British win 1812 unambiguously

The British position in 1814 was that the French sale of Louisiana to the US was illegal because it was made by an illegitimate government--Napoleon's.

I mean, I can get that, but I doubt Spain would really what it back. They never really do anything with Louisiana between the Seven Years War, and giving it back to France, and it still would be a nation ravaged by war and political chaos, on top of fighting a lost war across South America and Mexico. I doubt they would what a territory that doesn't have too much value at this point of time.
 
In 1812, yes. But by late 1814, as the negotiators met at Ghent, the British wanted to hurt the US so badly that it could never threaten Canada again.

The thing is, in OTL, the British did 'win' the War of 1812. The US got it ass kick out of Canada, DC got burned to the ground, etc. The reason why many see it as a draw is in part of New Orleans, (After the treaty.) some American victories at sea, (Old Iron Sides) at the Great Lakes, and Fort Henry.

The British war goal was basically to put the Americans in their place, and they got that. The main objective to simply end the war and they got that. They didn't particularly want to fight the Americans at all. The British are not fools, they won the war and then gave the US nearly everything they'd asked for since it really didn't cost England much at all and would help keep the peace for years. Even if they had much more success I doubt Britain would have demanded territorial concessions. If they tried, you have another war down the line, and by then, the USA would be much stronger then years before.

At the very much, if you have to, they take Minnesota, Wisconsin, and part of Maine, but that's it, even then, it be hard without pissing off the USA.

Heck, even today the whole War of 1812 is a afterthought to the United Kingdom.
 
Last edited:
At the very much, if you have to, they take Minnesota, Wisconsin, and part of Maine, but that's it.

THey want Michigan more than any of those territories. The whole thing was adding strategic depth to Canada, a bigger buffer that America would invade and give Britain more time to defend.

I mean, I can get that, but I doubt Spain would really what it back. They never really do anything with Louisiana between the Seven Years War, and giving it back to France, and it still would be a nation ravaged by war and political chaos, on top of fighting a lost war across South America and Mexico. I doubt they would what a territory that doesn't have too much value at this point of time.

I don't think Britain would do it, but if they were really rubbing America's nose in their loss I think they would make America buy

Yeah. People here seem mainly trying to figure out how the British could cripple America, when the British just wanted us to stop selling sail cloth to Napoleon. Wrong time, wrong war.

We have the OTL Ghent Treaty talks to go off of and they definitely didn't want to cripple America but they did want territory... and this is when Britain was at a stalemate. If Britain has essentially won then they'll absolutely push for territory.

@JackLumber I'll post the reasonings for the boundary changes for my map since you enjoy it so much. :p

Britain's primary goal is going to be safeguarding Canada, and you have to view the St. Lawrence River like a tree and everything else like branches coming off it. Every branch is another area that prevents an axe from swinging at the tree. In Addition to that, Britain wants to keep America off of the Great Lakes, the war showed that control of the lakes was absolutely vital to the war effort. They'll also want areas without too many Americans. So we can guess they'll want Michigan, but probably not Ohio, and Wisconsin because America never had a presence there throughout the whole war as well as the fact that they wanted a decent port on the Upper Mississippi. They'll want the St. Lawrence valley to protect Kingston, Montreal, and keep America off the Great Lakes. They'll also take a slice of Maine because they were there, America never lifted a finger to get it back, and it could be defended with resources already in the region.

For the final border in the west I chose the Maumee because it was much more of an impenetrable bog and forest than it is today. They may link it up to the Wabash and down to the Ohio or go due west. Since the Wabash does cause some friction and adds a lot of Americans to the fold and is pretty far from British centers of power I think they would move it to a due west line to the Mississippi ot the Kankakee-Illinois Rivers in an alternate Treaty of 1818 (if they went that way in the treaty). For the far western boundary Britain plays a little more hard ball and doesn't want to give up the Red River Basin, but both sides don't want a border crisis. Britain fixes the border in Illinois, gives away Oregon south of the Columbia River and makes a line due west through the Louisiana Territory.

In the Southwest, I assume Monroe stays in the State Department and doesn't make a presidential bid due to the increased hostility from New Englanders towards the Virginian dynasty. This means he pushes a lot harder for Texas and gets it in the Adams-Onis Treaty (Spain gets a cash payment). Mexico wins independence shortly afterwards and is no doubt upset by the whole thing.

Hence the map around 1830.

Butterflies (USA)
  • The Ohio will become the major corridor west long term, and St. Louis will be the most important western hub.
  • East Texas probably gets statehood during the southern land boom in the late 1820s. Long term, Oregon gets settled faster (in OTL the HBC made it a "fur desert" in a bid to keep Americans out, which worked for about two decades) but slowly due to the distances involved and other easier settling available.
  • Between 1815 and 1830 some 250,000 Brits settled in the USA (and more who arrived Canada before moving to the USA), I suspect about 80% go to Canada.
  • New York City faces the double whammy of greater competition from Monreal and a federal government cozying up to merchants in Philadelphia (assuming the vote to move the capital out of Washington succeeds)
  • Illinois/Indiana may be merged into a single state?
Butterflies (Canada)
  • In Canada, the St. Lawrence canal is built and likely finishes just behind the Erie canal, opening Upper Canada to settlement and granting access to export markets causing a huge boom.
  • Montreal and Quebec City become solidly Anglo settlements along with much of western Quebec.
  • Detroit becomes a Canadian hub, eventually Chicago (though nowhere as big as OTL).
  • Whatever happens with the Indians, they will eventually be rolled over due to demographic pressure and land hungry Canadians, Michigan and the west end up looking like Upper Canada 2.0
 
The thing is, in OTL, the British did 'win' the War of 1812. The US got it ass kick out of Canada, DC got burned to the ground, etc. The reason why many see it as a draw is in part of New Orleans, (After the treaty.) some American victories at sea, (Old Iron Sides) at the Great Lakes, and Fort Henry.

The British war goal was basically to put the Americans in their place, and they got that. The main objective to simply end the war and they got that. They didn't particularly want to fight the Americans at all. The British are not fools, they won the war and then gave the US nearly everything they'd asked for since it really didn't cost England much at all and would help keep the peace for years. Even if they had much more success I doubt Britain would have demanded territorial concessions. If they tried, you have another war down the line, and by then, the USA would be much stronger then years before.

At the very much, if you have to, they take Minnesota, Wisconsin, and part of Maine, but that's it, even then, it be hard without pissing off the USA.

Heck, even today the whole War of 1812 is a afterthought to the United Kingdom.

The British negotiators demanded the US cede eastern Maine, the Old Northwest beyond the Greenville Treaty line, and give up fishing rights off the Grand Banks. Other British politicians wanted the US to cede northern New York and Pennsylvania, give up the right to station warships on the Great Lakes (assuming that the US retained access to the lakes), and return Louisiana to Bourbon France.

Although it's commonly believed that the British simply wanted status quo ante bellum, they were actually offered that in the summer of 1814. The British rejected it, though, until after the victories at Baltimore and Plattsburgh.

British war aims at the beginning of the war were very different from war aims at the end of the war. Since the British got none of their demands at Ghent, it's hard to see it as a British victory.
 
The British negotiators demanded the US cede eastern Maine, the Old Northwest beyond the Greenville Treaty line, and give up fishing rights off the Grand Banks. Other British politicians wanted the US to cede northern New York and Pennsylvania, give up the right to station warships on the Great Lakes (assuming that the US retained access to the lakes), and return Louisiana to Bourbon France.

Although it's commonly believed that the British simply wanted status quo ante bellum, they were actually offered that in the summer of 1814. The British rejected it, though, until after the victories at Baltimore and Plattsburgh.

British war aims at the beginning of the war were very different from war aims at the end of the war. Since the British got none of their demands at Ghent, it's hard to see it as a British victory.

They made all those demands...and didn't follow with them. The War of 1812 was little more then a distraction and of little strategic interest for them. The only real thing they had in the war was protecting Canada. That was it, and Canada itself for America was a only ever of secondary or even tertiary importance behind defending the nation's honor by the Warhawks.

They didn't win? I would think Queenston Heights, and Burning of Washington, among other victories, (Which which was about making America come to they senses and make peace.) would speak for themselves. All of the British war aims were met.

If anything, the British what the Americans to expand westward in the hope America would not bother building a navy to rival them.

Giving Louisiana back to Bourbon France? Good luck with that. Remember, America will still have a major population boom from the 1800s onward and there is little the Freach, or anyone else could do to stop US settlers from crossing the Mississippi and moving into the vastly light population land. France couldn't have it even if they tried. They need Haiti. Without Haiti, it makes Louisiana unsustainable for France. (By 1815, he American population in the West was over a million, and growing by the day. And in in the Missouri Country there's already 40-50,000 American settlers.)
 
All of the British war aims were met.

I don't see how you can reconcile this statement with the fact that the British were unable to force their demands at Ghent. Yes, they won at Queenston Heights and burned Washington, among other victories. The US won at Chippewa and burned York, but that doesn't mean that the US won the war.

Yes, the War of 1812 was a sideshow from the British point of view and it would have been tremendously hard to wrest Louisiana away from the US. I don't see how that somehow changes the fact that the British didn't get what they wanted at Ghent. The facts that you are stating are irrelevant to the central question: were the British able to secure their war aims stated among themselves and to the Americans at Ghent? The answer is no.
 
I don't see how you can reconcile this statement with the fact that the British were unable to force their demands at Ghent...were the British able to secure their war aims stated among themselves and to the Americans at Ghent? The answer is no.

The UK's open gambit at Ghent was precisely that - the opening gambit in negotiations. Would it have have been a bonus if the US had immediately backed down and granted all demands? Sure. That has nothing to to with war aims - those are what the country goes into the war to achieve, and in the case of the UK they consisted of protecting British North America and avoiding any concessions on belligerent rights. Since these were achieved, the UK succeeded in its aims for the war.

The US won at Chippewa and burned York, but that doesn't mean that the US won the war.

It also had an economy in freefall, was defaulting on its debts, and would have been unable to continue functioning as a government beyond the next few months. Since the Royal Navy caused said freefall, and the UK would have had no issue continuing the war for as long as it wanted, that's a pretty good additional indication (beyond the above success/failure of war aims) of who won.
 
The UK's open gambit at Ghent was precisely that - the opening gambit in negotiations. Would it have have been a bonus if the US had immediately backed down and granted all demands? Sure. That has nothing to to with war aims - those are what the country goes into the war to achieve, and in the case of the UK they consisted of protecting British North America and avoiding any concessions on belligerent rights. Since these were achieved, the UK succeeded in its aims for the war.

It also had an economy in freefall, was defaulting on its debts, and would have been unable to continue functioning as a government beyond the next few months. Since the Royal Navy caused said freefall, and the UK would have had no issue continuing the war for as long as it wanted, that's a pretty good additional indication (beyond the above success/failure of war aims) of who won.

Henry Goulburn, a member of the British delegation at Ghent, explicitly said otherwise: "If we had either burned Baltimore or held Plattsburg, I believe we should have had peace on the terms which you have sent to us in a month at least." If the British goal had been merely status quo ante bellum, they could have achieved that earlier. But that was not the British goal in 1814.

I fully agree that had the war continued, the US would have been almost certainly defeated. It lacked the financial capacity to continue the war. But the war didn't continue.

Off topic: I am curious about your username. Does it come from David Feintuch's Nick Seafort novels?
 
Henry Goulburn, a member of the British delegation at Ghent, explicitly said otherwise: "If we had either burned Baltimore or held Plattsburg, I believe we should have had peace on the terms which you have sent to us in a month at least." If the British goal had been merely status quo ante bellum, they could have achieved that earlier. But that was not the British goal in 1814.

That's exactly what I said: "Would it have have been a bonus if the US had immediately backed down and granted all demands? Sure...war aims...are what the country goes into the war to achieve" If that bomb that penetrated Fort McHenry's magazine hadn't been a dud, or if Prevost had decided to complete the destruction of the US army at Plattsburgh even after the defeat of his naval supports, then that bonus might have been achieved. That doesn't mean that those demands were anything more than a bonus.

Off topic: I am curious about your username. Does it come from David Feintuch's Nick Seafort novels?

It does indeed.
 
Top