90. A war fought for no good reason

90. A war fought for no good reason

Although Britain was in the closing stages of a long and desperate struggle with France, it somehow managed to get itself sucked into a separate war with the United States. Called the War of 1812, accurately for the start, hopeless for its end – in 1815 – it was unnecessary and avoidable. As a Canadian historian, Pierre Berton, put it when talking about the final accord, the Treaty of Ghent, “It was as if no war had been fought, or to put it more bluntly, as if the war that was fought was fought for no good reason”. For all that, it cost quite a few lives, and a lot of treasure and, as a by. Product, it ended for ever the capacity of Native American to resist further US encroachment on their lands.

It also taught a lot of lessons about how not to fight wars at a time when firepower had become far more devastating than in earlier times. Lessons that weren’t, unfortunately, learned. To the cost of a lot of dead or maimed soldiers from future wars.

Illustration: Battle of Lake Erie in the war of 1812 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Photo by William Henry Powell, from https://www.goodfreephotos.com

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License

Jaksot(274)

9. Armada - the sequel

9. Armada - the sequel

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8. The Armada. And the body of a weak and feeble woman

8. The Armada. And the body of a weak and feeble woman

Spain sent its Armada against Elizabethan England, and the expedition ended in disaster, though far more for its failures of planning and the lousy weather than for anything the English did. Meanwhil...

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7. Not Piracy

7. Not Piracy

They may have been preying on ships, attacking them, stealing their cargoes and holding their crews to ransom, but they knew for sure that they weren't pirates. They were loyal English sailors in Quee...

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6. God

6. God

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14 Joulu 20209min

5. Good Queen Bess

5. Good Queen Bess

An exciting moment! Anne Boleyn's daughter, bright as her mother, in sharpness of mind as well as redness of hair, has made it to the throne. She's sick of all those quarrels between Protestants and C...

9 Joulu 202010min

4. Bloody Mary

4. Bloody Mary

A Bloody Mary may be a fine drink, but Bloody Mary was hardly the most desirable of Queens. As the nickname rather suggests. She was England's last Catholic monarch, and she set out to undo her brothe...

4 Joulu 20208min

3. A bit of a mess

3. A bit of a mess

At last, Henry VIII's wish could be fulfilled. He left the throne to his son. A male heir, just what he'd always wanted. Well, it wasn't that simple, First of all, Edward VI was only 9 when he came to...

29 Marras 20207min

2. The Wives of Henry VIII

2. The Wives of Henry VIII

We got to know Henry VIII a bit in chapter 1. We also talked a little about his wives, and it seems only right that we think about them a bit more now, especially since having a lot of wives is what ...

24 Marras 202013min

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