Episodes

Napoleon had many remarkable qualities as a warrior and a statesman. Among them was a curious combination of mathematical logic and breathtaking audacity. He rose from penniless captain in the army to the Emperor of France in little more than ten years. He would go on to create the biggest empire since the days of Rome. What led to his dramatic rise to absolute power?

Napoleon himself wrote that the answer lay at the siege of Toulon in 1793. It was at Toulon that France’s leaders first recognised his tactical genius, immense bravery and boundless ambition. And it was this battle that gave Napoleon the self-belief which drove him to the top.

It was a vital victory. The combined forces of three nations were forced to retreat from French soil, saving the Revolution – and it set Napoleon on the road to greatness. Promoted to general for his bravery, toughness and composure, Napoleon always acknowledged that this battle changed his life. It also changed history.
 

In 73 BC a deserter from the Roman Army was sold into the slave market. A few months later he led his fellow slaves and gladiators in a bid for freedom that turned into the greatest rebellion the Roman Empire ever faced. With extraordinary vision and bravery, he led his renegades to victory against the ‘invincible’ Roman legions, brought the Empire to the brink of revolution and won immortal fame as an icon of oppressed people around the world. His name was Spartacus.

Defeated in a final clash on the headwaters of the Siler River, six thousand of his men were captured and crucified on the Apian Way, but the body of Spartacus was never discovered. He lives on in legend as one of the great warriors of all time – and an inspiration for freedom-fighters throughout history.
 

A warrior in the mould of Ulysses, Cortés was cunning, imaginative and breathtakingly audacious. The flaws in his personality were complementary: deceit, hypocrisy … and a conscience that strove to square the love of God with the love of gold. He led his men – numbering just 500 – in one of the most amazing marches in history through the jungles and across the mountains of Mexico to confront and destroy one of the greatest, and
bloodiest, civilisations of the New World.

It would ultimately by years before Cortés defeated the Aztecs. And only with the help of a terrible disease, smallpox, which decimated the population. But he will always be remembered as the man who laid siege to an empire with 500 men and achieved immortality as one of the great conquistadors.

In the early 5th Century, the fate of much of Europe and Asia depended on one man: Attila, known as the Scourge of God. He was one of the most feared warriors of all time, his name synonymous with insatiable ambition and savagery. But his intelligent leadership won the loyalty and admiration of many and when faced with humiliating defeat, he made a decision few would have contemplated.

Rallying his demoralised troops, he led them into the heart of the Roman Empire in a bid to seize the ultimate prize – the untenable dream that seemed beyond the reach of any barbarian: Rome itself. Attila’s attacks devastated the heartland of the Roman Empire, leaving it perilously fragile. It would never recover. Within a few years the last Emperor was deposed by Germanic tribes and Attila’s name passed into history not as the Scourge of Rome but as the Scourge of God, the most feared and frightening warrior of all time.

Richard the Lionheart is one of history’s greatest warrior kings. Renowned for his bravery and driven by his quest for glory, he fought an epic crusade against Saladin for control of the Holy Lands in the 12th Century.

In 1192 the situation appeared desperate for the Christians. On the point of defeat, Richard staked his reputation on one final battle at the strategic port of Jaffa. Exhausted, riddled with disease and on the verge of mutiny, Richard’s men were in no fit state to face the armies of Saladin. But inspired by Richard’s immense bravery and astute tactics, they won a glorious victory. Saladin agreed to a truce leaving the crusader forces to retain a large strip of coastline from modern-day Egypt to Lebanon and to permit Christian pilgrims into Jerusalem.

The crusader state would endure for a further hundred years; Richard’s reputation as a warrior king would last forever.

Tokugawa Ieyasu is perhaps Japan’s most famous warrior leader. As cunning as he was brave, he brought unity and peace to Japan after 150 years of civil war. On the plains of Sekigahara, Ieyasu fought the decisive battle of Japanese history. During the battle, he was forced to make the most difficult decision of his life. It was a moment that would change the course of Japanese history forever.

Heavily outnumbered, Ieyasu’s only chance of victory lay with Hideaki, a 23 year old boy who had assembled his own army of 15,000. Ieyasu took the biggest gamble of his life. He ordered his troops to open fire on Hideaki. The gamble paid off. Hideaki could not bear the thought of making an enemy of his great benefactor. He ordered his troops into battle, against the armies of Ieyasu’s great enemy Ishida Mitsunari. With this support, Ieyasu won a crushing victory. Some 400 years after his death, people still flock to Ieyasu’s grave.