Britain had 3 goals going into 1812.

1. Retain Canada.
   
2. Maintain the blockade on Napoleon.
   
3. Be able to conscript British citizens in time of war, whether or not they thought of themselves as British citizens.
   

Britain retained Canada. Maintained the blockade and won the war with Napoleon. And according to International law today, well Britain won that as well. IIRC the US did not even get an apology for the official causes it listed.

Therefore Britain was 3 for 3.

Remember, Britain was not the aggressor in that war. Britain had no intention of invading the US, and even if they wanted to, 1812 would have been the worst possible time to try. If you know basic European history, you would realize that Napoleon having taken most of the major European countries over with ease was their biggest priority. To this day Britain considers the war of 1812 a joke (Oh right, we did burn down your capital, didn't we?), and the Battle of Waterloo one of the most important victories in their history.

It is not a coincidence that the War of 1812 was over within months once England stopped having a more important opponent rampaging through Europe. The US, with its capital destroyed and facing the prospect of a full British engagement, wisely decided that it was best to accept a rather generous peace treaty.

Oh yes. As for US goals, there were several:

1. Get apologies/compensation for "outrages" The official cause of the war. Failed, except in the detail that once Napoleon was beaten, Britain stopped the blockage and conscription. This was not even mentioned in the final treaty.
   
2. Take Canada. Failed utterly.
   
3. Decimate the Indian tribes. Succeeded, with important consequences for later expansion.
   
4. (later added) Keep the Louisiana territories Succeeded with important consequences for later expansion. (The treaty of Ghent didn't even address the question of whether the US kept Louisiana. The US kept it by winning the Battle of New Orleans - after the treaty was agreed on. Faster communications would have achieved the same result.)
   

The last item was later added by the US to make its sole major victory seem more important than it was at the time.

So the US won 2 of its 4 major goals. At the cost of financial collapse, having its capital burned down, and nearly suffering an internal civil war. (Several Northeast states seriously considered seccession, and would have likely done it had the US not agreed on peace.)

Cheers,
Ben

For you will believe it once you have made your mind up. Which you clearly have.

Britain in the middle of fighting for its life in one of the pivotal wars of the last thousand years, against a man who had proven himself the most successful conquerer born on European soil since Alexander the Great, really gave a shit about conquering the USA? A people in the middle of a war that reshaped Europe were going out looking for another? Why? Didn't they like the one they already had?

Yeah. Fucking. Right.

That makes no more sense than your comparison of stopping and searching ships which were running a blockade to marching an army onto foreign soil looking for deserters.

And I will now proceed to allow you to achieve yet another "success" in the self-fulfilling delusion you call a belief system. We are going around in circles, and I have better things to do with my time than waste it in endless arguments on the net with people who have made their mind up and then tailor their understanding of facts to suit.

The field is yours.

I invite you to share notes with President Madison and Saddam Hussein on the sweet taste of victory.

Ben

You just come up with theories so far in left field that it is hard to accept that you seriously believe them...

Britain considered the United States enough of a threat to their war effort that it was necessary to invade? Was the United States really enough of a factor, or Napoleon really that strong at that point, that the US had to be quashed before Napoleon could be beaten?

Excuse me? Talk about the tail wagging the dog! You have everything backwards from both reality and (not entirely coincidentally) what I said.

The US declared war on Britain and invaded Canada. Britain did not declare war on the US. Secondly what I said was that the US was unimportant on Britain's agenda while Napoleon remained at large. If Britain had its way, the US would have accepted Britain's blockade of the mainland, and the US wouldn't have attacked anyone.

As for how strong Napoleon was, dude, the guy [link|http://www.etsu.edu/philos/classes/rk/neoclassictoromantic/htmdescriptionpages/map.htm|conquered Europe]. Britain was justly terrified that they would be on his menu. Compared to that, a few colonies in North America were small fry.

Sorry, I find that very farfetched. The US wasn't even a world power yet, let alone a superpower. If anything, it was Britain that was a credible threat to the survival of the United States, not the other way around. The US wasn't even a credible threat to Canada. So why such heavyhandedness?

I am glad you find it farfetched. It would have been better if you realized up front it was wrong and didn't invent this crap.

Britain only invaded the US in 1815. This was after repeated invasions by the US into British territory (aka Canada), and after Britain finished dealing with a much higher priority (aka Napoleon). At that time Britain had no shortage of cause - their territory had been being invaded for 2 years and their citizens were being killed!

The fact is, Great Britain over-reacted, and that's putting the best possible face on it. So did the United States, to be fair, but to a far lesser degree. The US went in at a terrible disadvantage. Great Britain was bigger, and more powerful.

Great Britain did not overreact. Their territory was invaded without cause. They responded by attacking the US until the US was willing to talk peace, and then accepted peace on terms that basically said, "Let's forget this whole incident ever happened."

Not content with securing Canada, the Brits went on to bombard and invade the United States. Most of this was in 1814, *after* Napoleon had been beaten, and *after* Canada was safe. It was gratuitous. What was the British objective at that point? Certainly not to secure the survival of Great Britain. That wasn't even an issue at this point. So it must have been something else. Such as? Well, trying to put an end to the US would fit the actual behavior quite nicely. What other theory fits the facts? Anyone?

How about to convince the US not to do that again? Which the US didn't. The private Fenian raids excepted, the rest of their wars on the Continent were against Indians and Mexico, and they didn't threaten Canada again until the 1860's or thereabouts. (The threats never moved beyond the verbal stage, though it did result in the consolidation of the various colonies into one for mutual self-defence.)

(And this, to answer the question of your post's title, is where I pull my British objectives from. By reverse engineering their actions. I've always found this to be a far more reliable method than just taking people at their word. Good grief, where would we be if we'd taken Hitler at his word in 1939?)

In other words you get your shit wrong and then play mindreader to figure out what "really happened"?

Perhaps you should worry about getting your history straight before talking about what people's motives were.

What it all boils down to is:

1. Great Britain was the bully.

Great Britain was acting within norms accepted today within international practice. A naval blockade stops, searches, and turns away ships from neutral countries. A country has a right to define who is a citizen and subject them its own laws, including conscription laws, regardless of what that citizen thinks, or any other citizenships they might have.

2. The United States was the underdog.

More specifically the US was a vicious bitch of an underdog who thought it could kick Britain's puppy (aka Canada) while Britain was busy.

In 2 years the US was unable to make headway against an unaided Canada (a small fraction of its own size). Which makes it an incompetent, vicious underdog. In the third year the US had its ass handed to them all over the map.

3. At the very worst, it was a draw. If an underdog can fight a much bigger bully to a draw, what can you say to that?

What you are saying is about equivalent to Saddam Hussein claiming "victory" after the Iraqui war because Iraq wound up at the same borders as when it started.

4. On the face of it, Britain had the ability to conquer the United States.

The US in 1815 was indeed conquerable. It was, however, no more governable than it had been in 1781 so there was no point in trying to conquer it.

5. Judging from its behavior, it's obvious that Britain also had the motive.

They had the motive to send troops in and do lots of damage, yes. But did they have the motive to try to hold it?

6. What it lacked, at a minimum, was the morale.

Again, I am unimpressed at your attempts to engage in mindreading.

By your own admission, the Brits thought it "wasn't worth it" to follow through. And why would they decide this after all that bother? It can only be because it turned out to be much harder than they had thought it would be. It just wasn't fun anymore.

They had already made their point by burning the capital to the ground, their forces had just fought a European war as significant in their day as WW 1 or WW 2 is in ours, and the US was willing to sue for peace.

Again, the idea of starting a war and starting to invade was a US initiative, not a British one.

The War of 1812 was Great Britain's Vietnam. Only they had the sense to get out after a few years.

If you had called the US Revolution their Vietnam I wouldn't disagree. But the War of 1812 was to them a side-show to the real war, which is considered one of the pivotal events ushering in Modern European History.

[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]

Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes.

Then stop making shit up.

If competence is considered "hubris" then may I and my country always be as "arrogant" as we can possibly manage.

Big if.

Ben

I merely happen to know some basic history.

The reason that Britain bothered fighting in the War of 1812 is that they were attacked first. As soon as the US had enough that they were willing to stop trying to attack British colonies, Britain accepted peace on neutral terms. If Britain actually cared, they would have inflicted a heck of a lot more damage.

As for the US Revolution, the US never did win decisively. As Bill Oxley mentioned, the US managed to demonstrate that it was ungovernable. That is, the ongoing effort to maintain military control cost far more in time, money, and lives than Britain got back. The English people realized that fairly quickly. King George didn't, and therefore he spent several years in an unpopular war against colonists who were being resupplied and funded by opposing European powers (mainly France). After a few years of this he succumbed to popular pressure and gave the US its independence.

It was the same situation that the US was on the wrong side of in Vietnam. If the government had a real goal and popular support, they could have won. (By levelling the place if need be.) They didn't have the goal or the support.

Cheers,
Ben