3 - The inglorious siege of Kimberley

‘What is it that makes people go forward when every instinct is to go back? I think it’s to do with the people you’re with, not letting them down…’ The tumble of rugged hills that shelter Port Stanley, the capital of the Falkland Islands, were to become the bleak setting for the final struggle of the conflict - break the Argentine lines and Stanley was there for the taking, the war would be done and dusted. Easier said than done - for the young men of the Scots and Welsh Guards, the Paras and Royal Marines the final days of the Falklands War were to be the toughest of their lives.   Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: Alejandro Teran Thomas Mitchells Tim Skinner George Still Marta da Silva Gerardo Cabal Neizan Fernandez Darcey Ferguson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘He was a real leader - he had grown up with the philosophy of soldiering.’ As dawn broke on 22 May, 1982 daylight revealed the British were back - troops poured ashore in San Carlos Bay. But it was all taking too long for the impatient war cabinet 8,000 miles away in London. With losses mounting as the navy fought off Argentine air attacks, London demanded a victory, something, anything on the Falklands itself, some sort of trophy to show this was worth it. So Colonel H Jones and 2 Para were ordered to attack the small settlement of Goose Green - attack it and take it, no matter what.  Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: Alejandro Teran Thomas Mitchells Tim Skinner George Still Marta da Silva Gerardo Cabal Neizan Fernandez Darcey Ferguson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

‘I wanted to get out alive - I didn’t want to die.’ The taskforce hurriedly assembled to retake the Falkland Islands departed in a blaze of red-white-and-blue and sailed south - how would Argentina and her navy respond? As the diplomats shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic trying to prevent conflict, the taskforce steamed ever closer to the danger zone. Ahead of them British submarines kept watch - and spotted a potentially lethal threat, an Argentine battleship, the General Belgrano. What happened next remains the most deadly and most contested moment of the Falklands War.  Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: Alejandro Teran Thomas Mitchells Tim Skinner George Still Marta da Silva Gerardo Cabal Neizan Fernandez Darcey Ferguson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was early in the morning of 2 April, 1982, that the first British shots of the Falklands War were fired when a handful of outnumbered Royal Marines opened up on the invading Argentines. Hours later the Marines were lying face down on the road, surrendered and humiliated - the photograph shocked Britain and stunned her struggling Prime Minister. Margaret Thatcher and her government were unpopular and unready but their response was emphatic; the Falklands would be taken back by force… Britain was going to war. So began a conflict labelled Britain’s last colonial war, one that left an indelible mark on both Britain and Argentina, not just in terms of precious lives lost but also on the future of those that governed them. Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: Alejandro Teran Thomas Mitchells Tim Skinner George Still Marta da Silva Gerardo Cabal Neizan Fernandez Darcey Ferguson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Crimean War had become a conflict of cruel attrition. Who was prepared to sacrifice the most men? The British and French attacked, the Russians resisted. Thousands were killed, many thousands more maimed and scarred for life. The Russians broke first, set Sevastopol alight and retreated beneath the flames across a bridge of boats. The first modern war was over – but what impact did it have on the future of Europe? Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: John Brannoch Marta Da Silva Karim Kronfli Maksim Avedeev Zhenya Leverett Thomas Mitchells Gennady Alasheev John Walker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As winter swept over the Russians in Sevastopol and their French and British besiegers huddled on the surrounding heights, the Crimean War settled into a deadly pattern – this was modern warfare, trenches, artillery and death rates as high as anything later found in the First World War. The toll was taken far beyond Crimea too – the Tsar, worn down by war, died, Britain’s Prime Minister was forced out. But the fighting went on. Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: John Brannoch Marta Da Silva Karim Kronfli Maksim Avedeev Zhenya Leverett Thomas Mitchells Gennady Alasheev John Walker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

’Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die…’ Few moments in Britain’s long history have been celebrated and mythologised like the Charge of the Light Brigade, six hundred and sixty one men riding gloriously into the pages of history, their heroism recorded forever by Tennyson’s words. But what really happened on that autumn day? Was there any glory found on the stony ground of the Crimean peninsula? Who was to blame for the massacre that followed? And was it even a massacre?   Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: John Brannoch Marta Da Silva Karim Kronfli Maksim Avedeev Zhenya Leverett Thomas Mitchells Gennady Alasheev John Walker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Crimean War began in 1854 and changed the course of European history. This gruelling conflict, with the British and French alarmed by the rising threat of Russia, marked the changing face of war – the beginning of the end of the cavalry, the beginning of trench warfare and the development of lethal weaponry and technologies that would forever alter how wars would be fought – and how their stories would be told.  Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by Robin Scott Elliot Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast list: John Brannoch Marta Da Silva Karim Kronfli Maksim Avedeev Zhenya Leverett Thomas Mitchells Gennady Alasheev John Walker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The war is at a tipping point. Retreats, secret meetings, religious reasoning… conventional warfare develops into vicious guerilla warfare tactics and struggle. British reprisals will utterly change the face of South Africa in the twentieth century. Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by David Thomas Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast; Conrad Reid Thomas Mitchells  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kimberley, the diamond mining capital of South Africa and the heart of the De Beers diamond empire is surrounded by the Boers. Cecil John Rhodes - politician, businessman, imperialist and believer implicitly in white domination, lobbies Britain help to free ‘his’ town. Narrated by Paul Waggott Written by David Thomas Production and Sound Design by Holy Smokes Audio Executive Producers Tony Pastor + Neil Fearn A Goalhanger Podcasts Production Cast; Conrad Reid Thomas Mitchells  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices