On 17 July 1812, a small force of British troops led by the audacious Captain Charles Roberts and supported by white and indigenous Canadian militia, launched a surprise attack on Fort Mackinac. Men of the Royal Artillery dragged a six-pounder cannon to the ridge above the fort and fired a single round before demanding the fort’s surrender. Ignorant of the fact that war had been declared and fearing erroneously that the force besieging them was much greater than it was, the fort’s commander, Lieutenant Porter Hanks, quickly ordered a surrender. This was the opening shot of and the first Anglo-Canadian victory in a little known war that most American and British people are ignorant of, but which Canadians can never forget – the War of 1812.
This war began for a number of reasons, the most important of which was American ambition for territorial acquisition. War hawks within the American government such as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun calculated wrongly that Britain was not able to defend its colony Canada, because it was engaged in war with Napoleon and that the population of Upper Canada would welcome being liberated from British colonialism as many were American immigrants. Thus, the US declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812.
Although the war ended in a stalemate, it was a defensive victory for Canada and Britain. The Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, restored the border to its pre-war boundaries. Canada remained independent of the US and a British colony. Anglo-Canadian forces had also scored an impressive string of victories that to some extent compensated the British for their humiliation in the American Revolution. One of the greatest victories came at the Battle of Châteauguay in October 1813. A force of about 1,600 Canadian militia and indigenous warriors, commanded by the redoubtable Charles de Salaberry, ambushed and crushed an American force more than twice their size.
The 1812 War was instrumental in forging a Canadian identity which brought together First Nation and white Canadian people who had cooperated with the British in preserving their nation from American annexationism. Canada went on to be recognised by Britain as a self-governing territory in 1867 and then as an independent state in 1931.
Canada is one of Britain’s best military allies: its armed forces distinguished themselves fighting against the Central Powers of the Great War, and Hitler’s evil Axis during the Second World War. The bloody capture of Vimy Ridge (9-12 April 1917) and the heroics of Canadian troops during the battle of Normandy (June to August 1944) are etched into Canadian patriotic consciousness. What is also key to our present discussion, is that Canada’s head of state remains the British monarch and Canada is a prominent member of the Commonwealth.
It is therefore surprising, though perhaps it is not considering the saps who lead this country, that there has been no unequivocal riposte to Donald Trump’s declaration of intent to annex Canada and make it the US’ fifty-first state. Trump’s threat has been dismissed as Trump speaking before he engages his frontal cortex, as is his wont, or as rhetoric designed to bring the Canadians to the bargaining table over what Trump regards as their lax border controls, but many commentators and politicians regard it as a serious intention. Trump’s motivation is Canada’s vast mineral resources, and his method would be economic warfare through the imposition of crippling tariffs. Even the outgoing prime minister Justin Trudeau has dropped the veneer of politeness and has written on X that “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.” But Trump is not going to be deterred by a man like Trudeau, who seems to him to be nothing less than soy boy supreme.
Shamefully, there appears to have been silence on the matter on the part of British politicians who know extremely well that Charles III is Canada’s head of state. Why? It is a combination of fear of and adulation for the orange POTUS. The fear is that of Keir Starmer and David Lammy, whose stomachs turn at the thought of alienating Trump any more than they have already done. The adulation is that of Nigel Farage who railed against EU control of the UK, and yet has his head so far up Trump’s rump he would need a sat nav to find his way out.
There is an exception: Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem’s bungee-jumping, Windemere-splashing leader, who at least had the testicles to ask Starmer why Britain is not supporting its ally Canada and to demand that the Commonwealth make a joint response. Whether Davey is motivated by true British patriotism or by his animus for Trump is unclear. But his idea of a joint Commonwealth condemnation is better than the queasy, spineless silence that we currently have. Moreover, it could be the beginning of a new and true British patriotism that rejects the so-called Special Relationship as nothing of the sort, and refuses to bow to American hegemony. If Brussels’s tentacles can be extracted from the British body politic, why not those of Washington also?
Peter Harris is a freelance writer.
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The Brussels tentacles are still attached!
Also, don’t you think Starmer & Co are just embarrassed that the King is King of Canada too – how very colonial. We all know the British Govt should embrace the Commonwealth and ignore the EU and the USA but that, too, would just be so embarrassing and White and colonial.
Perhaps it’s because few care much about Canada anymore (recent events have exposed unpalatable facts about its leadership and influences) and the prospect of being a bystander seeing how a republic could go about incorporating two independent quasi-monarchies* might open new opportunities for UK/Ireland as well. However Hawaii was a real monarchy and that didn’t turn out well for Queen Liliʻuokalani once the USA took over.
*The Kings of Canada and Greenland are both foreigners, don’t live there and many who do would not care if they were deposed.