Categories: General
-
Brian Lilley is Senior Correspondent for Sun Media on Parliament Hill.
Brian has been covering politics for the last 10 years. Five of those years were spent as Ottawa Bureau Chief. More about Brian here.
Brian Lilley is Senior Correspondent for Sun Media on Parliament Hill.
Brian has been covering politics for the last 10 years. Five of those years were spent as Ottawa Bureau Chief. More about Brian here.
The only point I might argue, is the list of battles that shaped the modern western world. Even argue is too strong a word. I should say there is one battle missing which I believe is more significant than the battle of New Orleans. That of course occurs 63 years before the war of 1812 even gets started. This battle is of course fought on the Plains of Abraham between Montcalm and Wolfe and decides whether we get Napoleanic laws and style of government, or whether we get the British system. Had Montaclm won, Canada would have remained French for the forseeable future, and Jackson would have felt secure with an ally at his back.
The out come on the plains changed world history and had a reach far beyond the colonies. It led to over one hundred years of British rule with plenty of time to lay down the foundations of the institutions we now take for granted. James Wolfes victory has secured for us a place among nations that we stand on today. It also brought to our shores Sir Issac Brock and a host of other military commanders and the men they led that allowed us to hold the Americans at bay until the war had run it’s course. Would the same result have happened if the French Crown had won 63 years earlier on the heights above Quebec city? Perhaps, but as it stands now, we can never know for sure.
I’m not a monarchist and I think Victoria Day is worth celebrating and understanding.
Thank you for not perpetuating the 1812 historical romanticism of guys like Pierre Berton.
Shawn Fraser
It’s too bad that British North America had to lose so much land in Minnesota and the Dakotas (the Southern part of Lord Selkirk’s Red River Settlement) in 1818. Did all we get in return for it was a small piece of land in Saskatchewan? If so, then I guess we “lost” in the end.
I’ve read both of Pierres books onthe war, and while I grant that he tends touse a style of writing that is nt found in documentaries, I wouldn’t go so far as to say he “romanticized” it. It is hard to maintani a gritty personal feeling when writing about a war or some otehr disaster that has happened so far in the past that we have no understanding, or frame of reference for what it was like to live during those times. While Pierre does have his flaws as a writer, I thin he’s done a prettyfair job of trying to put the war into context.
I visited the Niagara region a couple of years ago and I was put off at how we have allowed the battlefield monuments to run down – particularly the Lundy’s Lane battle site. It goes to show the contempt modern progressives have for our history.