Ahhhhh. Well, it’s all… Roman to me? 
I got nothin. :rolleyes:
Nuggling details:
No Liberty Ships were built of concrete. The Liberty class (like its successor Victory class) was a very specific ship design that varied only incrementally from one hull to another and a concrete hull would have required a new name and class.
There were 24 concrete hull ships built for WWII, the McCloskey ships, but they were not Liberty ships.
eating humble pie :smack: Yes, of course, that’s why I couldn’t Google it. In fact it was “Fear God and Dread Naught.” I guess that’s what happen when you only hear it orally and don’t verify it.
Yes, but don’t discount the fear. In all seriousness, I’m in the Air Force and I can’t think for a second what it would be like to have to live like the sailors did. I think I’d be getting as far away from any ship if I could.
You do know that the US Navy loves to meet up with the Canajuns because we have a wet mess, right? For some reason all US ships are dry, of course I sailors refuse to sail without booze. 
I imagine by that time Mexico realized that it would have its ass kicked if it tried anything. Amazing how a good drubbing does that.
I don’t recall any being made of concrete, but I could be mistaken. You are correct about the fact that they were made without much concern about whether they would be around very long.
Now this begs the question, would you like to be on one of these ships?
Intersesting, I have to admit that I’m not really that well versed on Jewish history. I’ll have to do some delving into this subject.
Yes, there is no doubt that the US was very wary about this and as many don’t realize the US had numerous colonies at one time in the Pacific. I can’t recall the name of the treaty that the US rejected, but it would have declared all three (super)races equal. The world was a very different place back then.
Psychology is definitely a factor that you have to consider. I wonder how many battles in history were lost or won because of belief. I think Waterloo provides a good example as Wellington was sure he could defeat Napoleon and he was sure that Bleuker would help him. He ended up being right.
You are correct that Hitler never learned, but he made so many mistakes it was unbelievable. His top generals were just waiting for France to move in so they could arrest him, but everytime he attempted something insane (like the invasion of Austria or the refusal to pay the WWI debt) he was appeased. Sad to think he could have been stopped so many times, but never was.
That fact caused a small uproar up here by some fanatics, but the truth is that it should have been expected. At that time Canadian imperialism had just been quashed by the events in WWI and there was no agreement of mutal support as we have now in NATO. It was also more of a mental exercise, which I would suggest that the US would have been crazy not to consider. There are an untold number of these scenarios floating around.
As for the Ozzies, I have a few friends from down under and I have no clue how much you would have to give them to drink to stop them.
Whew! Lots of reading from last, and the nice/nasty thing is how far off-topic it ranges. In the interest of making things worse, let me just mention two small items about Pacific tensions: there was a book written about a hypothetical American-Japanese war circa 1925 (title forgotten, H. L. Mencken reviewed it in the American Mercury). The tension between the two imperial powers also pops up in The Sand Pebbles, a really magnificent historical novel by Richard McKenna about gunboat “diplomacy” in China in the turbulent 20s (made into a film starring Steve McQueen, sadly missing from the recent 3-box reissue of his stuff, just as the San Pablo, complete with clunking steam engine, is missing from the huckster collection of McQueen’s vehicles).
They took Washington and burned down the Whitehouse. That must count for something of a defeat.
Amusingly enough, that happened during a battle that is considered a strategic defeat for the British (as was mentioned before, the British were forced to withdraw from Baltimore and DC after the Royal Navy was unable to take Fort McHenry).
And while they burned down the White House, we more or less destroyed the city of York (albeit on accident, but it still counts).
Bear in mind what is involved in a full blockade - keeping a sufficient force to defeat (or at least obstruct) the enemy outside every enemy port during the entire time when the enemy might wish to make use of it. Given the length of coastline that Napoleon controlled, that meant a LOT of ships at sea in all weather for months at a time, while still more ships were in transit to and from base or refitting. Apart from maybe convoy duty, blockade is the toughest duty imagineable during the age of sail, and of course the RN also had to convoy all their merchant shipping back and forth to protect it from any French ships that had managed to slip out through the blockade. Meanwhile, sailors were getting sick, falling off rigging, having their fingers torn off by ropes, being killed by enemy action, etc. In 1812 the Royal Navy had 140,000 sailors, so replacing even a few percent every year meant a lot of new sailors were needed, and they had to be supplied without crippling the merchant marine that kept the English economy afloat.
During the age of sail, sailors were the equivalent of oil today - a vital strategic resource that you simply **had ** to have. A crappy rotten century old fifty gun warship with a good crew was still somewhat useful, but a brand-new seventy-four with a crew that couldn’t sail it was just a pile of timber about to sink. The RN would take anybody from anywhere that knew how to work on a ship, or that could be taught. Apparently at Trafalgar the crew of HMS Victory contained 23 Americans, 77 Irish and 10 Italians, as well as Dutch, Maltese, Swedish, West Indian, Canadian, Danish and Brazilian seamen, and even two from Switzerland and four Frenchmen.
And as has been mentioned already, the fact that the USN possessed a handful of monster frigates wouldn’t have counted for squat if the RN had been able to deploy its full strength in a blockade. Even even Old Ironsides wouldn’t have been able to fight three or four English frigates at once, never mind all the line-of-battle ships that they simply had no equivalent to.
Johnny Horton’s version got to number 16 in the UK charts in 1959, with the original lyrics intact. We don’t hold a grudge that way. However, British skiffle-king Lonnie Donegan released a version at the same time (and as far as I can tell it’s the same lyrics), and his version made number 2. Woohoo, suck it Yanks!!!
Wanna bet who’d win in the rematch? 
(PS- the sun has set.)
As long as we hold Pitcairn and Tristan da Cunha, never!
As someone already mentioned, the United States burned the parliament house in York, which also most count for something of a defeat. And just like the burning of the White House was part of an overall strategic loss for the British, so was the burning of Parliament for the Americans.
The United States had multiple embarrassing defeats in the War of 1812, but the British suffered some serious blows as well. Considering the overall goals of both sides I honestly can’t view the ultimate outcome as anything other than a draw.
If you want to view the Canadians as a separate entity, and not part of the British Empire (which I’m not entirely sure you can do at this point) then they would be the only party to emerge “victorious” out of the Americans/British/Canadians, because they assured Canada’s independence from the United States and mostly put an end permanently to serious threat of American invasion. A group that could be labeled as clear losers would be the Native Americans, I think.
It is a loss for the US in the sense that we started the war and didn’t get what we wanted (although we ended up getting it anyway).
I’m not entirely sure that is an effective criteria for “loss.”
Most people for example tend to view the Korean War as effectively a draw, though it could certainly be argued as a loss either way. The DPRK wanted to conquer the ROK, which it ultimately failed to do (although it came quite close to this goal.) Arguably the United States goal was to protect the ROK, which ultimately it did. However the United States also later attempted to take the fight to the DPRK and conquer it, but was pushed back to roughly the pre-war borders by the Chinese. So I find it hard to not view the ultimately conflict as anything other than a draw.
Both sides maintained their borders, both sides suffered some set backs.
Sort of the same with the war of 1812. The United States failed to take Canada, but also successfully fought off a British invasion, after the fall of Napoleon, which meant the Americas were really the only major thing on the British plate at that moment. This arguably helped cement America’s independence and gave America confidence that it could stand toe-to-toe with the British Empire and not be destroyed. Canada won a similar victory against the United States.
I don’t view wars which ultimately result in a return to the status quo ante to be losses for the aggressor state by their very nature. Just because one state starts the war does not mean the defending state has as its only objective to successfully fend off invasion.
And failed to obtain any of the things it demanded from Britain. We started the war with specific demands and got none of them.
And after the Treaty of Ghent was signed (it wasn’t ratified yet, but its terms were established).
Perhaps, but it didn’t change the outcome of the war–the Treaty was already settled.
Moreover, New Orleans was one battle in one region. It hardly “won” the war.
The war certainly had these effects, among others.
A return to territorial *status quo ante * is one thing; but here we went in with demands, dropped them, and were lucky to get territorial status quo ante–we didn’t get anything we wanted. We barely got away with what we started with.
So? That doesn’t materially change the debate for me. We could demand all sorts of things, just because we did not get them doesn’t mean we “lose.” To me, I view it as very disingenuous to label a war anything other than a draw when two sides go at it and nothing changes.
Unless one side in the conflict had as its sole goal to keep things precisely the same as they were before, and that just is not true in the case of the British.
Which is also irrelevant. Every one involved was under the impression they were still at war.
I never claimed it won the war, which makes it strange to me you are using the quotation marks, even if just a form of paraphrasing used for emphasis.
And the battle of New Orleans was not the only case in which Americans successfully fought off a British offensive. The Americans also successfully fought off the British at Baltimore and kept them from taking that city, in the battle the British commanding General was killed and the British were forced to withdraw from the Chesapeake region.
Again, I repeat my, “so” when it comes to demands. Unless you assert that the only criteria for victory for the British was successfully keeping Canada, or in refusing American demands, I don’t know how you view the war of 1812 as a victory for either side. The British most clearly had greater goals in regard to the United States aside from just fighting off American aggression in Canada or maintaining the practice of impressment.
The claim that we barely got away with what we started with is completely inaccurate in my opinion. We were beaten and beaten badly in the War of 1812 in the earliest phases. Near the end we had won several significant battles, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that a continuation of the war would have been anything other than immensely fruitless and disastrous for the British. New Orleans was not an isolated incident, we started fighting very well across the frontier with Canada and won several important victories there in the final phases of the war. The naval Battle of Plattsburgh was decisive, and to me showed the United States was more than capable of fighting off any British invasion. The British came from the Napoleonic wars with the clear intention of taking American territory and beating the Americans so decisively that we would be forced to make sweeping concessions to them, possibly even territorial concessions. The Americans failed to get any of their demands, but the British did not get any of the things they wanted, either. Aside from I guess keeping the practice of impressment, which was a wholly moot point after the war of 1812 in regards to the Americans in any case.
Disingenuous. So you think professor Hickey really believes it was a draw, and is just taking a position? What’s your evidence for that? He’s been claiming this consistently at least since 1990: http://www.amazon.com/War-1812-FORGOTTEN-CONFLICT/dp/0252060598/sr=8-3/qid=1166832191/ref=sr_1_3/104-1387393-7543941?ie=UTF8&s=books
Do you have any evidence for this at all? I’d be interested to read it if you do.
And how does that support your premise? All agree we won the battle. The question is whether the outcome of the battle had any effect on the outcome of the war. The terms were settled before the first shot was fired. The U.S. hadn’t ratified the treaty, and could have demanded better terms. It didn’t. How did this change the outcome of the war?
Fair enough. I missed where you said it was a draw. You aren’t alone, as I pointed out in the staff report.
Historians disagree. See, e.g., http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/parameters/96winter/record.htm (“Any fruitful discussion of whether the United States could have won the war in Vietnam requires an agreeable definition of winning. What were declared US war aims?”)
Every source I have consulted says this is so. Hickey says the British saw the war as a footnote to the Napoleonic Wars, which they wanted over when the Napoleonic wars concluded, for example.
Martin, this sounds like another one of your assumptions. Do you have any proof for your claim?
You should read some of the books that I’ve cited in this thread and the staff report, and then come back and give us and update.
I’ve probably got this wrong but I thought that I read somewhere that the Battle of New Orleans was actually fought AFTER the war had finished but that due to the comparative slowness of communications in those times neither side in the actual area of operations were aware of it.
Whatever battle I did read about I recall that the authors made a point of the tragedy of such a heavy death toll(particulary on the part of the British) for no purpose .
If I am right then the outcome of the battle didn’t affect the outcome of the war in any way cos the war was already over ,but the 1812 episode isn’t my strong point so I honestly dont know.
It happened after the Treaty of Ghent was agreed to, but before the U.S. ratified the treaty. But the war wasn’t “over” until the parties had exchanged ratifications. See the eleventh article of the treaty: http://www.historicaldocuments.com/TreatyofGhent.htm
The U.S. didn’t ratify the treaty until after the battle. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875 The British ratified before the battle, but that didn’t end the war.