1 00:00:02,110 --> 00:00:08,230 It's a particular pleasure for me to have Professor Andrew Lambert here, who is professor of Naval History, 2 00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:15,940 Department of War Studies, King's College, and was first examined at my Ph.D. examination. 3 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:24,010 So always good to see him and have a good, serious, thought based discussion of 19th century naval affairs. 4 00:00:24,520 --> 00:00:32,319 And in his latest book, just out on Amazon, available for purchase for anyone who might be interested in purchasing it, 5 00:00:32,320 --> 00:00:35,320 I saw Amazon is just discounted to half price. 6 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:45,040 Now, you know, he has said much further into the 19th century than I have with this one on the war of 1812. 7 00:00:46,990 --> 00:00:56,080 For the British, a great triumph for the Americans, also a great triumph for Canada, a great triumph, I think. 8 00:00:56,770 --> 00:01:07,570 So it's an interesting example of a war that everybody won, but no one really wants to discuss the strategic implications of his talk today. 9 00:01:07,930 --> 00:01:13,450 Professor Andrew Lambert is going to answer decisively who won, why and with what consequences. 10 00:01:15,610 --> 00:01:21,370 Thank very much for that kind introduction. I've made some mistakes in my terms, but Anastasius wasn't one of them. 11 00:01:22,690 --> 00:01:32,800 You'll be pleased to know that news of the American Declaration of War in June 1812 prompted a brief outburst of patriotic anger in London, 12 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:38,800 where most right thinking Englishmen had expected a peaceful outcome to the current Anglo American crisis. 13 00:01:39,310 --> 00:01:44,680 The London Times regretted the need to carry, and I quote, the flame and devastation of war to America. 14 00:01:44,980 --> 00:01:51,219 But it did so without fear of the outcome. Even America's best friends in London and America had many friends in London at the 15 00:01:51,220 --> 00:01:55,990 time were convinced the matter would blow over as soon as news reached Washington. 16 00:01:56,760 --> 00:02:00,130 The contentious orders in council had been repealed. 17 00:02:02,050 --> 00:02:07,300 In the event it would take six months of war and several rather unpleasant naval defeats 18 00:02:07,300 --> 00:02:11,620 to make the British take the Americans seriously enough to hate them up until that point. 19 00:02:11,890 --> 00:02:16,630 They treated them with marked disdain throughout the conflict. 20 00:02:16,660 --> 00:02:20,920 Lack of resources would be the key issue for the British effort. 21 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:28,180 The British were obliged for most of the war to take an almost entirely defensive stance. 22 00:02:28,750 --> 00:02:37,060 The war was conditioned by the American strategy, which was the invasion and conquest of Canada, and this determined the main theatre of the war. 23 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:44,350 It forced the British to deploy resources into that theatre and to sustain the logistics link back to Britain. 24 00:02:46,090 --> 00:02:50,880 This placed a priority on the naval mission in controlling the Atlantic sea lanes, 25 00:02:52,030 --> 00:02:55,960 controlling the American threat to troop ships and oceanic commerce. 26 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:00,880 And only slowly was an effective naval and then ultimately economic blockade built up, 27 00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,660 which would conduct a war effectively against the United States, 28 00:03:05,020 --> 00:03:10,570 using pretty much the same strategy that was already being deployed to some effect against continental Europe. 29 00:03:12,580 --> 00:03:16,000 The key condition for this war is remembering that the United States is in the 30 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,950 process of shifting its culture from a maritime to a continental identity. 31 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:28,780 In 1883, the Louisiana Purchase was acquired at a remarkably low number of cents per acre by Thomas Jefferson. 32 00:03:29,350 --> 00:03:31,870 He bought it at what the Americans would call a fire sale. 33 00:03:32,410 --> 00:03:37,870 The Napoleonic Empire in the New World was now entirely at the beck and call of the British, 34 00:03:38,170 --> 00:03:41,170 so Napoleon cashed it in before the British had time to take it. 35 00:03:41,860 --> 00:03:45,080 This changed the nature of the United States. 36 00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:50,530 What had been a maritime trading economy geared into the Atlantic world now had a 37 00:03:50,530 --> 00:03:56,680 new alternative and dynamic open frontier stretching across towards the Pacific, 38 00:03:57,460 --> 00:04:03,130 across the rest of the century. We all know what happens, and it is something that sets in trend from 1803. 39 00:04:03,140 --> 00:04:07,120 This is a process which is already a decade old when this war breaks out. 40 00:04:07,420 --> 00:04:11,260 It's no accident the men who vote for this war have nothing to do with the maritime economy. 41 00:04:11,590 --> 00:04:19,330 This is a continental war voted for by continental people, many of whom lived on the other side of the Appalachians and have never seen the ocean, 42 00:04:19,570 --> 00:04:27,910 let alone worried about the maritime pollution rights of New England ship owners or the personal security of New England seafarers. 43 00:04:32,540 --> 00:04:39,980 Although he shared the widespread hope that the Americans would, in the fullness of time, negotiate their way back out of this conflict. 44 00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:46,670 Lord Melville First of all, the Admiralty consulted senior naval officers, particularly Lord Keith, 45 00:04:46,670 --> 00:04:53,300 who commanded the downed station, was therefore easily accessible and was a longstanding political ally. 46 00:04:54,140 --> 00:04:57,680 Keith responded with some useful information about American harbours, 47 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:04,550 charts and other technical matter dating back to the War of Independence, in which he, like most of the other senior naval officers, 48 00:05:04,790 --> 00:05:12,349 had served Melville and some vice admiral to John Borlase Warren to London and 49 00:05:12,350 --> 00:05:16,130 offered him command of the combined North American and West Indies stations. 50 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:23,540 Essentially, the British had two stations, one controlling the Atlantic and one divided into two subsections in the Gulf of 51 00:05:23,540 --> 00:05:28,550 Mexico and Caribbean War was given command of all three to harmonise resources. 52 00:05:29,030 --> 00:05:32,720 This didn't work because the theatres were too widely spread for that to be effective. 53 00:05:33,140 --> 00:05:37,219 And it got him into a lot of trouble with Caribbean plantation owners who were more 54 00:05:37,220 --> 00:05:41,540 concerned about protecting their interests and prosecuting the war or defending Canada. 55 00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:44,390 Warren was an interesting choice. 56 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:50,780 He was a political ally of the Grenville faction who were then being courted by the newly formed Liverpool administration. 57 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:51,320 Remember, 58 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:58,460 the Prime Minister has just been shop in the precincts of the House of Commons and so a new government is formed which nobody thinks is going to last. 59 00:05:58,970 --> 00:06:04,130 Everybody is anticipating the Prince Regent will remove it and replace it with one more to his taste. 60 00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:10,820 Turns out his tastes have changed and local Lord Liverpool remains in office for the next 15 years. 61 00:06:11,960 --> 00:06:15,770 So making allies and securing votes in the House of Commons is a critical part of 62 00:06:15,770 --> 00:06:21,110 waging the war of 1812 and the Granville faction are being courted quite actively. 63 00:06:22,430 --> 00:06:27,940 Warren, himself an outstanding frigate commander and a useful squadron commander and an adequate diplomat, 64 00:06:27,950 --> 00:06:32,510 having been the minister in St Petersburg a decade earlier, 65 00:06:33,110 --> 00:06:36,140 his command stretched from Newfoundland to the coast of Mexico, 66 00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:44,330 and his political masters back in London would not give him the attention that perhaps such a complex theatre demanded. 67 00:06:45,110 --> 00:06:53,240 London only decided to take the war seriously some months after it began, and even then, mostly in a negative rather than a positive light. 68 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:58,909 The endless demand to protect the West Indian Islands and West Indian trade deflected 69 00:06:58,910 --> 00:07:02,960 effort away from the more active prosecution of the war on the American coast. 70 00:07:04,910 --> 00:07:13,220 Furthermore, the Admiralty, rather than Warren, consistently underestimated the scale and nature of the maritime threat posed by the United States. 71 00:07:14,270 --> 00:07:24,170 Warren himself responded relatively effectively to the threats he faced, but was always short of resources to conduct this operation. 72 00:07:25,820 --> 00:07:32,880 The backdrop, of course, of all of this is the Americans have only declared war because they fully expect that Napoleon will defeat the Russians. 73 00:07:33,140 --> 00:07:39,530 He will re-impose a more thorough and rigorous version of the continental system, and the British will be defeated. 74 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:48,290 Therefore, the opportunistic seizure of what is now Canada will be something that will not be reversed at the final wash up of the peace process. 75 00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:53,660 There was no anticipation on the part of the US administration that Napoleon might be defeated. 76 00:07:54,530 --> 00:07:58,310 It was an inevitable victory and they were merely exploiting the inevitable. 77 00:08:00,260 --> 00:08:04,430 The British response, therefore, was to send Warren out first and foremost to negotiate. 78 00:08:04,670 --> 00:08:09,920 His diplomatic background meant that he was given a very tight brief by Foreign Secretary Counsel Ray, 79 00:08:10,460 --> 00:08:15,620 under which he could negotiate a restoration of peace, essentially status quo ante. 80 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:21,830 And that is an important condition. From the start, all the British wanted was for the Americans to stop invading Canada. 81 00:08:22,580 --> 00:08:26,570 That was the baseline of their war aims and remain so to the end. 82 00:08:29,150 --> 00:08:34,820 If the Americans refused to negotiate, Warren was then given authority to undertake active operations, 83 00:08:35,300 --> 00:08:41,270 but he was given nowhere near enough manpower and particularly not ship power to conduct this effectively. 84 00:08:42,830 --> 00:08:46,130 Furthermore, Warren's relationship with Melville was deeply problematic. 85 00:08:46,730 --> 00:08:54,410 Melville, as first lord of the Admiralty, was also the political manager of Scotland, and Warren didn't fit into his patronage network. 86 00:08:55,460 --> 00:09:00,320 Fact His patronage network was of more interest to Melville than the conduct of the war. 87 00:09:00,560 --> 00:09:07,220 Correspondence between Melville and Warren for the first 18 months of the war is dominated by the promotion of deserving Scots officers. 88 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:13,340 It is not dominated by the development of strategic measures to bring the Americans to the peace table. 89 00:09:14,030 --> 00:09:18,440 Melville ran Scotland through the patronage of the East India Company in the Navy, 90 00:09:18,770 --> 00:09:24,530 and he used the naval patronage to serve the interests of Cabinet ministers representing the other kingdoms. 91 00:09:26,390 --> 00:09:31,050 Normally, the first Lord would have conducted a useful private correspondence with a theatre. 92 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:39,340 Andre as important as Warren to supplement the abilities rather bold strategic directions with a more informed and deniable version. 93 00:09:39,820 --> 00:09:44,140 This doesn't happen. These two men never, ever got onto the same wavelength. 94 00:09:45,820 --> 00:09:53,770 Indeed, the only time Melville wrote to Warren more than once a month was when Warren had made a mistake with handling patronage and promotions. 95 00:09:55,660 --> 00:09:59,560 So the subtext is clear The American war was an awkward embarrassment for the government. 96 00:09:59,890 --> 00:10:04,870 Getting the right officers promoted was important. And Melville, although he never said as much, 97 00:10:04,870 --> 00:10:09,489 effectively blamed Warren for not making it go away and easing the problem of 98 00:10:09,490 --> 00:10:13,540 keeping a very large Navy at war with the French and finding spare resources. 99 00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:22,840 Warren picked up a lot of very useful intelligence on his way out, and his handling of the war through intelligence is a very interesting story. 100 00:10:25,150 --> 00:10:31,750 The war, of course, is often explained as an issue revolving around the imprisonment of American seafarers. 101 00:10:31,930 --> 00:10:40,180 This famous incident, 27th June 1807 in HMS Leopard, fired into the USS Chesapeake and removed four British deserters from the ship, 102 00:10:40,450 --> 00:10:48,880 having attacked a national warship of the United States in international waters without proper provocation. 103 00:10:49,480 --> 00:10:53,770 The Americans, of course, didn't recognise your nationality as inevitable. 104 00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:59,560 The Americans recognise your nationality as a fluid concept. You could cease to be British, you could become American. 105 00:11:00,100 --> 00:11:04,900 The British did not take this view. You were born a subject to the king. You remained one until you died. 106 00:11:05,690 --> 00:11:10,360 And in the case of one of those deserters, that was shortly after this incident, he was stretched by the neck. 107 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:16,090 He not only deserted, but he also insulted and attacked one of his officers on the high street of Norfolk, Virginia. 108 00:11:16,410 --> 00:11:22,629 And that was unforgivable. The other three men were given back to the Americans shortly after the outbreak of war, 109 00:11:22,630 --> 00:11:28,720 because we decided while they were deserters from the Royal Navy, we weren't entirely sure they were British and. 110 00:11:32,950 --> 00:11:40,930 Key problem from the start was that the American attack, which begins begins with the attack on its most beloved era. 111 00:11:41,350 --> 00:11:44,320 It's the first time that anybody in any of the British know about this. 112 00:11:45,040 --> 00:11:49,750 Very quickly becomes a question of whether the Americans can actually take Canada. 113 00:11:51,070 --> 00:11:58,630 There are two fronts which the Americans attack on only in the middle of 1812 and Detroit and Canada and across the Niagara front. 114 00:11:59,620 --> 00:12:01,450 They also planning to attack further north. 115 00:12:01,490 --> 00:12:07,810 If this doesn't materialise, the American assumption, as Thomas Jefferson said, was that it was only a matter of marching. 116 00:12:08,230 --> 00:12:11,770 Most Anglophone Canadians were sort of Americans and they would probably not mind. 117 00:12:12,220 --> 00:12:15,640 The Francophone Canadians probably didn't like the British very much, so they wouldn't mind. 118 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,380 The main object of the invasion was to wipe out the Native Americans so nobody cared. 119 00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:26,110 The problem, as General William, how quickly discovered was that the Canadians actually did care. 120 00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:32,800 Most of those Anglophone Canadians had actually been thrown out of the United States with tar and feathers on their back. 121 00:12:33,010 --> 00:12:36,460 So they weren't keen to rejoin the United States. They were empire loyalists. 122 00:12:36,760 --> 00:12:44,680 That's why they called their new City Kings town. To make a point about who they were and the French Canadians turned out to be royalists. 123 00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:51,460 The last time they'd been French, they've certainly been a king on the throne of France, and they preferred kings to republics. 124 00:12:52,750 --> 00:12:57,010 This is the founding myth of Canadian national identity. They all got together and kept the Americans out. 125 00:12:57,700 --> 00:13:04,300 It's a great myth. It's sort of true, but it's not wholly true. Most of the fighting was done by a small force of British regulars, 126 00:13:04,750 --> 00:13:09,370 initially led by General Isaac Brock, the national hero of Canada, born in Guernsey. 127 00:13:10,300 --> 00:13:15,220 If you go to the Canadian War Memorial, you'll find his jacket with a very large hole in the front of it. 128 00:13:16,630 --> 00:13:22,540 Brock persuaded General Hull to surrender Detroit and his Army by threatening to unleash his savages. 129 00:13:22,870 --> 00:13:29,800 And then he raced back to the Niagara Front, where he led a suicidal charge at the Battle of Queensland Heights, which got him killed. 130 00:13:30,310 --> 00:13:33,220 But the American invasion was thrown back on two fronts and failed. 131 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:39,280 And for the rest of the war, American attempts to cross into Canada and acquire territory consistently failed. 132 00:13:39,580 --> 00:13:44,020 The United States had planned an invasion and had not bothered to prepare an army. 133 00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:49,750 The army across the frontier was neither large enough nor well enough trained to do the business it was sent to do. 134 00:13:50,350 --> 00:13:55,960 And the British were able to bring reinforcements into theatre to keep up with the growing strength of the American army. 135 00:13:56,230 --> 00:14:01,150 And in all the major firefights right the way through the war, the British Army came out on top. 136 00:14:02,350 --> 00:14:06,340 These were only tactical victories, but the whole war on the front is a stalemate. 137 00:14:07,420 --> 00:14:13,000 At the beginning of the war, this is where everybody was. And at the end of the war, they're back in the same place. 138 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:22,360 Nothing much has changed. The one major British offensive, the attempt to send an army down into Lake Champlain, failed. 139 00:14:24,340 --> 00:14:31,030 American attempts to cross the frontier again failed. So this is the story of something that actually never happened. 140 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:38,380 There were naval battles on Lake Champlain and Lake Erie. But essentially, it's a status quo ante on this front. 141 00:14:38,950 --> 00:14:42,460 This placed enormous priority on the Americans finding another strategy. 142 00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:49,960 The problem was the Republican government of James Madison, like Thomas Jefferson's, his predecessor, was entirely anti naval. 143 00:14:49,990 --> 00:14:53,770 They hadn't bothered to buy or build any new ships for more than a decade. 144 00:14:54,310 --> 00:15:00,760 They hadn't invested any money in the Navy before the war. They just mobilised what they had and sent out to sea to do what it could. 145 00:15:01,090 --> 00:15:09,160 They had no expectation of success. Interestingly enough, of course, in terms of strategic effects, the American Navy had no effect. 146 00:15:09,700 --> 00:15:13,930 The strategic effect produced a sea by the United States was entirely private. 147 00:15:14,530 --> 00:15:18,010 A large number of privateers, about 350 commissioned, 148 00:15:18,220 --> 00:15:23,440 went to sea and were initially relatively successful against unescorted British 149 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:27,910 merchant shipping in the Atlantic and all the way down into the West Indies. 150 00:15:29,230 --> 00:15:35,230 So American strategy for war failed American private enterprise redeemed American national failure, 151 00:15:35,980 --> 00:15:40,120 but it pointed in the direction of the British response. 152 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:52,449 Warren was well aware of the privateer threat, and most of his deployments were geared around increasing the strength of the convoy system, 153 00:15:52,450 --> 00:15:55,120 increasing the number of escorting vessels with convoys, 154 00:15:55,390 --> 00:16:03,490 and essentially doing what happened in the Battle of the Atlantic, removing unescorted, easy pickings from the theatre. 155 00:16:04,090 --> 00:16:11,110 Warren's job was to run a tight convoy system to supplement that with a blockade of the American ports that had warships in them. 156 00:16:12,100 --> 00:16:15,730 Boston is the main American naval base for most of the war. 157 00:16:16,060 --> 00:16:22,030 New York, the second, and the Chesapeake, just down the south of the map is the third. 158 00:16:22,210 --> 00:16:25,780 If those three have located, the US Navy is not going to see in any strength. 159 00:16:26,800 --> 00:16:31,330 Those are the main deepwater harbours the American fleet uses. But initially, Warren. 160 00:16:31,380 --> 00:16:34,920 Is very short of ships. He doesn't have enough to keep up a regular blockade. 161 00:16:35,340 --> 00:16:38,040 And by the time the war really gets going in October, 162 00:16:38,190 --> 00:16:44,160 the weather has broken and it's impossible to blockade Boston effectively through the winter with sailing ships. 163 00:16:44,700 --> 00:16:47,760 Warren knows this and so does everybody else, including the Americans. 164 00:16:49,470 --> 00:16:54,930 So he faces a desperate problem of trying to have enough ships at the right place to stop the American Navy coming out. 165 00:16:56,480 --> 00:17:03,300 This means he's not able to stop the privateers getting out, a different threat for which he doesn't have at this stage the resources. 166 00:17:04,170 --> 00:17:07,830 While we're in short of resources, he's not short of quality people. 167 00:17:08,580 --> 00:17:14,459 His reinforcements include some of the best and brightest the Navy has to offer, and particularly Rear Admiral George Coburn, 168 00:17:14,460 --> 00:17:19,590 who was removed from the Cadiz station where he was running the amphibious elements of supporting the Spanish 169 00:17:19,590 --> 00:17:26,190 War and sent across to take command of the Chesapeake Bay and conduct amphibious operations in the theatre. 170 00:17:27,510 --> 00:17:32,850 Other officers were sent across and Warren insisted and was generally this was 171 00:17:32,850 --> 00:17:37,500 generally done that any ship sent to the station had to be ships of high speed. 172 00:17:38,130 --> 00:17:42,240 There was no point sending slow sailing ships to the American station because the American ships, 173 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:46,050 unlike many of the other ships that the Royal Navy was fighting at this time, 174 00:17:46,260 --> 00:17:50,350 were generally distinguished by being well, well handled relatively fast. 175 00:17:51,090 --> 00:17:57,600 So you will see the Admiralty actually picking out specific ships because of their known performance under sail. 176 00:17:58,980 --> 00:18:07,770 That one ship in particular was very interesting. HMS Superb, which Nelson was rated as a very fast ship, was specifically sent across as a flagship. 177 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,550 This was one of the fastest line of battleships in the Royal Navy. 178 00:18:11,790 --> 00:18:15,660 It was intended to use that speed to hunt down and capture one of the American frigates. 179 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:18,840 It didn't happen, but it was a good move. 180 00:18:25,560 --> 00:18:31,560 Because pretty fully expected, as did the Americans, that the war at sea would turn out to be a bit of a walkover. 181 00:18:31,610 --> 00:18:35,930 The American Navy seven frigates about the same number of brigs and sloops and some gunboats. 182 00:18:36,290 --> 00:18:40,280 What did they know about fighting at sea and who were they to challenge the British? 183 00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:42,170 It didn't work out like that. 184 00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:51,709 The first ship to ship action, which was brought to a conclusion USS Constitution, captured HMAS Carrier and the Americans went home in triumph, 185 00:18:51,710 --> 00:18:55,910 having defeated the masters of the ocean they know fancied themselves to be quite important. 186 00:18:58,360 --> 00:19:06,010 This wasn't true. The Constitution was a third larger than the very end, had a third more firepower and at least a third more crew. 187 00:19:06,850 --> 00:19:10,930 It was a very one sided battle. If the American had lost, he would have been a great fool. 188 00:19:11,710 --> 00:19:16,390 Isaac Hayes, who won this battle, was no fool. He was a very good officer, probably the best in the American Navy. 189 00:19:16,660 --> 00:19:20,740 And he handled his very powerful ship effectively to take a much weaker opponent. 190 00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:25,150 That's not how the American administration celebrated the victory. 191 00:19:25,540 --> 00:19:30,460 And indeed, the standard version of this is that two ships of the same class met and the Americans triumphed. 192 00:19:32,110 --> 00:19:36,190 It's a pretty large class, and it comes in many gradations. 193 00:19:36,430 --> 00:19:39,670 The American ship is a whole rate larger than the British ship. 194 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:48,400 At the same time, of course, things were not going quite Napoleon's way in Russia, operating out of an enormous bloodbath. 195 00:19:48,700 --> 00:19:55,090 Resolve nothing more men died in the key bastion in this battle than died in the whole of the War of 1812. 196 00:19:55,570 --> 00:19:59,170 If you want to know the scale of these two wars, this is a big war. 197 00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:04,540 The war of 1812 was a very small war. 20,000 fatal casualties on all sides. 198 00:20:06,220 --> 00:20:10,970 The Russians lost a lot more than that on that day. But this is the war that the British government is looking at. 199 00:20:10,990 --> 00:20:14,740 They are not looking at America. They've sent Warren with some instructions. 200 00:20:14,740 --> 00:20:18,610 They're feeding him ships as they can. They are not looking at this war. 201 00:20:18,820 --> 00:20:22,580 That correspondent spoke with him, which is nonexistent and with each other. 202 00:20:22,580 --> 00:20:26,530 It is very clear they are not interested in what is happening in America. 203 00:20:26,740 --> 00:20:29,860 They assume that command of the sea will give them everything they need. 204 00:20:30,100 --> 00:20:34,570 They assume that they can get away with this and they are not going to take any 205 00:20:34,810 --> 00:20:38,830 military manpower out of the European theatre to send it to North America. 206 00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:45,700 The reinforcements that arrive in Canada for the ground war are coming in the West Indies. 207 00:20:46,150 --> 00:20:50,770 These are relatively understrength West Indian based units which have suffered the 208 00:20:50,770 --> 00:20:55,630 ravages of disease and are certainly not in the first flush of fighting efficiency. 209 00:20:55,870 --> 00:21:01,809 But they are more than good enough to do the job. Should be stressed that at the very end of the war of 1812, 210 00:21:01,810 --> 00:21:06,430 there were still more British regulars serving in West Indian garrisons and they were defending Canada. 211 00:21:07,180 --> 00:21:10,780 The British did not strip the West Indies to defend Canada. 212 00:21:11,350 --> 00:21:16,940 They sent just enough, even towards the end of 1812. 213 00:21:16,960 --> 00:21:23,920 The Admiralty is more concerned about a build up of French naval strength in the roads than it is about the entire American navy. 214 00:21:24,460 --> 00:21:29,050 Some of the more neurotic members of the Board of Admiralty are convinced the French are going to win a naval arms race. 215 00:21:29,740 --> 00:21:31,720 Fortunately, that doesn't happen. 216 00:21:33,910 --> 00:21:40,570 It's very fortunate because it allows the government to keep the Navy estimates to 1812 levels despite fighting an extra war. 217 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:45,040 The French challenge begins to slide away just as the American challenge comes on stream. 218 00:21:45,550 --> 00:21:50,920 So the 1813 estimates were only 700,000 more than those of 1812. 219 00:21:51,580 --> 00:21:58,810 That's about a 6% increase, which, given you've got a whole new war to fight, is quite impressive piece of fiscal management. 220 00:22:01,330 --> 00:22:03,909 It is a wonder the Admiralty clung to the hope that, and I quote, 221 00:22:03,910 --> 00:22:08,440 there was some appearance at one time of the American government being inclined to return to a state of peace. 222 00:22:09,220 --> 00:22:13,900 The dream of the Board of Admiralty really only evaporates on Trafalgar Day 1812. 223 00:22:14,350 --> 00:22:19,750 It's only then they realise from the news that the Americans are determined to fight this war to a finish. 224 00:22:20,620 --> 00:22:25,959 Having been offered status quo ante because the British should repeal the orders and counsel the Americans, 225 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,890 just turn around and say, Well, it's not about that anymore. Now it's about the imprisonment thing. 226 00:22:30,070 --> 00:22:33,400 You will have to stop impressing American seafarers. Those are our demands. 227 00:22:33,700 --> 00:22:36,010 And this is something the British government will not concede. 228 00:22:36,510 --> 00:22:41,770 Fact, it won't even talk about it with the Americans at any stage or indeed anybody else at this period. 229 00:22:44,260 --> 00:22:46,030 The news from America doesn't get any better. 230 00:22:47,270 --> 00:22:54,430 It was Macedonian was captured in the mid-Atlantic by the United States, another disproportionate battle. 231 00:22:54,730 --> 00:22:58,030 And then the constitution captured in West Java off the coast of Brazil. 232 00:22:58,180 --> 00:23:01,930 And this time the battle was painted up not by an American, but by a British artist. 233 00:23:02,380 --> 00:23:05,920 And the disparity in size and power is very clear. 234 00:23:06,460 --> 00:23:10,540 This is not the art of American victory. This is the art of heroic British defeat. 235 00:23:11,110 --> 00:23:15,850 The plucky Brit has fought a good fight. He's had his mask shot away, and he's going to have to surrender. 236 00:23:16,150 --> 00:23:20,049 But it was a heavyweight against a middleweight competition. 237 00:23:20,050 --> 00:23:24,940 There was really only one winner to this battle. The job was well handled, well fought. 238 00:23:24,940 --> 00:23:28,150 A captain was killed in the battle and she took quite a beating. 239 00:23:29,170 --> 00:23:34,920 But the result was inevitable. As long as the American captain didn't make a complete mess of the action, he was going to win. 240 00:23:35,830 --> 00:23:43,030 And the British were now subverting American claims of glory by pointing out the disparity of force for poor old Warren. 241 00:23:43,030 --> 00:23:46,480 It seemed the news couldn't get any worse, and fortunately it didn't. 242 00:23:48,010 --> 00:23:53,830 Instead, the increase of naval power on the coast meant that an effective blockade could be imposed. 243 00:23:54,130 --> 00:24:04,760 And by the middle of 1813, the royal. The Navy have taken control of American coastal waters around the middle of the day on the 1st of June 1813. 244 00:24:05,530 --> 00:24:10,300 The American naval hero, Commodore Stephen Decatur, broke out of Long Island Sound to the west, 245 00:24:10,690 --> 00:24:18,760 to the east and the United States with his with HMS Macedonian, the USS Macedonian and the USS Hornet. 246 00:24:20,350 --> 00:24:24,459 He was intercepted by a seven before and a frigate driven into New London, Connecticut, 247 00:24:24,460 --> 00:24:29,470 and his two frigates never left the Thames River at New London for the duration of the war. 248 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,810 One third of America's frigate strength had been taken off the board in a single morning. 249 00:24:35,410 --> 00:24:44,049 Later that afternoon, USS Chesapeake sailed from Boston with orders to intercept and destroy British supply and troop 250 00:24:44,050 --> 00:24:48,550 shipping heading into the Gulf of St Lawrence to reinforce the Army on the Canadian frontier. 251 00:24:48,850 --> 00:24:53,950 Because the American Army was taking a beating on the frontier and was desperate to cut supplies. 252 00:24:54,580 --> 00:24:59,680 Lawrence set off fully expecting to have to fight the single British frigate that lay out in Boston Bay. 253 00:24:59,920 --> 00:25:04,270 What he didn't anticipate was that this frigate was a remarkable vessel. 254 00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:09,730 The Shannon had been commanded by Philip Brook for seven years and he'd brought 255 00:25:09,730 --> 00:25:14,620 the vessel to a pitch of perfection in terms of its gunnery and tactical handling. 256 00:25:15,910 --> 00:25:24,850 Brooke had instructed his men and rewarded them for precision of fire, solid execution of duty, and the very skilled conduct of battle. 257 00:25:26,140 --> 00:25:30,010 Brooke essentially outmanoeuvred Lawrence and drew him into a battle he couldn't win. 258 00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:37,420 As Lawrence's ship comes along from behind Brooks, guns fire into the American gunboats as they range alongside. 259 00:25:37,600 --> 00:25:42,159 After most British gun firing into the foremost American gun, within a minute, 260 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:46,180 half the American guns are either disabled or their gun crews have been killed or wounded. 261 00:25:46,780 --> 00:25:50,800 On the gun deck, gun deck officer is dead on the upper deck of the American. 262 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:55,990 Grenades have been knocked over. Marines have been killed. All of the ship's officers have been wounded. 263 00:25:56,230 --> 00:25:59,080 Ships sailing, masters dead. Ships will have been destroyed. 264 00:25:59,380 --> 00:26:06,430 And the main backstage pass were up here, which makes sure the main mast doesn't fall over has been shot away. 265 00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:14,440 The American ship is crippled, suffered very heavy casualties and is no longer an effective fighting or sailing platform. 266 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,280 A single full broadside aimed fire. 267 00:26:18,940 --> 00:26:22,180 Richmond didn't fire into the ship. They fired into the gun force, killed the crew. 268 00:26:22,210 --> 00:26:26,170 He told them that was precisely what they were doing. You kill the crew, you take the ship. 269 00:26:27,310 --> 00:26:31,750 Normally, these are attritional battles. The 1812 battles lasted an hour and a half to 2 hours. 270 00:26:32,170 --> 00:26:34,090 This one was going to be over in 11 minutes. 271 00:26:35,350 --> 00:26:41,620 The Chesapeake then swung up into the wind out of control, and the Shannon fired into a stern galleries, causing further chaos. 272 00:26:42,610 --> 00:26:49,419 At this point, the two ships then collided. Brooke led his men onto the upper deck of the Chesapeake in and cleared away. 273 00:26:49,420 --> 00:26:54,010 The last remaining American crew, drove down below and obliged them to surrender. 274 00:26:54,970 --> 00:27:01,290 It was literally all over in 11 minutes time by the first lieutenant's watch, which was down in the magazine of the Shannon. 275 00:27:01,290 --> 00:27:05,049 At this point, Brooke was attacked by three British deserters, 276 00:27:05,050 --> 00:27:10,300 one of whom hit him over the head with a cutlass and opened his skull up and exposed his brains. 277 00:27:10,980 --> 00:27:20,830 He survived because the surgeon had the good sense not to treat him. Six days later, the Shannon led the Chesapeake up Halifax Harbour. 278 00:27:21,190 --> 00:27:28,600 It was the Stars and Stripes of the Union. Brooke, by this stage, was making something of a recovery. 279 00:27:28,690 --> 00:27:33,220 James Lawrence had just died of peritonitis alone. 280 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:37,630 Would have the misfortune not only to lose a battle, but to be buried three times in three different cities. 281 00:27:38,170 --> 00:27:41,920 He's now in Trinity Churchyard in New York, just across the road from Wall Street. 282 00:27:44,290 --> 00:27:49,270 The Americans have lost essentially three frigates in one day, the ship taking, the other two taken off the board, 283 00:27:49,360 --> 00:27:55,510 and they would never again challenge the British at sea with warships privately at threat remained active. 284 00:27:55,990 --> 00:28:03,640 But this was a turning point. George Cruickshank quickly got to work on what the bafflement here we see Jack 285 00:28:03,670 --> 00:28:09,280 talk giving Uncle Sam boot up the britches to insisted British valour triumph 286 00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:13,419 over Yankee boasting this was British revenge for all of those American planes 287 00:28:13,420 --> 00:28:17,560 that won the battles in 1812 and to have bested the masters of the ocean. 288 00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,110 And there's lots of rather subversive matter going on here. 289 00:28:22,120 --> 00:28:26,310 The Americans had actually laid on a celebratory dinner for the battle, which they knew they were going to win. 290 00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:30,880 And that even issued a ticket for Captain Brooke, who was to attend this battle in honour of his defeat. 291 00:28:31,450 --> 00:28:39,070 He didn't go to the dinner. He was just composed. And you can see over there a maniac with a cutlass is about to hit him head. 292 00:28:39,460 --> 00:28:43,030 That maniac, of course, is taken straight out of the 1790. 293 00:28:43,050 --> 00:28:47,410 That's usually a French Jacobin. He's now obviously an American Jacobin. 294 00:28:48,430 --> 00:28:54,940 I don't think Cruickshank at this stage knew he was a British deserter. Brooke himself came home and survive until 1840. 295 00:28:55,330 --> 00:28:59,200 He became a national hero. He was the first British naval officer to be given a gold medal, 296 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:04,540 which you see hanging in the middle of his chest, that for a single ship action, he was the first. 297 00:29:04,540 --> 00:29:09,009 There would only be one other. They'll come to him afterwards and the light isn't good, 298 00:29:09,010 --> 00:29:14,049 but he is standing on the stars and stripes and that is how you are portrayed 299 00:29:14,050 --> 00:29:19,959 when you've taken an enemy vessel and the standard that goes with it after this, 300 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:24,640 the American response. The British blockade was to pass an act of Congress called the Torpedo Act, 301 00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:30,400 which gave you full value for any British ship you could blow up with what we these days would call an IED. 302 00:29:32,410 --> 00:29:36,549 The Americans decided they couldn't fight a conventional war. They would have to fight an unconventional war. 303 00:29:36,550 --> 00:29:39,850 Asymmetric warfare is nothing new these days. 304 00:29:39,850 --> 00:29:43,540 People do it to the Americans. In those days, they did it to other people. 305 00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,280 A torpedo, of course, a reference to a torpedo fish or electric eel. 306 00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,700 Anything underwater and shocking, a torpedo. 307 00:29:52,150 --> 00:29:55,510 And here we see Jack Charles, rather interesting response. 308 00:29:55,900 --> 00:29:59,680 Blow up my hull. Indeed. You may kiss my blank blank tap rail. 309 00:29:59,860 --> 00:30:03,730 Mr. Yankee Doodle. The British, not hugely impressed. 310 00:30:03,910 --> 00:30:13,000 The first Royal Navy captain to be subject to one of these attacks was Thomas Hardy, who lost a promising young officer and several men on a vessel. 311 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:18,010 The Americans had floated out with a bomb in it. He sent a message ashore to the local community. 312 00:30:18,010 --> 00:30:24,819 If they did that again, he would burn the town down around their ears and them in their beds didn't do to annoy Thomas Hardy. 313 00:30:24,820 --> 00:30:29,020 He was quite a nice man normally, but this offended his sense of what was proper. 314 00:30:29,020 --> 00:30:34,750 This was not correct, was at sea, were fought by gentlemen using gentlemanly rules. 315 00:30:40,170 --> 00:30:46,840 By the end of 1812, certainly by the middle of 1813, the Americans knew that they were in a difficult position. 316 00:30:46,860 --> 00:30:50,610 Napoleon had been defeated as late as the 4th of December. 317 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:58,560 One of the leading proponents of the war, Henry Clay, told Congress that he expected Napoleon was at that very moment dictating peace in Moscow. 318 00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,400 Napoleon was actually back in Paris. He was dictating very different things. 319 00:31:02,820 --> 00:31:07,000 Madison opened the New Year by signing a new naval program to build some ships. 320 00:31:07,020 --> 00:31:10,680 He should have done that two years earlier if he meant to do anything about the war. 321 00:31:12,540 --> 00:31:18,389 And he marked the collapse of his hopes and a dawning realisation that having taken his country to war utterly unprepared, 322 00:31:18,390 --> 00:31:22,740 he as Chief Magistrate was ultimately responsible for the looming catastrophe. 323 00:31:24,060 --> 00:31:27,290 The British never understood America's relationship with France. 324 00:31:27,300 --> 00:31:30,780 The Americans looked to France, but they never got too close to France. 325 00:31:31,410 --> 00:31:35,490 They never quite trusted Napoleon, however much they were fighting the same enemy. 326 00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:46,100 Blockade was now increasingly effective with a naval blockade blocking American warships from getting to see. 327 00:31:46,370 --> 00:31:50,510 The British were able to concentrate more and more ships on the escort of convoys. 328 00:31:50,930 --> 00:31:55,160 Convoy system run by the Admiralty in very close cooperation with Lloyd's of London. 329 00:31:55,940 --> 00:32:06,379 Very close relationship between these two organisations and a daily indeed hourly exchange of information about the conduct of convoys, 330 00:32:06,380 --> 00:32:12,830 the assembly of ships, and interestingly, a shared interest in prosecuting those who broke the rules. 331 00:32:13,070 --> 00:32:16,970 Merchant ship captains who left that convoy were sent to prison. 332 00:32:17,930 --> 00:32:21,919 You voted your insurance. You vitiated your right to be a seafarer. 333 00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:27,800 And you sent to the Fleet Prison. Naval officers who abandoned that convoy lost their command and probably their careers. 334 00:32:28,490 --> 00:32:32,600 This was not an unimportant matter. By the middle of 1813. 335 00:32:33,170 --> 00:32:40,370 The Royal Navy had got a pretty strong convoy system running, and there were very few unescorted merchant ships for American privateers to attack. 336 00:32:40,820 --> 00:32:44,750 Privateering became an increasingly rewarding business. 337 00:32:45,110 --> 00:32:48,200 Privateer doesn't want to fight a battle. He wants to take the easy prize. 338 00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:52,250 If you make him fight a battle, he will probably go away and come back another day. 339 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:59,180 And if every time it comes back, there are no free prizes, he will go back to his home port, pay off his ship. 340 00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:06,470 And in the case of many privateer owners, he will take his money out of the sea and put it into land investments. 341 00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:11,180 By 1814, American seafaring communities are investing in industry. 342 00:33:12,020 --> 00:33:17,480 Baltimore Great Seaport Town. The dominant Privateering town becomes an industrial hub. 343 00:33:17,630 --> 00:33:22,820 During this war, people are taking their money out of the sea where they're not getting a good return. 344 00:33:23,030 --> 00:33:27,859 They're putting it into industry where they're getting five and 10%. And money talks. 345 00:33:27,860 --> 00:33:35,090 This war is being won by the decision of American capitalists to move their money in particular ways. 346 00:33:38,180 --> 00:33:42,170 The British also only blockade those pieces of America that have voted for the war. 347 00:33:42,470 --> 00:33:46,910 The division list of Congress means that they can blockade the states that voted for the conflict. 348 00:33:47,330 --> 00:33:52,250 Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia. These are the people the British make war on. 349 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,989 New England gets laid off for the first 18 months of the war because they voted against 350 00:33:56,990 --> 00:34:01,430 it and they are supplying the grain that Wellington's army is eating in the peninsula. 351 00:34:01,940 --> 00:34:06,710 Wellington couldn't find enough grain and chilli had to import it and it came from New England. 352 00:34:07,370 --> 00:34:11,000 Those American seafarers and ships were supplying the British. 353 00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,660 They were not going privateering. This was a double positive. 354 00:34:15,260 --> 00:34:18,530 Getting the Americans to do that trade was very effective. 355 00:34:19,910 --> 00:34:27,770 But even so, the war just wouldn't go away. All the way through 1813, the British government is essentially unconcerned by the war. 356 00:34:28,100 --> 00:34:32,810 The war is happening. The war is not being lost. So they'll just leave it running. 357 00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:39,560 But increasingly, the West India planters are becoming agitated about their commercial losses. 358 00:34:39,860 --> 00:34:46,640 And ultimately this will lead to the removal of John Warren, his sacked essentially at the behest of the West India community. 359 00:34:49,830 --> 00:34:53,230 April 1814 sees a dramatic shift. 360 00:34:53,250 --> 00:34:57,389 All of a sudden, the British are not fighting two wars. They're now only fighting one against the Americans. 361 00:34:57,390 --> 00:35:00,750 Napoleon has abdicated. He's on his way to the island of Elba. 362 00:35:01,290 --> 00:35:08,670 I put this in Fiennes in German. It's a German celebrating the Corsican ogre being taken off to sea. 363 00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:15,899 At this stage, the British have a choice to make. Do they send significant reinforcements to the American theatre to prosecute the war? 364 00:35:15,900 --> 00:35:22,200 To a decision to impose peace on the Americans by serious amount of military power? 365 00:35:23,220 --> 00:35:31,379 And they decide not to. They use their military transports to take the Portuguese army home from Bordeaux and then pay the transports of this. 366 00:35:31,380 --> 00:35:37,890 And 4000 British troops from Bordeaux and another three and a half to 4000 from the Mediterranean garrisons to Bermuda, 367 00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:45,870 where 4000 men, mostly those from Bordeaux, then reimburse and sail into the Chesapeake Bay, 368 00:35:46,140 --> 00:35:50,790 where under the direction of George Coburn they row up the Patuxent River land, 369 00:35:52,290 --> 00:35:57,720 move swiftly to the field of Bladensburg where they demolish the American army and then occupy Washington. 370 00:35:59,730 --> 00:36:07,830 This is something Coburn has been planning for the previous 12 months an amphibious strike using maritime power to move troops quickly, 371 00:36:08,070 --> 00:36:14,580 to strike at the American capital as a way of distracting America's attention from the Canadian frontier. 372 00:36:16,170 --> 00:36:21,510 The decision to destroy the public buildings of Washington is a response to the American destruction of what is now Toronto, 373 00:36:21,510 --> 00:36:27,690 then New York, the previous year. And the whole object is to force the Americans to recognise that weakness. 374 00:36:29,010 --> 00:36:30,630 It works in one critical way. 375 00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:37,410 The last remaining American capitalists with any money available take their money north of the border and buy British government securities. 376 00:36:37,950 --> 00:36:42,180 The US government cannot raise any capital from anywhere to do anything. 377 00:36:43,410 --> 00:36:47,910 The American envoys in Europe try to raise money on the Amsterdam market and the 378 00:36:47,910 --> 00:36:51,060 British tell the Dutch that they really didn't want to lend the Americans any money. 379 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:56,950 If they want to get Belgium at the peace settlement, which is looming. So the Dutch won't lend them any money either. 380 00:36:56,970 --> 00:37:02,820 America is not bankrupt. By November, the US government has no money to pay anybody for anything. 381 00:37:03,300 --> 00:37:09,030 It is absolutely without credit or cash. This is a fairly decisive result. 382 00:37:10,500 --> 00:37:13,800 This is the architect of the destruction of Washington, said George Coburn, 383 00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,609 seen here in his officially commissioned portrait with his top boots and his 384 00:37:17,610 --> 00:37:21,090 spurs on where the public buildings of Washington burning in the background. 385 00:37:21,330 --> 00:37:26,610 This is his finest hour. He's very pleased with himself. I think there's a wry smile across his lips. 386 00:37:26,970 --> 00:37:31,080 He's quite pleased. This is his handiwork. This is a great achievement. 387 00:37:32,370 --> 00:37:36,990 That's what he did to the White House. He ate the dinner that Madison had laid down to celebrate his victory. 388 00:37:37,260 --> 00:37:40,920 And then they burned the place down the Capitol building as well. 389 00:37:42,690 --> 00:37:47,220 And two days later, a British frigate squadron captured Alexandria having sail at the Potomac. 390 00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:54,750 And here we see John Bull as a minotaur imposing peace on the merchants of Alexandria, 391 00:37:54,750 --> 00:37:59,400 their hair standing on end at the sight of this astonishing monster which has come up their river. 392 00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:04,860 Despite the best efforts of the U.S. Army and Navy to stop them, and they went home with all of their swag as well. 393 00:38:06,720 --> 00:38:12,480 The strike force then sailed and landed just outside Baltimore to see if the Americans would run away another time. 394 00:38:13,050 --> 00:38:18,360 4000 British troops drove the Americans off the field at North Point and into the defences of Baltimore. 395 00:38:19,140 --> 00:38:24,300 But the British discovered that there were 25,000 armed men in Baltimore and the odds were rather difficult. 396 00:38:24,690 --> 00:38:34,570 So after a solitary bombardment of Fort McHenry, which gave the Americans their national anthem, eventually they withdrew with 4000 men. 397 00:38:34,590 --> 00:38:38,790 The British could only do what the Americans would let them do. BLADENSBURG They ran away. 398 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,399 They got an easy victory at North Point. 399 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:47,160 They eventually retreated, but they didn't run away because the men of Baltimore were defending their own private property. 400 00:38:47,460 --> 00:38:54,600 The men of Washington were not prepared to die to defend government property as a clear distinction between these two places. 401 00:38:56,550 --> 00:39:01,230 All the way through this process, the British were really quite anxious to get this rather awkward little war finished. 402 00:39:01,860 --> 00:39:05,820 Not because they were worried about losing it, but because they didn't need to win it. 403 00:39:06,540 --> 00:39:12,060 The main object of British policy throughout this period is the resettlement of Europe. 404 00:39:12,090 --> 00:39:16,620 Europe is the big issue all the way through this war. It is the only war that matters in London. 405 00:39:17,070 --> 00:39:23,640 The American war is a sideshow. Negotiations are ultimately held in Ghent, in Belgium. 406 00:39:24,270 --> 00:39:28,350 Why again? Why Belgium? Belgium is a British occupied province. 407 00:39:28,980 --> 00:39:35,850 The British army had been in Belgium since the beginning of the downfall of Napoleon in early 1814, 408 00:39:36,150 --> 00:39:39,210 when the British had sent a small army to try and capture Antwerp, 409 00:39:39,570 --> 00:39:45,160 which was the epicentre of the entire 20 odd year war with the French, with the French in Belgium. 410 00:39:45,180 --> 00:39:53,730 The British were going to be at war with them. This was a given. So the British didn't have enough military manpower to deal with Antwerp in 1814. 411 00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:59,190 There was no way they were going to send military manpower to deal with the Americans if they couldn't get the French out of Belgium. 412 00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,680 One was important. The other wasn't. Fortunately, when Napoleon finally abdicated, 413 00:40:04,890 --> 00:40:11,310 the British were still in Belgium and they occupied the province and having the negotiations that served several purposes. 414 00:40:11,310 --> 00:40:16,680 It was close to London. It was on the main road to Vienna where the larger negotiations were happening, 415 00:40:17,220 --> 00:40:21,120 and the American Mail travels through the British post office, which opened and read it. 416 00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,340 So for security was not a strong point of the American government at that stage. 417 00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,460 So the British were able to read their mail quite neatly. 418 00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:39,420 By the end of 1840, it was quite clear that the European powers looked upon the American war as a weakness for Britain. 419 00:40:39,540 --> 00:40:42,870 Britain was still at war. How could it take part in the grand peace settlement? 420 00:40:43,830 --> 00:40:47,880 The Russians wanted to talk about maritime belligerent rights at Vienna. 421 00:40:47,940 --> 00:40:54,210 They wanted to talk about limiting British power. Sort one thing the Americans would have been very happy to talk about as well. 422 00:40:54,990 --> 00:41:00,660 The British made it quite clear they would not talk to anybody at either negotiation about anything if that was on the table. 423 00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,319 Gulf War II made it quite clear these issues were not going to be discussed. 424 00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:12,470 The British could not attend any such Congress. Nor was the American war to be brought into the discussion of the European settlement. 425 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:17,700 These two entirely separate events. They were not to be cross contaminated. 426 00:41:19,410 --> 00:41:28,440 So the British kept the two wars separate. They laid down their absolute demands at the beginning, the no discussion of maritime belligerent rights. 427 00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:36,150 So there was never a discussion again of either the orders in council or the imprisonment of seafarers. 428 00:41:36,180 --> 00:41:41,700 These were simply not mentioned. The Treaty of Ghent, Christmas Eve, 1814. 429 00:41:41,850 --> 00:41:45,420 Status quo ante. The terms the Americans have been offered on day one. 430 00:41:46,980 --> 00:41:49,200 They fought for two and a half years to achieve nothing. 431 00:41:51,090 --> 00:41:54,570 Of course, they achieved quite a lot in the war, but not the things that they've been looking for. 432 00:41:59,240 --> 00:42:02,299 The last throw of the dice would have been another American invasion of Canada. 433 00:42:02,300 --> 00:42:06,920 But without any money, it's very difficult to mobilise manpower to conduct military operations. 434 00:42:07,970 --> 00:42:14,540 Shortly before news of the piece arrived in New York, the American flagship, the U.S. president, 435 00:42:14,540 --> 00:42:20,060 set off to attack the last remaining maritime target, which American ships could access. 436 00:42:20,390 --> 00:42:28,310 They thought British trade with China. The US president was going to sail to the China Seas to cut up the East India's trade. 437 00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:39,410 Commodore Victor set off from Sandy Hook on the 14th of January and the next morning he fully expected to be free and clear in the Atlantic. 438 00:42:39,620 --> 00:42:44,809 Instead, he was intercepted by four British frigates, hunted down and eventually captured by HMS. 439 00:42:44,810 --> 00:42:50,570 And. This was the last great naval battle of the war of 1812 Clippers victory. 440 00:42:50,750 --> 00:42:55,670 The smaller British ship this time captured the bigger American one and did so in very fine style. 441 00:42:55,850 --> 00:42:56,389 Henry Hope. 442 00:42:56,390 --> 00:43:04,910 The Captain was the next captain to be given a naval gold medal for winning a frigate battle, and the British brought their prize home in triumph. 443 00:43:06,410 --> 00:43:11,510 This, of course, is Castle, right, a map of the war of 1812. This is how the British saw the War of 1812. 444 00:43:11,780 --> 00:43:21,439 It was completely irrelevant to the big issue of settling the European state system and establishing a balance between the French, 445 00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:23,810 the Austrians, the Russians and the Prussians, 446 00:43:24,590 --> 00:43:30,110 creating a unified Netherlands that would keep the French out of Antwerp and off the river shelf for as long as possible, 447 00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:35,120 and stabilising something which was essential to the future prosperity of Britain. 448 00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,190 In the process, Cussler realised that Canada was very valuable. 449 00:43:40,460 --> 00:43:45,560 Canada would replace Britain's dependency on the Baltic for grain, timber and naval supplies. 450 00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:53,780 And Castlereagh is very clear about this. Canada is well worth keeping because of its impact in reducing our dependency on the Baltic, 451 00:43:53,780 --> 00:43:59,720 which has forced the British to fight a five year campaign at very great expense to keep Baltic access open. 452 00:44:00,350 --> 00:44:03,920 So it did turn out to be a very useful thing in the end. 453 00:44:05,090 --> 00:44:10,640 Canadian timber, first products and grain would give the British Empire a degree of autarky. 454 00:44:13,300 --> 00:44:16,600 How did the British government view this? The end of the war with the Americans? 455 00:44:17,230 --> 00:44:20,770 With great pleasure and satisfaction. They didn't want to fight another year. 456 00:44:20,950 --> 00:44:26,470 It would have cost £10 million, which they didn't have, and they had no desire to take any of America. 457 00:44:27,700 --> 00:44:33,610 The object to the war throughout had been to make the Americans stop what they were doing and consider their position. 458 00:44:34,630 --> 00:44:41,310 Ultimately, they did this. The Americans, of course, were a little short of friends in Europe, 459 00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:47,950 and the Spanish were rather annoyed because they'd started the War of 1812 by invading Florida, which was then Spanish as well. 460 00:44:49,270 --> 00:44:52,480 So the British ended up with a peace settlement, 461 00:44:52,630 --> 00:44:57,760 which was most convenient because rather than sending more troops to fight in America and even sending Wellington to command them, 462 00:44:58,090 --> 00:45:00,100 the British still had some troops left in Europe. 463 00:45:00,610 --> 00:45:09,340 When Napoleon returned, one of the architects of the victory against the Americans, Rear Admiral Henry Hoffman, 464 00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:16,510 was back in time to take command of the blockade of France, and it was his squadron that took the surrender of Napoleon. 465 00:45:17,110 --> 00:45:22,120 So he'd come from capturing the US as president to taking the surrender of the Emperor. 466 00:45:22,930 --> 00:45:28,090 He was brought back to Plymouth and then sent to a properly British place from which he could not escape. 467 00:45:29,620 --> 00:45:33,820 I think that's a rather nice way of representing some very big flag, very small island. 468 00:45:34,810 --> 00:45:38,860 The Americans immediately claimed that they'd won the war. This is what you do. 469 00:45:38,860 --> 00:45:42,750 If you're a political party seeking re-election, you don't say, Oh, sorry we lost. 470 00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:50,499 You say we won. And there's a massive outpouring of Republican Party propaganda claiming victory, not the victory. 471 00:45:50,500 --> 00:45:54,370 The Americans thought they were going to get a military victory, but a naval victory. 472 00:45:54,610 --> 00:45:58,690 Here we have the anti naval party making the Navy into the heroes of the day. 473 00:45:59,290 --> 00:46:03,220 These are the names of American naval heroes. These are seahorses. 474 00:46:03,850 --> 00:46:10,510 We've met them in their hours. This is a motto of the Commodore Perry from the Battle of Lake Erie. 475 00:46:10,750 --> 00:46:16,150 So all of a sudden, the unexpected victories of the American Navy have become the basis for victory. 476 00:46:17,410 --> 00:46:23,440 And to this very day, the Americans will show you the USS Constitution and remind you that this ever victorious ship won three battles 477 00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:31,180 in the war of 1812 and is still around to celebrate the fact she's the flagship of the American version of 1812. 478 00:46:31,780 --> 00:46:38,380 But this should be contrasted with HMS President when the British brought president home. 479 00:46:38,890 --> 00:46:41,920 She was a bit knocked about, so they built a perfect replica of her. 480 00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:47,680 And after many interesting years of service, she ended up as the headquarters of the London Royal Naval Reserve. 481 00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:53,020 She's seen here in the Docklands in her declining years, and that name is stuck. 482 00:46:53,780 --> 00:46:57,340 Headquarters of the Royal Navy in London has been HMS President ever since. 483 00:46:58,990 --> 00:47:02,410 It's interesting you talk to very few naval officers you've ever stopped between the 484 00:47:02,410 --> 00:47:06,340 cloakroom and the bar to look at the engravings of the capture of the USS Present, 485 00:47:06,550 --> 00:47:12,070 because none of them seem to know where the next president comes from. One of them even told me something to do with Tony Blair. 486 00:47:12,700 --> 00:47:20,769 I had to disabuse him of this notion. In 1833, there was a border dispute between Maine in Quebec and First Lord of the Admiralty. 487 00:47:20,770 --> 00:47:28,330 Sir James Graham sent the ship HMS Present to the American station to be the flagship under the command of Admiral Sir George Coburn. 488 00:47:28,780 --> 00:47:34,660 This a man of a sense of humour. This in 55, there's another little argument between the British and the Americans. 489 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:42,520 And the same first of the Admiralty sent HMS Chesapeake under the command of Captain George Brooke, who was the son of Philip. 490 00:47:43,840 --> 00:47:50,080 The point was easily made British Seapower was the guarantee of the independence and integrity of Canada as a British dominion. 491 00:47:52,090 --> 00:47:59,290 So the key in looking at this war is to get away from the idea that it was a second war of independence 492 00:47:59,290 --> 00:48:03,340 in which the Americans fought off the dastardly British who were coming to reconquer their country. 493 00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:09,970 The British had no desire to conquer anything in the new world, apart from the will of the Americans to keep invading Canada. 494 00:48:10,180 --> 00:48:17,770 They wanted them to go away and behave themselves. As a result of the war, the Americans learned that they couldn't take on the British on their own, 495 00:48:18,100 --> 00:48:23,050 that they would have to wait until they were very busy fighting somebody else. And even then, they probably couldn't get away with it. 496 00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:26,799 And after the war, the Americans may have claimed victory, 497 00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:34,540 but their response in terms of their defence budget suggests that they recognised they'd lost for the whole of the 19th century. 498 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:43,150 The major output of American defence spending was the construction of a massive series of coast defence fortifications from Maine to Florida. 499 00:48:43,300 --> 00:48:47,830 The east coast of America is the most heavily fortified of any such coast. 500 00:48:48,460 --> 00:48:54,580 If you go to such obscure fishing villages as Newport, Rhode Island, you will find a fortress so big they held a jazz festival inside it. 501 00:48:55,570 --> 00:49:01,360 And New York Harbour is one of the world's largest collections of sea coast defences. 502 00:49:01,510 --> 00:49:08,230 There was only one reason for building these defences. There was only one navy that could possibly come to attack America's coast. 503 00:49:08,530 --> 00:49:12,220 And there was only one reason why the British would have ever gone to attack. 504 00:49:12,310 --> 00:49:16,000 America, and that would have been another invasion of Canada. 505 00:49:16,270 --> 00:49:22,570 So those two things don't happen. It's not that the British don't attack America is that the Americans don't invade Canada. 506 00:49:23,290 --> 00:49:30,100 And as a result, those fortifications never tested until 1861, when they ended up being very useful to the Confederates. 507 00:49:32,290 --> 00:49:37,630 The Confederacy and its supporters have been very interested in the lessons of the War of 1812, 508 00:49:37,990 --> 00:49:43,120 because one of the more effective British techniques for upsetting the South and central states 509 00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:48,640 of the United States was to land on the coast and to incite the slaves to desert their masters. 510 00:49:49,420 --> 00:49:52,989 George Coburn was very quick to raise regiments of colonial Marines, 511 00:49:52,990 --> 00:49:58,690 former American slaves who were equipped with red jackets and muskets, and he said, were excellent men. 512 00:49:58,690 --> 00:50:02,710 They were tall, strong, well-built. They knew the local country and they didn't desert. 513 00:50:03,550 --> 00:50:07,570 Some of these men took a prominent part in the attack on Washington. 514 00:50:08,950 --> 00:50:16,120 The nightmare scenario for the American South from 1815 to 1861 was the arrival on the coast of a British fleet, 515 00:50:16,420 --> 00:50:19,300 complete with West Indian regiments of black soldiers. 516 00:50:20,020 --> 00:50:26,650 If you ever wondered why the Southern Confederacy was the most well-armed and prepared section of America for war in 1861, 517 00:50:26,890 --> 00:50:30,640 they were frightened of a servile revolt, particularly one prompted by the British. 518 00:50:30,970 --> 00:50:37,150 It was they pushed for so much money to be spent on the coast defences of places like Charleston. 519 00:50:38,710 --> 00:50:41,590 So when Fort Sumter was bombarded, it was facing the wrong way. 520 00:50:41,590 --> 00:50:47,320 It was facing up to sea to stop the British coming in, not to impose federal control over the city. 521 00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:52,920 One war at a time. Who's, quote, Abraham Lincoln? 522 00:50:52,930 --> 00:50:56,320 December 1861. The current crisis. 523 00:50:56,340 --> 00:51:02,020 United States Navy stops a British ship in international waters and removes two of its passengers at gunpoint, 524 00:51:02,380 --> 00:51:07,150 clear breach of international law, particularly in breach of the American version of maritime rights. 525 00:51:07,650 --> 00:51:13,330 So the British the British insisted they got the envoys back, although they didn't personally want them. 526 00:51:13,330 --> 00:51:17,620 They were slave owners after all. And the Americans backed down. 527 00:51:17,620 --> 00:51:22,870 And Lincoln said one war at a time. Absolutely right. In 1812, the British didn't have a choice. 528 00:51:23,740 --> 00:51:30,820 They either conceded to the Americans and with it conceded their ability to wage war against France effectively or they fought. 529 00:51:31,390 --> 00:51:33,970 On this occasion, they fought and they were successful, 530 00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:42,730 in part because Napoleon failed and in part because they were very fortunate, as the British have often been in their enemies. 531 00:51:43,390 --> 00:51:47,560 The Americans went to war with no capacity to win the war. They didn't have the military strength, 532 00:51:47,860 --> 00:51:54,700 the financial resources or the long term planning in place to do anything other than, as Jefferson said, march into Canada. 533 00:51:55,030 --> 00:51:57,430 Fighting for anything was not something they planned for. 534 00:51:58,150 --> 00:52:03,970 Curiously, by the end of the war, the Americans had got reasonably good at fighting for things, but it was by then rather too late. 535 00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:11,559 So I think the lesson ultimately of this war has to be if you want to take on one of the world's great powers, 536 00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:17,710 it's probably a good idea to get very ready before you start to think very clearly about what it is you mean to do. 537 00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:21,219 And to be very certain that those are the people who are keeping them distracted 538 00:52:21,220 --> 00:52:25,270 are going to continue to do so until you've finished what it is you wish to do. 539 00:52:26,770 --> 00:52:27,100 Thank you.