Happy New Year from Epic History TV!

Dear Patrons, 

Thank you so much for your support in 2019. With your help, I was able to release 10 new videos, which reached an estimated 2 million people and were watched 20 million times! But it's the small percentage of people who, like you, take the time to support my work on Patreon that makes it all possible. So thanks again, and here's wishing you all a very happy and successful 2020. 

I'm currently finishing research for the next Napoleon video: the gigantic 1813 Battle of Leipzig. This was the biggest battle before the First World War, and in one book I've been reading, the orders-of-battle alone (the list of all units present) are more than 8 pages long... So this episode presents a few challenges, and may end up broken into two smaller videos. 

Finally, someone recently asked - 'do we actually know what happened in these battles, and if so, how?' A simple but important question, which I suspect many others also wonder about. So I took the time to answer at some length. Here's what I wrote - a very basic overview of the historical process, but I hope of some interest and help to those who haven't studied these things:  

"It's a big and interesting question. As the creator of the videos you mention, I'm the first to admit that they (and pretty much any map that shows movements in battle) impose a degree of simplicity and artificial order on what were notoriously chaotic and confused events - i.e. battles involving tens of thousands of men, usually manoeuvring though thick smoke or dust.   

My short answer to your question would be - 'to some extent; because of historians'. 

My longer answer...   Let's take the Napoleonic period as an example, as it's what I've been working on for the last year. Historians have arrived at a 'standard account' for most major battles, with a fairly detailed timeline of who was where doing what when. (Obviously they disagree over analysis and some details). I rely on secondary sources like this for my videos, and when possible, tend to follow Osprey's Campaign series quite closely, since they're usually written by military history specialists in that period.   

But how have historians arrived at these standard accounts... In the case of Napoleonic battles, they stem from 200 years of historical study and debate. It begins with written primary sources such as orders, official reports, roll calls, letters, memoirs, etc: For example, Napoleon would give his own (propaganda) version in one of his 'Army Bulletins'; commanders wrote 'after action' reports to their superiors, describing events from their perspective, recommending awards for bravery, etc.; junior officers, and more rarely ordinary soldiers, have added colour and detail in their letters, memoirs etc, which continue to emerge and influence our understanding of events. (basically C19th battles generated a huge amount of paperwork.) There was even, uniquely, a mass survey of veterans undertaken by Captain Siborne for the famous Waterloo model that sits in London's National Army Museum. Obviously all these primary sources have agendas and biases which it's a historian's job to be aware of and to allow for. Sources will often also conflict and contradict each other.

Then come the first attempts by historians to gather, synthesise and reconcile this vast collection of primary sources into a plausible chain of events. One of the earliest and most influential works like this for Napoleon's battles was Jomini's 'Political & Military Life of Napoleon' 1827. (Jomini was a Swiss general who fought on both sides of the wars and was a respected military theorist, on a par with the more famous Clausewitz.). Historians then spent 200 years reading each other's work, debating the issues at conferences, writing new works that rebutted earlier accounts, perhaps including new archival material, or even findings from new fields like battlefield archaeology, or often, adding very little at all. So by a slow process we've arrived at what I term 'standard accounts' of the major battles.   

It's a very imperfect way to recreate the events of a big battle, but it's the only one we've got. You end up with accounts that are necessarily simplified, 'tidied up', include several educated guesses and in some places are almost definitely wrong. When I use the secondary sources to create my videos, I add another layer of simplification. Small units might be ignored, or small movements not shown. I show one version of the story, ignore plausible alternatives, and gloss over gaps in our knowledge. For me, these are all necessary compromises in order to allow the viewer to follow the ebb and flow, understand the strategy and tactics at work, and become engaged with the topic. (In fact, these compromises are made by almost all TV/video history programmes).   

These problems are multiplied when dealing with battles from earlier periods. (Or, arguably, simplified, since there's usually so little evidence). In conclusion, although our knowledge of a battle can be very detailed, it's almost always imperfect in various ways (so you are right to be suspicious!)"

Thanks again for your support, and more updates soon! 

Toby