Bitesize Battles

This is it. It all comes down to this moment. 

Ever since Alfred the Great had come surging out of the swamps he had been hiding in to defeat the Vikings at Edington, he and his children and grandchildren had been inexorably pushing the Vikings out of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Aethelred was soon to conquer Northumbria which had been held by the Danes for a hundred years, and England was born.

But no sooner had the new nation come screaming into the world than a massive Norse-Irish-Scottish alliance came screaming into Aethelred's new kingdom. It threatened to undo everything that had been achieved. 

At Brunanburh in 937 AD the future of England would be decided.

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The King of Wessex had been hunted as a fugitive by marauding Vikings, and he'd been hiding as one in a swamp. Wessex had been overrun and King Alfred had fled, setting up camp amidst the reeds of the Somerset Levels.

But despite his survival, it seemed the same could not be said of Wessex.

But in one of history's greatest comeback stories, he rebuilt his forces whilst in hiding, conducted a guerrilla campaign from the marshes, and then came surging out to rendezvous with the armies of his still-loyal Earldormen. 

It resulted in one of England's greatest ever battles, and led confirmed that Wessex, England's last Anglo-Saxon kingdom, would not fall to the Vikings after all.

In doing so, Alfred the Great laid the foundations for the future reconquest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the dawn of England.

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When the Viking warlord, Guthrum, ambushed King Alfred the Great of Wessex while he was celebrating Christmas at Chippenham, Alfred had no choice but to run with his family and a few guards. 

Hearing that Guthrum's forces were spreading out all over Wessex, the only safe place for Alfred to go was the marshland of Somerset which he knew as a boy.

Alfred was now a fugitive in his own kingdom, hiding out in a swamp with his family and just a few guards. Mercia had fallen four years earlier, crushed by the Vikings just as Northumbia and East Anglia had been before it.

It seemed Wessex was going the same way.

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The Vikings shot onto the international scene when they ransacked, burned, looted and slaughtered their way through the peaceful monastic community on the island of Lindisfarne in 793 AD.

But it wasn't an isolated incident. 

It began the so-called Viking Age and 300 years of bitter warfare between Anglo-Saxon and Viking for control of the fertile land of England. 

For 60 years after Lindisfarne the Vikings contented themselves with raiding and terrorising the coastal communities and riverways of Anglo-Saxon England, but by 865 their thoughts had turned to invasion. The Sea Wolves were coming to stay.

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The Battle of Osowiec in 1915 was darkly horrifying despite the bright summer's morning. The Germans gassed the stubborn Russian defenders of the Osowiec Fortress with a vicious mix of chlorine and bromine, killing every single one.

Or so they thought.

Because as the Germans advanced they spotted a single figure jerk suddenly upright, skin blistered and torn, eyes peeled back, teeth bared where lips had once been.

The dead had risen and now they were coming for their revenge.

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Once Vercingetorix was in chains and the Gallic Wars over, you might have thought Caesar would be in for a well-earned rest.

But Pompey and the Optimates in the Roman Senate were jealous and wanted Caesar back in Rome so they could prosecute him for any number of crimes - including his conquest of Gaul, which they had never given permission for.

But Caesar wasn't about to spend the rest of his life in court, jail or exile, and sought to outmanoeuvre the Senate.

The Optimates and Pompey sought to drag Caesar back to Rome.

It ended in a tussle which led Caesar to the banks of the Rubicon, and the biggest decision of his life.

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​Vercingetorix was a proud, young Gallic chieftain who gave Caesar his first bloody nose of the Gallic Wars and led a rebellion so serious that it nearly cost Caesar everything.

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This is where Caesar made himself a Roman legend. He fought hundreds of thousands of Gauls, saw off Germanic invasions, and even had a little jaunt over the sea to Britannia. 

The Senate had been desperate to prosecute him for crimes during his Consulship, but he had taken a governorship of provinces bordering Gaul which gave him immunity for five years.

He then used those years to craft seemingly legitimate reasons to continually intervene in Gallic affairs, crushing tribes and intimidating others. In just over three years, Gaul was his. But it was far from easy, and on more than one occasion, Caesar was lucky to get out alive.

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It was Alexander the Great who spurred Julius Caesar to new heights. When Caesar saw a statue of him when he was 31, he realised that at his age Alexander had conquered half the world. Caesar was so distraught at his own relative lack of achievements, it's said he wept at Alexander's feet.

In just a few years Caesar had become the Chief Priest of Rome, Consul, and one of the members of Rome's first Triumvirate. 

Join us on his journey to political power, and meet Pompey, Crassus, and a rebel gladiator named Spartacus who sparked the whole thing off in the first place.

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Julius Caesar is one of the world's most famous and successful military genius' of all time. He conquered the fierce and warlike multitudes of Gaul with a few thousands men, and he beat some of the best Roman commanders in a civil war he ignited by crossing the Rubicon.

But where did Caesar come from? Where did it all start?

This episode covers the extraordinary groundwork of this extraordinary man's rise, from his childhood during the Marius-Sulla Civil War, near-death experience and his capture by pirates, to returning to Rome a military hero.

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