Wellington's Triumph: Vitoria 1813

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Amazing content. I would appreciate if in the future you/the team could possibly include Portuguese flags in the animation, deserved in any video about the Peninsular War after hundreds of thousands dying during the many combats. Cheers :)

It is sad that in spanish history classrooms in school do not give the credit that really diserves to UK

​@Igor Sousa
at the end, the losses of the combatants are listed: the French over a quarter of a million, the Spanish at least 3 hundred thousand, the English 52 thousand, the Portuguese 15 thousand, i.e. a modest number compared to the size of the carnage

@generaldhautpoul8388 To diminish life lost in combat is not the way. In terms of % of troops/population 15 thousand mans was quite a lot for Portugal. My opinion.

Yeah, this is a VERY great channel!
The Maps, showing of artworks, sound design and so on.
It makes it really fascinating to watch.

true words, couldnt be said any better!

very correct

The Great War is better but they only focus on WW1 and also WW2 in their other channel. Other than that, this channel is the best.

@Travis Bickle the Great War is fantastic as well for sure.
There is just something mystical the way Epic History does there videos.

Wellington's Victory or the Battle Symphony.
Contains hints of the 'British Grenadiers' 'Rule Britannia' and ironically enough 'Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre', from which we get the tune for the song For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.

That guy was real two-faced lol. Loved Napoléon so much that he made a symphony of him, and then despised him after he became emperor.

@DomWeasel dang really cool

@Léon Rothier yup. one time he refused to bow down to emperor Francis of Austria.

@Léon Rothier i think the two faces one was Napoleon, defending revolutionary ideas and crowning himself emperor and elevating all his family and friends to the higher ranks of nobility. Making his son heir of the empire just like a true monarch.
If i were a revolutionary, i would also feel betrayed.

I can imagine him waging war on the rest of them and winning it. Meanwhile Napoleon is up in haven smiling 😂

The Great War and Alexander had cleared his path to the throne, Napoleon would dominate his 10 year reign, a period unpresedented in drama that would leave millions of Bonapartists and a KRclip community in turmoil.

@Kevin Dalton Well the coalitoin would be the armchair historian (as prussia), Timeghost & World war two (as Sweden) Kings and Generals (as Austria), Mark Felton (as Britian), Simon Whistler (as Naples), Timeline World History (as Bavaria), Simple History (as Portugal), and the Great war (as Russia) vs Epic History Tv (The empire) Who will win?

@Quang Minh Nguyễn Explain

@Patriot Adam there's too many coalition members missing here but its a start no doubt

Same here! Now that would just be Epic.

Italian then Austrian then definitely Egyptian. I'm still hoping we leave the series on a high note and the battle of the pyramids would definitely be a conclusive end.
Let's get to Italia soon!!

Same here & how the British captured the Rosetta Stone

Indeed we need the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, as well as battles of the 1st and 2nd coalition where Napoleon was not in charge.

I agree!

And Richard Sharpe could have never pulled it off without Patric Harper.

​@Yard HatchThat is true soldiering !

BAH! Sharpe is not a GENTLEMEN, Sah! Do not overestimate his accomplishments!

​@Yard Hatch or the rest of his chosen men 😅

Atleast he respects women.

Hermano, Wellington marchaba destruyendo la industria manufacturera española para que después de la guerra no hubiera competencia económica con Inglaterra. Como se ve en este capítulo, las riquezas españolas que dejaron tiradas los franceses fueron a parar a bolsillos ingleses y lo que pudieron recuperar lo usaron para pagar "salarios" de soldados ingleses que ya tenían los bolsillos llenos. Tu ídolo inglés no es más que un pirata de tierra. Fue la guerrilla y la población española la que hizo todo el trabajo de desgaste francés. Fue una guerra del pueblo y un mérito del pueblo español.

English soldiers had a fun time with spanish girls aswell. 😂😉😉

@Jean Lannes yep, that's their pirate/viking heritage... nothing nice.

@factor.. a source on how wellington destroyed the Spanish manufacturing industry please

The only bad thing is that the British also destroyed our scarse industry so… less competition for them

There were probably less soldiers with diarrhea.

@Liberty Prime To which an aid corrects him, "these days they are referred to as the squitters mi Lord". 😂

At the end of the battle:
"I’ve never seen the army so healthy, so strong and rich"

Boney's main deficit was, he was an artilleryman by trade. When he encountered well drilled and well led infantry the French faced some serious problems.
Although Sir Arthur got his rank, till LTC with purchase and luck, he outwitted the French, in several areas: like recon, intelligence, mapping.

@E K
I think the primary factor is France was facing 4 major world powers and 5 smaller allies on 2 fronts. Napoleon wasn’t just an artilleryman and the French faced tougher troops than British regulars. Russian imperial guards certainly weren’t push overs and arguably more deadly than British regulars, its a common argument that wellington outclassed the French, when in reality it was the outnumbering and out-logisticsing that did the job.

@Rhys Nichols outnumbering? Vittoria was the fist time we outnumbered them in a major engagement in Spain

@Rhys Nichols
Well, Prussia was passive 1806-1812.
The same with Austria (1809 - 1812) and Russia.
The only active theatre between 1809 - 1812 was Spain, and the sea war with Britain.

@Aaron Storey
And most Spanish troops were of lesser quality.
The real core of the Allied Army in the Peninsula consisted of the Anglo-Portuguese forces.
In the cavalry branch just some Cazadores and the mounted units of the KGL.
British cavalry was very erratic at that time.

Indeed.

You can't compare. Middle Ages and Renaissance were more about siege warfare than pitched battles.

@Gontrand Jojo I disagree. The Middle Ages were the age of nepotism and the divine right of kings, the Napoleonic wars was the age of meritocracy. No one in the previous ages save for the early Roman Empire and republic, could become politically powerful without first having been born into it. Most of the commanders of france were made out of necessity due to the purges of the revolution. And this was so successful many of the other monarchies followed the trend France set. If you look at the top one hundred generals in history by battles won, around 30 percent are napoleonic era generals and french marshals

WAN AHMAD RAQIB BIN WAN ABDILLAH - never said it was the only age, but it was by far the one with the greatest concentration of competent generals, and I did not say only French marshals. Napoleon alone has the most victories of any commander in history with 56 battles won.

@Luis Rebellon Acording to Wikipedia are 70 at leastt!

That guy is like 'ooh.. shit.. '

Goya

If you loved the art I will tell you some of the painters there: The first two ones are Goya's paintings, dark paintings transmitting the suffering of the Spanish nation during the insurrection of Madrid. The third one is from César Álvarez Dumont, called "The Great day of Girona", when with aid of English and Irish troops repelled a push from French troops into the city. It's my natal city and we consider Girona "three times immortal" because of the 3 sieges it resisted against the french, although the last one did conquer the city there was little to use or conquer as everyone fought till the end. You can see from the back an english commander guiding the resistance and local troops against the french troops. I don't know about the other paintings but if you want to look at a good one look up the one Ramón Martí Alsina did. A 5x11 meter painting depicting once again "The great day of Girona".

I enjoy learning the correct pronunciations

I think it's important. It shows respect and also care for what is being talked about. If you show care about the details of pronunciation, it's likely you are dedicating similar care to the details of what you are talking about. I say this as a Brit who has little deep knowledge of other languages...!

As a Latiniard that I am, I also have to say that the pronunciation is very good.

That's soldiering.

Well luckily for us, history will never be over

That's also foreshadowing

I hope they remake their Waterloo video. The current one simply isn't of the same quality and standard of their other Napoleon videos.

@Anzac-A1 i agree however it is nostalgic to me now in a way

It does spoil us.
Too many wannabe history channels out there with kids narrating and seemingly unaware of how bland their cracking nasal tones are.

Kings and Generals, History Marche, Baz Battles... they all know that only British narrators are suppossed to narrate history.

To be fair there where only 2 Spanish Divisions at Vitoria but they where both not only heavily engaged by successful as well, The Spanish army had a poor battle record during the Peninsular war, but they just kept bouncing back, many think the British where as bad as the French (many Spaniards I have talked to anyway) and that always makes me sad, have much respect fort he Spanish and I like that Wellington understood the value of the Guerillas really very early.

@Delogros It makes me sad what you say about the Spaniards, but unfortunately it doesn't surprise me. Most Spanish history nerds tend to mix their national pride with the historical facts, which leads them to wrong perspectives when analyzing our history. The British had a very bad reputation in Spain back then, after all it had been 300 years of conflict between Spain and Great Britain. Wellington's retreat in La Coruña in 1809 didn't help to boost Spanish trust in the British either...don't get me wrong: Wellington did the right thing from a military perspective, but the Spaniards felt abandoned...actually, they covered their retreat and only surrendered when all the British ships were safe.Such state of affairs between the 2 nations led to some stories of British troops misbehaving in Spain's soil during the Peninsula War, but there is little historical evidence of that.
The truth is that Spain and Portugal couldn't have defeated France without the British, while the British couldn't have defeated the French without the support of both guerrilla and regular forces from Spain and Portugal. It was a team effort of the 3 nations to defeat the greatest land army of the time. The Spanish should have trusted the British more, the British should have understood Spanish pride better (a declining empire, fighting in our motherland, etc.)...well, nothing is perfect, but we did get the job done. Together.
This might hurt some prides in this or the other side of the "Armada Invencible", but history doesn't exist to make us feel prouder or to carry on some political agendas. One has to be extra-careful when judging the history of his own country, people, tribe, clan, whatever...I'm afraid the Spaniards you mention aren`t. But now you know there are some of us that are grateful you came to help....Portugal (just a joke ;)

@Eduardo Peña La Coruña was Moore not Wellington :) That is probably true about the misbehaving, armies are notorious for it often even in there own territory however Wellingtons punishment for looting and other offenses where huge, he ordered the hanging of 2 looters without trail at least once.
"It was a team effort" truer words have never been spoken, hindsight is also 20-20 although I am "annoyed" the Spanish didn't make Wellington the supreme commander earlier I do understand the hesitation, though I do wonder if the Salamanca campaign might have turned out differently had he been commander at that point.
Literally 2 of them told me the Spanish won the battle of Trafalgar... I give the Spanish a hard time sometimes for the Peninsular war but as you say the truth is the British would never have been able to field a strong enough army to retake the land without the Spanish, given what was accomplished in a few months of working together it would have been interesting to see that continue after the war.

@Eduardo Peña The armies of Spain, Portugal and Britain and the people of Spain and Portugal beat France. Take anyone of those away and all would have failed. It's normal for all of us to focus on our own countries contribution but I believe anyone who looks at this period knows the truth.

@Delogros General Moore did the right thing in withdrawing

This would indeed be a crime against nature. Only lamb should be eaten with mint sauce!

More seriously, Prisoners taken by British in Spain were sent to a Desert island with no food. They all die from starvation and or diseases. If you were a prisoner back then, it was far better to be prisoner of the French or the Austrians than Prussians or British. Spanish guérilla is even worst, they committed a long list of atrocities to create panic in French ranks. And in response French did the same …

Honestly that's still better than the mint sauce@Amazigh Blue Azul - Anti Mafia - Anti ANPD

@Amazigh Blue Azul - Anti Mafia - Anti ANPD You're talking about the French prisoners taken at Bailen. Their fate was very grim, but it's far from a typical example. It was in fact a Spanish responsibility to supply the prisoners on the island of Cabrera.

Yes yes, please. The Wellington battles just have a flavor of it's own, we need it!

And the Battle of San Marcial.

Soult realized the limitations of his army but also learned how to play the defensive game effectively. Hence the stalemate at Toulouse. With such a rate of attrition, it’s doubtful that Wellington would have arrived outside Paris if the war went on.

The USA did what? When? How?

You fight with your adrenaline not your brain sir! The most effective way to win was mass fire power, overwhelming force, control of your men and moral. All of this required large formations and linear tactics for the most part. It’s not as crazy as modern warfare, where a guy sat in an office can call in a drone strike and kill on mass in seconds, or where 1 man can kill hundreds from a long distance etc. War seems to be increasingly crazy as technology progresses

@Rhys Nichols Oh I completely understand that’s how they won battles back then and was common military tactics, but I think I would have preferred fighting similar to the militias in the American Revolutionary War. Setting up ambushes, using cover, hit and run tactics, sniping officers, etc. Not “civilized” in Napoleon’s time for sure, but I’d definitely have a very difficult time marching straight into a cannon loaded with canister shot pointed straight at me! Insane levels of courage.

One of the reason for linear formations was motivation. Soldiers like standing in line. In the US civil war skirmishing was a hated assignment. Standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow soldiers inspired men to stand an fight. It is easy to turn and flee when alone, but much harder to do it next to others. Not to take away from the resolve of these men marching through canister and musket volleys would never be easy. But the linear formation helped to keep men marching forward.

@Tman G-NSNL Survival instincts aren't equiped to make rational choices when it comes to firearms, hence people feel safer in a big group out in the open rather than alone behind cover. See also lacking the nerve to charge an enemy position and standing around to shoot at them instead; this actually led to many more men dying than if they had charged and driven off the enemy or been pushed back themselves.

mate, the accuracy wasn't that high as you might think. the chance of getting hit was quite small, otherwise how do you think that the casualties were so low? diseases killed 3x more than the fight itself.
That was the reason why so many were killed in WWI, they were still fighting with the same tactics of going forward against the guns, but those were more powerful and accurate.

Just reread the Sharpe books myself, they're a rip roaring adventure, and I think this battle was in sharpes honour.

@A Bett yes that's the one.

Also interested about military uniforms of that time-

Yes!!!

definitely

Yeah. Really looking forward to it. 👍👍

EXACTLY!!!!!!

haha! ikr, .. but if these ads keeping the channel going, then I honestly don't mind

Epic History TV on Crimean War.

Between Assaye, capturing porto, Salamanca, Vitoria
And then separate category of Vimiero bussaco the lines of Torres vedras, reverse slope tactic, Waterloo
We have a general who’s very successful and experienced in both offence and defence.
Which one does the Pyrenees battle fit into?
(By the way I saw a years old comment of yours on a Wire best scenes video, we really have the same interests 😂)

@Fred Barker Pyreenes i'd say is offensive as well since 62,000 troops under Wellington ended up pursuing 100,000 of Soult's. I feel like Waterloo actually sells both Wellington AND Napoleon short, since they have so much more interesting battles, as epic as it was seeing two great commanders clash in a final stand, it still left a lot to be desired in terms of tactics. Haha thats funny, great minds think alike.

@Bullet-Tooth Tony yeah Waterloo is so meh, the stakes weren’t at the highest, Napoleon was doomed even if he won right?

@Fred Barker Yep over half a million troops were advancing, they declared war on Napoleon too, not France. They were coming for him. In the Hundred days campaign he was able to raise only about 300,000 men, of which 73,000 would be used at Waterloo.

@Bullet-Tooth Tony was it as much as 300k? could he not bring more of those 300K without leaving Frances borders exposed then.

It's a British channel.

Why wouldn't they cover it from the good guys perspective? :P

At 20:12 Is that sharpe?

Ayo a Sharpe reference
Good lad

@Matheus Cerqueira Absolutely bro, i've always seen him as the Scipio Africanus of the Napoleonic Wars, and Waterloo is Napoleons Zama.

@Bullet-Tooth Tony I agree completely. It almost seems scripted how they are similar

@Matheus Cerqueira I'm still torn between this and Salamanca, which victory do you think was better

@Bullet-Tooth Tony Vitoria. Wellington split his army into three, pulled an aggressive manoeuvre and nearly encircled the French, winning a decisive victory.

@Matheus Cerqueira Now now, let's not give Scipio all the credit, I'm the better general xD