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Radio War Nerd EP #180 — Annibale's The Hundred Years War, Part IV: France Victorious (Patreon)

Published:
2019-05-10 22:38:51
Edited:
2020-04-28 15:19:51
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Annibale

Recorded: May 4, 2019

In the War Nerd's last episode from Buenos Aires, Annibale returns to take us through the final chapter of the Hundred Years War. After decades of getting stomped by the English invaders, the French — catalyzed by Joan of Arc's brief but incredible command — finally turn the war around and destroy the English armies, driving them out of Normandy, and finally, with the Battle of Castillon, driving the English out of Gascony in the south. But although the war ends by most accounts in 1453, it's not really over...

Listen to Annibale's RWN series on the Hundred Years War: Part I, Part II, Part III: Joan of Arc. Follow Annibale on Twitter. 

Total time: 2:13:45

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

Avery

Was medieval Venice a magic realist novel?

Annibale

You won't believe the stories. And not only medieval!

xnfec

Gore Vidal did a documentary about Venice once, (he was of Venetian descent) where he stated that there were never more than 40,000 Venetians.

Mr Aerospace

I grew up steeped with both Anglo and Franco tales of Normandy and this war, and honestly, Annibale's outsider perspective has been revelatory, and for me it finally brings together the two mythologies into a functional history. ...My own history; I can trace my surname all the way back to Jersey, some time in the early 1340's.

Animals in Motion

I think drugs vs therapy discussions are largely pointless, whatever seems to work for people, though the overprescription of SSRI's and shit is certainly an environmental hazard, when that stuff ends up in the watercourses. For me psycho dynamic therapy was certainly much more helpful than the crazy psychiatrist who gave me all sorts of weird shit; I was like a walking laboratory for the guy. Didn't do me much good. I know people say there's actually very little clinical clinical evidence that psychopharmacological drugs work, and that's true, but they tend to discount the empirical results from people saying they feel much much better on the pills, which when it comes to intangible things like mood and day-to-day functionality is just as good. I tend to be sceptical of the medicalisation of everything.

Ellen Harold

The Spider King. I had no idea he had refurbished the French army. I am glad Annibale said something about the cathedral. In the nineteenth century they became symbols of unalienated labor, even of Socialism, of art that served a public purpose at least, for all sectors of society. Today many people who ought to know better cynically dismiss this as mere “Romanticism”, as if that explained anything.

Brian Harvey

I always had the passing knowledge of the Hundred Years War that was prevalent in the Anglosphere, but this has been great. I have played a bit of the game 'Europa Universalis IV' and now all the 'events' in the game that get triggered around this conflict make some sense. (Which means, the developers at Paradox Interactive really deserve a lot of credit for their attention to detail)

THEKILLERWHALE

I am thinking about picking up Roger Crowley's book on Venice soon. What do you think of it?

Ellen Harold

Naturally Shakespeare wrote for patronage. If we Anglophones know of the wars of the roses almost exclusively through Shakespeare’s history plays, it is because it just happened that Shakespeare was a poetic genius. Anyway, I am going to try to read Commines now for a different perspective.

THEKILLERWHALE

Hmmmm. Aerospace sounds a bit more Flemish to me but what do I know.

xnfec

This was very good. I particularly like the discussion of the rise of the French Nation state at the end. The one hundred years war clearly had a monumental effect on France though what those effects were, might be difficult to quantify. Druon mentioned that France under Philip IV was a centralised state, though maybe one that depended on the personal power and charisma of the monarch to function and once that monarch was gone the power reverted to the mean. The French state stamping its iron boot on regional differences (as compared to the later Italian state) might be seen as a central response to how strong those regional differences were and perhaps still are. De Gaulles comment about the difficulties of ruling a country with 300 types of cheese comes to mind. In his book, The Discovery of France, the author, Graham Robb makes a case that Regional France is a very different place from the French state. He argues that, in the past, though you might have spent a lifetime studying French, once you travelled a mile outside Paris, few people would have understood a word you said. France had hundreds of languages ranging from languages like Alsatian and Basque to weird languages that evolved in mountain valleys like a whistling language and a shouting language which evolved to allow news to be conveyed accross long distances. These very different communities grew to regard their neighbours with great distrust and little mini-wars between isolated communities were not uncommon and French xenophobia stems in part from this. His depiction of the origins of the Tour de France is very interesting. He further argues that the French only really became French with the advent of the bicycle (and I guess the railway) which allowed people to discover France for themselves and to make it practical to learn standard French. Annibale's depiction of one of Jean Darc's earlier trials where she jokes about one of her accuser's poor command of the French language shows that people were waking up to being French though I suspect this was the start of a long process rather a sudden conversion. I've grown to view France as a place where a cold, logical state rules a people who are not. You can view Dien Bien Phu this way as a strategic calculation by the French colonial government who acted on the result and withrdew from the North while French soldiers, embedded with the non-Vietnamese tribes were still fighting ten years later.

Annibale

While it's definitely real that there exist an enormous French divide between Paris and non-Paris (with each one loathing the other), the rest of Robb's analysis seems a bit silly - at least based on your description, as I haven't read the book myself. France became France with a slow and long process that started well before the invention of the bicycle, and the introduction of the radio and TV had much more impact on regional differences. Also, Italy has the regional differences of France multiplied by 100, and we don't have the same level of nationalism and/or implied xenophobia (I'm uneasy using this term in this concept) as they have. Or better stated - we're much more xenophobic against our fellow Italians than with anyone from outside, despite what the Lega want us to believe.

Annibale

As for Diem Bien Phu it wasn't a calculation - more a logical result of the way France has dealt with his colonial ambitions (a way almost in every term different by what we can call "English" colonialism - I'm not making a moral judgement here)

xnfec

Robb is a literary biographer who has spent a long time in France and knows it well so any silliness is entirely down to me. I enjoyed it for its anecdotes which probably don't make it into histories.

xnfec

It was off-topic I know so sorry but the reason I said it was a calulation was that, according to my reading, the French did a practice attempt before Dien Bien Phu (at Na San) which was successful. For some reason they thought the location of Dien Bien Phu was better for what they wanted to achieve. In this they were wrong and, despite winning other victories at the same time in the North, decided to withdraw from there

radiowarnerd

Thanks! I had no idea of that sort of linguistic diversity. North-South, Oc - Oui is about as far as I got. One thing I wanted to ask, I have this depressive French friend who says French is dying, the language is finished. Is this just French intellectual glummery?

radiowarnerd

Yeah, the game world is really impressive. I know that but I'm just too old to be part of it.

xnfec

That is a deep question that probably can't be answered simply. I don't know French very well but years ago I came across a quote from a Japanese lady who thought Japanese was dying because it had been many years since there had been any new Kanji. That said, you can look at something like the youtube channel "Where I'm From in Japan" and see kids who like being Japanese and (presumbly) speaking Japanese. Maybe the same is true of French? Do people enjoy being French and speaking French? I've heard that that France does not produce many new words but the people of Quebec do. I know Spanish a bit (the River Plate version at least) and I can see that it can be fun. If you look at something like Carlos Gardels song Haragán (lazy) it is old but still very funny. You can find the lyrics on the internet. It translate well into English but uses forms that you would not casually use in English to say the same thing even though you could. A lot of these are from the way people speak or spoke in the countryside. I can't help thinking that that use of language in inventive helps keep your mind agile. I can't speak it with the spark that my mother can but I can appreciate it. Languages can atrophy in odd ways though. There is a dance in Uruguay called the Pericón. It is probably just danced for tourists these days. It was a showcase for the wit of the dancers and of the caller (bastonero). Someone told me that once Martin Fierro became widley known, people started quoting it instead of making up their own witicisms. Someone once said that radio expands the mind but television contracts it. With more information, we seem to use less words. If that is the case then it is not just French that is in trouble. But maybe if people enjoy words and playing with them then there might be some hope.

sam

Annibale or you guys - are there books/authors you recommend for further reading on political history of the Middle Ages? Stuff to stay away from?

sam

great, thank you!

Annibale

I'm very fond of Régine Pernoud's book about Jeanne (which I read in French). I think the English title is "Joan of Arc: Her Story ". It's a terrific book. Régine is obviously in love with Jeanne's character and has definitely a "thesis" (the Middle Ages were never the retrograde mess we've always been told about ) which I'm somehow sympathetic to. On the other hand, Pernoud had a conservative catholic streak which may put some people off. It's a very good book, in any case.