Fellow ridiculous historians, what is the Is there a moment in your life where you really impressed yourself with your bedside manner, your smooth talking ability.
Have you ever yes.
ANDed your way into a ridiculous situation, because we have.
I love the idea of like having good bedside manner with yourself and like being impressed by no It's true, ben bedside manner is important. And in eighteen oh five, two Frenchmen found themselves in quite the what do they call those things, the cornichon, you know, the little pickles. That of Jean Lane and Jakim Mura who needed to cross the Danube at the Tabor Bridge, which is a series of three bridges actually in order to reach Vienna.
This is another war story. This is a war debacle, a little bit of a war oopsie.
Yeah, this is also a this is a great con story. This would be cool to make a into a film for the Ridiculous History Somatic universe, because as we'll see, folks, these guys clearly had to have had had to have taken something like an improv class, and we're going to journey with them as they con their way through those three bridges without firing a single shot. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Bonjours Ridiculous Historians, and welcome to
the show. We'd like to begin by giving a profound and sincere thank you to Napoleon Bonaparte, who has done so much for this program.
Yeah, man, he you know, he taught us how to love again.
He taught us that rabbits can be a threat. He taught us that a little bit of hutspli goes a long way.
Yeah. He taught us about the inherent beauty of a swanlike neck and a luxurious ringlet filled maine.
Yeah, we are going to talk about one of Napoleon's officials who epitomize that. But first things first. I'm Ben, I'm no, and we are joined with our super producer, Casey Pegram and give it up for him, folks.
I don't know why it sounds so downtrodden when I said that. I was just trying something new, trying a new cadence. You know, I don't know.
And sometimes we need to try new and unorthodox things when the traditional methods aren't quite working, or even when we need something new.
Ben, your mastery of the segue never ceases to amaze balls me.
That's very kind man. Thank you for saying so. Our story today takes place during the nople Wars.
Oh boy, you know those Napoleonic Wars. It was that conflict that lasted from around eighteen oh three till eighteen fifteen. We're Napoleon. It was like Napoleon versus the world, or at least Europe. But he had overthrown the during the revolution, the French Revolutionary government, and installed himself as Grand High conquering Emperor of France. And you know, he had designs on extending that title to as much of the world or the lands that he could get to as humanly possible.
And whomever it was that gave us a shout out for calling it a mixtape of European powers vultronning together.
Oh was you, dude? You said you said that we're a team. No, dude, I mean, I'm glad to be part of your vultron, but you are clearly the head. Oh no, no, no, we're a team. And if we were, if we did have a hierarchy, I think we could both agree. Casey is the head. I am no, no, no, I am the left shoulder. Casey is like the torso or maybe the sword, and you, sir, are the head.
The reason I like the comparison of Casey being the head, and I appreciate this, But the reason I like the idea of Casey being the head is because, folks, the podcast you are hearing now has been spun from straw into gold by as super producer.
Oh. I think it's a team effort there as well. We're all kind of spinning straw into gold. But Casey in particular works magic. He's a magic mouseman.
Yes, there we go. I like that, and our story today is similar in terms of spinning straw into gold. It takes place on the thirteenth of November in eighteen oh five, so just.
A couple of years into this massive conflict.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, just a couple of years into this conflict that will continue until eighteen fifteen for ten more years.
Right.
There are two marshals in Napoleon's forces and they are battling Austrians near a town called Spitz, which is located on the Danube River.
Yeah, which is I believe near Vienna. And you said this was in Austria, so they were fighting the Austrian forces who were were no slouches. They were pretty intensely good at at at war and defending their their territory. Right. So, as you said, the French were being led by these two marshals. One of them was named Jean Lane Casey, Jean Jean Lent Casey.
On the case, I like Jean, It's great. Who's the next guy?
The next guy? I think I got this one? Now, yeah, I got this one. Murat Mura Murrah and Quaquim is it Juaquim Joaquim Juaqim?
Yeah, Jaquim. I don't know, Casey.
I think in the in French it's Joaquim, Joaquim, joaquim j something like that.
Jacquim Okay, I.
Think they Yeah that the j is a little more apparent.
Pronounced Jauquim murrat okay. Double see on the case, double time, double time, Casey, guess right. And this dude, actually he was Jaquim Napoleon.
Morat, yes, dashed Napoleon.
Isn't it funny that he got the guy's first name as a weird little sub name for marrying his sister Caroline m M. You'd think he would have gotten the Bonaparte hyphenate in there. But no, no, sir, he got a Napoleon in there.
Now, let's talk a little bit about these guys before we get to their adventures. So at first it looks like they're not going to have a great day. Tensions are running high. Jalquim Murat or jiel Chino Morat was born in seventeen sixty seven and he became one of Napoleon's most celebrated marshals. As a matter of fact, after this day that we discussed in today's episode, he later becomes the King of Naples. He was the son of an innkeeper. Unlike Drake, he actually did start from the bottom.
He studied briefly for a career in the church, but he enlisted in a cavalry regiment in seventeen eighty seven, and when war broke out in ninety two, he was rapidly promoted. And when Napoleon was trusted with suppress a Royalist insurrection in seventeen ninety five, Marat joined up and Napoleon liked him so much, and specifically his contribution in
bringing cannon to bear. One in more place is an aide de camp to Bonaparte for the Italian campaign in seventeen ninety six ninety seven, So by the time eighteen oh five rolls around, this guy is seasoned. And we don't want to judge people on appearances, but I think the three of us can agree this guy has some amazing portraits of himself.
Well, we all do. All of these French military dignitaries were super well dressed in these outfits. They just don't seem very functional for.
Me at a super garish She was also a real smoke show. He looks like a hair commercial.
Oh I know, it looks like a commercial for product for Claire om perm kid or something.
I was seeking Claire all herbal essences, neither of which responses of our show. We're just making a comparison, but we'll take it. But we will take it. If you are listening, Claire all irbl as.
Or maybe some kind of relaxer I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, like you said, some kind of perm kit. But he and his compatriot's fellow Marshal Jean Loon. He was born in seventeen sixty nine, and he would go on to become one of Napoleon's most prized general's Napoleon when speaking of Jean Long famously once said I found him a pigmy and left him a giant, which is a very self aggrandizing way to look at somebody's success.
Well, that's also kind of interesting considering what people say about Napoleon's height, you know, as though he was able to lift men up from small stature to giant.
Dude, which we did establish was British propaganda. Oh really, Yeah, and I choose to still like to believe it. He wasn't actually extraordinarily short.
I told a friend of mine that I was doing an episode, we were doing an episode Napoleon today, and she sent me a gift of a cartoon of Napoleon riding a very very small horse looking very sad. The horse, not Napoleon. Yeah.
It was one of the most effective pro Baganda campaigns in Western history. So back to this day, November thirteenth, eighteen oh five, Jean and jacquem are guiding their forces, as as you said, nol on their way to Vienna. But there's a very important bridge that they have to cross. Yeah, the Tabor Bridge. The Tabor Bridge or Tabor Bridge, I don't know. I'll go with that. I support that.
Listeners don't don't bother writing us in with your particular pronunciations of it unless you really feel strongly about it. We might, I don't know, it'll still annoy us. It's fine.
We love you though, We love all of you, each and every one of you. Casey's a pronunciation corner, real quick. Yeah, sure, just so I get it out there. The pronunciation would be mirah more than marat, Okay. But because you always run into these situations where everybody says it a certain way in English, so you kind of get used to saying it that way totally, and it's kind of obnoxious in a way if you say Murrah in an otherwise English language sense.
Oh, that's right, that's right. But we also were kind of putting on some slightly affective French accents. Is it is?
Okay? So it's is it at the level of pretension that going into Taco bell and ordering that kiss adia will be surely not surely?
Is not that bad? Okay? While we still have you, Casey, what about the bridge? Is it in France or it was in Vienna?
Yeah?
Yeah, so who knows?
I don't know, Casey on the case adjourned, Yeah, Casey's jurisdiction is only in French French regions. Yeah so, but still, thank you for showing up, and thank you for doing the right thing and recusing yourself. You know, that's very honest.
As the resident little German boy of the podcast, I would like to throw my dice behind Tabor Tabor. Okay.
So these guys Lan and Mara see this bridge, and they know that the Austrians, their forces, being imminently experienced and very well aware of the importance of the bridge, they know that these enemy forces may destroy the bridge and tie unless they do something. And they can't do the usual Napoleonic tactic of running up there in mass because the bridge will just get destroyed that much more quickly. So instead, these two guys, and this is great, these
two guys decide to run a con job. They don't run up with the forces, you know, banners and guns blazing, somebody drumming behind them and all that jazz. Instead, they walk up to the bridge casually, a little bit of a a little bit of a stroll, and they're waving a white flag, right, and they've just got a small group of a small group of.
People with them, a little envoy, right, and let's lest we forget that the the the Austrians had the bridge rigged to blow already, right, They were like fuses like at the ready, so they could like, you know, send this thing into the into the ribs upon first side or on first sight, because they knew and they were instructed by their their commander, who's a guy named Karl, to defend their territory at all costs and not let the French cross the bridge. So they were prepared for
this scenario. But there was this nice little subterfuse going on here. They just kind of sauntered across the bridge, like you said, waving this white flag of retreat of truce, right, yeah.
Of truce, And this is commonly understood to mean that there will be some sort of parlays, some sort of conversation rather than a conflict, and they meet. You know, the Austrians at this point are dumbfounded. They're thinking what's happening. They already have their adrenaline pumping, they're ready to fight. And then these two French marshals they say, oh guys, funny story, quick update, and armistice is about to be signed.
I mean you we'll enter into a time of peace and due to the negotiations, this bridge actually belongs to French forces and we're on the way to make it official with your boss, Carl.
I do just want to say too that it's also possible that the Austrians were just taken aback by the sheer sex appeal of these two French generals, the flowing locks. They're sauntering down these bridges. And by the way, the Tabor Bridge, it was not just one bridge, it was a series of bridges. There were three bridges and the first two were set to burn because they were on they were would I imagine, and then the third one was actually rigged with munitions, the third one being the
one closest to to short to land. So oh, I love this. The guy named Ausberg by the way, Oursburg, I believe, was how you would pronounce it. This is his His title was Field Marshal lieutenant.
Yes, all one, where all one? Where?
I love these long German compound words. They're great.
And he was also not around when this happened. So the Austrians in charge, and as you said, no it's a series of bridges. They were going for the main bridge that crosses the Daniel most directly. Carl is not around at all, and while the marshals are sort of vamping and convincing these folks that hey, we don't have to fight, and armistice is pretty much official at this time.
Let's let's all chill a little bit while they're While they're doing all this smoke and mirrors, their actual French troops are sneaking slowly toward the bridge as Long and Morau are walking across the bridge with the Austrians.
Yeah, because these guys are kind of a little bit dumbfounded. They were sort of taken aback by this. They're trying to confirm these reports. It's not like they have any kind of mobile communications technology, right, they're obviously running couriers or sending a runner they had, Yeah, of course, so they had to hop to and find out if this
was true. And that's why it was such a tactical feat of genius, because they literally just kind of confused them to the point where they weren't paying attention and they were able to get their guys pretty casually across the bridge. It's got this kind of Ocean's eleven vibe, very much like a bridge heist. Yeah, in terms of
the con. So things do get sticky, they don't completely go according to plan because as they're waiting, as the marshals are waiting for the French troops to get close enough to the bridge to make a difference in a fight or save it from being destroyed, one Austrian sergeant decides that he does not buy this tail smart man, Yeah, that this is all kakammy. That if it's too good to be true, that usually means it is. It's a real cock and bull story.
And so this guy surreptitiously begins to or starts to light a fuse or tries to. He's got matches in his hand. He's about to just blow the bridge up.
Yeah, and doesn't our boy Murat just just daintily snatch it from him? It was lawn excuse me, yeah, Genon.
Yeah, Jan loon So Jean lol snatches the match from this guy's hand, and he says, you know what, pal, a truce has been signed, and that means that you're destroying public property because we're not in an act of war and if you try that one more time, I will have you arrested off to prison with you.
So we've talked about these munitions that were rigged to blow up the bridge, Diehard style. But they had some other stuff guarding their side of the bridge. These Austrians, didn't they been They had some heavy weapons.
Yeah, they had an artillery force with cannon and the cannons were preparing to fire on the grenadiers who were standing behind the marshals.
Now, by the way, I just want to clarify this with you, Ben, were grenadier's wielders of grenades or is this just another name that was pre the invention of the grenade, because that seems like a little bit more of a modern device to me.
They were specialized soldiers that were first stablished I guess in the mid to late seventeenth century sixteen hundreds for throwing grenades. That's what they did. They were usually going to be the strongest and largest soldiers because they could throw the farthest.
That's right. So the grenades more or less as we know them today, were definitely used during the Napoleonic conflicts during his era, at least the basic principle. The basic principle, so maybe maybe more along the line, maybe a little bit less, I don't know. There's not a whole lot of moving parts in the grenade. It's sort of just like a metal piece of dynamite with a fuse more or less right, Yeah, pull, throw, yeah, release the whatever, the latch, the crack and yeah the krack and please.
So these there's a there's a really amazing account where who is it? Is it Morat or or Lan who distracts one of the cannon operators by straddling the cannon. I'm picturing it in a slightly come hither way. I don't know why, as if he like laid on it as though or a grand piano, you know, and like I don't know.
Yeah, So the grennadiers are on the other side of the bridge still or they haven't walked all the way across it at least, and Jean Land sees the artillery about to fire on the French forces, and so as you said, he hops on the cannon and just lights a pipe and smoking.
See again, picture him just kind of like straddling the cannon, crossing his legs, pulling out his pipe and just never like breaking the man's gaze, lighting his pipe and just being like what.
Doing a basic instinct doing a bit of a.
Bass against ice. Yes, yes, I am picturing that, and I'm sticking to it. That's that's what my imagination says, and that's what I'm saying out loud.
And so here's where murc comes into play. This really is a two person con. So there are several sergeants there, and the sergeants are you going to be battle tested and they typically are going to be a little bit better at seeing through a ruse or discerning a tactic. And one of the sergeants continues saying, look, this is a trick. Do not trust these evil French forces. These guys are clearly doing a snow job on us. And then mart says to the Austrian officers, you guys gonna
let an enlisted man talk to you that way. I don't know how it works in the Austrian Army, but we don't tolerate that as French officers. So I don't know what kind of circus you all are running here.
These dudes powers of persuasion and distraction are second to none, my friend, second to none. This is this is fabulous stuff.
And the Austrian officers are like, murt goes on. We don't know exactly what he says, but he goes on for a little while, and he's dressing down the officers because he's like horrified and offended on their behalf. And so eventually the officers are so I guess as shamed and humiliated or like.
In a tizzy or something.
Yeah, because you know, officers see each other as equals, right, so they're essentially screwing up by allowing this insolence to occur. And so they order that sergeant arrested and imprisoned. And can you imagine being that poor Austrian sergeant. You know you're correct, you know it's a trick, and now you're going to jail.
This whole thing plays out like one of those episodes of Bugs Bunny where he convinces someone like he's a girl rabbit or whatever just to like get his way, or he poses in some disguise and is able to gaslight some poor hapless sap like Elmer Fudd into like doing just the thing he needs him to do to have him win the day. Does is not strike you as that, like it's just these Austrians and it's gonna come around to haunt them acted and just utter incompetent
ways that just defy any kind of logic. So all I can do is I can only assume that these guys were not complete and utter idiots. You know, the Austrian Army had a good reputation for having their stuff together, but they were no match for the wits of these two frenchmen.
Right exactly. And so at this point they're still trying to convince all the Austrians, and armistice has been reached. It it just happened so recently that you guys haven't heard of it again, implying something might not be great with your army. And at this point another Austrian officer arrives and they do the whole dog and pony show again. And armistice has been signed. This bridge belongs to France. It's public property. We're not at war. What's the big hubbub?
Yeah, and if you blow this bridge up then you're liable for destruction of public property.
Yeah, adults, you're essentially it's terrorist.
This is gas lighting one on one, dude, I know it's not even one on one. This is advanced level again, this.
Is this is high intermediate at the very least.
Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a it's a real a real ship show here, bet.
Yeah, And gas lighting is just for anyone who is fortunate enough not to have known that phrase beforehand. Gas Lighting is when you deceive or manipulate someone by making them think that they are craziness, right. So what does this officer do, this new on the scene officer when he learns the news, Well.
I mean, at this point, they really need an adult in the room, you know, they really need to consult with the grown up. So he runs to get Ousberg, the field marshal lieutenant who was in command but seemingly a bit of an absentee commander. So they really needed to consult with this guy because they were just running around like chickens with their heads cut off at this point.
And the French forces, now they're still approaching Austrians have no idea what to do because it's a cost benefit thing. If it really if there really is an armistice, then they are in deep, deep fudge if they shoot at these French forces.
It's like a who's on third kind of like situation. I mean, it really is.
It's yeah, And the French soldiers have been told by the marshals, like right before they went off on this crazy con job. They've been told guys just walk forward like nothing's wrong, just like walk forward like you're not in a war.
I just think it's so incredible that like all the information they're getting is coming from the enemy. Yeah, all of it, and they're acting on it as though it's like, you know, to be believed. And the on the one guy, the one guy who said, hey, maybe we should slow o roll a little bit and like, you know, take a couple steps back and think on this, he gets arrested and like put in the stocks or whatever by his own people. Yeah, this is some some bugs bunny malevolence right here, my friend.
And I'm picturing this Benny Hill soundtrack playing softly under a lot of this.
Sure, I'm just picturing these these Austrias just running around like juggling stuff and just like tripping over each other and just like prap falling for days all on this bridge.
Yes, and we have to mention too this this stuff. Once it begins happening, once these two guys walk up with their forces, it happens a pretty quick succession.
I think this could have been this could be like a sitcom episode, like like one one episode. Yeah, I think that's about how long it could have in real time, play out as like a twenty five minute television second.
Why don't we just do a season of various hilarious things from the Napoleonic Wars, get Larry David to ride it, and then put it on HBO.
Can't you picture the part where Napoleon and his dudes are getting sworn by the bunnies and it's just done, don't don't.
Exactly. I think that's perfect, Especially Benny Hill and Larry David work on and Seinfeld works for this too. Because as the forces from France march onto the bridge, they actually get on the bridge, they're being super chill about it. Everybody's being cool. They're just strolling up there, sauntering maybe a sachet or so for anyone who was a suppressed actor. And as they're walking up, the Austrians are are panicking
and they're realizing we're not at war. Hip hip hooray, kalu kalay, what a wonder stay and so on, and they start physically throwing all the explosives that they had prepared for blowing up the bridge into the Danube.
They just threw them away.
Get him out of the way. The French are coming. We're friends now, Yeah, yeah, really really ill advised. So Carl shows up, I love calling him by his first day. Yeah, Carl, Carl, Carl, get over here. There's we're we have an armistice. So Carl shows up and he sees the French marshaled and all their forces on the bridge. He sees his own men throwing away all the explosives, and Carl looks around and he goes, huh, well, it must be true. They've
got so far with this. You know, it's clearly this, I mean, this is good news for us, right.
Really you think he thought that, You think he wasn't just immediately outraged?
He No, he thought it was true, and so he handed the bridge over to the marshals. Not a shot was fired, and the entire thing.
Oh god.
But then immediately after handing over the bridge, they became prisoners of war. The French took them prisoner.
And they're like, wait, what wait what what casey?
Can you cueue up that that curbed music again?
Yeah? Yeah, like that.
So what happened afterwards? Noel? What I mean? Because Napoleon's not on the scene at all.
He's not on the scene. But yeah, Napoleon had nothing but praise to heap on his brother in law, old Toauquem Napoleon Marat, and he had a really cool nickname for him, by the way, which was the first Horseman of Europe, and his compatriot Jean Lan. And he basically said that they had achieved a feat of strategy and that he was very proud of them, and they were good little boys, and he gave them a pat on the head, and you know, probably some kind of military commendation.
Who's to say the Austrian side did not fare quite so well in terms of the praise that was heaped upon them, because there was none.
Right, right, there was not any. It's a great story, but yeah, you can only imagine the ignomy of that. And Carl himself is later court martialed, convicted of negligence, rightly so cashiered and stripped of all his honors. Later he is pardoned and actually reinstated. So this hilarious mistake did not follow him for all.
Of his days. I don't know, man, I feel like it probably did. That's a pretty embarrassing thing to have been in charge of.
Yeah, hopefully he learned better. Critical thinking skills.
Yeah, well he wasn't even there, right, Like, all this happened later. He came later, and he he would have thought that he could have put it together. But I cannot believe that these French guys outsmarted their enemies at literally every possible turn. This story, yeah and smooth. I can't get over the one guy that was like, wait, but but but it's like the kid in the horror movie that knows there's a monster but no one will believe him, you know.
Yeah, yeah, or the one person gets called crazy in the first third of a horror movie. Yeah, it's it's insane. I can't get over just the sheer, amazing confidence. And as someone who does comedy outside of the studio here, I'm very impressed with their improvisational skills. They were just yes, anding their way to victory.
Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. We should have put that as the subtitle of the episode.
Hey, that's not a bad idea, nol. Yeah, let's do that. And this concludes our most recent installment of hilarious stories from the Napoleonic Wars.
There's a lot of them, man, I'm excited to get into some more surely, surely we have not exhausted them yet.
Yeah.
True.
Let us know what other strange and funny war stories you have found, especially if they involve Napoleonic shnanigans. In the meantime, we do hope you enjoyed this episode. As always, we want to give a big thanks to Casey Pegram for once again saving.
The show and our immortal soul.
And Nole's mortal soul.
I'm sorry, shouldn't have spoke. I shouldn't have blund you.
Well, I got this ongoing negotiation.
That's fair.
We also want to thank our recurring guests and research associate Christopher Hasiotis.
Yeah. Man, he pitched at us earlier about making that thing a regular occurrence, and I want to bring it up to you right now. I think it's a golden idea. Yeah.
I already wrote back to him cool and said this said much the same.
Yeah. Good good. So we're in agreement.
Yeah, so we are in agreement, and we hope that you agree. It would be fun to check out our other stuff on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Yeah, and I swear ben on all of our shows. We need, you know, we need to follow the lead of our pals. In La who do a much better job at maintaining their own social media accounts. You know, they got the stories, they got the gifts, the boomerangs and stuff. We need to do more of that. I'm going to throw down the gauntlet right now and pledge that we're gonna we're gonna try to start doing that. You know, if we don't follow three, don't hold it
against us too harshly. But you know, I want to change. I want to be better.
Gotta be the change. Yeah, we have anything else we're supposed to mention.
I don't think so, I mean. Thanks to Alix, Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat, who did not work on this episode of Believe, but is a font of knowledge. Thanks to you, Benjamin for that dapper checker shirt you're wearing today.
Thanks to you, Neljamin, you have a nice shirt as well.
I do. You're right, Thank you, ben Casey. Can I see your shirt?
Just clean? Casey's killing it too.
He really is. And I think we're all going to go and have a drink and a bite of food at our local haunt after we wrap up here, because we are, in fact real friends. This isn't just a show.
Yeah, we do hang out in an inordinate amount of time. We probably spend more time with each other than we do with our girlfriends.
Yeah.
Well you know what I mean.
I'm working on it all right.
Well, that's it until next time, so stay tuned the end.
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