Historyzine 014: Forcing the lines of Brabant (1705)

Family History – connecting up with large scale history. I’ve recently spent a considerable amount of time delving into my family history and been quite delighted by the reflection of large scale events such as the industrial revolution, highland clearances and the potato blight of 1846 that are to be found in the movements of my ancestors. Exploring the phrase – Fork it over. Is it a man with a pitchfork handing over his produce to the landlord or is it a pickpocket thing? A review of ‘In Our Time’. The BBC radio 4 series ‘In Our Time’ is placed under the Historyzine microscope. The War of the Spanish Succession, 1705 – Forcing the Lines of Brabant. The Duke of Marlborough after his successes in Bavaria in 1704 is gathering his forces for a push up the Moselle into France. The allies from Baden, Hanover and Austria are not ready for the start of the campaign so the plans are thrown into disarray. The French generals Villars and Villeroi lead Marlborough a merry dance as they make the most of their advantage. Then Marlborough formulates a plan to attack the Lines of Brabant feinting toward the weakest part of the lines and then changing direction under cover of darkness to attack the lines at their strongest point. The plan works brilliantly. The lines are dismantled and the forces of England, the Netherlands and Austria once more hold the upper hand against those of France, Spain and Bavaria. Some of the sources I use for this podcast can be found at My Amazon UK Affiliate page or my United States of America Affiliate page . There are lots of very useful books there if you want to know more about the War of the Spanish Succession and if you decide to buy any of them then using the links from the pages of Historyzine will send a tiny fraction of money my way which will help offset some of the costs of the podcast. If you wish to comment on the podcasts then please visit the website, historyzine.com or visit the contact page and leave me an email using the contact form there.