In the winter of 1794 and 1795, Britain was at war with revolutionary France, short of bread, and facing the coldest weather in living memory.
This episode follows that winter from the failed campaign in Flanders to the Great Frost of January 1795. It covers the treason trials and suspended liberties at home, and the French army crossing frozen Dutch rivers. It also looks at what the rising price of bread meant for an ordinary family, and how parishes answered with militias, volunteers, watches and relief schemes.
It closes with the aftermath: the peace treaties that broke up Britain’s alliance, the attack on the King’s coach, and the repressive laws that followed.
One night-watch scene in the episode is a composite, built from the kinds of nights the records describe, not a documented event. The rest follows the historical record.
0:00 January 1795: the ice
1:59 How Britain got here, 1789–1793
4:35 The campaigns of 1794
7:27 Fear at home: treason trials and Habeas Corpus
10:12 The Great Frost
12:37 Holland, the ice and the hussars
15:31 Bread
18:22 Press gangs, militia and veterans
21:23 Life in a Humber parish
24:38 The night watch (a composite scene)
28:14 Aftermath, and the answer
