| War of 1812 | |||||
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| Belligerents | |||||
* United States
| * United Kingdom
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||
*James Madison
| *Lord Liverpool
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The War of 1812, fought between the United States and Britain, lasted from 1812 to 1815. It was fought chiefly on the Atlantic Ocean and on the land, coasts and waterways of North America.
There were several immediate stated causes for the U.S. declaration of war: first, a series of trade restrictions introduced by Britain to impede American trade with France, a country with which Britain was at war (the U.S. contested these restrictions as illegal under international law); second, the impressment (forced recruitment) of U.S. citizens into the Royal Navy; third, the British military support for Native Americans who were offering armed resistance to the expansion of the American frontier to the Northwest.
The war was fought in four theatres: on the oceans; along the Atlantic coast of the U.S.; on the long frontier, running along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, which separated the U.S. from Upper and Lower Canada (Ontario and Quebec); and finally along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. During the course of the war, both the Americans and British launched invasions of each other's territory, all of which were unsuccessful or gained only temporary success. At the end of the war, the British held parts of Maine and some outposts in the sparsely populated West while the Americans held Canadian territory near Detroit, but these occupied territories were restored at the end of the war.
In the United States, battles such as New Orleans and the earlier successful defence of Baltimore (which inspired the lyrics of the U.S. national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner) produced a sense of euphoria over a "second war of independence" against Britain. It ushered in an "Era of Good Feelings," in which the partisan animosity that had once verged on treason practically vanished. Canada also emerged from the war with a heightened sense of national feeling and solidarity. Britain, which had regarded the war as a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars raging in Europe, was less affected by the fighting; its government and people subsequently welcomed an era of peaceful relations with the United States.
Literary Note
Harry Turtledove has never directly written about the War of 1812, but he has referenced it or engaged its consequences (see below) in multiple works. The course of the war remains as described above in all Turtledove works with a Point of Divergence after 1815.
For probable analogs of the war see also:
- War of 1218 (The War Between the Provinces)
- War of 1809 (Atlantis series)
- A "War of 1812" was referenced in The Disunited States of America, but no details were shared.
War of 1812 in Southern Victory
The War of 1812 would prove to be merely the second in a series of military conflicts between the United States and Britain. It also planted the seed of distrust between the U.S. and Canada, which would blossom into outright hatred throughout the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Britain intervened in the War of Secession on the side of the Confederate States in 1862, and both Britain and Canada went to war with the U.S. in the Second Mexican War of 1881. The U.S. lost, and Britain was able to reassert some its claims to the state of Maine and annex the northern half of the state. The US avenged itself in 1917 when it defeated Anglo-Canadian forces at the end of the Great War. It forced the British Empire off continental North America entirely, and Canada ceased to exist as a nation, with the province of Quebec being made into its own republic and the anglophone provinces being subjected to US occupation and martial law indefinitely. Canadian resistance campaigns of varying degrees of intensity would flare up periodically for at least another generation. Meanwhile the US would openly support Irish campaigns to liberate the Emerald Isle from British rule, putting US Navy personnel into a combat situation with their British counterparts. The US and UK would fight one last time during the Second Great War, waging major naval campaigns against one another in the Caribbean and North Atlantic.
Laura Secord Moss was a descendant of and named after Laura Secord, a Canadian folk heroine of the War of 1812.
