it’d be a good idea to force Rakosi, the avowed Stalinist, to share power with Imre Nagy, his opposite in almost every respect. Rakosi wished to maintain the status quo even as his favourite weapons like the secret police or AVO ...
2018-06-28 23:31:35 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
It's about time we brought 1956 back from the dead! Another episode to follow on Friday, so stay tuned!
Here in Episode 1.10, I Did Nagy See That Coming we continue where we left off last time with some more titbits on Hungary under Soviet occupation, and looks a bit more at the person of Matyas Rakosi as well. Rakosi was the Stalinist dictator of Hungary as soon as communism was installed as the moving force of the country in the late 1940s, ...
2018-06-26 23:00:54 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
This is in some sense a two-pronged episode, where we look first of all at the days between 27-30 June 1950, and explain how the Truman administration managed to manipulate the strategic situation on the Han River to its own ends. Then, once we bring our story up to 30 June, we deliver a kind of overview, where we examine the conflict between late June and September.
This episode will give you a handy introduction to what course the war took, and for those unfamiliar with...
2018-06-24 18:34:54 +0000 UTC
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UNprecedented - get it, because UN = United Nations, and it's unprecedented because it's never happened before?! I'm a genius!
Episode 24: UNprecedented looks at the role of the United Nations, which the US used, for a variety of reasons, to frame its intervention in Korea. Here we look at the key moments in the history of UN, and we chart its development over the late 1940s as it became more heavily involved in the issues of the post-war world. ...
2018-06-19 22:04:15 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
The Korean War is back with a bang!
Episode 23: What Lies Beneath takes us to the halls of Washington, where as we saw in the last episode, the US was surprisingly slow to respond to the North Korean invasion. What kind of methods did the Truman administration make use of to achieve its policy goals? In this episode we will examine what lay beneath the shocked exterior of the American reaction to the invasion of South Korea. Far from surprised, e...
2018-06-17 11:35:27 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Here we put the Military Revolution to the test, by applying a key aspect of it - the trace italienne system - to 17th century France
Get ready to lay siege! In this episode we use the case study of French fortifications to examine the trace italienne, the name given to the modernisation of European fortifications along the Italian model. These forts had low, thick walls buttressed by large earthworks a...
2018-06-12 23:02:00 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Time to get a bit technical, but I promise it'll be anything BUT boring!
Get your thinking caps on history friends, because in this episode we’re going to assess the most important element of the historiography of the 17th century – the Military Revolution theory. The Military Revolution idea states that Europe underwent fundamental – you might even say ‘revolutionary’ changes during the late 1500s and 1600s. These changes were affected by im...
2018-06-10 20:19:31 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot, as to learn me any other thing; and so I think other men did their children: he taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw from strength of the body: I had my bows bought me, according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger; for men shall never shoot well, except they be brought up in it…But now, we have taken up whoring in towns, ins...
2018-06-05 23:02:00 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
At long last! Our series on 17th century warfare has finally landed, with our first episode looking at…nothing to do with 17th century warfare…Hmmm. Not to worry history friends – untangling warfare in the 17th century requires a certain amount of background detail, and in this episode here we do exactly that. The feudal society and its relation to the military contract aren’t topics we would normally go anywhere near, but to lay the foundations for what’s to come, we need ...
2018-06-03 23:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Our fifth introduction episode (if you're counting those TALK episodes), in this episode here we actually get down to the meat and bones of what you can expect from this series, what its structure, release schedule and objectives will be, and of course, why you should be really excited for it! If you'd like to find out what I am planning and what this series holds in store for you, and perhaps why you should bother a second time round returning to this fascinating era, then hopefully...
2018-05-28 10:30:17 +0000 UTC
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(Apologies for the lateness patrons - Patreon is acting up a bit today!)
'This is a fight between God or the Devil. If his Majesty wants to side with God, he must join me. If he prefers to side with the Devil, then indeed he must fight me. There is no third way" Gustavus Adolphus may give us our podcast's theme, and our book's title, but there was much more to the Thirty Years War than the famed King of Sweden.
In this introduction episode, we place you in t...
2018-05-28 10:22:51 +0000 UTC
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1618-2018 - on this day 400 years ago, one of the most destructive conflicts in human history erupted within the walls of Prague's Hradschin Castle. As we recount here, the conflict was neither all the fault of the Bohemians, nor sustained by them for very long. Instead, several factors prolonged the conflict and kept Europe in rapture for three decades. For the next year or so, we here at WDF want to bring you on a journey into this conflict, on a scale and with an attention to deta...
2018-05-23 00:39:24 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Back again with the second part of our TALK episode, which concludes the analysis of the Thirty Years War timeline in the typical style which only a TALK episode can manage! Here we take the story from 1635 and discuss several battles, characters and important diplomatic developments before concluding on the Peace of Westphalia. Hopefully this will get you pumped for all the content that is to come!
2018-05-18 10:03:00 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Happy birthday to us! When Diplomacy Fails is 6 years old today, and to celebrate we're jumping right into the Thirty Years War once again, with another intro episode (2/5) this one looking at the timeline of the conflict up to the year 1635, but with a twist. I'm not by myself this time - today I am joined by TALK episode guest Sean. Far too much happens to really summarise here, but as usual, skip ahead past the BEFIT rundown for the bulk of the episode, a...
2018-05-18 09:39:43 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
We're jumping back into the Thirty Years War and this is all super exciting, but to some of you guys it may also be a tad overwhelming, as a lot of unfamiliar stuff is about to be thrown at you. With that in mind, this episode is designed to familiarise you with the main themes, the most important figures, and the most active powers in Europe at the time.
We'll learn a bit about the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, meet the Habsburg family, and take a gander at some...
2018-05-13 23:01:59 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
This is something special! For all $1 Patrons and above, we have a special episode examining Henry VIII's foreign policy during the period 1509-47. This is an episode which I very much enjoyed doing, and which will be released in the History of England feed in mid-June. However, since you Patrons are so lovely and we've now abandoned the Korean War for a month, and since I want to draw people to this $1 support tier AND since it's my 1 year wedding anniversary and I do what I want, I...
2018-05-06 23:01:01 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
Episode 9, Desperately Hungary takes a somewhat depressing journey into post-war Hungary, to present to you guys a story and a people which suffered much over the course of the Soviet occupation – also known as the Soviet ‘liberation’. Liberation from what, one may ask? Well how about liberation from national pride, freedom of conscience and that all too valuable commodity in history – freedom from fear. Fear was the key ingredient in the Soviet-Hungarian relationship between...
2018-05-03 23:40:53 +0000 UTC
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PATRONS: You don't get bombarded with the ad about it in the episode, but you should know about our new sponsor - onlinegreatbooks.com! To access some fascinating books, nerd out with like minded enthusiasts, further your knowledge of some classical works, get 25% off your first three months AND help the show, head on over to...
https://intell...
2018-05-01 19:57:06 +0000 UTC
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Episode 21: In Support of My Thesis is a kind of culmination of all we've learned so far. It's also a recap of our findings and my theses for this series. What do I believe, and why do I believe it, and how do I respond to some other scholars who claim that the Korean War began for different reasons? All of these are questions I grapple with here, so if you like your debates historical be sure to stop by. Remember as well that you can access the Bibliography for this show at any time...
2018-04-29 19:04:59 +0000 UTC
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[PATRONS]
There's an awful lot to get into here, but we have to start somewhere! In this episode, I explain why my plans have effectively gone up in smoke, and what I plan to do to rectify these new developments. Expect announcements on the future of Poland Is Not Yet Lost, 1956, the Korean War, the Age of Bismarck, the Versailles Anniversary Project, and a new body of work that I will be springing on you guys from 23rd May - the Thirty Years War.
That's right! To mark the fact that it's...
2018-04-22 23:01:01 +0000 UTC
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LONG-ISH READ AHEAD.
Within this update I drop some good news on you guys, some meh news, and some bad news. Hopefully a good portion of you guys will see this, but if not, I will be releasing a State of the Podcast Address because there's been a few developments recently that I need to get off my chest. Look at me being all dramatic - everything is grand really, but I have to get real about some stuff and I'm not entirely sure how you guys are g...
2018-04-20 00:49:42 +0000 UTC
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Episode 8, The Star Pupil continues our story from last time, as the Polish situation presents us with a few more questions which require our attention. Vladislav Gomulka had managed to persuade Khrushchev that his leadership would not come at the expense of the Soviet control over the Polish satellite, but that it would on the contrary guarantee Polish loyalty to Moscow after some limited reforms. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this chapter in Soviet-Polis...
2018-04-19 22:59:30 +0000 UTC
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PATRONS: Make sure to give a warm welcome to our featured history podcast through the History Podcasting Platform: Noah Tetzner, and his History of Vikings Podcast. You can find Noah's excellent podcast here: http://thehistoryofvikings.com/author/noahtetzner/
Subscribe on iTunes: 2018-04-15 22:27:28 +0000 UTC
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Make sure you sign up to our Newsletter and get 20% off our book on the Thirty Years War!
https://mailchi.mp/a0d49eec863c/wdfpodcast
Episode 7, Soviet Sickles examines the continuing deterioration of the Polish situation as the consequences of Khrushchev’s speech were fully felt. As Polish citizens dared to ask more and more questions, and to criticise the Soviet order, on their lip...
2018-04-13 18:23:52 +0000 UTC
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Episode 19: Korean Background Part 2 picks up where we left off last time with an examination of Syngman Rhee, by examining his counterpart up North. Who was Kim Il-sung, and where did he come from to assume a position of unrivalled power in Pyongyang by 1950? Was this rise all by accident, or exclusively by Soviet design, and what was it that recommended Kim to Stalin in the first place? All of these are critical questions which we will examine here, as one of the leading antagonist...
2018-04-08 20:16:09 +0000 UTC
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Episode 6, Polish Hammers, examines the fallout of Khrushchev’s February speech in the context of Poland. What was the Polish experience of living in the Soviet orbit? Here we set the scene and trace a bit of the background. It’s a tragic kind of story if you happen to be a Pole, or care about the sovereignty of independent states, but it also makes for fascinating listening. Here we look at a specific example of a revolutionary study, which tore the lid off of Soviet occupied Po...
2018-04-06 18:31:59 +0000 UTC
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NEW: Subscribe to WDF's newsletter for a weekly update on the latest in WDF, exclusive deals, stories, quizzes, perspectives and so much more that you won't get anywhere else. Cut through the cr@p and AXXESS the history with our weekly telegram service. Simply click on the link provided and add your email, and WALLAH!
Link: https://mailchi.mp/a0d49eec863c/wdfpodcast
Episode 18: Korean Backg...
2018-04-01 22:07:22 +0000 UTC
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