The Guadalajara Reporter

British troops burn White House in 1814; US troops occupy Mexico City in 1847; lessons learned transform US military

Canada’s government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper will spend 28 million dollars over three years to call what many Canadians term “surprising attention” to the bicentennial of the 1812 war between a young United States and the British Empire. That war was carried out primarily in Britain’s “North American northern frontier” as it is identified by Jim Guy, professor emeritus of political science and international law at Cape Breton University.  (Note for non-Canadian readers: The word Canada comes from the Iroquois word “Kanata,” meaning “village.”  A Frenchman, Jacques Cartier, transcribed the word as “Canada,” applied first to the village of Stadacona, then to the whole region of New France.  After the British conquest of New France, the colony was renamed the Province of Quebec.  Following the American revolution, New France was split into two parts, Upper and Lower Canada, often being collectively, but not officially, known as “the Canadas.”   The national title  “Canada,” was decided on July 1, 1867, at a conference in London, in which 17 other names were offered, but Canada was unanimously adopted.)

Now a somewhat controversial three-year government-inspired observation will “commemorate” – possibly in Harper’s mind, say some, to “celebrate” – the 1812 war that nobody won.  For some Canadians the government campaign is “kind of weird,” as one locally residing Canadian has said.  The war, declared by the United States, ended in a stalemate.  Today it seems odd, Canadian academicians and journalists have long noted, that in 1812 a “comparatively powerless” United States sought war with an imperial power.   But the British had been blocking U.S. shipping from doing trade at French ports during the Empire’s Napoleonic Wars.  British warships ran down American merchant galleons, taking possession of them and their cargo, and pressing (polite word for kidnapping) American sailors to meet the Empire’s insatiable need to man its war fleet.  The enslavement of U.S. sailors outraged the American public, which pressed President James Madison to declare war.  His new nation was weak and had just a paltry, and poorly trained, 12,000-man military.  But pressure was fierce and a British colony sat next door.

It was a careless, public-opinion-created war for which the new democracy was gravely unprepared.  Its northern neighbor was defended by well-trained veteran British troops.  The only thing the United States got out of the encounter was the “Star Spangled Banner,” a moving anthem destined to inspire patriotic Americans in both peace and war.

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