Bismarck: Rise, a free, utterly massive, eight-part miniseries from me to you, starting Thursday 30 April 2020!
Read this blog post to find out more about this series, why I started it, what my plans are for the future, and why you should be SUPER excited!
Welcome to Hardcore WDF!
Hello my fellow isolationists, I hope you’re all safe and well, and perhaps just a little bit excited too. As you’re probably aware now, I have been quietly planning a great surprise for you all for the last few months, plugging away at it while the world went crazy. My intentions were to cheer people up and make a few waves in the history podcasting scene, but as the Bismarck project grew, the release date became more and more distant. Finally, though, I managed to get on top of things, and our first series of Hardcore WDF was born. There was nobody I could have examined for my first such series than Otto von Bismarck [1815-1898], the Minister-President of Prussia, who became Chancellor of Germany, reimagined European borders, transformed the status quo, and established a legend.
Otto von Who?
As many of you probably know, Otto von Bismarck has always been a special historical figure to me. One of the first proper history books I read was a tattered old edition of AJP Taylor’s critically acclaimed biography of the Iron Chancellor, The Man and Statesman. As a 15 year old kid with little concept of how our world became our world, I was dazzled and mesmerised by stories of how, in the latter portion of the nineteenth century, a place called Prussia and a man called Bismarck completely transformed the status quo, and effectively created the world (or at least Europe) as we know it today. I remember how even as a teenager my brain was fascinated by all the ‘what if’ potential of the Bismarck story. I also remember that it was while looking at Bismarck that the study of how wars begin started to really draw me in.
Before long, I wasn’t just interested in how Bismarck had called the wars of 1864, 1866 and 1870 into being, I also wanted to know about wars in other centuries, led by other figures. I wanted to learn all there was to know about medieval diplomacy, the proper process for declaring war. And of course, I honed in on the most infamous case of failed diplomacy that there is – the First World War. Bismarck, you could say, was my gateway drug into a fascinating world, where great feats of human endurance, great efforts in manipulation, and great stories of diplomatic initiative could be grappled with. And it is my hope that this Bismarck series will be your gateway drug into When Diplomacy Fails – I promise that’s not as sinister as it sounds!
a history friend is born!
This obsession with why diplomacy failed was thus with me from an early stage, as was my general obsession with the period 1870-1914, which I retain to this day. Learning about why diplomacy failed, where and when it failed, and comparing these different examples, probably doesn’t sound like something a teenager would be interested in, and yet I was – I couldn’t get enough. I was doing extra reading, and wanted to tell everyone about this Bismarck guy and his accomplishments. How amazing was it, I would say, that this one guy managed to get all of this done! The obsession and passion never really went away. For a project in sixth year of school (twelfth grade to my American history friends) I had a genius proposal – Why World War 1 Happened. Not so fast, said my beleaguered teacher, that’d take you a bit beyond the 1,000-word limit, so pretty please pick something else. I did, and went with Operation Valkyrie instead, but it made little difference to my abuse of the word count.
After leaving school and moving into the college sphere, I found that even more detailed and fascinating sources on this Bismarck guy could be found. I also discovered that yes, other people are aware of the man, and they’ve conducted extensive studies and debates on him, his legacy, his character, his accomplishments, etc. It was like a whole new world opened up, and I embraced it. I was the guy in your college history class who had actually done the reading. I was also the guy who wished that there could be some platform where I could talk and share my ideas with others. As I listened to a History of Rome on my two-hour commute, I remember distinctly how I popped on the latest episode of a History of England. I had always found David Crowther more charming, probably because I imagined him as a normal guy, whereas Mike Duncan seemed like this podcasting superstar who I’d never touch (I still haven’t touched him, but he did like my Tweet once!)
What’s in a name?
It was while listening to Crowther that my ears perked up – I’ll paraphrase but essentially, David said that if aspiring podcasters want advice or help, he’d be happy to serve that purpose. Wheels started turning in my head – of course, a history podcast, it’s so obvious! I don’t remember hesitating all that much, I just remember thinking that this was something I needed to do. I was 20 years old and as far away from an expert on history as you could imagine, yet I felt this unignorable urged to share my passion, and David Crowther was going to provide me with the chance to shine. As it transpired, David was only too happy to have an episode of mine guest on his show, so he could take the week off! I examined Bannockburn, so he didn’t have to, and I used the exposure gained here to launch my actual show on something of a high.
It was like all the lessons and the passions came together in one go. What should you call a history podcast which examines wars in history to see why they happen? I knew that I wanted to examine the things I was interested in, and what I was interested in was the failure of diplomacy – that sweet spot between war and peace where one side or the other decides on war. I wanted my podcast to examine what happened when diplomacy failed, that much I was sure of, but it took a surprisingly long time for it to click, and just take those three words for myself. Looking back, I know I’ve made a lot of errors since first beginning my podcast journey, but I’m probably most proud of my ability back then to latch onto a name which people still ask me about today – When Diplomacy Fails. Interestingly, while arriving at the name took a while, deciding on the first subject was a foregone conclusion from the beginning – for my first proper episode, I was going to examine the Franco-Prussian War. Everything, so it seemed, had come full circle.
It was shortly past 11PM on 18 May 2012, and I was exhausted, but I was also beaming with pride. I had done it – my first episode was released and available to the listening public. Now I just had to wait and see what would happen next. I of course had no idea of the journey I was about go on, and which I’m still very much on today, but I think it’s incredible to see that from the very beginning, Bismarck had such an impact. He sparked my interest in history for the first time, he made me want to explore more of it. Once I reached that point, he provided me with the name for my podcast, and he served as my very first solo effort as a podcaster. Eight years on, I feel it’s only right to say Happy Birthday WDF, and let’s have a Bismarck party!
Back to Bismarck…
I have always been eager to start a proper Bismarck series, but things kept getting in the way. Eventually, I promised my patrons that a series The Age of Bismarck would be made reality, but I wasn’t sure when. In the meantime, I tried to produce smaller explorations into the Iron Chancellor’s life and times, visiting the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars. This body of work is by far the largest ‘small exploration’ that ever has been created, and in its final form consists of nearly 15 hours of audio content and over 100,000 words of notes spread over eight episodes. As a project, it has taken far longer than I had intended to make (shocker!), and it has also served as a seriously enlightening learning experience.
As you’ll likely notice, something which is different about Hardcore WDF is the style. I tried to dispense with my heavily scripted style, and moved closer to Dan Carlin’s ‘notes and improv’ approach. I say ‘tried to’ because these episodes are by no means uniform in this regard, and this is because initially, making the switch was painful and laborious. My first attempt to write up notes for the episodes failed, as I came away with eight scripts instead – I was eager to try a new recording style, but the problem was I felt terrified that if I only worked from notes I would miss key parts of the story, so I compromised. I kept the script, but after making it, I took notes on that script. This meant that I didn’t miss anything, but it also meant that the whole process took twice as long as I had planned. This also explains why the first five episodes will feel more scripted, and the final three will seem less so – I simply ran out of time to transform those other scripts into notes. What we’re left with now is a hybrid, somewhere between Hardcore History and WDF, with a mixture of Our Fake History’s familiar style also thrown in there. It seemed only appropriate to call it Hardcore WDF; it also seemed only right that if I was going to trial this new style and approach, Bismarck should be the arena where this testing takes place.
If the scripting style flummoxed me, because I had to work so differently, it was comforting in a way to see that some things never change. By that I mean Holy s word I massively underestimated the time this would all take. Initially, crazy though it sounds, I had intended the period of Bismarck’s life from 1815-1864 to require just one episode. ONE. I then modified it, and moved it to three. In between this, I re-recorded the introduction episode, which also served as an accidental survey of how quickly this Covid situation got out of control. In my first introduction, recorded just as the WHO had labelled Covid a pandemic, I remarked on how terrifying it was. In my second introduction, Ireland had just confirmed its first case of Covid. For my third introduction, the world had surpassed 100,000 deaths from the virus. At the time of release for this project, we passed 200,000 deaths. It all seemed like something from a stereotypical disaster film, especially in those scenes where people sit around talking about how scary it all is, but how it’ll all be fine, and next thing you know, boom – apocalypse.
We’ll cover Bismarck from the beginning, before he was cool! (read: loathed by everyone in the immediate vicinity)…
To stay sane during these troubling times, I withdrew into the Bismarck story which had always enthralled me, and I committed myself to making as great a series as possible. I was sure of three things – that it would serve as the first section of Hardcore WDF, which I’d advertised before; that it should be as big as it needed to be; and that it should be free, it must be free, because as a creator I now had a more important mission than my own success or increased income. My mission was very simple: I wanted to surprise my listeners, to hit them totally from out of nowhere with this great gift, and hopefully, cheer them up a bit.
And that was it. I kept it vague because I wanted freedom to research this thing properly, and I didn’t want to constrain myself where there was no need. I did move the focus away from Bismarck’s personal life somewhat, and focused more on the political and policy aspects of his life and times, since that’s what interested me most. But at the same time, I also left room for some analysis of Bismarck’s character, his motives and his personality traits, which would help add more meat on the bones of the story. I did at least know that I wanted to cover the ‘less sexy’ parts of Bismarck’s story. In other words, while the period 1870-1890 is one of my favourite verses of this song, it has a tendency to be overplayed. I wanted something different and new to sink my teeth into, so what better than Bismarck’s formative years, his initial steps onto the world stage, and the establishment of his reputation as a formidable, but utterly remarkable man?
I was also curious, and had been for some time, about how Bismarck acquired the position he did, as Prussian Prime Minister, with barely a decade of political experience to speak of. It also fascinated me how for the first third of his life, Bismarck was essentially a waster, floating between different careers and prospects, be it the army, law or the civil service. I wanted to know how this inexperienced Junker arrived, and what was going through his King’s mind once he did. The story, as I learned, was even more incredible than I had initially realised – especially as it dawned on me that this mostly unheard story was one which deserved to be heard, and which my listeners would definitely get a kick out of hearing.
Bismarck: Rise
So, what’s in the box of this Bismarck series? Over the course of eight episodes, we examine the period 1815-1864. In each episode, we examine chronologically the next portion of Bismarck’s life. See below the period covered by each episode, along with an approximate measurement of each episode’s length (yes, the first episode really is three hours long!):
Episode 1, 1815-1851; 3:00
Episode 2, 1851-1853; 1:15
Episode 3, 1853-1859; 1:45
Episode 4, 1859-1861; 2:00
Episode 5, 1861-1862; 1:45
Episode 6, 1862-1863; 3:00
Episode 7, 1863-1864; 2:15
Episode 8, 1864. 3:00
This structure made possible the in-depth coverage of each significant period of Bismarck’s life, and the series also reaches its dramatic crescendo with our rich examination of the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864, where we witness Bismarck applying all of the lessons he had learned to diplomacy, to manipulate a successful war into being. Little did his contemporaries realise, that this was destined to be only the first of three such short, sharp successful wars – Bismarck, in 1864, was only getting started, and would remain in his post for another 25 years. In that time, Bismarck broke, transformed and remade the world anew, with consequences that still resonate to this day.
Something which you should expect from this series is to encounter a lot of foreshadowing. In Bismarck’s countless meetings with Napoleon III, whose heart he would later break. In Bismarck’s numerous pronouncements to the effect that Prussia should dispense with the German Confederation and establish her own order in Germany. In Bismarck’s early efforts to conceive of a new political and diplomatic philosophy, which would become known in time as realpolitik. There were just so many juicy things to talk about, and this before we even got to Bismarck’s greatest hits. I could hardly believe that in this series – essentially the prequel to the more successful Bismarck blockbuster – I managed to fall more in love with the Bismarck story than ever before. After scratching this itch and making this series, I am more, not less, obsessed with the mad Junker, and I’m also building this series to last.
Plans for the future
Whenever or however you decide to listen in, I hope you’ll join me for the journey, because I can promise you it’s a fascinating one!
While our coverage ends in 1864 for now, this is obviously not the end of the story, and I want to cover the period after 1864 in the near future under the Hardcore WDF umbrella. Those that are aware of my scheduling plans might know that the first episode of Hardcore WDF was meant to arrive on 30 April 2020, so in that respect at least, everything went according to plan. They also might know that it was meant to be an episode, not eight episodes. Due to the current circumstances, I turned these plans on their head, but I am staying true to a commitment I made back in October 2019 when I first conceived of Hardcore WDF as an idea. I had invented it to make it worthwhile for those PhD Pals who had signed up on Patreon at the $12 level. Once they received my Thirty Years War book (the release of which is getting closer by the day!), the idea was, they’d then stick around to catch four episodes of the Hardcore WDF series per year, as Hardcore WDF would only be available to $12 supporters and above. I saw this as a way to reward my listeners for sticking around at the higher support tiers, and I still intend to use this formula.
Next time we resume the story, probably in the latter half of 2020, most of it will be locked behind that PhD Pal paywall. I know this sucks for some of you, because money is tight at the moment, but money is tight for me too, and my hope is that after producing this body of work, you’ll get on board with the idea that this series is worth your money. To reward patrons for sticking with me now, and to thank them for their support and loyalty during this difficult time, I decided to release ALL episodes of this Bismarck series to patrons at any level, whereas regular listeners will have to wait each week for the next episode to land. This means that unaware patrons will wake up on the morning of 30 April to find 15 hours of content in their feed, without any explanation or expectation. Surprise! I said, as people collectively lost their minds at what I had done. Obviously, one of the most satisfying things about this series is the fact that I’ve kept it a total secret over these past months.
Celebrate! WDF is Eight!
It’s not exactly a small project, but then again, we are nearly eight years old, and we passed three years on Patreon in February, so to mark these milestones, and hopefully spread some cheer, this series will serve us very well indeed. This first section of the story is called Bismarck: Rise, but the next section will be called Bismarck: Triumph and will cover the period 1864-1871, while the final and definitely the longest section will be called Bismarck: Rule, and will examine the years 1871 to Bismarck’s retirement and death, as we also come to terms with the man and his legacy. Those other two series are in the pipeline, but to tell a story like this, it’s only right to tell it from the beginning.
The intention is for the listener to follow the structure, and listen to the episodes chronologically, but of course, you’re free to dip in and out or listen however you like. Make sure if you are looking for any more information you drop me a line through the usual channels, and speaking of these channels, please do come and connect with WDF on Twitter, chat with your fellow history friends in the Facebook group, or keep up to date with us on the Facebook page. Just to reiterate, for the next eight weeks, we will be having a Bismarck party, however, the regular programming will still be released into the feed – we won’t be pausing the Thirty Years War or Poland Is Not Yet Lost to get this Bismarck story done. So if you’re stuck for something to do, now you have an excuse to try and relax and put some more Zack into your ears – as if you needed an excuse to begin with!
I must reiterate as well the fact that I really appreciate your support during these dark times. I mean that sincerely – I don’t know all your names, but I genuinely am touched that so many of you know mine, and that you’re willing to go out of your own way to show that you support me and my endeavours. Kind of incredible isn’t it, to think that WDF has been running for eight years? I never imagined all this would be possible, in fact I don’t remember what I imagined would happen when I began in May 2012. All I knew was that I had a burning urge to share what I knew about Bismarck – I guess it is true then, to say that some things never change.
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Bismarck: Rise is freely available to all listeners, and is out NOW, so make sure you head over to the podcast feed and listen in.
Alternatively, head over to Patreon, and get ALL episodes instantly, without having to wait a week between each instalment! It’s like a bingers’ paradise!
