In this episode, we discuss the Canadian experience in the War of 1812. We talk about the hardships faced by the new settlers, the struggles they faced, and the successes they achieved. We also discuss the new political arrangements in British North America.
01:08:01.200I found that it was a really good, like I said, overview. It's a very brief one, obviously. You could probably break up the War of 1812 into, I don't know, at least six to 12 parts if you wanted to do hour-long episodes.
01:08:46.700I'm going to get into a lot of things. Even Brock has about, I don't know, maybe 45 seconds of airtime in this episode.
01:08:53.740So it's not really that well focused on this. It does a very good job of making a chronology of what happened and explaining the overview of it, but not really fluffing out some of the details, which I'll try to do a little bit of.
01:09:12.980But even that, I'm going to be reviewing what they brought up in this episode. So we'll have some color commentary as we go through the clips here.
01:09:21.900There was a few comments that came in, some super chats, but nothing, you know, pressing. So let's get right into it.
01:09:29.900Yeah. So the first clip, obviously, you know, at the end of the American Revolution, a lot of loyalists went north. They bring that up early in the series.
01:09:42.860And that is an important thing, you know, to recognize that the ethnogenesis of Anglos in North America is the same for the most part.
01:09:55.640It's not like there was two separate, you know, peoples or two separate, you know, Americans became Canadians, I guess is the way that you would say that, right?
01:10:08.080At least a lot of them did. So these were not separate people in terms of blood.
01:10:14.100They were separate in terms of ideology and, you know, what they viewed as important.
01:10:18.800But here, I'll play this first clip here and we'll start getting into it.
01:10:23.020Loyalists, or Tories as the Americans call them, had reason for bitterness too, for they had been subjected to cruel and humiliating punishments.
01:10:38.080There were angry scenes when the Tories asked for the return of their confiscated property, and they were usually told to get out and stay out.
01:11:00.660Unwanted by the victors of the Revolution, they became refugees in search of new homes.
01:11:08.080Many of the Loyalists now headed for those parts of North America that were still firmly in British hands.
01:11:17.420They took advantage of ships provided by Britain to head for Nova Scotia, where almost 30,000 of them found homes, creating important and enduring settlements.
01:11:28.400The dispossessed Loyalists had other destinations besides Nova Scotia, for Canada proper was also under British rule.
01:11:43.320So there was migration into the Great Lakes area and settlement along the St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario and Erie.
01:11:49.460The old Western wilderness, the preserve of the fur trade, was now dotted with the camps of new arrivals.
01:11:57.420There were wealthy men among them, but many were ordinary people who simply felt that the rights of Englishmen were more secure here than in the United States.
01:12:06.680Yeah, so that was obviously a fairly long clip that goes over quite a bit.
01:12:16.820But, you know, you see what I'm saying is that, you know, the early ethnic makeup of, you know, Southern Ontario is just American.
01:12:27.140And but obviously there's some bitterness and resentment there that continues even to today.
01:12:35.320If you can remember in your mind's eye, you know, the end of the episode we just watched, you see that bitterness come up again at the end of the war.
01:12:45.320The way they choose to portray each other, you know, the tactics that they use to, you know, propagandize one another.
01:12:51.740You see that come up again. So this is like this is something you still see to today.
01:12:56.300Right. You'll still get this kind of, you know, this desire to dunk on one another between Canadians and Americans.
01:13:06.160And this is what it's rooted in. This is what I mean whenever I bring up repeatedly that, you know, this notion of trying to get Canadians to become Americans is never going to work because you're you're not fighting just ideology at this point.
01:13:20.220You're fighting something that is in the blood. It's like a blood memory thing.
01:13:24.840So good luck convincing, you know, the people who are the descendants of, you know, 10 generations of anti-American sentiment, you know, that it's time to become Canadian.
01:13:35.680It's why it was so easy for the liberals, you know, after Trump was elected to gain momentum out of that elbows up kind of faux economic nationalism.
01:13:45.780They were appealing to something that's deeply ingrained in Canadians as opposed to something that is just foreign to them, which is, you know, pro-Trumpism, pro-Americanism.
01:13:55.620That's never going to work. Obviously, it's not like a hate.
01:13:59.780It's not like, you know, a desire to, you know, eliminate Americans or something like that.
01:14:06.580But this this notion that you're ever going to convince Canadians that, you know, joining America is a good thing is you're you're fighting something that's 200 and some years old at this point or more 250 years old.
01:14:19.440All right. Yeah. So moving along there and then we get obviously this is where you get the rumblings of not the rumblings, but the the in the precursor to Ontario and Quebec with upper and lower Canada.
01:14:40.320So, I mean, this is obviously an important moment in defining, you know, what became the regions of the country, you know, French speaking upper Canada or sorry, French speaking lower Canada, English speaking upper Canada and the maritime colonies.
01:14:54.320And that begins with Simcoe and the division of British holdings in North America.
01:15:00.840New settlements added to the long established French speaking area in Quebec seem to call for new political arrangements in British North America.
01:15:10.360One prominent loyalist, William Smith, called for a federation of these colonies.
01:15:16.160He argued that the American colonies would not have revolted if they had had a strong central government rather than unchecked local legislatures.
01:15:24.000But Britain's remaining holdings were far too scattered and Smith got no support for British officials like John Simcoe, Canada needed strong rule, but from London instead of being unified, the colonies should be further divided, and this took place under the Constitutional Act of 1791.
01:15:48.680Now, there would be two Canadas, one mainly French speaking and the other English, and each would have its legislative assembly with very limited powers, though for French Canada, this meant the end of rule by council.
01:16:05.900Yeah, so exactly what I was talking about.
01:16:08.780This is, you know, the beginnings of what became modern Canada and, you know, there's a lot of the roots of our individual, you know, territory or, you know, regional identities in there.
01:16:17.760So, kind of an important point, but also the approach to it as well.
01:16:22.760So, obviously, unlike in the American context, these were not unlimited or, you know, completely decentralized governments.
01:16:31.660The whole purpose of these was to, you know, maintain control over the colonies, not to allow them necessarily to govern themselves.
01:16:38.160And this is, again, an important thing in noting the distinction between the American and Canadian experience is that the Americans do kind of have these roots.
01:16:47.080And I know they don't like the term, you know, democracy necessarily, but in this kind of decentralized democracy, you know, with your state governments, the powers mostly being rooted in municipalities and stuff.
01:17:06.740Whereas in the Canadian experience, it's not all we've always had a strong history of centralized government.
01:17:15.480Now, we see how it goes wrong in both, you know, instances is the irony because we've both arrived at what is basically the same place at this point.
01:17:24.300So, it's not like either of these is better or worse than the other necessarily, but you can see, you know, how both of them went wrong.
01:17:33.940But we're not getting into modern politics, so we'll leave that be for now.
01:17:38.800But, yeah, we'll get into what's, you know, referred to as Toryism.
01:17:42.200And this is, so, you know, this gets brought up a lot as well.
01:17:46.020But this is what people mean when they say that the American experience is a liberal one.
01:17:53.480It is the progressive one, whereas the, you know, Canadian experience was the one that was rooted in old world values and conservatism.
01:18:06.260Not modern-day, you know, conservatism, but conservatism in the true sense.
01:18:12.420And the same goes for America, liberalism in the true sense, not in the, like, what is basically communism today, obviously.
01:18:22.240In 1792, Lieutenant Governor John Simcoe presided at the opening of the first legislative assembly in Upper Canada.
01:18:30.640Here was a measure of representative government.
01:18:32.880But far from the wider democracy of the United States.
01:18:37.500For one thing, much power resided in the Upper House, modeled on the House of Lords.
01:18:43.620Here, wealthy landowners and merchants, as well as clergymen of the Anglican Church, exercised control.
01:18:55.040For men like Simcoe, power in the hands of the people was American and dangerous.
01:19:00.360So, imperial authority, with all its trappings, remained paramount in Upper and Lower Canada.
01:19:08.000Although there was representative government, the system preserved Toryism, enabling potential monopolists and authoritarians to flourish.
01:19:16.820Yeah, so the thing that I think is interesting about that clip is that it makes it seem, you know, kind of malicious.
01:19:30.020Like, so there's this, like, what a lot of people don't understand, and this is because of modernity and, you know, the way modern democratic politics has kind of shaped, you know, our values.
01:19:41.820But they have this belief that, you know, the nobles or the aristocracy or kings and, you know, those who held positions of power whenever we weren't a democracy or, you know, we didn't have, you know, liberal values or whatever.
01:19:56.660That they were just out to get you, that, you know, the king was always just trying to take advantage of his people and get money from them and, you know, more power.
01:20:07.720And that, you know, all the aristocrats, they were just out to get you and they, you know, they just love being in power and, you know, dominating the lower classes and stuff like that.
01:20:16.300And this is, this is rooted in, you know, Marxism, like this whole notion of, like, class struggle.
01:20:22.980Obviously, there was instances of, you know, people abusing their positions of power in the same way that today when we have a liberal democratic system, there's still instances of people abusing their power.
01:20:33.080In fact, you could argue that it's worse than it's ever been, frankly.
01:20:36.220You know, except for now, they have this pretend, you know, notion of transparency and accountability when it doesn't exist at all because nobody's in charge, the bureaucracy's in charge, right?
01:20:48.080So, yeah, but like this concept that, you know, the aristocrats, that, you know, the rulers, the governors, they were just out to, you know, rape and pillage from the people and abuse them and, you know, force them to do ungodly labor for, you know, unsatisfactory pay.
01:21:04.940Like, yeah, obviously, there's instances of that, but this is kind of like a modern interpretation of that anyways.
01:21:12.040And, yeah, obviously, that's not exactly what it was.
01:21:18.320And the reason I bring this up and the importance of it is because it's painted as being a negative thing.
01:21:24.500But there's a good reason why, as we saw in that last clip, you know, Governor General Simcoe of Upper Canada, you know, perceived power in the hands of the people as dangerous.
01:21:37.160Now, in the case of the United States, obviously, they have a very pro belief that power should be held, you know, by an elected government, you know, representative of the people en masse, right?
01:21:52.580And that's because in their experience, especially until, you know, the past few decades, that was actually a pretty practical and effective way of governing that allowed for a lot of freedom.
01:22:03.240So you can understand why they have that perspective.
01:22:06.880But from the British perspective, you can see how that was dangerous, one, because it led to revolt within the colonies.
01:22:13.460And two, especially at this time period, what we're many people are forgetting is that we're about to enter the French Revolution.
01:22:22.400And that's a time period where you see just how dangerous power in the hands of the masses or in the hands of, you know, the people who proclaim to represent the masses can actually be.
01:22:36.000You know, how many innocent people were sent to the guillotine?
01:22:40.380And, you know, this idea that mob, like, you know, rule of the people is somehow more just than the rule of the aristocrats or the nobility is, you know, I think a delusional one, because we've seen what mob justice can be like.
01:22:56.840We've seen, you know, how this can go.
01:23:09.440Regarding this time period as well for the United States, just because this is related to this next clip, the idea that, you know, America had won and was, you know, had solidified was, is a misguided one.
01:24:16.140It could have easily disintegrated, which is why, if you recall from the last episode, we kind of made note of the fact that one of the reasons the British wanted to end the American Revolution on good terms and, you know, with negotiations that were favorable to the Americans is because they kind of thought that this experiment that they were doing might collapse,
01:24:39.240that it was possible that Britain would recover some, if not all of the territory within a matter of decades, and that, you know, maybe it was best to just let this experiment be for now.
01:24:50.240So this, you know, it was a very delicate union, you know, at the end of the American Revolution.
01:24:58.140At the same time, the British were intrigued by troubles in the United States, of discontent within the American army because of lack of funds to pay the troops.
01:25:07.600And American tax collectors were being tarred and feathered by citizens reluctant to pay for federal government.
01:25:15.580In Congress itself, there was disunity and occasional brawling, patterns of violence well-remembered by loyalists in Canada who had seen plenty of tar and feathers during the Revolution.
01:25:27.940And there was news, too, of American defeats in battles with the Indians in the Ohio country.
01:25:37.600For the British, these signs of American weakness lent weight to the argument that London had been unnecessarily generous in yielding the West to the United States.
01:25:49.900With stiffened resolve, Britain found excuses to delay the evacuation of its Western forts, as promised in the treaty.
01:25:57.280As you can see, there was already this kind of notion that maybe this American experiment was going to fail.
01:26:09.980Now, that ends up becoming less of an issue as time goes by, particularly with the establishment of the American Constitution.
01:26:18.760In Paris, on the 14th of July, 1789, the Bastille fell before the fury of the mob.
01:26:37.760The French Revolution had erupted, and its ideas would be brought to America by a man called Edmond Genet.
01:26:44.840Genet was the new French Republic's first ambassador to the United States.
01:26:53.120But his welcome by George Washington was a cautious one, for Genet was seeking active aid for the French Revolution.
01:27:01.200He was seen by many as disrupting the neutral course of the American chariot of state.
01:27:06.920His insolent tactics eventually turned even friendly Americans against him.
01:27:17.240For Quebec, citizen Genet wrote a flood of manifestos, urging the French Canadians to throw off the chains of British rule and rejoin Mother France.
01:27:27.740But Quebec, although it showed some interest in the French Revolution's ideas, preferred the quiet and measured pace of life that it had developed for itself.
01:27:38.140It preferred the orderly minuet of a rustic province to the frenzied Saturnalia of Paris, with its confused cries of liberty and equality.
01:27:48.960Above all, there was repugnance for the Revolution's hostility toward the Catholic Church.
01:27:54.220And so, from the pulpits of Quebec's churches, there were sermons denouncing Citizen Genet's mission, and pastoral letters attacking the revolutionary enemies of the church.
01:28:08.860So strong were the feelings of the French-Canadian authorities, that Admiral Nelson was honored by them when he defeated the forces of France.
01:28:21.080Britain's victories at sea were marked by celebrations and requiem masses.
01:28:25.960Yeah, so you can see there, in that episode, or in that clip, there was kind of a belief that, you know, a lot of the justifications for the French Revolution were similar to the ones that were used to justify the American Revolution.
01:28:50.620So there's this kind of belief among a lot of the intellectual and leadership class of the French Revolution that the Americans were natural allies and that it was in their interest to protect this.
01:29:01.820Americans didn't quite see it this way because they had the distance of a, you know, a continental ocean dividing them from Europe and the ideas that were hostile towards their existence.
01:29:16.020So this is where you get that notion from Washington that I think they addressed it at one point during this episode, but I'm not sure I have it in a clip, where in, you know, Washington's farewell address from office, he warns against entangling alliances with your, or, you know, foreign nations in general.
01:29:36.020This is where you get that kind of nativist concern, developing early American identity where they, there was a belief among their early leadership that you should stay out of these conflicts because they don't end and, you know, they can be incredibly destructive.
01:29:53.140So, you know, you get this kind of attitude of free trade with all war with none.
01:30:00.980And that carries, that carried through for a hundred years anyways.
01:30:07.880And then obviously we know the first world war, Woodrow Wilson, this, this kind of attitude changes.
01:30:15.420You could make the case that it started changing in the, uh, the, uh, Spanish American war, but yeah, uh, you also in that clip saw as well, this idea that, um, you know, they could appeal to the French in Quebec to join the cause, you know, with their, their French brethren.
01:30:32.460But obviously the, the Quebecois didn't see it that way.
01:30:36.940The French revolution was incredibly hostile towards, uh, the Catholic church.
01:30:41.360At one point, uh, Catholicism, I believe was banned and, um, you know, they tried to replace, uh, the, the, uh, Christian faith with, uh, I forget what it was called.
01:30:59.300Um, so there was a lot of, you know, it's, it's not a shocker why people make a lot of comparisons between, uh, Marxism and the ideals of the French revolution.
01:31:09.920This is again, where you can see just to reiterate, this is why there was, uh, concern with, uh, you know, allowing the masses to govern themselves at this time period.
01:31:21.320And I think we can see today why that's a problem when we look around and we look at the average, you know, knowledge or ability to, you know, uh, make intelligent political, uh, decisions amongst our own people.
01:31:35.220Like, does it seem like this has been a good, uh, successful project?
01:31:41.000I mean, there's obviously arguments against it.
01:32:34.920And Britain had cause to wonder whether this ugly situation would be exploited by the Americans.
01:32:39.840Yeah, so you can see that Britain is concerned, um, that anything that goes on, it didn't matter if they were at war directly with America.
01:32:50.720There was this, you know, belief that if war was to break out, whether it was on the American content or, uh, continent or general, generally, uh, globally, whether it was, was Spain in the Americas or with France and Europe, uh, that the Americans might use it to take advantage of the situation.
01:33:08.740And try to claim, you know, their manifest destiny across the rest of the continent.
01:33:14.840So, um, it was a delicate situation in terms of negotiations.
01:33:18.600And Britain was, you know, trying to kind of walk this line.
01:33:22.280Obviously, we know they, they failed, but, um, that was more of a result of what was going on in, uh, Europe than North America.
01:33:29.800Um, and yeah, by 17, so one of the things that's very complicated about this time period when it comes to warfare is that, so the period between 1793 and 1803 could be considered the war, the, you know, the period of the war of the coalitions.
01:33:50.000Um, after that, it's typically referred to as the Napoleonic Wars because Napoleon is the emperor of France.
01:33:56.980It's, they're really all one continuous sequence of wars.
01:34:00.940So that's why they're often collectively referred to as the Napoleonic Wars.
01:34:04.560But like to, to put this in perspective, calling it one war doesn't really, it doesn't really accurately describe the situation because.
01:34:12.780You know, the, we get the, between 1793 and 1803, there's, I think there's three wars of the coalition.
01:34:22.580And so if you want to, if you want to wrap your head around this, go look, you can go look up Napoleonic Wars, right?
01:34:30.120And just go to the Wikipedia and you know, it'll do the, uh, belligerence and it'll list who was on each side.
01:34:36.520With the exception of France and Britain, every single, you know, name listed is on both sides at one point during the war.
01:34:46.880During this 20 some year period, both sides, you know, like have some combination of these allies.
01:34:54.860And so wrapping your head around, like when I say, uh, you know, there was three wars of the coalition, you know, in, in the 1790s.
01:35:02.360Right. So that's what they're all called. They're called the war, the, you know, the first war of the coalition, the second war of the coalition.
01:35:09.060It's basically everybody versus Napoleon and sometimes Napoleon and his allies, which, you know, the next go around are actually his enemies.
01:35:18.060So trying to wrap your head around this, the, the politics of this, uh, war is incredibly difficult.
01:35:27.440And, um, you know, we're not even going to try to do that, but, um, it's just to point out that, uh, this is why Washington was very hesitant about getting involved in European affairs is a convoluted mess.
01:35:40.680That never seems to end right. Um, so yeah, well, here we are at the, uh, and now by 1793, England had entered into the most terrible of all her wars with France, a war, which would last off and on for 20 years and which would absorb her every energy in Europe.
01:36:00.680So Britain's position in North America was becoming weaker while that of the United States was starting to improve.
01:36:10.680Yeah. And so this is the reason I, uh, included that clip is because there was this perspective at one point that Britain might be able to, to reconquer a lot of America.
01:36:21.560And then America started solidifying as both a political entity and, you know, as a united kind of people, um, with the establishment of, you know, the American constitution.
01:36:32.960The federal convention that George Washington presided over in 1787 concerned itself with disunity among the states that verged on chaos.
01:36:43.760To remedy this, the delegates produced a constitution that was greeted with joyous celebration when it was finally adopted after arduous birth pangs.
01:36:52.640And a triumphant Washington was inaugurated as the first president of a country that now had a stronger central government.
01:37:06.640The loose federation of bickering states was now becoming a unified nation to be treated with respect.
01:37:13.300Yeah. So, as I said, just kind of like, that was the solidifying element in the American political experience at that time.
01:37:23.360Like that was what actually formed them into a cohesive entity, at least to a certain extent.
01:37:28.180Um, and then we get, uh, yeah, we'll just move right along into the next clip here.
01:38:07.300It helped form a strong faction calling for immediate war against Britain, but Washington's administration was for peace as the best way to protect commercial interests.
01:38:17.680So a special envoy was sent to London to try to settle all outstanding issues.
01:38:23.460He was an experienced negotiator, John Jay.
01:38:28.580Yeah. So you already have the rumblings.
01:38:34.520And you already have the rumblings of war, or maybe it's earlier, sorry, 1789.
01:38:38.440Uh, you already have the rumblings of, of war potentially breaking out again.
01:38:41.920Uh, but like this is six, six years after peace has been concluded, right?
01:38:46.420And America and, uh, the British empire are already, uh, going that way.
01:38:51.140The difference is that the empire began preparing, was preparing this for some time.
01:38:56.660And so, you know, the preparations for war, um, breaking out again, um, were already being made, uh, early in these times by the British.
01:39:07.640Um, whereas the Americans, while they may have understood, like there was obviously segments of the population who were clamoring for it and saying that it was justified, there was no real preparation being done by that.
01:39:19.100And that actually has a big impact when we get to the outbreak of war in, in 1812 and the irony of it being declared by the Americans.
01:39:26.700And then being the ones who are completely caught off guard at the, at least at the, the initial encounters.
01:39:34.000Um, yeah, uh, this next clip is, is relevant because it ties into something that I had brought up in both the previous episodes, which is the nature of European politics in this time period.
01:39:45.280Being about any remaining that way up until the end of, you know, the second world war, essentially that what was valued particularly by the British, but by most of the major European States in general was not allowing one, uh, you know, entity to, to soak up too much of the power and influence within Europe.
01:40:09.240So we saw this at the end of, uh, the American revolution, how quickly the alliances shifted, um, because, uh, you know, in the case of the French, the French, you know, started supporting, uh, the British kind of in the negotiations because they didn't want the Americans to have complete influence over the continent.
01:40:29.460Um, you know, the Americans didn't want the French to have influence over, uh, Quebec.
01:40:36.060Um, you know, uh, the French, uh, Dutch and Spanish had the reason that they had backed America is because Britain was becoming the hegemonic power, not just in Europe, but globally.
01:40:51.020And so there was this desire to, you know, knock them down a peg, so to speak.
01:40:54.860Um, and this comes up again, obviously in the Napoleonic Wars, which is, that's the great fear is that one man and one nation was beginning to dominate all of Europe.
01:41:04.380And so that's why, you know, the, the, the British fought this fiercely when this comes up in this clip.
01:41:12.240In France, by Jefferson's time, the government was firmly in Napoleon's hands and no Western nation would be uninvolved in the consequences of his imperialism.
01:41:23.540Eventually, he would help push Britain and the United States into conflict again, endangering Canada's very existence.
01:41:34.380One capital, London, and one nation, England, lay beyond Napoleon's ambitious reach.
01:41:41.880In London, Britain's sea lords plotted naval strategy against him, and in the House of Commons, members were resolved to spare nothing in the task of spiking Napoleon's grandiose plans of conquest.
01:41:53.420These were the men that Napoleon Bonaparte was to contemptuously call a nation of shopkeepers.
01:42:10.780But they were determined to oppose to the death, the domination of Europe by any one country or leader.
01:42:16.960Yeah, see, that's obviously why they were so opposed to Napoleon's rule.
01:42:26.980Obviously, there was, well, they had opposed initially the French Revolution because it was espousing, throwing off the yoke of imperialism and, you know, the, the, the crowns, the monarchies, and establishing, you know, governments, you know, by the people for the people type thing.
01:42:46.000Um, so there was, you know, this is why the, you know, in the early wars of the coalition, all of the strong monarchies in Europe were united, you know, with Austria, Prussia, Spain, you know, England, like they had all united against France because they didn't like the idea of a nation going around spreading that they should, you know, arrest and execute their monarchs.
01:43:11.000Um, and nobility and the Catholic church and et cetera, et cetera, right?
01:43:16.260So, um, yeah, uh, there's somebody complaining there to, uh, loner Terrian said, I can't get any answers here week by, I don't know what you want answers to, but you didn't even ask a question.
01:43:29.240And also, I don't know if you missed it at the beginning, I take questions at the end and I mark comments and questions as I see them come in.
01:43:37.760So, um, I don't know what you're fucking complaining about, but all right, good night.
01:43:47.420And so obviously, um, this is now at this time in Europe, they're into open hostilities.
01:43:53.960Um, this is already kind of brought up, but it becomes relevant.
01:43:56.740And this is to tie this back to the beginning, you know, where I gave my prologue, one of the reasons it's important to understand the tradition of restricted warfare versus total warfare, limited warfare versus total warfare is like this was changing at this time.
01:44:13.740So Napoleon famously said, you cannot defeat me.
01:44:18.180I spend 30,000 lives a month, which is absurd, right?
01:44:23.280At that time period, you know, having three, 30,000 casualties a month was unsustainable for anyone in Europe.
01:44:30.240The only reason that it was sustainable for Napoleon is because he was recruiting a military, uh, through conscription and mobilizing the entire economy of France towards war.
01:44:41.100So they were already at the point where they were, you know, uh, seizing, you know, horses, firearms, uh, steel, like anything of value that was needed, you know, cotton, anything that was a value that was needed to the war effort, they were doing it.
01:44:55.620So this is where you see that kind of first step.
01:44:58.160You'll see it increase a little bit during the American civil war.
01:45:00.920And then you'll see it brought to its, you know, total industrial conclusion in the first world war, um, and how destructive these wars can be.
01:45:09.600And none of the other nations of Europe could compete with this because they weren't willing to arm their people on mass and mobilize their entire economies towards warfare.
01:45:19.900So this is one of the issues that they were having.
01:45:23.360Now, Britain in a desperate struggle here and being one of the only countries that was never, uh, you know, brought into the control of France during the Napoleonic Wars was constantly at war basically for this entire time period.
01:45:37.120And expending a huge amount of resources, both in terms of ships, men, you know, gold, et cetera, the damage to their trade, blah, blah, blah.
01:45:47.760Um, so they were desperate for resources, which is why you see them doing this act of something they maybe wouldn't have done, which is raid American ships looking for British sailors who had either deserted or just, you know, were legally working on American vessels.
01:46:04.540Um, this desire to, to, to go find them and bring them back on the ships.
01:46:08.360And in some cases straight up, you know, in basically enslaving American sailors because they had a bit of a British accent or they said like, you know, just, they wanted them basically.
01:46:18.480So, you know, Britain was resorting to desperate consequences to deal with the effect of, of this total war that was being waged by Napoleon.
01:46:25.580There was no other way for them to deal with it.
01:46:27.220So this is where you start seeing some kind of desperate acts out of, uh, the British.
01:46:32.900And so as the figure of the man of destiny loomed ever larger on the world scene, Britain's ships and her sailors were relentless in their opposition wherever he went.
01:46:43.440In battles from the Nile to the Baltic, Britain scored notable victories.
01:46:49.360And as Napoleon's power spread through Europe, the Royal Navy maintained a constant blockade off the Atlantic coast.
01:46:55.520And even as Napoleon's star reached its zenith through victory on land, the Battle of Trafalgar forever ruined his hopes of conquering the stubborn British Isles.
01:47:10.080But the cost of these triumphs at sea was great for England lost men by the thousands as flames and cannonballs raked the decks of her ships and even more numerous than the losses in action were desertions by sailors who feared both the carnage and the Navy's in human discipline.
01:47:29.380So, yeah, basically you end up with a situation where the war is terrible desertions, you know, keep increasing and, you know, you need those sailors and soldiers.
01:47:45.380So what do you do all you where you can you find them?
01:47:49.380And obviously this put tremendous pressure on the American government and their sovereignty.
01:47:56.400So not wanting to seem weak, that was one of the major causes for the war.
01:48:02.900Now, there's all kinds of mitigating circumstances, but that was one of the official justifications, right?
01:48:08.400The violation of American sovereignty at sea.
01:48:11.780So important, you know, piece of information there.
01:48:15.280But we'll get into some of the we'll get into the next actual reason and then we'll get into the more nuanced kind of underhanded reasons why they wanted the war.
01:48:28.780But as the ever advancing line of American forts pushed west, the Indians plotted and attacked.
01:48:36.020War cries and gunfire echoed from Tennessee to Indiana.
01:48:45.280In Tecumseh, the Indians had a formidable leader who was determined to stem the American tide.
01:48:51.700Meetings between him and American leaders led only to greater mutual anger.
01:48:56.640And at Tippecano, Indiana, the two sides fought once again in November 1811.
01:49:04.280So that's the other justification that Americans formally gave for declaring war in 1812 was the continued British backing of Indians or even just their refusal to vacate the Ohio Valley, which they viewed as obviously their territory.
01:49:25.540And I suppose technically it was based on the Treaty of 17, the Treaty of Paris, 1783.
01:49:31.540So, yeah, those were the two formal justifications for the declaration of war that was issued in June of 1812.
01:49:42.280We'll we'll play these next couple of clips and then we'll see there is other reasons, obviously.
01:49:47.460Meanwhile, Canadian trappers working south of the lakes brought reports to British officers like General Brock, indicating that Americans were again blaming the British for Indian violence.
01:50:02.900Men like Henry Clay, congressman from Kentucky, were clamoring for a showdown with Britain.
01:50:09.080And supporting Clay was a whole nest of war hawks.
01:50:17.460So a couple of things out of that clip.
01:50:21.200The first the first one is just to reiterate there as well that, you know, at this time period, Brock is I believe he's the lieutenant governor general of Canada.
01:50:31.200If not, he was both the acting military commander and the acting civilian commander of upper Canada.
01:50:39.340So he's hearing these reports and he's listening and watching what's going on in America and realizes that, you know, hostilities are rising and that the chances of open warfare breaking out.
01:50:54.400Whether it's because Tecumseh or, you know, some band of Indians goes on the war path leading to America, deciding that they're tired of these Indian raids and they view the British as responsible.
01:51:07.340That could have been the reason it could have been what was going on at sea with the naval blockades.
01:51:12.520Another point as well there, just to, you know, a lesser kind of reason why America wanted war with Britain was that at this time period, Britain was blockading most of Europe.
01:51:24.320So Napoleon had instituted a series of declarations forbidding trade with between him and between any states that France was in control of and the British Empire.
01:51:41.920So this included like Russia, Prussia, Vienna or Austria, you know, all the lesser German states.
01:51:50.420I believe the Netherlands, Spain as well at one point.
01:51:55.120So the British were blockading essentially all of Europe.
01:51:58.500Now, this angered the Americans because they wanted to do trade with those nations and they weren't able to, despite the fact that they weren't a belligerent in the war.
01:52:07.460So to them, this was just Britain interrupting, you know, their profit and trade as a neutral country.
01:52:45.500So it's funny, you'll still see this term thrown out a lot today, especially over the past two years.
01:52:51.400I'm sure most of you have seen that term thrown out there, Warhawk.
01:52:55.140It's root is in the War of 1812, you know, kind of like a meme or whatever you want to call it.
01:53:02.720And we saw how it was used, you know, to paint these politicians, you know, in a poor light.
01:53:09.280But essentially, it means the same thing today as it did back then.
01:53:13.140It's a class of political leaders that is clamoring for war.
01:53:19.080And typically they give justifications that might make sense or sound like they make sense.
01:53:25.720But there's always an ulterior motivation.
01:53:27.700So, for example, you know, today the term Warhawk would have been used to describe or could be used to describe somebody like Lindsey Graham, right, as a perfect example of a Warhawk.
01:53:37.560Somebody who's, you know, demanding that America bomb Iran and, you know, go to war with Iran and constantly banging that war drum, you know, under the guise of protecting American freedom and interests, right?
01:54:02.740And, you know, it's in their interest, not in America's interest to go to war with Iran.
01:54:06.700So that's where you get this kind of idea of Warhawk, right?
01:54:10.780In the case of the War of 1812, there was this idea that, you know, it's, sorry, I'm not even trying to compare, you know, the Warhawks of 1812 to the Warhawks of today.
01:54:22.240Because the ones of 1812 were much more noble and righteous in their, you know, their reasons for wanting war than the ones today.
01:54:31.820At least, you know, theirs was about expanding American influence on the continent they were on, you know, throwing off the yoke of British imperialism, etc., etc.
01:54:42.700But the reasons they gave were, you know, Indians and sailors and blockades.
01:54:48.320Their real interest was in claiming that territory and expanding their wealth and influence.
01:54:53.400So, you know, it wasn't, it's an example of them not letting a crisis go to waste, right?
01:55:41.680In exchange for support in the next election, he agreed to war, which was declared in June 1812.
01:55:48.900So, yeah, one of the things I wish I had clipped there, and I didn't end up getting it, was the commentary from J. Frank Willis there, where he talks about how a lot of the Warhawks believed, you know, conquering Canada would be a simple matter of marching, you know, but they couldn't find the men to march and the little smirk that he gives there.
01:56:14.120So, you see this, again, the reason I think it's funny is because, you know, there's almost an inability to not dunk on each other between Canadians and Americans, even, you know, 150 years after the war had broken out.
01:56:30.900You know, they're still kind of tongue-in-cheek, like, making fun of each other, and this continues today.
01:56:35.380So, you know, I don't bemoan a little bit of chirping between Americans and Canadians.
01:57:52.820They weren't really prepared for this, despite the ones being the ones that declared war and the ones who had been clamoring for it.
01:57:59.860So, you know, this is, it's an interesting look at why governance by democratic bodies has an issue and why having capable commanders, you know, that have authoritarian influence and power is valuable.
01:58:20.220You know, because Brock was able to be both the military and the civilian commander leading up to the war, he was able to make proper preparations.
01:58:29.040And he's the reason why, you know, things went so smoothly for the Canadians early on in the war.
01:58:34.840You know, the best example of this is the seizing at Fort Mackinac by some fur traders and some Indian allies at the direction of Brock.
01:58:50.360Well, he was issued that command within, I think, a week of the, you know, the outbreak of hostilities, the declaration of war.
01:58:56.680And a week later, they had captured Fort Mackinac.
01:58:59.780And when they did, the defenders at Mackinac didn't even know they were at war.
01:59:05.680They hadn't received that notification yet.
01:59:08.240So, you know, the British were prepared.
02:05:03.940Raid siren also brought this up earlier.
02:05:07.480But, yeah, part of the reason the Americans struggled, this is just brought up in that most recent clip,
02:05:11.960is because most of their, there was no standing army or there wasn't supposed to be a standing army.
02:05:17.140And most of what they had in terms of defensive forces were militia who would refuse to enter, you know, territory outside of their states.
02:05:24.880So they, they, this counter, this problem continued to manifest repeatedly throughout the war,
02:05:35.220but was particularly damaging early on whenever they could.
02:05:39.320Like if the American militia would have crossed to Queenston, like that battle probably would have gone entirely differently.
02:06:18.640Significantly, this was the first time that French and English had fought side by side in Canada.
02:06:29.680Soon afterward, there was another thrust toward Montreal, down the St. Lawrence.
02:06:34.360But at Chrysler's farm, a force of 800 British assailed some 2,000 Americans.
02:06:41.500Despite superior equipment, the Americans were so badly mauled that they retreated across the river in disorder.
02:06:49.520With winter coming, the war was over for 1813.
02:06:56.100Yeah, so obviously two key battles there in 1813 for the Canadians.
02:07:00.760The big one being Chateau-Gay, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles de Salaberry.
02:07:08.820So, obviously the importance of it being that the first time that French and English Canadians fought as a united force against an invading force.
02:07:19.200And I don't really like how they kind of gloss, they don't really get into why Charles de Salaberry was such an able commander
02:07:28.620and why that worked, but, like, it was everything.
02:07:33.340He used, like, all the hallmarks of a good general.
02:07:36.400Like, being a hard-driving general, knowing the terrain, using psychology to your advantage,
02:07:43.180being able to beat off a numerically advantaged force through those tactics.
02:07:49.300Like, he was an excellent military figure and didn't really get the recognition until well after, you know, the war was over.
02:07:57.480So, an underappreciated figure in Canadian history and an underappreciated moment.
02:08:03.520Because, again, the importance of these battles, it shouldn't be minimized.
02:08:09.080Like, yes, the scale of them is often quite small relative to things that you would see in the European theaters of this time period.
02:08:16.460But if it wasn't for, you know, these small engagements going the way that they did, the outcome could have been disastrous.
02:08:27.340So, you know, they take Montreal, boom, they cut off the St. Lawrence, and the British are out.
02:09:52.900And the Americans, their navy still inactive, had to pull back to Fort Erie.
02:09:58.820Here, they were soon under siege, just managing to beat off their attackers.
02:10:03.240Yeah, so, that's essentially where the war ends in the Canadian experience, or at least the Canadian theater of the War of 1812.
02:10:19.780After Lundy's Lane and the Americans being pushed back to Fort Erie, they don't attempt another encroachment onto Canadian soil.
02:10:28.040So, for three years, the Americans are kept at bay by the British soldiers who were stationed in Canada and militia.
02:10:39.940So, this is very different than the American Revolution, where initially they were held off by just the forces that were stationed there without any additional troops from Britain.
02:10:51.880And, you know, but the way that eventually the British do send reinforcements in large number, and that's what, you know, ends up forcing the Americans to withdraw completely and abandon it, wasn't necessarily the case in the War of 1812.
02:11:06.820So, this is where you get this kind of rumblings of loyalist pride, you know, Canadian pride, and that, you know, there was militiamen that were responsible, or at least in large part responsible, for ensuring that these American encroachments didn't have the success that they were looking for.
02:11:26.220But, at this time period, you know, Napoleon has now been forced to advocate, I believe he's in exile in Elba by this time period, and so the British situation in Europe changed drastically.
02:11:44.800And, there was a bit of an empire strikes back moment that comes in late 1814, early 1815, where, yeah, as you saw in the episode, some shit gets burned down.
02:12:04.960In Paris, at the end of March, British troops were among the Allies who entered the city in triumph.
02:12:12.040Together, they had won the war in Europe.