User blog:GunsnadGlory/Triple Whammy: Guns Announces his Return

AHAHHAHAHAH! I'M BACK!

As some of you may have noticed, I've been on a semi-wikibreak over the last two weeks- I've checked in now and then, but for mostly 5 minutes every few days.

Anyway, I'm back, and to celebrate, I'm writing the Triple Whammy of all blog posts. We'll start off with a "Common Misconceptions of History", then we'll see...

The Second and Third Parts of the Triple Whammy will follow over the nect couple of days.

(Also, I'm debuting a new sig- eat your heart out, Feddy, you know what's on it.)

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS OF HISTORY- The War of 1812!
I have to say, both the Americans and the Canadians have weird misconceptions about this war, and they both have a lot of them. I recommend reading this forum thread. Note, this wasn't my source, but it was pretty interesting.
 * 1) The War of 1812 was an attempt by the British to reconquer America: 
 * 2) *AHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Yeah, false. The Brits, at the moment, were attempting to deal with the most brilliant general of the 19th Century, who was leading a giant army and had successfully smashed the living shite out of damn near all Europe. The Brits couldn't care less what the Americans were doing. The Americans were still an extremely minor power, and would have lost to the Brits in a real war, but the Brits didn't want a real war- the Americans had the potential to be a goldmine as trade went, and taking them over, though possible (highly unlikely, though) would cost WAY more than any reward they'd get from the Americans. No, the Brits did not start the war.
 * 3) The War of 1812 was an attempt by America to annex Canada:
 * 4) *​​This one, believed by many Canadians, is equally false. Yes, it does seem like a great story; the Americans, who outnumbered the Canadians 10-1, being stoically held off by a lesser number of Canadians. Rarr!
 * 5) *It's not true, though, and to understand why, you need to know the ACTUAL reason for the war.
 * 6) *See, as the Napoleonic situation in Europe unfolded, the British began to take more and more measures to isolate France. These measures included basically stopping American trade with France, which the Americans took exception too. This itself might not have led to war- after all, most of the Northerners wanted to trade with Britain more than France- but at the same time, the Brits were practicing something known as "Impressment", something which the Americans viewed as being MUCH worse than it actually was.
 * 7) *See, British soldiers who didn't want to fight the French had two options to get out of it:
 * 8) *#Be shot for cowardice in the face of the enemy.
 * 9) *#Flee to America.
 * 10) *And because many of those who fled to America were navy-men, they took up work in American trade ships. Naturally, the British decided this was  intolerable, and started to stop American ships and take off all those they thought were British. They weren't randomly impressing Americans, note, though they no doubt got a few of them. However, the Americans said this was a violation of their rights (quite correctly) and inflamed the populace about it. Ironically, by the time the war started, the issue of Impressment had been dealt with.
 * So, what does this have to do with the misconception that the Americans invaded Canada?
 * 1) *Well, Canada wasn't involved in the buildup to war. They were aware of it, but they weren't really involved at all, and most had no clue why all of a sudden the Americans invaded.
 * 2) *And why did the Americans invade? Well, no other choice. They couldn't hit Britain itself, or any of it's colonies- even while dealing with the French, the RN could curbstomp the American navy any day of the week. So the Americans decided to invade the big, fat British colony right North of them, with precisely zero defenses.
 * 3) The War of 1812 was anything other than a horrendous loss for America:
 * 4) *​I can't even--
 * 5) *Let's do a little count here, shall we?
 * 6) **Number of dead American soldiers, from all causes (inc diseases): 15,000, and another 4,500 injured.
 * 7) **Number of British dead: 4,900, with another couple of thousand injured.
 * 8) **I see a big difference.
 * 9) *Furthermore, the British marched into Washington and BURNT THE WHOLE CITY DOWN.
 * 10) *When your enemy burns down your capital, I don't think it's very probable that you're winning the war.
 * 11) *What's more, the result of the war was nearly the split of America- if the Brits hadn't blundered at New Orleans, and had pushed harder in America after the fall of France, the already resentful North would have split off from the South, leaving a Rich, Pro-British Northern States of American against a poorer, Anti-British Southern States. Whoops.
 * So, why do so many Americans think they won the war?
 * 1) *Well, because they also think that the American aim in the war was to fend off a British invasion. And in that sense, they did succeed- the result of the war, territorially, was SQAB.
 * 2) *Course, the Brits weren't actually trying to annex America.
 * 3) *Why else? Well, they did smash the Brits into little pieces at the battle of New Orleans. This is true. That was a Blunder with a capital B. But if the war had gone on, after the fall of Napoleon, the Brits could have no doubt shatterred the US. Why didn't they? Well, why would they? They wanted trade with the US, not to shatter the US and leave it in ruins.
 * 4) The War of 1812 was a victory for the Anglo-Canadians:
 * 5) *​Whaa--
 * 6) *Didn't you just say--
 * 7) *No. I said the War was a loss for the Americans, not a victory for the British.
 * 8) *Firstly, the very fact that it took them so long to beat such a minor power says something. The Americans were divided, with half the nation against the war. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and out-economied. Yeah, sure, they were busy beating France, but still. It shouldn't have taken so long.
 * 9) *Secondly, they got NOTHING out of the war, because of their own blunders.
 * 10) *Take the Battle of New Orleans, in which a large British army were smashed into the Stone Ages by the smaller, local, American militia. AFTER the treaty ending the war was signed. It was humiliating, and just stupid on the British part.
 * 11) *Basically, the whole war was one unending string of blunders on the British end, and they can't be awarded this wiki by any reasonable authority. The only reason they won is because they Americans were tiny.
 * 12) The British gave half a damn about the war.
 * 13) *​Nope. False. Incorrect. They were busy with Napoleon.