(And I would note that the battles fought in Canada were rather “deeper” into Canada than the battles fought in the U.S.)
If I remember my reading correctly, the largest number of Canadians were actually Americans who went to Canada to avoid paying the much higher taxes in the US. So maybe the war was American vs American.
And Bernse, you are absolutely right about sewing that Canadian flag on to avoid confrontations with all those foreigners. They see that flag, and accept you as a fellow third worlder.
That’s right. Despite having studied European history, 1789 - 1914 at high school (and that included European countries fighting wars outside Europe), I’d never heard of the war of 1812 until I moved to the US. In periods when England was fighting France (a period generally known as “the second millennium”), everything else paled into insignificance.
Geez, I’m sorry :smack: . I was under the impression that the War of 1812 was about the U.S.’s attempt to invade Canada in accordance with its philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Now I see that the war was all about Canada trying to invade the U.S. in accordance with it’s historically expansionist tendencies.
BTW - The battle of New Orleans was fought after the war of 1812 had ended.
-Coffeeguy
Yeah, but remember, the Canadians had Laura Secord. That woman could walk…
All this time I thought Canadian’s WERE American…hmmm…
now don’t I feel ignorant…
Nice little insult for GQ. Feel better now?
FTR, I was never taught that Britain or Canada won the war of 1812. Here in Canada it is taught as mostly a draw, with some political questions put to rest. I suspect this is something of a UL that some people delight in re-telling, even without the facts to back it up.
I must say I’m disappointed by the bile and insults some people feel are appropriate here. I’d come to expect more from posters in GQ. 
Coffeeguy, consider this hypothetical analogy.
Claiming it’s been badly treated by the US over, say, trade policies, modern-day Mexico invades the US. Despite being tied down in Afghanistan and the Mideast, the US military sends in troops to repel the invaders. To everyone’s surprise, the Mexicans win several battles, and sink several of the US’s high-tech naval vessels. The US counter-attack grinds to a halt.
Despite having a vastly superior army and, arguably, the moral high ground, the US is compelled to settle for a peace treaty that leaves everything the way it was before the Mexican invasion.
Would such as result really count as a US victory?
Britain was a military superpower in 1812, while the US was a military non-entity. Even though Britain had a perfectly valid excuse (the Napoleonic Wars) for the stalemate with the qualitatively inferior US forces, the War of 1812 did nothing to add to Britain’s reputation as a world power. Which is why they were willing to settle for peace terms of status quo ante bellum.
I grew up in a town on the mouth of the Niagara River, called Niagara-on-the-Lake, formerly Newark, razed by the retreating American forces at the close of 1813. We spent the entire year of grade 8 history study in detail this war from the perspective of the Niagara Peninsula. Let me tell you that if Americans think they won the war of independance, then Canadians can say they won the war of 1812. It was an American decaration of war on June 18, 1812 for the purpose of ousting Britain form North America and it clearly* failed*
A local legend has it that the local militiamen (many expatriate Americans) pinned a maple leaf to their garment in order to identify themselves.
Here’s a British take…
At school we don’t learn anything about this, it simply doesn’t appear on our historical radar.
If you ask a British history student what the war of 1812 was they will tell you it was Napoleons defeat in Russia, to be followed by Waterloo in 1815.
One thing we are told though is that the loss of the American colonies was not considered a big deal at the time, as they weren’t considered all that valuable. We were more interested in the “sugar Islands” and of course India and Africa as the immidiate returns were much greater.
Then you were seriously misinformed, as the whole concept of Manifest Destiny did not even come into being until the late 1830s. (It was not given a name until 1845.)
The settlers expanding out from Virginia and Kentucky did have their eyes on Canada (mostly in terms of neutralizing British support for indian attacks on settlements throughout the Northwest Territory and Mississippi Valley), and a few politicos thought that they could make points by claiming that Canada would be an easy conquest, but there was no “manifest destiny” notion involved in which the entire U.S. felt that North America was theirs by Divine Right. (In fact, one of the reasons why the U.S. fared so poorly when invading Canada was that New England basically sat out the war in protest of the Virginia-led declaration of war. There were several riots against the war in New England and as far south as Baltimore. Similarly, on several occasions, the U.S. Army could not persuade militias raised in New York and Pennsylvania to cross the border into Canada because those militias considered themselves as solely defensive bodies. Even the pursuit of the British to the Battle of the Thames was primarily intended to crush the indian effort, which is why Harrison did not follow up with a further push east.)
Sigh. We’ve been through this before.
Canada won the War of 1812.
So did the United States.
The British sort of lost.
The Indians lost big time.
Canada’s objective during the War of 1812 was to prevent the United States from annexing it. They succeeded. Therefore, Canada won. I’m not sure how you folks define “winning” a war, but meeting your primary military objective strikes me as being a pretty good litmus test of victory.
The United States ALSO won. Paradoxical as that sounds, it’s true. The primary American objective was not annexing Canada; it was the elimination of British influence over Indian country, thereby allowing westward expansion, as well as guaranteeing American sovereignty abroad (e.g. on the high seas, mostly.) Those objective were accomplished. I would therefore suggest it’s reasonable to say the U.S. won.
The British lost the war; they lost influence over Indian country and had to lay off American ships on the high seas, but frankly it wasn’t a big deal to them. They had bigger fish to fry.
The Indians lost big time; their time as a significant political and military player was over, and the U.S. began the long process of destroying Indian civilization west of the Colonies.
So to answer Elvis’s question, Canadians say they won the War of 1812 because it’s true. They did. What Canadians forget is that, technically, the U.S. won, too. grienspace demonstrates this here:
No, grienspace, you’re wrong. It clearly SUCCEEDED. The U.S. may have failed to take over Canada, but that wasn’t their primary objective; their primary objective was the land WEST of them, not the land NORTH of them. You’re imposing a 2002 understanding of North American political geography on 1812, which is where your error lies. In 1812, the land west of Michigan was every bit as foreign to the USA as Canada was; it was a wilderness controlled mostly by Indian nations (until you got to Mexico, which at that time stretched up to Oregon.) At the time, the British still wielded considerable influence over the Indian nations that controlled much of the land west of the Colonies - that land could not reasonably be called part of the USA at the time. The War of 1812 had the effect of ending that influence and allowing American expansion westward. Therefore, the effort to end British influence in North America was very successful - British influence over a truly massive chunk of territory was ended. Capture of Canada was a minor side objective - going to war against Canada was more to pressure Britain into signing a peace traty that would allow westward expansion than it was to actually come into possession of Canada.
It wasn’t a simple war.
Canada is as much of a 3rd world country as the US is, and I am unaware of any 3rd world countries in Europe. So, you pretty much just made yourself look like an idiot, ass and all around dumbfuck in one shot. Nice hat-trick.
If you wish to continue on and educate the rest of us with this fantastic insight of yours, feel free to open up a pit thread.
That was a major objective in the War of Independance which was acheived earlier to the War of 1812. In fact, the Americans had already gone even further with the Louisiana Purchase right up to the Rocky Mountains. It wasn’t until the mid century that America relented in its goal to annex Canada with their 54 40 or fight slogan and settled with the British establishing the 49th parallel as the boundary for the western territories. The fact is that not one goal was acheived by the Americans as far as I can tell, other than the cessation of harassment by British naval forces pursuant to Britain’s war against Napoleon. Like Vietnam, it was not a popular war for Americans.
Once the war was over, of course there would be a cessation of hostilities on the high seas. Britain still exercised its role as master of the seas.
Clarification: The Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803, 9 years before the war of 1812.
Not exactly. I have heard, far more often, the claim that Canada defeated the US specifically, not that they generically “won”. I was wondering how and why that particular bit of folklore is passed down.
As for the other assertion, commonly repeated in this thread, that the US “started” the war, it’s worth pondering the official British policy of kidnapping American sailors on the high seas for use on their warships. That did have some bearing on the matter, ya know.
The Battle of New Orleans was won by the Americans AFTER the War of 1812. Peace treaty was signed two weeks earlier.
No, it was not achieved. British support for and agitation of the indian nations throughout the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi Valley continued from the 1780s through 1813 and the Battle of the Thames.
The earlier expedition of “Mad” Anthony Wayne culminating with his 1794 victory at Fallen Timbers on the Maumee in Ohio was in direct response to British activity within the region granted to the U.S. by the Treaty of Paris. Britain actually maintained Fort Miami on the Maumee river. While Wayne’s victory and the subsequent Treaty of Greenville reduced the fighting with the indians in Ohio and the 1796 treaty engineered by John Jay included a pledge from Britain to withdraw from U.S. lands by 1796, the British interpretation of “U.S. lands” was broadly interpreted by the British to mean any lands that were not specifically occupied at the moment by U.S. troops. They continued to maintain a presence in what would be more firmly defined as the U.S. and to aid any indians who opposed U.S. expansion right up until the death of Tecumseh. Following the Battle of Tippecanoe, in 1811, the British invited Tecumseh to withdraw from Indiana with his forces to Fort Malden where the British promised to arm and support his next campaign. Note that this was over six months prior to the U.S. declaration of war. If the War of 1812 not occurred when it did, some later fight for that territory would have probably occurred within a few years.
Jay’s Treaty was in 1794, just after Wayne’s victory, and gave the British two years to evacuate. The evacuated their forts in Ohio, but maintained a presence in Michigan and the Mississippi Valley.
It’s not folklore, it’s the literal truth. The military objective of the mishmash of Canadians, Indians and British that defended Canada was to 1. Stop the American invasion and 2. Prevent the U.S. from annexing Canada. They succeeded in that by defeating AMERICAN forces, not by defeating Russian or Chinese forces. So in point of fact, “Canada,” such as it was, did beat the U.S. on the field of battle. The military victories won in 1812-1814 allowed Canada to remain separate from the US and led directly to the Union of 1837 and, subsequently, Confederation. Military success in the War of 1812 is a direct cause of Canada being an independent nation-state today. I’m not sure where the confusion lies here.
Granted, it was a fight to a draw rather than a total victory, but that was all Canada had to do. Now, mind you, I’m talking about that theatre of the war - not the raid on Washington and such, which were conducted by British troops.
I mean, I as a Canadian personally could not care less; beating the United States in 1812 when the USA didn’t really even have a permanent army is not somehow a reflection on the glory of Canada in 2002. U.S. forces on the Canadian theatre were disorganized amateurs with disastrously bad leadership, fighting for a country where whole states refused to support the war; how that has anything to do with today’s United States baffles me. But it’s literally true; the U.S. invaded Canada and they were beaten in the attempt, primarily by Canadian and Indian militia. There were British troops too, but nobody says the French won the American Revolution.
Obviously, Canadian colonists probably didn’t see themselves as being responsible for that. I realize Canada was not an according-to-Hoyle sovereign state in 1812, but it was certainly a different NATION from Great Britain, and the Canadians were probably just a little miffed that they were being invaded by a country many of them perceived as being a criminal, hostile state, one from which many Canadians had been forced to flee for fear of their lives, for Britain’s crimes. But I would agree that kidnapping American citizens is clearly an act of war, and hey, war’s war.
Your OP is answered, though maybe you phrased it a little too generally. The reason Canadians think they won the War of 1812 is because they DID win the War of 1812. Any Canadian who thinks the United States LOST the war, however, does not really understand it.