sf wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Feb 2010 10:06:26 -0500, Dave Smith
> > wrote:
>
>> atec 77 wrote:
>>> Dave Smith wrote:
>>>> atec 77 wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> But where is your cite for French nuclear disasters.
>>>>>>> BTW.... your air force lost an A bomb off our west coast.
>>>>>> Where is your cite for the French Navy surviving a war?
>>>>> google potluck/french military victories
>>>> Better yet, where did the US ever have a single single handed against
>>>> a significant enemy? Panama? Grenada?
>>> I suspect they did quite well against the British
>>
>> Not entirely singlehanded. The British were doing fairly well but got
>> screwed at Yorktown when the French fleet came along and defeated the
>> British fleet. In the War of 1812 the US invaded Canada with the plan of
>> seizing what was then British territory. They lost. They had a
>> military objective and they did not achieve it. Most of the issues that
>> led to the war had already been resolved before it even started.
>
> Wasn't the war basically just another English/French battlefield
> anyway?

Yep. Ironically, after American colonists had fought for so many years
against the French in North America, the rebels got the French to go to
war against Britain in support of them. The Spanish and Dutch were also
involved. The provided money and arms for the rebels, and the French
fleet was a significant factor in the British defeat in the revolution.

The War of 1812 arose from the Napoleonic wars. Americans were upset
about the British embargo on European ports and the impressment of
American sailors into the British navy, though many of those sailors
were actually British. That provided the incentive to go to war, though
there was a significant faction that simply wanted to take over Canada
and used those issues.

Some Americans claim they won, that they gained some sort of
international esteem. Others say it was a draw. The thing is that the
aim of the war was to take over Canada, and they failed to do that.

>