Hope you all enjoyed the return of 'Could You Survive' to History Hit! We've got quite a load more videos lined up, but we also want to hear your suggestions on where Luke should go next. Comment below! 👇
Tom seems like a legend, you can tell the bloke loves what he is doing ! So much history around Pompey and it drives me insane we don't do more with it.
Tom was absolutely brilliant. You'd think he was a regular presenter! You know if you rock up for a tour and see this fella you're in for a great afternoon.
Thank you so much Luke for this well researched and informative history doc.The enthusiasm from Corporal Tom Davies about his subject is infectious .Also interesting piece about Florence Nightingales reformation of medical treatment during the Crimean War.👍
@@jamesmccaul2945 You have been neglected as a child, Neglected to be taught basic respect and manners, I'm 15, If you are older than me, then I pity you. Pathetic.
@@CharlesTeatrotter I am semi-cross eyed myself. I mean, my eyes also "wander" when I am tired or excited. And I found that comment hilarious. Let's not get carried away by woke-ism and preserve the ability to poke fun at ourselves. But then again, what do I know, I only have 9 fingers...
@@roelandpeeters931 I don't care, roe, I was just expressing my opinion on how unfunny the joke was, as I've seen the same joke rephrased about 2 times in this comment section already 😭, When poking fun at someone try atleast make it original 😴
I would love to see an expansion of this topic showing exactly how the forts would interact around the Solent to defend Portsmouth and the surrounding areas. I find this part of the south coast so fascinating. Thanks for the great job in this video.
I can get good cake from the supermarket, or local shops and take it with me. I can get an entire cake that way, for the same price as one slice and tea. Tea I can bring myself in a flask. Or if I don’t want to do that, bc it doesn’t taste as good. I can knock on people’s doors and ask, until some hapless soul gives me a free cup of tea. And there’s also community gatherings and churches that will save me the £1.50 odd. Tyvm.
Yes! Corporal Tom absolutely does need his own series! I'd watch that in a heartbeat. So knowledgeable and so enthusiastic. So much charisma and heart!
People complaining about the "title being wrong", when they clearly mention that they're talking about a possible invasion from Napoleon III, the grandson of the first Napoleon. He happened to be an emperor of his own in this period. Whether or not it's a clickbait title its a very accurate concern and France became fairly powerful again under his rule. Only lost his position once the Prussians forced him to abdicate after the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. So not an extension of the Napoleonic wars. But an extension of the Napoleonic dynasty and France's threats towards England during the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s.
I was giving your comment a thought and I think I have an explanation to the overwhelming amount of people making incorrect comments. I think they aren't even watching the video for more than a second before ranting about the title and making themselves look a fool. I'm now 3:30 in and they have plainly claimed that this is about Napoleon III, and the possibility of invasion.
I agree with your statements but I think it’s reasonable for most people familiar with this time period to be confused since the term “Napoleonic” is most associated with Napoleon and not used to describe the period or wars associated with Napoleon III. It’s understandable why both sides of the argument are true. It’s a confusing title for a very interesting and well presented documentary.
Remember the Charlton Heston, Major Dundee movie from the 60's? It was a Civil War Era film, where a Union officer has to recruit Confederate prisoners to fight some hostiles on the Mexican border. They end up tanglinig with Napoleon's French occupiers of Mexico. This British response to that threat is rarely talked about.
An excellent introductory video on the subject of British fortifications along the shores of the English Islands, which were manned by formidable naval troops at that era.
I absolutely love you two getting out there and having fun (or putting yourselves through hell, sorry its entertaining 🤣) and bringing this history to life and to a wide audience. Always hit your videos when I see them pop up
The forts on Portsdown Hill were the outer defences. At the north (landward) end of Portsea Island was the Hilsea Lines. They were similarly armed, but being close to sea level could not be dug into the earth. Thus, they were ramparts, vulnerable to cannon fire. I attended Portsmouth Grammar School. Our playing fields were in the western arm of the Lines and our changing rooms within the actual casmates that once housed the cannon.
I love videos like this -- I was reading up on them and they were called "Palmerston's Folly" because people thought they were pointed in the wrong direction ! (the early ones were pointed inland to defend against a French land invasion when people assumed they should be pointed out to the sea)
These sorts of Victorian fortifications exist all over the former British Empire. Where l live in Sydney there are many surviving including a Martello Tower (Fort Denison) on an island in the harbour and fortifications dug into solid rock around the harbour on South Head, Bradleys Head and Middle Head. The latter is particularly fascinating as the 3 guns were sited entirely underground under a 50-odd foot rock escarpment and poked out of three separate emplacements only a few feet above water level. While the guns are long gone, l suppose they would have been of the same types as at Fort Nelson.
The steady move away from forts over time highlights our problem solving abilities. Each new fort design improves over the last and confounds generals for a time, until some crazed engineer gets it in his head to solve it. Sometimes just by using bigger guns, or the advent of sapping, and eventually bunker busting bombs dropped by hypersonic jets. Yet for all our technology eventually a boot has to go kick the door off whatever hinges remain and finish the job, that bit hasn’t changed.
I was part of the garrison of the Halifax Citadel as part of the recreated 3rd Brigade Royal Artillery and 78th Highlanders in a similar fort to this summer 1995 and 1996
Yes, it will instil morale, courage and a sense of belonging to a caring, compassionate and worthy cause. It also helps wounded soldiers, to get back into the frey. Or to be productive citizens in other ways. As well as returning them alive, back home to their loved ones.
Damn, probably this is the 1st time, when I can understand the British accent as a foreigner, it's so soft and pleasant I gotta say. Thanks for ur job lads.
@@flashgordon6670 surprisingly a complex word like Xylophone is easier for a person with dyslexia to read. It's because there are few to no words similar enough to it to get scrambled. Plus, dyslexia is absolutely not the same for everyone. A mess with dyslexia word is harbinger. That one can get me most times and the result is random, and sometimes funny. Actually having it isn't too bad when you know that you do, it's those that don't know they have it who are suffering.
I really enjoyed your video I used to re-enact the war of 1812 in Canada for 10 years, and we have been in many of the Forts here in Ontario Canada and the USA. Fort Henry in Kingston Ontario was built the same way to protect us from the invading American army in that same time period. It was never used, as well and went in disrepair. It is now a beautiful historic site. on the harbor of Kingston. Full of life in the summer when they do musket and Cannon drill of the same period. as your fort. As part of the British empire. We have a lot of the same history here in Canada. History T.V. needs to come visit. Keep Up the great work.
Your map at the beginning doesn't put a marker over Plymouth....did I miss something massive lurking around Totnes? The camouflage of Plymouth's 22 forts must've been too good !
HH does amazing work. Luke is a handsome man and in uniform... well ;). Great historical vid and lets shout out that the navvies were all men who had to do this work and risk their lives to dig out the tunnels.
I live in Gosport where we have a few forts still standing, Brockhurst , Rowner, Blockhouse. I’ve been to Fort Nelson on many occasions. Always nice to see local spots on History Hit
Nice introduction video about British fortification in England Island shorelines behind a great British naval forces at that time.. While French naval forces through all its ages hadn't equaled capabilities to confront Britain naval forces after Medieval periods. Thank you for your respectful ( history Hit) channel
The Eastern border of Canada /USA is guarded by forts, blockhouses, Martello towers and citadels from the 19th C. The Rideau Canal is the only canal in the world build solely as a military transport/communication route. The cost of that appalled Westminster, but the US threat was real. Quebec City Is the most fortified and completely intact; the citadel is home to the Royal 22nd Reg. The only intact walled city north of the Yucatan.
Loads in Portsmouth Portsdown hill, been in them, spit banks forts too, catch a enemy fleet in a cross fire, several in Southsea too, old marine barracks
This was also the era of the Great Stink when the Thames river became so intolerable with human waste and the diseases associated with it were actually tracked to water sources monumental public works were undertaken to develop sewers under first London then other places. These and the railroads and the canals kept the Navvies well employed for many years!
I have seen some people saying the title was a bit clickbait. To be fair there’s clearly a lot of effort being put into this. I don’t think nobody with this amount of effort put into a video would want it to perform poorly. Also you could call a descendant of napoleon performing an invasion a “napoleonic invasion”. He was a descendant so, fair case?
The irony of all this was that all that preparation and the French poked the Prussian bear and got so thoroughly trounced we've been friends with them since. By the time these forts were finished, the French were being annihilated in the Franco-Prussian war. All that cutting edge French military and naval advancements we'd feared, and it paled in comparison to the Prussians to the extent we buddied up with the French and the Russians to counter-balance the Prussians on their own. It really went to show how a lot of that French superiority of the time was perhaps, an illusion at best.
05:27 Napoleon III declared himself Emperor in 1852, after four years as President, *not* in "the late 1850s" as the curator said. I would suggest that the actual planning of a fortification network, with its ancillary funding and logistics, had begun much earlier. There is inevitably a time-lapse between the germination of an idea and the completion of an ambitious project.
The thing about star forts is that the French learned that you can position cannons in a way that can be used to fire raking shots on the opposite side of the walls.
The British destroyed Bomarsund, a fortification much like this in Åland in 1854, during the Crimean War - which was also fought in the Baltic. Considering they had defeated Bomarsund it seems odd to build a series of similar forts in Britain. Bomarsund's main weakness was simply that its guns were out-ranged by British naval guns, so these forts could be given modern guns... but experience with military history tells me forts always have second priority next to naval vessels, so the forts' guns would always be somewhat outdated.
In the 80s I sleped in Dovers Fort after some Punkrocks showed me the entrance into it! I never was again so full of fear! There has been noises in cant describe!
33:48 Lack of Antibiotics, hygienics like washing hands an wounds, and proper medical treatments caused more deaths in this time frame than weapons alone. Hard to believe Doctor's cut a leg off most of the time without even rinsing the table, the Equipment or their hands.
Napoleon III. asked his spies about the british Strongholds and the defence on the south of Great Britain . " Well Emperor, we should better attack another country . Maybe the German Reich ."
Semmelweis was the Father of handwashing in medicine and adopted similar ideas of statistics that Nightingale did also. They were of the same era and it seems likely they heard of each others work, perhaps during the Crimean conflict? The established medical world frowned on the ideas of both of them and cast it aside. Semmelweis being institutionalized in an asylum by his peers.
