After defending against the French, Sharpe and his men head home. __ In the Peninsular War, a British sergeant is field promoted to a lieutenant in charge of a disrespectful rifle company.
Love the extra playing the dead french Soldier at 0.11 seconds staring at the camera and blinking and then remembering to be dead just before the camera pans up 😂
I actually feel sorry for Calvet almost every time he appears. He seems to be a good officer who genuinely cares for his men, and ends up getting dragged around and stomped on by whatever stupidity is forced on him.
This is the third time Ducos has really screwed the pooch with Calvet. 1st was the time he told Calvet that Sharpe had no Artillery. Wrong. 2nd was when he convinced Calvet to use his powder reserves as bait, which were exploded. And now he has him march away from the war to help him fight a personal vendetta, leading to the expedition being annihilated. Ducos is a dip shit looking for a field promotion to well dressed corpse.
Moving a force defending Marshal Soult's flank to pursue a personally vendetta against a man who broke your spectacles that's Ducosing and piss poor strategy.
Wasn't just that, Ducos believed Wellington was moving his forces there (as Wellington wanted him to believe), vengeance against Sharpe was just Sauce for the Goose.
@@FerretJohn I like that, Sauce for the Goose, here in America we say Icing on the Cake. Ducos still had a perfectly legit 15 year spy come out of hiding to capture a single major in a breached castle held by only 50 men. Men without connons, supplies, reinforcements, or even a powder magazine. Easiest road to victory would have been to skirmish out thier remaining ammo and then put it to the sword. It was piss poor strategy all around. Even worse since you let both english forces in the castle have a victory, even if the colonel's "victory" was a ploy/ruse.
0:11 this wasn't bad acting. he was checking his surroundings before deciding to play dead so the victor doesn't bayonet him through the jewels. obviously, it worked.
@@dont-want-no-wrench Certainly not, but there was something fundamentally cruel about Dickensian England. It was a common theme throughout Sharpe Novels contrasting the rationality and cleanliness of the Netherlands or France compared to the primitive barbarity of Spain and the "high tech" Barbarity of England. Sharpe loved his king and his country but he was under no illusions that the UK at this time was a wicked place and ended up living in France after the war. It was like the industrial age met Feudalism and it took a few generations for society to catch up but during that time we had the wonders of modern technology mixed with the brutality of the medieval age. Which just made the whole era a particularly noxious part of British history. My own paternal ancestor was given over to indentured servitude to a black smith and rather than be what amounts to a slave for 7 years he jumped a ship for the USA in 1817. My very existence as an American is a testament to the cruelty of that age.
@@patrickturner6878 fishing for info mate. I have no idea how other perceive the english. So, the dislike shown in the novel is an accurate depiction of today's sentiment toward the english?
The performance of Wellington's spy network is extremely underrated throughout this series. He's clearly studied French generals and in particular the Napoleonic strategy of defeat-in-detail, and Sharpe owes a lot of his victories on the field to the preparatory work done in the background by Wellington and Hogan.
I think about how his career would have been different, had Sean bean beaten pierce brosnan to the bond role in 94. I once read it was close. He would have been better. Just my opinion. His ability to convey ruthless brutality, but also tender compassion, would have made him a great bond.
@@justinbergmans36 Sharpe and Bond actually share a lot of similarities : both are orphans, know a lot about women but all the women they've known never stayed for long. The only difference is that Sharpe is not alcoholic.
Pretty much. In the books, Sharpe knowingly or sometimes inadvertently, ruined several of Ducos' plans. It wounded his pride that a common soldier, of perceived limited intellect, kept wrecking his meticulously planned political machinations. Breaking his glasses just added insult to injury.
Duco is duplicitous and arrogant and had tried to steal French treasure not once but twice. He is not there for the French cause and was nearly executed for losing a French Column to Sharpe's rocket artillery and Fredrickson's company. He's nearly a French Simmerson.
i like how they make "50 miles" sound very near. thats practically an entire day of marching, and the terrain there looks like even thats not possible.
Blinking French guy keeps blinking maybe he's just dying and not dead yet. Maybe he's wounded. Or maybe he just fell down and played dead and he's thinking about his life style choices. Despite Sharpe's blistering 3 rounds a minute, there is not a 100% casualty rate involved, ok. Surviving a musket ball? That's soldiering.
Okay don't take it that literally I k n o w dead people don't blink lmao and i don't think there's anything to my knowledge that proves whether it was an overlooked hiccup or if it was intentional either way it's just funny
@@SantomPh Oh, I wish I could see that! LOL Calvet: "Major Ducos, may I ask for your assistance? This chicken needs to be tenderized." *furiously flogs him with chicken*
:12 seconds in and the guy on the bottom left is blinking calmly. I only realize they are supposed to be all dead rather then just being lazy soldiers later.
Fredrickson has no desire for promotion as his Captain rank keeps him close to his men and away from the big politics Sharpe has to deal with. Like Harris he prefers to read books and keep his head down.
They really should have hired people that were better at playing dead. I realize most people focus on the French soldier closest to the camera, but the guy behind him also squeezes his eyes shut even harder at one point as well.
