In Our Time - The War of 1812

Episode Date: January 31, 2013

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the War of 1812, the conflict between America and the British Empire sometimes referred to as the second American War of Independence. In June 1812, President James Madison declared war on Britain, angered by the restrictions Britain had imposed on American trade, the Royal Navy's capture of American sailors and British support for Native Americans. After three years of largely inconclusive fighting, the conflict finally came to an end with the Treaty of Ghent which, among other things, helped to hasten the abolition of the global slave trade. Although the War of 1812 is often overlooked, historians say it had a profound effect on the USA and Canada's sense of national identity, confirming the USA as an independent country. America's national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner began life as a poem written after its author, Francis Scott Key, witnessed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. The war also led to Native Americans losing hundreds of thousands of acres of land in a programme of forced removal. With: Kathleen Burk Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London Lawrence Goldman Fellow in Modern History at St Peter's College, University of Oxford Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh Producer: Victoria Brignell.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about in our time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, in 1814, a 35-year-old American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, wrote a poem which he called Defence of Fort McHenry. He just observed the shelling of Baltimore's fort by British ships during the war of 1812, a conflict between Britain and the USA, which lasted for three years. The British were keen to capture Baltimore, but despite sustained bombardment, the city didn't capitulate. Scott Key's poem was later set to music and renamed the star-spangled banner and became the USA's national anthem.

Although this song is now famous the world over, the War of 1812, which inspired it, is today often forgotten and overlooked. It was the first foreign war to be declared by the recently independent USA, and is widely seen among historians as having had a profound effect on how Americans and Canadians perceive themselves. It also had a devastating effect on the Native Americans. With me to discuss the War of 1812, its causes and aftermath are Kathleen Burke, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London, Lawrence Goldman, fellow in modern history at St. Peter's College University of Oxford,

and Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh. Kathleen Burke, the early 19th century was a very difficult period for European, particularly West European history. What was the international situation in the years immediately? before this 1812 war. Well, the international situation wasn't very complicated. It was essentially a huge, long-lasting and devastating war

between the greatest land power, which of course was the French Empire and the greatest sea power, which was Great Britain. With the United States, it got caught in between. And the two major forces, Britain and France, used America in the sense that they wanted America on their side, but more than anything, they didn't want America against them. Can you just tell me how America came into this conflict? America came in because it was the major neutral power left,

and it was also a major international trading power, one might say. It supplied, was in the habit of supplying Great Britain with quite a lot of its trade. Half the imports it imported were from Britain, in fact, and it had links with West Indian colonies and so forth. France wanted to cut Britain off from this source of good. goods, obviously. Britain wanted to cut France off, and essentially poor United States was battered back and forth, almost like a shuttlecock, and always falling on the ground, trying to defend itself, being pretty ineffectual in it, and essentially was a victim of the larger war between the

larger powers. Can you tell listeners more particularly how Britain and France hammered into America at this time? What specifically they did? Specifically, they tried to control with whom the United States could trade. Britain, actually it starts with France in 1806, decrees saying that any power that trades with Britain is going to get their ships seized. Britain the following year have what many people consider the main cause of the war,

what was called orders and counsel, which basically said any port that won't let British ships in, Britain isn't going to let any other ships in. And therefore, any attempts by the United States to trade with powers which weren't Britain, were going to be stopped. But there was a little let-out, one might say, which is that you could trade with other countries

if you stopped in Britain first. We would then give a license. So what Britain did was to say, any American ships who want to trade stop in Britain, we license, so we get a fee, and also we then control. So Britain essentially was using not only stopping the United States

from giving any sorts of goods to their belligerent opponent, It also was wiping out any other, it was controlling neutral trade and trying to wipe out American trade. It seems an extraordinary thing not just to say you'll do, but to be able to do. Well, that's the problem. You've got this little animal over in the United States trying hard. Britain almost had it by the neck and its legs were swinging fruitlessly.

It was fundamentally, it was an unmatched situation. There was nothing the United States really could do about it, is that try to say, okay, if you won't let us trade, you don't get trade from us either. Lawrence Goldman, the US-19th States were particularly angered by the British policy of impressment. Can you tell us what that is and why they are angered by it? Well, impressment is the way you get sailors, particularly when you're at war. In peacetime, you can hope for volunteers. But in wartime, you need to get hold of manpower.

and the conditions are very bad, people won't volunteer. And so the press gang comes, and it tries to grab hold of men in ports and put them in the ships of the line. The Royal Navy, but indeed all navies are trying to impress sailors during wars in the 18th and early 19th centuries. How many men do the British Navy need around the 1812? Well, it's a huge enterprise. The Royal Navy has something like 130 or 140,000,

personnel around about 1810. It's fighting a global war against the French. It's trying to bottle up the French Navy and patrol the coasts of Europe and it's also, of course, bottling up American ports and it's chasing down French men of war across the oceans. It's an enormous enterprise. And the problem is it's losing some of its sailors. Some are simply deserting and they're finding work on American ships, and others have actually become naturalised American citizens, and they are aboard American ships. And so the Royal Navy is stopping and searching American ships and taking off those it believes are deserters. And those who, though they may be naturalized American citizens, the Navy still takes them.

The British say, once a British subject, always a British subject. It doesn't matter if you've been naturalised. We'll take you back and will put you to work. And the scale is large. It's estimated that perhaps as many as 8,000 sailors are impressed by the Royal Navy at this time. And the Americans who are suffering the insult of having their trade interfered with now have an injury to their own citizens.

And the cry goes up, free trade and sailors' rights. That's what's heard across the American states. They're stopping ships, they're boarding them, they're taking people off. Why did 8,000 British sailors desert to the American ships? Well, not all of them were deserters. Some were, but some just decided. Some were well-seasoned, experienced semen who decided to work on American ships. And they'd become naturalised citizens, and they thought they were Americans. But naturalised Asian papers didn't bother the British.

The British wanted them back. But was there a lure, as I read in one of your papers, that Americans paid five times more, they were better conditions? Is all that true? That's probably true. I mean, the Americans wanted sailors for their commercial ships as well. But the British felt that they had first call. They were fighting, in their view, a war of survival against the French Empire. And their need was the greater, and they were not prepared to put up with legal niceties.

And they feared that Napoleon was going to come across the show and would crush them, and they had every reason to be afraid of that. Absolutely. I mean, of course, at Trafalgar, the British had scored a remarkable naval victory and the chances of invasion were the less, but to defeat Napoleon, to destroy the French empire, which spread across Europe, was a gigantic task, and the British near had need of manpower. Were there any other big outstanding causes sources of tension between the two?

Yes, there are two, and they kind of interact. They concern Canada and also Native Americans as well. Canada, of course, is a fairly obvious weak point for the British. they can't defend it very easily. They haven't got a lot of soldiers in situ there. And once there is tension with the United States, there are some Americans, particularly in the West, who begin to talk about an invasion of Canada,

even annexation of parts of British territory. They thought they'd just walk in and take it over. Jefferson did. Jefferson thought. A wonderful sentence, do you want to say? I can't remember exactly what he says. But he's taking over Canada will be a mere march. Yes, he thought that they'd wander in, Canadians would lay down their arms and they would, and the points of to think, I think

Jefferson believed the Canadians would willingly become Americans. Why wouldn't you want to become American Republicans? It wasn't as simple as that in the event. Some clearly want to annex it. Others think if we can get some territory, we can use it as a bargaining chip with the British over all these other issues. But complicating the Canadian issue is something quite different and interesting. And it is an Indian uprising, a Native American uprising at this time. From about 188, 189, Native Americans in what's known as the Old Northwest, which is the states really of Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,

are increasingly in tension, in friction and violence with American settlers pushing west. And there's a kind of Indian, Native American cultural revival led by a chieftain of the shawnee, Tensa Katawa, and he and his brother, who's a warrior, Tukumza, one giving a kind of spiritual lead, to Kumza giving a strategic lead, are able to bring together an alliance of tribes to fight the Americans. Now the British are very interested in this.

They supply arms and some support to the Native American tribes. And what the British would like is that there should be some sort of Indian national reserve in the Great Lakes sort of area that would act as a buffer between the United States and those populous parts of Canada. So they rather support the Indians, and that's another source of tension, particularly in the West,

where the British has seen to be supporting those who are fighting the Americans. And so we have a geographical spread of this war, which is the Great Lakes in the north. We have the south and west of what we now call North America, in New Orleans, you have the eastern seaboard, you have the North Atlantic Ocean, and we have the western coasts of Europe. So it's a very, it's on that scale

even though the... Frank Cleano, one flashpoint comes in 1807, when a Royal Navy ship fired on an American warship while trying to capture deserters. Now, is that a flashpoint? If so, what is it significance? It is a flashpoint, and it's very significant because in many

respects it brings together all the things we've been discussing thus far. What happened was on June 22nd, 1807, the USS Chesapeake left its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, bound for the Mediterranean. And on board the Chesapeake were several deserters from the Royal Navy. There were several Royal Navy ships on station off the coast of Virginia at that time. It's one of the curious paradoxes of this period. There's increased tension between Britain and the United States, yet there are British warships in American waters,

ostensibly to find French warships and privateers and so on. It's a very bizarre situation. It's a de facto blockade in many respects. The British warships had instructions to stop the USS Chesapeake. The Chesapeake had become a kind of, as far as the British were concerned, a symbol for all that was wrong with the American policy, which was accepting British sailors into their service. The problem, as far as the Americans were concerned,

was the Chesapeake was not a U.S. merchant ship, it was a U.S. warship. and just outside of U.S. territorial waters and international waters, the Chesapeake is confronted by HMS Leopard and the leopard stops the Chesapeake That's a Royal Navy That's a Royal Naval ship, yes And the ships are roughly of comparable size and armament And the captain of the leopard says

You've got deserters on board The commander of the Chesapeake says, I don't know what you're talking about He affects not to hear the captain of the leopard at one point And the captain of the leopard fires on the Chesapeake Three broadsides are delivered It's a devastating attack, not least because the Chesapeake wasn't ready for it, which was unforgivable, frankly. The captain of the commander of the Chesapeake, James Barron, had only visited the ship once or twice before setting out.

He thought he could prepare the ship for war en route to the Mediterranean. He was unprepared, and this was a source of great embarrassment for the Americans. The Chesapeake struck its colors, its crew was mustered, the crew was examined, four desertersters were taken. taken off the ship. Three Americans were killed in this incident and 18 wounded, one of whom died subsequently. So we have four deaths and four sailors removed from the Chesapeake. The sailors removed from the Chesapeake are quite interesting because they illuminate a lot of the points that Lawrence was making about impressment. Of the four, one was British-born. The other three were American-born. They were deserters from the Royal Navy. In their mind, their desertion was perfectly legitimate

because they'd previously been impressed into the Royal Navy. And so they'd fled from the Royal Navy and joined the crew of the USS Chesapeake. Two of them, in fact, were African Americans, one of whom was a former slaves. These were not people who would necessarily be, identify themselves as British, yet as far as the British were concerned, they were able sailors. So after that incident, things begin to move towards what will be at a war. President Jefferson didn't take military action. He tried to change British policy through economic coercion.

Can you introduce the 1807 embanky. Act. Sure. Why he did it and why tell us what happened. There's a great clamor for war in the United States after this incident. It goes to the heart of really what Americans have been anxious about vis-a-vis Britain since the war of independence. Basically, the British are disregarding American sovereignty and American independence by this action. There's a clamor for war.

Jefferson's aware that the United States does not have the naval forces to wage war against Britain. and he knows the United States isn't really prepared for war. So he seeks a negotiated settlement, and so negotiations are carried out through the summer and autumn of 1807. He also calls Congress intercession early in October, and eventually in December he will put an embargo bill to Congress, and the embargo bill is meant to exercise economic coercion over Britain. Some historians have said this is Jefferson at his utopian worst,

seeking an alternative to war. I don't see it that way. I think in many respects he had no alternative. I think he had very little in his locker. And as a consequence, he sees this as possibly preparation for war. But he's hoping that economic coercion, Kathy alluded to the importance of American trade, withdrawing American trade will influence the British and convince them to give this up. The problem is the embargo is incredibly poorly structured. Essentially, the Americans stop trading, but they don't stop importing. So the British can continue. to export to the United States, but the Americans aren't exporting themselves,

and their economy takes a terrible hit. Kathleen Burke, in 1812, we have President James Madison and the American government declare war on Britain. Can I just bring in one little loop because we've got to call us? Was it in the mind of the British still that somehow or other they were going to get America back, that this had been, they'd lost America in the Declaration of Independence and the War, but somehow rather they were going to go and have another go,

or they still were party to owning quite a lot of it? Well, certainly the Americans thought so. And indeed, some of the British press still referred to America as the colonies. I mean, that was one point of this war, is that it convinced the British that America was going to be an independent power. I don't think that the British positively went into this war, thinking they could get America back in that sense. That was done and dusted, as it were.

But the Americans thought so. So when President Madison declared war, what prompted him to do that specifically at that time? Well, specifically it was an 1811, November 1811, order and counsel which says you, which sounds not really important, but the Americans could no longer provide the West Indies with salted fish. This had various things,

A, because the British wanted British care, Canada to actually increase their economic problems. But the thing is, I mean, that and the continuing stopping of trade, which was it came to a close. But I think as well, the Americans realized that if they didn't jolly will go to war after threatening it for the previous decade almost, the idea of a republic as a viable form of government was going to be, in real danger, that American honor was as much as important as salted fish.

And Madison took that into account, did he wasn't just, I'll get them. It wasn't just a reaction that I'm going to show. He took the politics into account, as you've described. He took the politics into account, indeed, you couldn't do anything else, but you had to deal with a Congress. But I think he was not alone in thinking when push comes to shove America to honor is really at stake. And indeed, when he gives his address, calling for war, that was one of the major points he wanted to make. That could unify the United

States. Honor everyone could care about fish. South didn't care, you know, but certainly honor because the Americans were feeling that no one was taking account of their interest. They were being battered around. They were being treated as no account. And this was the way they had to show that they mattered. Lawrence Goldman, can you give us some idea of the lineup of forces, given that Britain was concentrating so much of its manpower and firepower on the continent. Yeah. The British are under-resourced in North America, and the Americans, we might say, are unprepared.

The British have about 5,000 troops in Canada, and they have naval squadrons in North America and the Caribbean, but not much. Of course, in the course of the war, the situation changes, so the British are able to reinforce, because the Napoleonic Empire is collapsing from 18. By 1814, the spring it's ended. Napoleon has abdicated. And at that point, of course, the British can send over more men of war and more seasoned troops.

And they have something like 100 vessels in North American waters by the summer of 1814. And similarly, they've got something approaching 50,000 troops there by the end of the war. Now, this can be compared to the American situation. They have maybe 7,000 regular soldiers at the start in 1812 to cover a vast area. Their real problem is not just men to line up. It's also officers. West Point has been founded as the American Military Academy. There are very few officers who can lead.

And one of the problems the Americans have is the quality really of their strategic leadership, which is not very good at all. But what they can rely on are the militia, or at least they have lots of those. And these are citizens who take up arms, who train. And all the states have militia for purposes of defence, and farmers and urban labourers drill and can be called up. And in theory, we're talking very large numbers here, four to 500,000 state militia across America.

However, the states are often unwilling to vote the taxes required to put these men into the line and some states, particularly in New England, are not very happy that their militia should fight outside the state's concern. They're not interested in offence, only defence. So neither side really has the fighting capacity at the beginning to make this war tell. It's in many theatres war as I alluded to that earlier, Frank Coagliana. Can you tell us about what happened up in the Great Lakes on the Canadian border? Sure. I mean, I think we need to return to one of Lawrence's comments earlier about Canada and consider why Canada. On one hand, it's the only place to fight the British. It's that simple.

On the other, there is... Because they're there. That's right. On the other, there's a long-standing assumption that Canada, you know, as Jefferson said, is there for the marching. It's not as crazy as we now think in the sense that there were about 80,000 settlers in Upper Canada. what's today modern Ontario at this point. Many of them were either American-born or descended from Americans, so they were either descendants of the loyalists who fled after the American Revolution, or they were the so-called late loyalists who were really opportunistic migrants

who were attracted by generous land grants. And there was a belief that just for the marching Canada could become, or upper Canada at least could become part of the United States. In 1810, the Americans acquired West Florida the same way. So there is a precedent at this very point. As a result, attacking Canada or liberating Canada is an interest of the United States early on. And what we see is largely ineffectual fighting in the Canadian borderlands. The Americans attempt to invade Canada in 1812 and 13 and are generally repulsed, and their troops don't perform very well.

The Canadians, much to the shock of the Americans, actually defend themselves and the Canadian militia defend themselves quite well. However, when the British attempt to invade the United States across the Great Lakes in 1813 and 14, they too don't do very well in our repulse. So it turns out militia, as Lawrence alluded to a moment ago, are very good at defense and they're not very good at offense. And so we got this back and forth that's largely inconclusive except in one area, which is the Native American, the link between the British and Native Americans is severed in about 1813 when two things happened. The Americans win a naval battle on Lake Erie, which prevents the British from supplying the Indians in the old northwest, and Tecumse is killed at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario. And so those two things sever the link between the British and the Native Americans in the Northwest.

And the Americans essentially waged two wars, one against the British and one against Native Americans. And that's a crucial turning point. Kathleen Burke, in 1840, in the British forced their way into Washington, can you tell us what happened then and what's significant? significance it had? It was done as a diversionary tactic to take pressure off the British and Canada, in fact, because there's no way they were going to be able to invade the United States. And so their strength, the Royal Navy, was to go along the coast and try to make difficulties. The point

of Washington, of course, was, well, several. First of all, of course, it was the capital. But also the idea was that it was going to destroy arms, harbors, caches of weapons and so forth. The British 2,500 of them were landed. They marched about six miles from Washington. They met a 6,000 American militia who broke and ran. The British use of the bayonet was quite well known. The Americans had nothing like that. The British marched to Washington.

The norms of war said that if you gave a city you were going to besiege the opportunity not to fight, you could just more or less levy a fine on them, a contribution. and that's what the British were going to do. They marched into Washington, a small party with a white flag. They were immediately fired on by a house to the left, and that just broke everything. They put everyone in that house to the sword, and then they marched into the center.

They torched the government buildings, which include what was called the presidential palace. They also torched, which some of the British thought was a bad thing, the Library of Congress, and so forth. The Americans managed to get away with a picture of Washington, Washington and iconic, and also the Declaration of Independence and the Diary of the Constitutional Convention, the really iconic points. Essentially, they didn't exactly wipe out Washington because what was notable, they didn't attack private property except for that one house. So they went in, the idea was to attack the government and then wander off. And it was partly revenge because the Americans had done the same to York. They'd gone in, they'd conquered, they'd burnt the governor's palace, they'd burnt the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, equivalent of the State House. So all the Americans, Americans now forget that they'd already done the same thing in the Canadians. They see the British as being so appalling that they burned the White House in the Capitol.

But the Americans had done that themselves before. They'd done it themselves. I mean, there are British documents who say we're going, you know, we're going to get them for this. And they, they burned White House was whitewashed and stopped being in presidential palace and became the White House thereafter. Absolutely. That's a trivial pursuit, Corker, isn't it? Oh, but it's so great. Lawrence Goldman. And so the British have gone into Washington,

and now they turn their guns on, if one can say this. This is a rather desultry war, it isn't derogatory war. Intermittent is probably better. It's over three years, and you scratch your head to find one or two or good battles, but there are two or three. Baltimore certainly was worn, and we get the Star-Spangled banner out of that,

but we'll come to a moment. What was the significance of Baltimore and what happened? Well, I think you're right. It's a desultory war, as actually the revolutionary war, you know, 40 years before had been a desultry kind of war. Neither side has the troops or the naval support that can actually inflict serious damage on the other. And Baltimore, which is, what, 40 miles or so north of Washington, D.C. is next in line. And I think really it's worth looking at these are sort of punitive expeditions. You want to punish the Americans if you can.

You're most unlikely to sort of break them. and bring them to the table on your terms, but you can show you mean business. So Baltimore is a kind of combined assault, supposedly, of the Royal Navy and the British Army. But the Navy have to stand some way off Fort McHenry because it has guns, and they are not close enough into the coast

to be able to support the British troops who are landed. And when they are landed, they meet resistance from the militia and army, the Americans, their commanding officer, is killed and they decide to retreat not having really enough naval support. So that part of the whole operation fails. This amphibious landing doesn't really work. Meanwhile, however, the Royal Navy is bombarding Baltimore,

the fort that's in front of Baltimore defending it, Fort McHenry. And it's a long bombardment over about 24 hours. And the sort of iconic song or poem that comes out of it comes out this way because the Baltimore citizens go to bed. The American flag is still flying over the fort. They wonder, will it still be flying in the morning? Because the Royal Navy is bombarding. Will the fort give in?

Will Baltimore fall into British hands? But with the first glimmer of dawn, they see that in fact the flag is still flying. The American flag is still flying. There is still resistance. And in the end, the British go home and decide that actually it's just not worth the candle. or they won't take Baltimore.

And so if you know the first two lines of the Star Spangled Banner, the story is there. O'Say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming. We hailed the flag as the sun went down. And by God, it's still flying in the morning and it's still in American hands. And so this man, Francis Scott Key,

who's a lawyer in Baltimore, writes this poem, him, the defence of Fort McHenry, which is then set to music. I have to tell you it's actually a British song, in fact. It's a British drinking song, very popular in London at that time, actually, and eventually becomes, as you say, the American national anthem. One of the great cottages of the war, Frank Leano, were the Native Americans. Can you tell us what part they played in it and what the consequences of that were for them?

Yes, it's a much more decisive war for Native Americans. Americans than anyone else really. As we discussed earlier, Native Americans, there's an alliance between the Native Americans and the British in waging this war. And that arises from historic links going back to the Seven Years' War and then the American Revolution. And in the West, Native resistance is going to be quite important. And as Lawrence alluded to earlier, the kind of revival movement, the Native revival movement that arises is quite important because one of the things that Takumsa and Tansquitawa are advocating is pan-Indian

unity. They're saying Indians need to unite against the United States and they do so. However, this proves divisive and to illustrate this, the Creek people in modern day Alabama are divided by this and the creeks who embrace

the militant message of Tukumsa and Tansquitawa are called red sticks and there's a Creek Civil War that breaks out in 1813. Some whites are killed there's something called the Fort Mims Massacre. The consequence of that is that American troops and militia are from Tennessee and Alabama and Georgia form an army, and they attack the creeks and destroy the creeks or really desolate the Creek nation in Alabama. They're led by a man named Andrew Jackson. Jackson becomes a war hero as a result of this.

He leads the militia. He's given a commission in the United States Army, and he wages this fairly bloody campaign against the creeks and other southern Indians and Indians at the West. And this is going to prove decisive, and it severs the tie, as I said before, between the Native Americans and the British ultimately. And also he deprives the Native Americans of hundreds of thousands of acres and pushes them west. Five big tribes have pushed west along the trail of tears. Yes, well, I mean, that will happen later when Jackson's president,

but in the Treaty of Fort Jackson in August of 1814, he forces the creeks to cede 23 million acres of land to the United States, including creeks who had supported the United States against the Red Sticks in this previous civil war. But as President subsequently, one of the consequences of this war is that Jackson is a national war hero. He's elected president in 1828. He will pursue this policy of Indian removal. And it's a direct consequence of this, yes.

Kathleen Berg, how much opposition was that to this war in America and then in Britain? There was opposition in the United States regionally, which was in the Northeast, which was a merchant part of the country, was used to trading with Canada and so forth. And indeed, in 1814, there was a convention called Hartford Convention, which in the end was a damp squib, which the rest of the United States and certainly President Madison thought was going to lead to secession. The regional disparities were really quite amazing. It's not so much there was opposition to the war in the United States is that a lot of people didn't get involved. If you were in the center of the country, there was no reason to actually, if you're on the coast, if you were near Canada, if you were near the creeks, by the Mississippi, you had things at stake.

If you were in the middle, just please keep off my, there were still memories of the American Revolution, where everyone had been in danger. In the United Kingdom, opposition came from several areas by that time. First of all, it came from the so-called liberals, those who thought this wasn't a good idea. In any case, there was opposition in those who were against the government, opposition in the House of Commons and in the Lords. there was opposition because public opinion didn't support it. They had spent hundreds of millions of pounds, not only having to fight Napoleon,

but there was this unnecessary war that was costing a lot. They didn't see the point of it. It was diverting British financial and military power, and there were more important things. Lawrence Goldman, when did the attempts to reach peace, to have a peace treaty begin? Well, they began as early as 1813, in fact, and there was an offer of mediation from of all people, Tsar Alexander I of Russia. The Russians offered to mediate, and neither side... We thought we were global. Yes, that's right.

Neither side took up the offer. And I think at that stage, they were both still thinking that they might gain an advantage. Both sides thought it might be possible to gain an advantage from this war. and as I say, bring that then to the peace treaty. If you could gain an advantage to territory or something of that nature, you could put it in the mix for the final peace treaty and get rather more out of the final accord. But what really changes the situation is, of course, the end of the war against the French in Europe. Napoleon isn't finally defeated, of course, in the spring of 1814

because he comes back in 1815, and we have to fight him again at war to lose. But the French Empire across Europe has collapsed. And in those circumstances, the friction between Britain and America also lessons. I mean, there isn't any longer a need to interfere with American commerce. There isn't any longer a need for things like impressment. The very causes of the war have suddenly disappeared because the tension in Europe has been removed. And in those circumstances, it simply makes sense for both sides to come to the table.

and they do in the United Provinces, what becomes Belgium. They meet at Ghent in August of 1814 and eventually come to a treaty. And I'd like to turn to Frankfurt for that. The peace treaty was finally signed on December 24th in 1840. It didn't reach America before the final battle are taking place. So they didn't know that this treaty had been signed. And they went into a battle and what became a big and decisive battle at New Orleans. That's right.

It tells you all you need to know about the War of 1812, the biggest battle of the war was fought after the treaty was signed, the peace treaty. Yes, the peace treaty is agreed on Christmas Eve 1814, but the Battle of New Orleans is fought on January 8th, 1815, because of course news of the treaty hadn't reached the United States yet. The British had sent an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico in 1814, and this is quite a big expedition, and it's quite an important expedition. Jefferson famously said that New Orleans is the most important spot on the earth for the United States, whoever holds it as our enemy. And New Orleans is the object of this expedition.

Andrew Jackson, having dealt with the creeks, has moved south to the Gulf of Mexico and moved southwest to defend New Orleans. And there's a decisive battle fought. It's in fact one of the largest battles ever fought between the British and the Americans. And it's a decisive victory for the United States. The United States bung up the port. They wrecked 22 ships, is it? Yes, that's right. And they, I mean, it's a very large British force. It's about 10,000 men and the Americans inflict about 25% casualties. I mean, it's a very, very bloody battle and it's a decisive victory for the United States.

It also means, though, psychologically, when news of the treaty finally reaches the United States in February, it comes at about the same time as the news of this great victory. So Americans think they've won. They won the biggest battle of the war, and now it's over. Well, but it's worth, joking aside, it's worth considering had the British won, had the British captured New Orleans,

they may have repudiated the treaty, because, of course, New Orleans strategic importance is such that the British might have sought to hold on to New Orleans had they captured it. So in that sense, it is a decisive battle. It's decisive in a number of ways, as I said, it gives Americans the sense of victory. It makes a definitive national hero of Andrew Jackson, who will go on to have a decisively important two-term presidency in the 1830s, and it puts paid to the end of any British aspirations in the West

of what will become the United States. So, Kastain Bergsoe, Frank has hinted at it, But what effect did the treaty have? Not a lot. America had gone in, wanting positively, wanting Canada, wanting impressment to stop, wanting stop interfering with their neutral rights. The British were defensive.

They wanted to retain Canada. They wanted to keep what they considered the rules, their belligerent rules. So they went in there. And when you look at the treaty, it's curiously hollow. There's nothing about impressment. There's nothing about Canada. There's nothing about beligerent.

The President rights, what there is, well, they're going to sort out the boundary between Canada. They're going to go out and survey it. Okay. They're going to agree that they're both going to try to help stop the slave trade. This has mixed effects, of course. So essentially, this desultory war has been fought for certain requirements, ideas, goals, interests. And at the end, nothing's really happened. Except a lot of people are dead. Well, there is that.

Native Americans have had the most decisive defeat and displacement in their history. Well, the point of that is it isn't in the treaty. That's another thing that's absolutely forgotten. I mean, my point is that they went into war with expectations, and they came out not having fulfilled them. Would you like to continue with that, Lawrence? Well, I'm not sure I'm going to agree with Cathy in quite that way. I mean, I think she's absolutely right that in its own limited terms,

the war achieves very little. But in a broader context, and given distance on it, I think we can say slightly more. I think from the point of view of the Americans, actually, there is a sense in which that war has often been seen as the end of the American Revolution. That's what brings the American Revolution to its end. Because although America has had independence since the 1780s, she hasn't had security. And without security, you can't really say we are a sovereign nation. and we have established ourselves on Republican principles and we're safe. And what the peace treaty does, and as Frank says,

it's seen as a victory by the Americans, what the peace treaty does is bring to an end a passage. The British have tried a second time to subdue us, and they've failed. And there is a sense in which this is now a new era. They won't come back. And of course, actually they're right, because the British don't come back to fight again in North America. So I think there is a sense in which this marks an epoch,

even if in narrow terms the war settles nothing particular. Even though they don't come back, though, Frank O'Irano, there's still rumbling threats and murmurs between Britain and America in the 19th century. There are. I mean, it's a post-colonial hangover in many respects for the United States. America has this very odd love-hate relationship with Britain for the remainder of the 19th century.

and they, in 1861, the Secretary of State, William Seward says the way that the North and South should patch up their differences is by attacking the British and Canada, for example. So this. But Lawrence is quite correct. The prospect of a real British American war, another one, a third war dissipates after 1815. It's no longer going to happen. And what's very interesting is, of course, that within a few years, Britain and America are able to work together on something known as the Monroe Doctrine. I mean, the next great passage in American diplomatic history is an agreement that is put in the mouth of an American president

but which the British are very much behind, an agreement that the Western Hemisphere, North and South America, should be free of European colonialism and should be, as it were, an area for American influence and dominance. Fine, Katlinberg. Except that, of course, it's a British colonial dominant still because of the Royal Navy. I mean, essentially the legacy of the war is interesting. In Canada, it is, as was mentioned earlier, along with Confederation and the Canadian Pacific Railway, the foundation myth against the United States. The United States, yes, that it had defeated the most powerful nation in the world and therefore great self-confidence, ferocious nationalism. They did invade Canada 12 times over the 19th century. That wasn't ended. For Britain, the legacy is, well,

The legacy, they didn't, no one lost, no one won the war. But the British, they forget it because of Waterloo. After this, they went back and defeated the great land power. What was America? In other words, they don't forget it. They don't really realize it in Britain because it was fundamentally not very important, which again is a balance between the United States where it was very important and Britain where it wasn't.

That's probably one to say a reflection of the power at the time. Well, thank you very much to Kathleen Burke, Lawrence Goldman and Frank Cogliano. And next week we'll be talking about Epicureanism, the ancient Greek philosophy. And thank you for listening. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programmes to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.com.com.

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