Butthurt guy whines about Canada's warship names

[KRonn]

p.s. We burnt down your White House. 

So Canada also needs a warship named Washington in memory of that battle. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

None of those statements indicates what they intended the disposition of those takings to be. That's like arguing the British desired to annex Spain because of the Peninsular Campaign. You aren't always looking to annex areas you seize in war.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That's all true Otto, but once Polk administration realized the magnitude of the victory they'd won they demanded a lot more only to be stabbed in the back and sabotaged by their treasonous head diplomat.

It's pretty typical that the bigger you're winning the more you ask for, so if the U.S. is in position to demand Ontario they probably will.

There's a lot of white Anglos in Canada at the time that didn't want to be part of the United States. The United States wasn't keen on what it would take to hold Canada. Pushing out a bunch of natives was not big thing, and with the Mexican Cession and Texas acquisition a large population of Americans had already on their own initiative established a strong enough foothold in those regions that the government back in Washington didn't need to worry about the local populace.

There wasn't any very effective mechanism available to the United States at the time to subjugate a hostile country with modern (in that era) weapons and civilization. It's a different matter to push natives out or to take land that Americans had already heavily populated.

[Valmy]

1. Canadians always argue "politicians argued for annexation", what politicians? Certainly not the cabinet or the President. Random members of Congress say crazy things all the time, but it's the President and typically his administration that actually negotiate peace treaties, not Henry Clay or whoever may have rambled on about annexing Canada (although I would be surprised if it was Clay, his interest in westward expansion was more personally related to areas closer to Kentucky.)

Well it is contoversial one way or the other whether annexation of Canada was one of the primary goals of war with historians on both sides.  I don't think it is absurd as you make it sound.

There were numerous positive reasons for taking Cananda that backed other stated goals of the administration.  For example of the stated main reasons for the war was to prevent British interference with American westward settlement, by aiding the Native Americans in particular.  Well obviously throwing the British out of Canada would be an easy way to handle that problem.  And it was a means in itself to more ideological or fervent Americans as Thomas Jefferson hoped in 1812:

The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and final expulsion of England from the American continent

I mean booting the British Empire from the continent was the dream.  But it was mainly a dream, the American militias were sent up there with the leadership thinking 'well maybe it if goes this way...that could be interesting' but it was not some huge devastating disappointment the Tories did not join with us or anything.  It was more like 'ah well guess that is not going to happen' sort of like it was when we tried it with the French back in 1776.  Besides we soon had bigger problems to deal with, like troops being released by the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The militia did not seem to have any illusions about the situation though, my wife's Kentucky ancestors promised their parents they would kill many 'Tories, Frenchmen, and Indians' before they left to fight the Battle of the Thames.

I do not get the butthurt about the names of the Canadian ships though.  The War of 1812 is when the whole British Canada project really got going, it was the foundation moment of a nation.  I mean nobody gets all butthurt about us naming ships 'Lexington', 'Saratoga', and 'Yorktown'.  And if they do they can kiss my ass.  I am so tired of naming ships lame garbage like some US politician or some Canadian pansy.  We have ships finally named after goddamn battles we should be grateful.

[The Brain]

Sweden doesn't have the problem of other countries having ever been victorious against us.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I've actually gone through some books in my library where I've dog-eared some stuff about this as this IIRC has come up multiple times before in the history of Languish (most likely due to the large number of Canadians and their delusional nature.) I would suggest reading the following:

The United States, Great Britain and British North America, From the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace After the War 1812

The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition

The Republic in Peril: 1812

I'm not sure I have the energy to debate it any further unless someone actually gets up to par with me on this subject.

[Barrister]

None of those statements indicates what they intended the disposition of those takings to be. That's like arguing the British desired to annex Spain because of the Peninsular Campaign. You aren't always looking to annex areas you seize in war.

Not always, but often times you are.

Why do you think the US was invading upper and lower Canada?  They were not a military threat to the US.  In fact the one area that was a military threat, namely Halifax, was never even contemplated to be invaded.  It was precisely because the US felt that they could invade these areas, be seen as liberators, and incorporate those territories into the US (precisely as they did in subsequent campaigns against Mexico).

And to be fair - that was not a stupid idea.  Montreal and lower Canada had only been conquered by the British some sixty years earlier, and while the elites had made their peace with the British it was never a happy marriage.  And upper Canada was mostly populated by loyalists - in other words, Americans.

As well, for a war that was supposedly instigated because of British abuses against American shipping, it is curious that when those policies were rescinded days before the war started (though word had not yet reached Washington), that the US insisted on carrying out the war for a further two years.  If you've been given your war aims immediately upon your declaration of war, then sssurely the continued persistence in waging war means you had other aims as well.

Oh, and by the way, you're wrong about Clay - he was another big proponent of taking Canada, stating "I trust I shall not be deemed presumptuous when I state that I verily believe that the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal and Upper Canada at your feet."

[Barrister]

I've actually gone through some books in my library where I've dog-eared some stuff about this as this IIRC has come up multiple times before in the history of Languish (most likely due to the large number of Canadians and their delusional nature.) I would suggest reading the following:

The United States, Great Britain and British North America, From the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace After the War 1812

The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition

The Republic in Peril: 1812

I'm not sure I have the energy to debate it any further unless someone actually gets up to par with me on this subject.

I get most of my knowledge from

http://www.amazon.com/Pierre-Bertons-War-1812-Berton-ebook/dp/B004UI0OF4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388421387&sr=1-1&keywords=1812+pierre+burton

I don't always like Berton's writing style, but his books are very well researched.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Also, when people start quoting Thomas Jefferson and his anti-British viewpoints in discussions about the War of 1812 that's usually when I know they've conceded their point. TJ had nothing to do with the War of 1812 anymore than George W. Bush has anything to do with the stuff Obama is doing in office.

There's a ton of source material that shows the war plan was to use Canada as a means to get British grievances addressed. Only out of context quotes like those from BB and irrelevant ones from powerless figures during the conflict like Thomas Jefferson exist to the contrary. We have the Congressional record and lots of other primary source material showing that the goal of taking Canada was to force the British into a negotiated peace.

There is also little mechanism by which the United States could have annexed Canada. What legal form would Canada be converted to? Certainly not  States, in the War of 1812 era States were paramount, and if we brought Canada in as a State or cut it up into 1-2 States they'd be able to break away essentially immediately. Even fighting to keep them in would have been politically nigh-impossible in the 1810s-1820s.

We could have made them a territory, but there was no precedent for the United States creating a territory made up of settled, hostile Europeans. How would we have kept them under thumb? We had virtually no standing army even after 1812, the standing army we had raised was not signed up for life. They typically signed  short enlistments and the volunteers were primarily motivated by a desire to defend the national honor and fight against Britain (glory seeking was rampant--the War of 1812 required no conscription and had an excess of volunteers.) But when the task becomes "suppress revolts in Canada", those soldiers would not sign up for new enlistments to do that, they'd want back to their homes. The State militias in the other States certainly would not go to Canada to suppress rebellion.

Madison was actually President of the United States, so I suspect he knew all of this far better than I and more of the particulars as to why it was untenable. Yes, if Canadians had hated the British and essentially rose up in arms with us during the War of 1812 we may have annexed Canada regardless of what our pre-war goals were. But given the lack of any interest in becoming American by the English speaking Canadians (most of whom in 1812 were probably UELs who had fled America after the Revolution) even if we had taken and held the key Canadian forts/towns I see no real scenario where Madison actually thinks it could be a permanent acquisition. Not only was it militarily impossible it would have been politically unpopular.

[Valmy]

(most likely due to the large number of Canadians and their delusional nature.)

And why would somebody want to debate you on this when you obviously have already made your mind up?

The professor I TA'd for at Texas State believed that annexation of Canada was a goal of the war, I buy the line that it was a bit of a fuzzy incredibly optimistic dream.  That many people let themselves dream we could win a glorious victory and with the liberated Canadians by our side throw the tyrannical British from North America, and more level headed and practical types went along with it at least to test the waters.

I mean this is a subject historians still debate.  So I am not sure it is something we can really come to a consensus about.

The fact though is that, regardless of our intentions, is the Canadians COULD have taken this opportunity to join the US but rejected it and went off on their own path.  That is the beginning of English-speaking Canada.

[Valmy]

Also, when people start quoting Thomas Jefferson and his anti-British viewpoints in discussions about the War of 1812 that's usually when I know they've conceded their point.

See?  I mean why bother?  'You've already lost!  Haha!'

[Barrister]

Also, when people start quoting Thomas Jefferson and his anti-British viewpoints in discussions about the War of 1812 that's usually when I know they've conceded their point. TJ had nothing to do with the War of 1812 anymore than George W. Bush has anything to do with the stuff Obama is doing in office.

There's a ton of source material that shows the war plan was to use Canada as a means to get British grievances addressed. Only out of context quotes like those from BB and irrelevant ones from powerless figures during the conflict like Thomas Jefferson exist to the contrary. We have the Congressional record and lots of other primary source material showing that the goal of taking Canada was to force the British into a negotiated peace.

There is also little mechanism by which the United States could have annexed Canada. What legal form would Canada be converted to? Certainly not  States, in the War of 1812 era States were paramount, and if we brought Canada in as a State or cut it up into 1-2 States they'd be able to break away essentially immediately. Even fighting to keep them in would have been politically nigh-impossible in the 1810s-1820s.

We could have made them a territory, but there was no precedent for the United States creating a territory made up of settled, hostile Europeans. How would we have kept them under thumb? We had virtually no standing army even after 1812, the standing army we had raised was not signed up for life. They typically signed  short enlistments and the volunteers were primarily motivated by a desire to defend the national honor and fight against Britain (glory seeking was rampant--the War of 1812 required no conscription and had an excess of volunteers.) But when the task becomes "suppress revolts in Canada", those soldiers would not sign up for new enlistments to do that, they'd want back to their homes. The State militias in the other States certainly would not go to Canada to suppress rebellion.

Madison was actually President of the United States, so I suspect he knew all of this far better than I and more of the particulars as to why it was untenable. Yes, if Canadians had hated the British and essentially rose up in arms with us during the War of 1812 we may have annexed Canada regardless of what our pre-war goals were. But given the lack of any interest in becoming American by the English speaking Canadians (most of whom in 1812 were probably UELs who had fled America after the Revolution) even if we had taken and held the key Canadian forts/towns I see no real scenario where Madison actually thinks it could be a permanent acquisition. Not only was it militarily impossible it would have been politically unpopular.

But that's why they all keep going on about "just needing to march".

It was just assumed that the US would be welcomed as liberators, not seen as invaders who would be resisted.  And although that assumption turned out to be false, it was not the first or last time a US invasion suffered from that particular delusion... 

[Valmy]

It was just assumed that the US would be welcomed as liberators, not seen as invaders who would be resisted.  And although that assumption turned out to be false, it was not the first or last time a US invasion suffered from that particular delusion... 

I don't think it was assumed.  We weren't giving those goddamn Tories that much credit.

[Razgovory]

But that's why they all keep going on about "just needing to march".

It was just assumed that the US would be welcomed as liberators, not seen as invaders who would be resisted.  And although that assumption turned out to be false, it was not the first or last time a US invasion suffered from that particular delusion... 

That really sounds like how easy a military strategy would be (which is different then the motive) One could say similar things to the invasion of Iraq, and nobody wanted to actually own Iraq.

[Barrister]

But that's why they all keep going on about "just needing to march".

It was just assumed that the US would be welcomed as liberators, not seen as invaders who would be resisted.  And although that assumption turned out to be false, it was not the first or last time a US invasion suffered from that particular delusion... 

That really sounds like how easy a military strategy would be (which is different then the motive) One could say similar things to the invasion of Iraq, and nobody wanted to actually own Iraq.

But invading York is a useless military strategy in and of itself.  It doesn't advance your stated war aims, which had to do with shipping.  There was no high-value target there, no significant military fort that was threatening you.

INvading York is only a useful military strategy if your ultimate goal is to own York.