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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. The Last Kingdom is

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Speaker 1: one of the most successful historical fiction series of our time.

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Speaker 1: The novels tell the epic story of the birth of

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Speaker 1: England and introduces one of the greatest fictional characters ever,

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Speaker 1: the iconic Putred of Babenberg, the Saxon born, Norse raised

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Speaker 1: warrior and rebel. In his new book, Bernard Cornwell revisits

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Speaker 1: Utred's realm illuminating elements of the Anglo Saxon world he

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Speaker 1: couldn't fully explain in his novels, and I have to

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Speaker 1: say this is one of the most creative and innovative

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Speaker 1: approaches I have ever seen to this kind of historic fiction.

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Speaker 1: Utred's Feast offers rich background on the books of The

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Speaker 1: Last Kingdom series, presenting a fascinating detailed view of Anglo

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Speaker 1: Saxon life in all its splendor, danger and beauty. With

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Speaker 1: his remarkable narrative flair, cornwy Well explores every aspect of

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Speaker 1: this historical period, from the clothes, to weapons to food,

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Speaker 1: offering beautifully crafted recipes of early Anglo Saxon fair created

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Speaker 1: by renowned British chef Suzanne Pollock. In addition, he has

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Speaker 1: written three new stories exclusive to this book the reveal

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Speaker 1: the man behind the Shield, Ughtred as a young boy,

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Speaker 1: as Alfred's advisor, and as Prince. So those of you

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Speaker 1: who've been following my podcast know that I'm just a

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Speaker 1: tremendous fan Bernard Conwell's work, both his Napoleonic series, which

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Speaker 1: is amazing in his own right and Utred's Life, and

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Speaker 1: his new book, Utred's Feast inside the World of the

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Speaker 1: Last Kingdom, is such a creative and innovative book and also,

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Speaker 1: by the way, a cookbook, so it shows a double purpose. Bernard,

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Speaker 1: welcome back and thank you for joining me again on

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Speaker 1: Newts World. And since I'm one of your biggest fans,

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Speaker 1: it is a thrill to have you here.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a great pleasure to be back with you.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious how did you come up with the notion

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Speaker 1: of Ughtred's Feast. It's a totally different approach and it's

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Speaker 1: I think brilliant.

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Speaker 2: Actually, I think it was Suzanne's idea. And Suzanne, I

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Speaker 2: hate to correct you, mister speaker. She's a good American.

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Speaker 2: Although she was born in Beirut and mainly raised in Africa.

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Speaker 2: Her father was a CIA operative. Suzanne had read the books,

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Speaker 2: and she chided me one day, just saying, whenever you

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Speaker 2: describe Utrit's food, you always have him eating the same thing.

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Speaker 2: It's salted meat, smoked fish, or cheese and bread. The

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Speaker 2: poor man must have eaten something else. And I said, well,

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Speaker 2: you're a cook, you tell me what he would eat.

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Speaker 2: And she took that as a challenge and went off

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Speaker 2: and came up with a whole lot of recipes of

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Speaker 2: Saxon food that could be as it were recreated today.

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Speaker 2: And rather foolishly, I said to my publisher we could

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Speaker 2: publish a cookbook on Saxon food and they said, yes,

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Speaker 2: if you write three short stories to go with it.

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Speaker 2: And I hate writing short stories. I found it incredibly difficult,

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Speaker 2: but I thought, okay, let's have a go. So I

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Speaker 2: think I have to credit Suzanne with the birth of

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Speaker 2: the book.

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Speaker 1: That's great, and I apologize we were told she was

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Speaker 1: a British chef.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, she's an American who cooks in America. She

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Speaker 2: lives mostly in Charleston and sometimes goes to Richmond, Virginia,

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Speaker 2: and she's a superb cook.

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Speaker 1: That's great. So have you actually tried the various recipes

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Speaker 1: very bravely?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I rather haven't taken her vegetable recipes, as I'm

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Speaker 2: not a vegetable fan, but the meat recipes are superb,

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Speaker 2: and my favorite in the book, I think is no

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Speaker 2: not meat, is peas pudding, which is basically the food

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Speaker 2: that kept European peasants alive for two thousand years. We

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Speaker 2: call it hummers.

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Speaker 1: Did so because it was easy to raise and produce

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Speaker 1: large quantities. Why was it so central.

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Speaker 2: Well, food was always a difficulty. You have to feed

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Speaker 2: yourself through the winter. You need ingredients that are accessible,

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Speaker 2: and beans are easy to grow and easy to process.

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Speaker 2: I think it's simply the availability of the ingredients, and we.

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Speaker 1: Forget that prior to the discovery of the New World, we

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Speaker 1: didn't have potatoes in the Old World, and so potatoes

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Speaker 1: gradually became the food of choice for poor people because

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Speaker 1: they're easy to raise.

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Speaker 2: I think it's one of Oocher's great regrets that he

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Speaker 2: was born and lived before the discovery of the potato.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about how you approach this.

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Speaker 1: You've written a number of smaller sets of books, but

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Speaker 1: you've written two really long series where you really see

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Speaker 1: the character and you see their development, and do you

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Speaker 1: realize when you're starting that it's going to be I

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Speaker 1: think one of those now what nineteen or twenty volumes

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Speaker 1: about the Napoleonic era.

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Speaker 2: I think they are twenty three, now twenty three.

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Speaker 1: This is I guess number what fourteen in the Utrix series.

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Speaker 2: I think it is. Yes, I think I knew when

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Speaker 2: I began Utred that it was going to be a series,

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Speaker 2: because I knew it was a long story. I certainly

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Speaker 2: knew that about Sharp, that if Sharp was going to

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Speaker 2: fight his way right through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,

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Speaker 2: it had to be a long series. Even so, I

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Speaker 2: never ever thought it would be as long as it's

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Speaker 2: turned out to be, and it may yet turn out

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Speaker 2: to be longer. I haven't given up on him. Utred

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Speaker 2: is the same. I haven't totally given up on Utred.

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Speaker 1: You have coming out in about six months or so,

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Speaker 1: you'll have another Sharp's novel coming.

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Speaker 2: Out, Yes, calld Sharp's Command that comes out. I think

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Speaker 2: in January.

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Speaker 1: You manage to go back and find new niches in

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Speaker 1: their lives that give you an excuse for the next round.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I leave gapped.

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Speaker 1: Look as a fan, I have to say, I find

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Speaker 1: myself literally getting involved in their evolution.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's very good, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, watching them grow and evolve, and the fact that

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Speaker 1: the same person could take somebody as a very young

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Speaker 1: person as you do even more with Utra than you

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Speaker 1: do as Sharp, and sort of grow with them. But

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Speaker 1: I am really astounded both at the way you have

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Speaker 1: shaped these characters over time so that they have a

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Speaker 1: natural evolution, but also parallel to that and much harder,

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Speaker 1: or at least as art. You have a knack for

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Speaker 1: writing stories that your use of English is remarkable and

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Speaker 1: you just get people in there your natural storyteller. Now

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Speaker 1: is that also true just orally or is that only

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Speaker 1: when you're writing.

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Speaker 2: I think it's mostly true when I'm writing. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I really don't know. I think, yeah, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: say it's mostly true when I'm writing.

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Speaker 1: When I was an undergraduate of Memory, I had a

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Speaker 1: medieval history professor named George Kutnaugh who said one day

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Speaker 1: he actually had no idea what was going on in

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Speaker 1: terms of newspapers because he was busy thinking about the

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Speaker 1: fourteenth century, and when he woke up in the morning

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Speaker 1: he was in the middle of the fourteenth century. And

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Speaker 1: I have a little bit of a sense here that

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Speaker 1: these are living stories to you.

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Speaker 2: No, I know exactly how he feels. I mean, if

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Speaker 2: I'm writing a book about the fourteenth century, which I

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Speaker 2: actually am at the moment, then when I wake up,

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking about it. When I take the dog for

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Speaker 2: a walk, I'm thinking about it. I mean, it's you

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Speaker 2: live in that period. But as for the storytelling, I

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Speaker 2: always think that the great joy of what I do

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Speaker 2: is that every day I sit down and I write,

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Speaker 2: and I haven't a clue what's going to happen. I

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Speaker 2: don't know how the book is going to end. I

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Speaker 2: don't know how the chapter I'm writing is going to end.

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Speaker 2: And the joy of reading a good novel is to

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Speaker 2: find out what happens. And for me, the joy of

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Speaker 2: writing one is to find out what happens. And I

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Speaker 2: think that's the clue.

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Speaker 1: Do you literally not know? I mean, when you start

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Speaker 1: one of these stories, do you really not know the end?

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Speaker 2: I really don't. I mean, if it's one of the sharps,

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Speaker 2: because most of those are built round and the great

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Speaker 2: battles that the Duke of Wellington fought in Spain and Portugal,

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Speaker 2: I mean, if it was take one example, sharp sword,

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Speaker 2: I know it's going to end at the Battle of Salamanca,

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Speaker 2: but how Sharp gets there and what's going to be

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Speaker 2: at stake for him at that battle, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: And very often, certainly this is true in the Utra books.

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Speaker 2: I'd get to chapter twelve and think, I haven't a

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Speaker 2: clue how this book is going to end, and just

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Speaker 2: keep writing is the answer. And it's very frustrating because

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Speaker 2: you suddenly find out how it's going to end, and

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Speaker 2: you think, I've now got to go back and change

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Speaker 2: everything in the book to make sure this ending works.

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Speaker 2: But it does work in the end.

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Speaker 1: But I've had some novelists tell me that their characters

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Speaker 1: inform them. They suddenly develop their own logic, in their

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Speaker 1: own patterns. You're almost transcribing them rather than inventing them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they make decisions which often I dislike, but I

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Speaker 2: let them do it because that's what they want to do.

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Speaker 2: And it's extraordinary. I mean, in the Sharp books, Sharp,

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Speaker 2: who is an inveterate enemy of the French in all

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Speaker 2: the books, ends up marrying a frenchwoman and living in France.

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Speaker 2: I never intended him to do that. He just did

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Speaker 2: it on his own, and as far as I know,

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Speaker 2: he's still there and very happy, and I think that's

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Speaker 2: actually rather fun when characters dictate to you what they

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Speaker 2: want to do.

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Speaker 1: You do have a legitimate tie to Ughtred, if I

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Speaker 1: remember correctly, through a very distant relative of yours.

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Speaker 2: He's a distant ancestor of mine. Yes, indeed he is,

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Speaker 2: and he claimed ancestry from the god Odin, so I

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Speaker 2: think I can claim ancestry from Odin too, which is

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Speaker 2: rather nice thought.

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Speaker 1: So you were currently Odin's writer, That's one way to

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Speaker 1: think of it.

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Speaker 2: I hadn't thought of that, but yes, why not? Was that?

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Speaker 1: A part of what got you into Haughtred was Beeglenberg itself?

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was. I had long wanted to write a

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Speaker 2: series of novels that described the creation of England because

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Speaker 2: I realized that although I received a very good education

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Speaker 2: in Britain, I hadn't a clue how England had actually

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Speaker 2: come to be. But I didn't know quite how to

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Speaker 2: tell that story. And then I discovered that I was

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Speaker 2: descended from this great warrior Utred of Bebenberg, and I thought,

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Speaker 2: that's it. I'll tell his story because he was alive

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Speaker 2: at that time. Now we know very little about him.

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Speaker 2: I mean everything I put in the books is fiction.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I've given the poor man a much more

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Speaker 2: exciting life than he probably led. But that was the key.

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Speaker 2: The key to it was discovering that I was descended

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Speaker 2: from this Saxon warrior.

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Speaker 1: Damon Brog itself is open now to the public, isn't.

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Speaker 2: It It is. It's called Bambrough Castle and it's a

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Speaker 2: magnificent place. The castle we see today was mostly rebuilt

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Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, but it's still an extraordinary place,

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Speaker 2: built on this volcanic plug of rock on the Northumbrian coast,

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Speaker 2: and it wasn't until it was battered by artillery that

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Speaker 2: it actually fell. And it was an enormous fortress that

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Speaker 2: resisted the vikings and lasted right through history. And it's

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Speaker 2: still there and open to visitors and well worth a visit.

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Speaker 2: It's an extraordinary place.

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Speaker 1: And it also resisted the Scots it did.

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Speaker 2: Indeed, it was the favorite place where you imprisoned Scots

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Speaker 2: because they couldn't get out and they couldn't be rescued.

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Speaker 2: King David the Second of Scotland ended up for a

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Speaker 2: time there before he was sent to the Tower of London.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that struck me is Historically, I've

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Speaker 1: often always identified al For the Great with the development

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Speaker 1: of England or engla Land as you called it in

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Speaker 1: that period, But in fact there's like three or four

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Speaker 1: generations of fighting to solidify the ability of the English

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Speaker 1: to govern the southern two thirds of the kingdom.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean Alfred. You can credit Alfred with the

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Speaker 2: idea of England or Englandland. He was an extraordinary man,

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Speaker 2: and while he was king the English, the Saxon suffered

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Speaker 2: the biggest reverse when the Danes the Vikings really succeeded

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Speaker 2: in just about capturing the whole island except for a

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Speaker 2: little patch of the west country, and Alfred rebounded from

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Speaker 2: that to defeat them. But it was his son Edward

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Speaker 2: and his grandson Athelstan who actually made and his daughter

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Speaker 2: indeed Ethelflayd, who created what we now call England. But

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Speaker 2: all they were doing was building his dream. And it

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Speaker 2: was Alfred's dream of a united Saxon country that became England.

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Speaker 2: So he certainly deserves the epithet the Great, and without him,

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure it would have happened.

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Speaker 1: I was very struck in the TV series. I thought

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Speaker 1: that the person who played Alfred was really convincing.

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Speaker 2: He was wonderful. David Dawson, he was absolutely splendid. And

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Speaker 2: because I had to follow real history, I felt that

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Speaker 2: some of the life went from the books when Alfred died,

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Speaker 2: because without Alfred to bounce off, Ughtred was rather rootless,

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Speaker 2: but he kept going.

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Speaker 1: There are enough challenges from the concept of England to

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Speaker 1: the reality of England. Your description of the Ultimate Battle,

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Speaker 1: which I didn't realize. We're not totally sure where the

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Speaker 1: battle took place when the three armies came.

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Speaker 2: We are now, we are now. There's a wonderful scholar

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Speaker 2: in Charleston, South Carolina called Michael Livingstone who has become

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Speaker 2: really the world's greatest expert on where battles took place,

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Speaker 2: and he's extraordinarily clever. But the real credit for discovering

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Speaker 2: the battle site goes to a group of amateur archaeologists

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Speaker 2: in Britain who discovered the site. It's on the wirrald

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Speaker 2: near Liverpool, and Michael almost immediately visited and confirmed their discovery.

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Speaker 2: So we do know now where Brunenberg was fought, but

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Speaker 2: for hundreds of years the battle site was lost, and

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Speaker 2: indeed the battle itself was almost forgotten, and yet after

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Speaker 2: Hastings it's probably the most important battle fought on British soil.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's what I was struck by in the novel

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Speaker 1: where you deal with that. I mean, here's this extraordinary

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Speaker 1: moment when all these armies come together in one last

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Speaker 1: desperate effort to stop the English, and they easily could

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Speaker 1: have won.

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Speaker 2: They could and should in many ways they should have won.

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Speaker 2: It was Athelstan, Alfred's grandson who led the so called English.

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Speaker 2: He would have said he led the West Saxons. And

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Speaker 2: it was a brutal, horrible battle. It was one of

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Speaker 2: these battles of the shield Wall, which are almost unthinkable today.

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Speaker 2: I mean, when you are within three or four feet

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Speaker 2: of your enemy, you can smell him, and you're hacking

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Speaker 2: at each other with lead weighted axes and swords and spears.

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Speaker 2: They were gruesome battles. Brunenberg was an enormous battle which

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Speaker 2: ended up in a total victory for the Saxons.

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Speaker 1: And at that point it sort of settles down. But

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Speaker 1: I mean, the truth is English history is pretty violent

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Speaker 1: for virtue its entire period.

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Speaker 2: So is American mister speaker.

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Speaker 1: Listen, I plead guilty. We've had our share of conflict.

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Speaker 2: But the making of England was really a war. It

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Speaker 2: was a brutal war between the Viking invaders and the

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Speaker 2: Saxons trying to defend their own territory and retake their territory,

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Speaker 2: and very little of it was peaceful. It's marked by

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Speaker 2: a series of battles and it was indeed very gruesome

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Speaker 2: and very bloody.

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Speaker 1: I want to see if I've captured where you're coming from.

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Speaker 1: My reading is that Ughtred is attracted to the Norse life,

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Speaker 1: but ultimately as loyal to the English. He always ends

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Speaker 1: up being loyal to the concept of England.

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Speaker 2: He does, but he was brought up by Danes, and

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Speaker 2: he actually loves the day. He marries a Dane and

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Speaker 2: they appeal to him. He likes their lifestyle, he likes

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Speaker 2: their attitude to life and death, and in many ways

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Speaker 2: he fights like a Dane. There was a kind of

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Speaker 2: feeling among the Saxons that it took three Saxons to

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Speaker 2: defeat one Dane, when Utred basically says, well, in that case,

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Speaker 2: we'd better fight like the Danes, and he does. He's

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Speaker 2: a Viking at heart, but he's a Viking who's on

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Speaker 2: our side, and there were Danes who fought in athols

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Speaker 2: Stan's army. By this time, they'd settled in England, they'd

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Speaker 2: married Saxon women, and they felt as English as the English,

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Speaker 2: and quite a lot of them were in athols Stan's

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Speaker 2: army fighting against their Danish and Irish enemies.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that striking, and I'm just now

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Speaker 1: watching a movie called Redbad, which I think is either

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Speaker 1: Danish or Norwegian, but it's about the degree to which

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Speaker 1: Christianity is dissolving Paganism. So the Christianity becomes a major

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Speaker 1: weapon in terms of unifying England and in terms of

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Speaker 1: ultimately undermining Viking civilization.

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Speaker 2: I think that's absolutely true, just as it undermines Anglo

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Speaker 2: Saxon culture. And Ughtred is stubbornly a pagan. I don't

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Speaker 2: think that's out of any great belief in pagan gods.

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Speaker 2: It's basically to annoy Alfred, and having taken that position,

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Speaker 2: he sticks to it. But the war was more than

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Speaker 2: just a political struggle. It really was a religious struggle,

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Speaker 2: and Alfred saw it very much in those terms. He

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Speaker 2: believed that if a Dane converted to Christianity, then that

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Speaker 2: he became a friend, not an enemy.

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Speaker 1: So in a very raal sense, the missionary priests are

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Speaker 1: a significant part of Alfred's grand strategy.

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Speaker 2: They are, indeed, and converting Danish rulers of Viking leaders

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Speaker 2: to Christianity was vitally important because once they were converted,

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Speaker 2: he believed they would turn all their followers into Christians,

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Speaker 2: who in turn would unite with the Saxon Christians.

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Speaker 1: The process of all that, you have moments it's a

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Speaker 1: little hard to know who's up and who's done. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you have King Canute, for example, who has an enormous

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Speaker 1: influence and is one of the strongest leaders, in fact,

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Speaker 1: probably the strongest leader in the North in his lifetime.

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Speaker 2: Oh indeed, he comes a little after Pure and it's

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Speaker 2: Canute indeed who is responsible for taking Bebenberg away from

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Speaker 2: the family. But Canute was an enormously successful and great leader,

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Speaker 2: and he is often called Canute the Great too, who

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Speaker 2: takes England and makes it part of the Viking Empire.

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Speaker 1: When you look at all this, I'm fascinated that you

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Speaker 1: have managed the nutrient's feast to weave together historical stories

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Speaker 1: where you're just a great storyteller worth literally a cookbook.

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Speaker 1: It's a brilliant concept. I don't know very many people

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Speaker 1: who could have pulled this off. It just struck me

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Speaker 1: that the de gree to which the Anglo Saxon diet

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Speaker 1: of that period could be translated into modern meals, well.

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Speaker 2: That's what Suzanne did. I mean, Suzanne was determined to

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Speaker 2: make them accessible that if you can go to almost

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Speaker 2: any supermarket, you can buy the ingredients and then she

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Speaker 2: tells you how to prepare them, and it's actually rather

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Speaker 2: a healthy diet.

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Speaker 1: They didn't have processed sugar for one thing.

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Speaker 2: There's no process that you had to have honey instead,

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Speaker 2: so there's no sugar in it. And okay, it can

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Speaker 2: be quite meat heavy, but I like that, so I'm

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Speaker 2: not going to complain.

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Speaker 1: Did they actually have that much meat?

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Speaker 2: They certainly had a lot, but not enough to feed

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Speaker 2: everybody sort of thing. I'm sure most peasants kept a pig,

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Speaker 2: and November was known as the month of slaughter, where

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Speaker 2: you slaughtered your livestock, just keeping a few alive to

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Speaker 2: breed the following year, and you would then salt that

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Speaker 2: meat down or smoke the meat, and that would feed

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Speaker 2: you through the winter. But if you had one or

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Speaker 2: two pigs, that didn't provide that much meat for the

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Speaker 2: whole winter. Meanwhile, the aristocracy, like Utre himself, would probably

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Speaker 2: eat meat year round because they were privileged.

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Speaker 1: Now, you also make a point that bread and rolls

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Speaker 1: and that sort of product are very central to their

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Speaker 1: whole dial.

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Speaker 2: Bread is very, very central, and according to Suzanne who

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Speaker 2: has tried cooking some of it, it does taste a

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Speaker 2: bit different, tastes rather rustic. The one thing it doesn't

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Speaker 2: have in it is chips of stone, which they would

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Speaker 2: have had because as the millwheels ground away, some stone

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Speaker 2: would chip off and it would end up in the

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Speaker 2: flour and you'd bite down on bread and there goes

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Speaker 2: another molar.

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Speaker 1: How's he going to say? I think most modern people

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Speaker 1: would find that a bit tricky. But baking, as I

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Speaker 1: remember correctly, one of the points you make is I

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Speaker 1: think literally having a baker goes back to at least

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Speaker 1: two thousand BC, so bread has been integral.

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Speaker 2: They have the oven, I mean a bread oven is

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Speaker 2: not easy to make, and right through until at least

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Speaker 2: Tudor time, it was often there was just one baker

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Speaker 2: in town and you took your pies to him to

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Speaker 2: have them baked. You could make a pie, but you

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Speaker 2: didn't have your own oven, so you'd walk it down

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Speaker 2: the street and give it to the baker and he'd

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Speaker 2: charge you a penny or two and bake your pie.

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Speaker 1: The meat itself was usually cooked over an open fire,

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Speaker 1: wasn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was open fire, or it was braised. I

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Speaker 2: mean they had good cooking pans, but yes, it's opened.

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Speaker 2: A lot of it is open fire cooking.

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Speaker 1: Would they have had metal cooking pans?

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Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, I mean, and we've discovered a lot

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Speaker 2: of them. They had metal cooking pans and metal spits

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Speaker 2: and enormous cauldrons.

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Speaker 1: I've started reading the gallows for Sharp command your ability

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Speaker 1: to go from Anglo Saxon food around eight hundred and

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Speaker 1: then jumping to eighteen twenty or eighteen ten. They're totally

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Speaker 1: different worlds, totally different rhythms.

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Speaker 2: They are. But I've lived with Sharp now for forty years,

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Speaker 2: so I mean, picking Sharp up again was not difficult.

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Speaker 2: I mean, he lurks at the back of my head

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Speaker 2: all the time, and I've always wanted to write one

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Speaker 2: more story of Sharp in Spain, and this was it,

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Speaker 2: and he sprang to life really quite easily.

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Speaker 1: Well thanks to you. I ended up one day touring

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Speaker 1: the walls of Taurus VDRA with a local expert and

404
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Speaker 1: just getting a feel for that. I think Wellington's campaign

405
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Speaker 1: is extraordinary at every level, starting in India.

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Speaker 2: He was an absolutely extraordinary man. I mean, for my money,

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Speaker 2: they're certainly the greatest general in British history and probably

408
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Speaker 2: in European history. The French would disagree, but then Waterloo

409
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Speaker 2: happened and they can't argue with that.

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Speaker 1: I teach a class for major generals, and I always

411
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Speaker 1: tell him the story about the head of the horse

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Speaker 1: Guards the British Army Headquarters writing Wellington and saying we're

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Speaker 1: sending you a new division commander. It's Lord So and so.

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Speaker 1: You will have heard rumors that he is crazy, but

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Speaker 1: when they released him from the asylum, they assured me

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Speaker 1: that he was fine, although I must say he looked

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Speaker 1: a little wild in the eye when I said goodbye

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Speaker 1: to him at the porch. And I just tell him,

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Speaker 1: this is one of his three division commanders, so don't

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Speaker 1: tell me you have a problem.

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Speaker 2: Who then went on to fail spectacularly. Yes, he was

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Speaker 2: as mad as a hatter.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and so Wellington had to run the army and

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Speaker 1: run that division because he had no commander who could

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Speaker 1: actually run. It's one of those marvelous moments that's sort

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Speaker 1: of hard to explain. Yeah, I may have told you

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Speaker 1: one time when we did a podcast, but I really

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Speaker 1: got turned on to you by General Jim Mattis. We

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Speaker 1: were having dinner one night and he said he had

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Speaker 1: never understood Waterloo until he read your version, and he

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Speaker 1: said he could understand it. And that led me into

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Speaker 1: Sharps and then everything. Since then, you say you had

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Speaker 1: a four star general Secretary of Defense who thought you

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Speaker 1: wrote the best single explanation of Waterloo. I thought that

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Speaker 1: was pretty good.

436
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 2: Waterloo is just a great story. I mean, it is

437
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,840
Speaker 2: an extraordinary story because although the battle begins around eleven

438
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, by about half past seven that night,

439
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:24,880
Speaker 2: you really couldn't tell who was going to win. Which

440
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 2: is why when I wrote my only nonfiction book, which

441
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 2: is the story of Waterloo, it felt in many ways

442
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,400
Speaker 2: like writing a novel, simply because the story was on

443
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 2: the knife edge all the way through until the last chapter.

444
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:40,359
Speaker 1: If the Prussians had not shown up, could Wellington have

445
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: stood or would he have been forced back?

446
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 2: Probably forced back because obviously Napoleon could have thrown more

447
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 2: troops at him. I mean, Napoleon made so many mistakes

448
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 2: that day that it's very difficult. I mean, I'm told

449
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,720
Speaker 2: by people who wargame, but it's almost impossible for the

450
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 2: British to win on the war gaming tables. But you know,

451
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 2: raw factor is that they did.

452
00:25:02,359 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: One of the things I'm curious about when you stay

453
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: with Sharps for a second, somehow this relatively small professional

454
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: army had an enormous sense of morale and pride. They

455
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: were willing to take on you, Jode, just because they

456
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: were who.

457
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 2: They were, Yes, they were, and it was partly, I

458
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 2: think because they were so superbly led. I mean a

459
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 2: sergeant wrote after the wars, all we ever ask is

460
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 2: for Wellington's leaders. We know we'd be well led, we

461
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 2: know we'd be well fed, and we know we'd win.

462
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 2: And Wellington himself reckoned that army was the finest army

463
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 2: probably in all Britain's history, and he only wished he

464
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 2: had it with him at Waterloo, which he didn't, of course,

465
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 2: but the same thing applied. They had total faith in him,

466
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 2: And I mean he once said that the presence of

467
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 2: Napoleon on a battlefield was worth at least ten thousand men.

468
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 2: Some people say he said forty thousand men, but I

469
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 2: would say the presence of Wellington on a battlefield was

470
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 2: probably worth the same. They had total faith in him.

471
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:06,880
Speaker 2: He was a general who never lost a battle.

472
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: Now you cover this in the very early sharpest books.

473
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: To understand Wellington and the Peninsula, you have to look

474
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: at Wellesley as he was then in India. That the

475
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,960
Speaker 1: Indian experience shapes him in a way that no other

476
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: British general has been shaped.

477
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,239
Speaker 2: Absolutely, he learned his trade really in India. And in

478
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,719
Speaker 2: later life he was asked what was he most proud

479
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 2: of and he answered assay, which was at one of

480
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 2: the battles in India, And to say, he took an

481
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 2: enormous risk and threw his small army really into a

482
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 2: position where it could have been completely defeated and won.

483
00:26:41,640 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 2: And he was incredibly proud of his strategy on that day.

484
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 2: And he's often called a great defensive general, which he was,

485
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 2: and this is really an insult to him, which the

486
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 2: French rather liked. But in fact he was also a

487
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,520
Speaker 2: great attacking general, as he proved a to say, and

488
00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 2: forever after Salamancaca was an extraordinary attacking battle in which

489
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 2: he attacked and, as somebody said, destroyed forty thousand frenchmen

490
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 2: in forty minutes.

491
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: I think that's the one where he's sitting on the horse, yes,

492
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: holding the chicken leg, and he suddenly realized that they're split,

493
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 1: and he throws the chicken leg and says, I have him.

494
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 2: Yes, he is Marmonte, perdue monche Aliva Marmont, of my

495
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:25,280
Speaker 2: dear Aliva. Who is this Spanish liaison officer? Marmont is lost?

496
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 2: And he chucks the chicken leg over his shoulder and

497
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 2: gallops after the third division.

498
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: But you know your description of a say, I'll just

499
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,479
Speaker 1: say this for all of our listeners every rudder three times,

500
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: because you capture the Scottish battalions or the Scott's battalions,

501
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: the way they fought, and the discipline and the odds

502
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: they fought against, and the degree to which at some

503
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: point one side of the other is going to have

504
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,680
Speaker 1: its morale break and the side that has its morale

505
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: break is doomed.

506
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 2: Is doomed. Yes, And it was interesting in the Scottish

507
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:02,520
Speaker 2: Italian One of them got cut up very badly and

508
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 2: an Indian farmer when I visited at Say, told me

509
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 2: about finding the bones when he plowed the field, and

510
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 2: he said they were very big men, and I thought, okay,

511
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 2: but I doubted that they were any larger than the

512
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: rest of the army. But it turned out he was right,

513
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 2: and I came across figures that showed that Scottish soldiers

514
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:23,680
Speaker 2: on the whole were three or four inches taller than

515
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 2: the English and Welsh soldiers. And the Scots were enormously brave.

516
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 2: And it's more than morale, it's also discipline. It's an

517
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 2: iron discipline. As one battalion commander said to his men

518
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 2: at the Battle of Waterloo, as long as you stand,

519
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: you'll live. But if just one of you turns and

520
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: runs away, were all dead. So just stand, and they did.

521
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 2: And the morning of Waterloo Napoleon was worned. It had

522
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: never fought against British infantry, and he was worn by

523
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:58,959
Speaker 2: his generals that they were incredibly tough to beat. And

524
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,479
Speaker 2: he rather dismissed and said, just because you've all been

525
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 2: defeated by Wellington, you think he's a great general. But

526
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 2: I tell you he's a bad general and his soldiers

527
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 2: are bad soldiers.

528
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: There are two things about that whole French relationship with

529
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: Wellington I've never fully understood. The first is that the

530
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: British figure out, because the French are so reliant on

531
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: their artillery that if you just stay slightly behind the

532
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: military crest, virtually all the French cannonade will be irrelevant.

533
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 1: It'll be noisy, but it's not going to hurt anybody.

534
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 2: It would hurt a few, but not many.

535
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: But the French never seem to understand this.

536
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:34,719
Speaker 2: No, they didn't.

537
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 1: I mean, in all those battles, Wellington does exactly the

538
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: same thing. They're just slightly behind the military crest, the

539
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: bombardment's over, and.

540
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 2: He tells them are to lie down so that a

541
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 2: cannonball or shell that skims the crest won't hit them

542
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 2: in the head. And there's a rather untactful moment before

543
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 2: the Battle of Waterloo when Wellington visits Blucha, the Prussian general,

544
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 2: and sees his men lined up on the slopes at

545
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 2: len Yi and says, that's not very sensible. Why don't

546
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 2: you take them back over the crest where they can't

547
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: be hit by the French artillery. And I think it

548
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 2: was nisenhow who was an aid to camp to Blueesche.

549
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 2: Rather cavalier said, our men like to see the enemy. Well,

550
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 2: his men did see the enemy and died. They were

551
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: cut down by French artillery two days later at Waterloo.

552
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,240
Speaker 2: The same thing did not happen to Wellington, because he'd

553
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 2: retired them over the crest. You know, it's the oldest

554
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,360
Speaker 2: trick in the book, hyder men from the enemy.

555
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: And the second part of that is that consistently for

556
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: the entire Peninsula campaign up through Waterloo, the British ability

557
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: to shoot from the line against the column, so that

558
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: the British given anything, not even parody. If they're only

559
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: on numbers, say four to one, they're actually going to

560
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,560
Speaker 1: bring far more muskets to bear than the French.

561
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 2: Are yes, And the British were the only army to

562
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 2: actually practice with live ammunition. It sounds extrame ordinary, but

563
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 2: I guess ammunition was precious and short, and the others didn't.

564
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: And the French relied heavily on the column, which is

565
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 2: a very tight formation. But nobody rather in the middle

566
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 2: of the column can actually fire a musket. All they

567
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 2: can do is just keep marching forward while the guys

568
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 2: in the front two ranks and down the side files

569
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 2: may be able to fire, and they're faced by this

570
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 2: very thin line only too deep of red coats, where

571
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 2: every man can fire. And the French did realize this,

572
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 2: I mean, they were not completely stupid, and they developed

573
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 2: a tactic to get over it, which was to advance

574
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: in column because it was a quick way to advance,

575
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 2: but just before you got to within firing range you

576
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,240
Speaker 2: deployed into line. But that didn't work either. They tried

577
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 2: that at Waterloo and it didn't work at all. So

578
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 2: the line versus column is a trophy of the Peninsula

579
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 2: Wall and indeed of Waterloo.

580
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating process. And of course the other thing

581
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: is you have to have pretty good logistics to have

582
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: live fire practice.

583
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:04,480
Speaker 2: You do, and Wellington was a master of logistics, which

584
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 2: is really that's one of the things he learned in

585
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 2: India how to keep his armies supplied, and throughout his career,

586
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,239
Speaker 2: logistics is a key to almost everything. I mean, his

587
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:17,920
Speaker 2: worst moments were in the retreat from Burgos, where logistics

588
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 2: fell apart because of the mistake of a quartermaster, and

589
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:24,959
Speaker 2: that was probably his most miserable time in all his career.

590
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: Then tarding a lesson not to let it happen.

591
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 2: Yes, he blamed himself. If something went wrong, it was

592
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 2: his fault.

593
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: I just want to say your new book, Utred's Feast

594
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: is about as creative and unique an approach as I've

595
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: seen in a series. Anybody who has not started either

596
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: the series involving Utrid or the series involving Sharp, you

597
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: have a wonderful experience ahead of you. This is one

598
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: of the great novelists of our time. He writes just

599
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: remarkably useful books where you just learn a lot of

600
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: stuff while also being entertained. Bernard, I really want to

601
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 1: thank you, as I think you know, I get great

602
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: joy out of doing a podcast with you because I'm

603
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 1: so impressed and fascinated with your abilities, and I really

604
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: appreciate you taking the time to talk with us both

605
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,760
Speaker 1: about the art of being a writer and about Utred's Feast.

606
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: And in April, Sharp's Command will be coming out and

607
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll have a chance to talk again.

608
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you,

609
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 2: mister speaker.

610
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest, Bernard Cornwell. You can get

611
00:33:32,360 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: a link to buy his new book, Utridz Feast on

612
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 1: our show page. At newsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced

613
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: by Gingers three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

614
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: Guarnsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork

615
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks

616
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: to the team at Gingish three sixty. If you've been

617
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and

618
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:59,480
Speaker 1: both rate us with five stars and give us a

619
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now,

620
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 1: listeners of neut World consign up for my three freeweekly

621
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:10,399
Speaker 1: columns at Gingrish three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm

622
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: newt Gingrich. This is neutrald