89. The Final Act of the Great Game

Empire: World History

Goalhanger

History

4.5 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Fearing Russian designs on the region, the eyes of the British turn towards Tibet. Francis Younghusband, the Victorian adventurer and elite player of the Great Game, and Lord Curzon decide that with the Russians distracted by their conflict in Manchuria, now is the time to seize the territory. This is their chance to one-up their imperial rival. In this classic tale of the Great Game, British and Russian officers face each other down in far-off mountain ranges, before things take a darker turn as a British expedition sets off a cycle of violence. In this episode dedicated to the memory of his biographer, Patrick French, listen as William and Anita discuss the extraordinary life of Francis Younghusband and his role in the final act of the Great Game. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@gmail.com Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of empire, a chat community,
0:06.7	discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly
0:11.5	newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at
0:14.4	W.
0:15.1	W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and me, welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan and me William Drumpel.
0:35.8	We've got a really important subject to talk about but I mean partly because
0:40.0	we have a great deal of regard for the man who brought this particular subject to the world.
0:46.0	So really we're dedicating this podcast to our dearly departed Patrick French friend of
0:53.2	a lifelong friend of yours William.
0:55.5	He was at school with me from age of 13
0:57.7	was my best man at my wedding
0:59.2	and made a speech that you would greatly
1:01.1	have enjoyed a need to.
1:02.4	I would have to.
1:03.4	I would have been tickled by it.
1:04.4	I mean it wasn't so much a best man speech is and roast.
1:11.0	I think we called the two ways to too far. But anyway the reason that we're discussing
1:15.9	Patrick is not his very funny best man speech, but the fact that at the same time
1:21.3	he was working on a spectacular book called Young Husband, The Last Great Imperial
1:27.0	adventurer. And this is a book that re-looked at one of the kind of classic great game heroes, Sir Francis young husband,
1:35.2	who was involved in the final stages of the great game, which occurred after Russia seized much of
1:42.0	Central Asia and made this extraordinary sweep down a thousand
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Goalhanger, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Goalhanger and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.