网帖翻译

Alec Melling
Why didn't the USA win the War of 1812? What did we do wrong?
This was a strange war. On the one hand, you have a country that wanted the war and won nothing. And, on the other hand, you had a country that did not want the war and lost nothing.
If you cut away a lot of the US popular mythology about the war there is no doubt that the British won the military war. Where the US won a battle here and there non of their wins against British forces was militarily significant. Whilst the British wins at sea and on the Canadian border had a war-winning strategic impact on the outcome of the war.
During the naval war, the US Navy won a few single-ship combats and took a few merchant ships. None of the losses inflicted by the US Navy however were strategically significant. The British had plenty of frigates and the losses inflicted had no strategic impact on The Royal Navy. The British merchant marine was huge and the losses inflicted, mainly by US privateers, were so insignificant that the US actions at sea did not cause the maritime insurance rate to fluctuate and had little impact on the British economy during the war.

为什么美国没有赢得1812年的战争？我们做错了什么？
这是一场奇怪的战争。一方面，你的国家想要战争，却一无所获。另一方面，你的国家不希望战争，也没有损失。
如果你去掉很多美国流行的关于这场战争的神话，毫无疑问，英国赢得了这场军事战争。美国在这里和那里赢得了一场战斗，他们对英国军队的胜利都没有军事意义。英国在海上和加拿大边境的胜利对战争的结果产生了战略上的影响。
在海军战争期间，美国海军赢得了几场单舰战，并占领了几艘商船。然而，美国海军造成的损失没有一项具有战略意义。英国人有很多护卫舰，造成的损失对皇家海军没有战略影响。英国商船规模庞大，造成的损失(主要是由美国私掠船造成的)微不足道，因此美国在海上的行动并没有引起海上保险费率的波动，对战时英国经济的影响也很小。

In return, The Royal Navy counted the US threat at sea and destroyed US merchant commerce. In doing so it drove the US federal government to default on its loans and the brink of bankruptcy.
By landing military forces at will around the US coast The Royal Navy, with contingents of the British Army, tied most of the US’s military forces into a defensive posture. This meant that the US could not make significant reinforcements on the only front where they could hurt the British, the border of Upper Canada. An outright strategic win for The Royal Navy.
Indeed The Royal Navy’s campaign against the US was one of the most significant naval achievements during the age of sail. With the imposition of a year-round blockade conducted on a hostile coast, two and a half thousand miles or more from its home bases.

作为回应，英国皇家海军计算了美国在海上的威胁，摧毁了美国的商业贸易。在此过程中，它将美国联邦政府推向了贷款违约和破产边缘。
通过在美国海岸周围随意部署军事力量，英国皇家海军和英国陆军的特遣队将美国大部分军事力量束缚在防御态势。这意味着美国无法在唯一能伤害英国人的前线——上加拿大边境——投入大量增援。这是皇家海军的战略胜利。
事实上，皇家海军对抗美国的战役是航海时代最重要的海军成就之一。在距离其基地2500英里或更远的敌对海岸实施全年封锁。

The failure of the US at sea was compounded by the failure of its forces on land. British North America was never really threatened by the US military. The US military attempts to make inroads into Upper Canada were defeated, and this was the only place where the Americans could have inflicted a war-winning loss on the British.
So what did the British gain from the war? Britain gained security for British North America. This meant that this colony was able to morph undisturbed by the US into the Canada of today. Making the Canadians the outright winners of the War of 1812.
What did the US gain from the war? The US’s one strategic victory during the war, over the Native North American Federation at the battle of Thames in 1813, opened up the west. This coupled with its failure at sea drove its industrialist and capitalists, whilst they were cut off from the world, to look to the west for opportunities and financial gain. This was the true foundation of the continental US and the true gain of the US from the War of 1812. Sadly this made the Native North Americans the outright losers of the war.

美国在海上的失败因其在陆地上的部队的失败而加剧。英属北美从未真正受到美国军方的威胁。美国入侵上加拿大的军事企图被击败了，这是美国唯一可以给英国造成损失从而取得战争胜利地方。
那么，英国人从战争中得到了什么呢？英国让英属北美获得了安全保障。这意味着这块殖民地能够在不受美国干扰的情况下演变成今天的加拿大。使加拿大人成为1812年战争的绝对赢家。
美国从战争中得到了什么？美国在战争期间的一次战略胜利是1813年在泰晤士河战役中战胜北美原住民联邦，从而打开了西部的大门。再加上它在海上的失败，迫使实业家和资本家在与世界隔绝的同时，向西方寻求机会和经济利益。这是美国大陆的真正基础，也是美国从1812年战争中获得的真正收获。可悲的是，这使得北美原住民彻底成为战争的输家。

Geren Nichols
The war of 1812 is perhaps the strangest event in the history of the USA.
Huge miscalculations abounded at the time and our present views are frxd by the fact that the USA is a now a dominate military and economic power , our ‘special relationship’ is with the UK and we think that French tanks have 4 gears in reverse none of which was at all true in 1812.
The USA in 1812 was economically well off and large in geography but sparsely populated, with neither a standing army or military tradition and although there was an embryonic Navy it was outnumbered something like 600 to 15 by the Royal Navy.plo
The casus belli for the US
First, the actions of the British Navy attacking American shipping to continental Europe and occasionally the US Navy itself. There were a variety of legal principles involved and serious animosity. The USS Chesapeake incident in 1807 most notably was an act of war perpetrated by British officers convinced that they could do as they pleased followed up by the Americans killing 32 British when they fired on the little sloop HMS Little Belt, The ultimate finding on that was the US was mostly harmless but only because Napoleon crashed in Russia.

1812年的战争也许是美国历史上最奇怪的事件。
当时存在巨大的误判，我们现在的观点是基于这样一个事实:美国现在是一个主导军事和经济的大国，我们与英国存在“特殊关系”，我们认为法国坦克能调到4挡，这在1812年是完全不正确的。
1812年的美国经济富裕，地理位置广阔，但人口稀少，既没有常备军，也没有军事传统，尽管有一支萌芽的海军，但数量上超过了皇家海军，大约达到600比15的比例。
美国的战争理由：
首先，英国海军攻击美国前往欧洲大陆的船只，偶尔也攻击美国海军本身。这涉及到各种各样的法律原则和严重的敌意。1807年的切萨皮克号事件最引人注目的是英国军官犯下的战争行为，他们确信自己可以随心所欲。随后，美国人向小型单桅帆船“HMS Little Belt”号开火，杀死了32名英国人。最终发现，美国基本上是无害的，但这只是因为拿破仑在俄国战败。

The second was American desire to annex Canada. The possibility of this was based on the belief that most Canadians would rally to the US, which was of course lunacy. Canadians came in 3 general flavors. English speaking, most of whom had left the 13 colonies at the end of the revolution if the were not actively thrown out (Canadians could have more outstanding claims for expropriations in the American revolution than there are for the Cuban revolution).
Then there were Native Americans, at that time still numerically important and militarily more so. They often were in the same boat, thrown out of the US after 1781 and persecuted often with brutal force. The US was not known for good or even benign treatment of Indians, indeed one of the unmentionable causes for the American Revolution was colonists desire to steal more Indian lands than the Crown would allow.
Only French speaking Canadians could realistically be hoped to desire an association with the US an erstwhile ally of France and Napoleon in 1812 but the Quebecois had reached a working relationship with the British and they were well aware that the US was a protestant republic, in spite of claims of religious freedom, and it would be unlikely that an acceptable modus vivendi with Washington could be reached.

其次是美国渴望吞并加拿大。这种可能性是基于这样一种信念，即大多数加拿大人会团结起来支持美国，这当然是疯狂的。加拿大人有三大类。讲英语，他们中的大多数人在革命结束时离开了13个殖民地，如果他们没有被主动赶出去的话（与古巴革命相比，加拿大人在美国革命中可能有更多悬而未决的征用要求）。
然后是印第安人，他们在数量上仍然很重要，在军事上更是如此，他们经常同舟共济，在1781年之后被赶出美国，并经常受到残酷的迫害。美国并不以善待印第安人而闻名，事实上，美国革命的一个难以言喻的原因是殖民者想要窃取比王室允许获取的土地还要更多的印第安人土地。
实际上，只有讲法语的加拿大人才希望与美国(1812年法国和拿破仑的昔日盟友)建立联系，但魁北克人与英国人达成了一种工作关系，他们很清楚，尽管声称宗教自由，但美国是一个新教共和国，与华盛顿达成可接受的权宜之计是不太可能的。

In 1812 it looked like the French Empire would either defeat the UK or continue to keep all of its army and most of its fleet occupied. The war party felt it was a prime opportunity assail an empire in decline. The UK obviously had never taken the Americans seriously enough to give the peace parties ammunition to carry their cause. The vote for war in the Senate was only 19 to 13 .
So know that the war was not universally popular.
The attempts to capture Canada went as expected for a country without an army mounting a hugely unpopular invasion. . The Americans assembled an impromptu militia which collapsed when it discovered that Canadians were not only not anxious to become Americans but were quite ready to fight. The northern frontier was only stabilized when Oliver Hazard Perry mobilized industrial ship production in Erie due to the surplus of American sailors, supplies and ordinance because of the blockade of the American Navy and Ports, to overwhelm the opposition, a unique situation in this war but which foreshadowed the key to American success in the 20th century. (Also to the joy of crossword puzzle writers.)

1812年，看起来法兰西帝国要么打败英国，要么继续占领它所有的军队和大部分舰队。参战方认为这是进攻一个衰落帝国的绝佳机会。很明显，英国从来没有把美国人的话当回事，没有给和平党派提供足够的弹药来实现他们的目标。参议院支持战争的投票只有19票对13票。
所以要知道这场战争并不是普遍受欢迎的。
对于一个没有军队的国家发动了一场极不受欢迎的入侵，占领加拿大的企图不出所料。美国人组建了一支临时民兵，但当他们发现加拿大人不仅不急于成为美国人，而且已经准备好战斗时，这支民兵就崩溃了。由于美国海军和港口被封锁，美国水兵、物资和弹药过剩，奥利弗·哈扎德·佩里动员伊利生产工业船舶，压倒了反对派，这是这场战争中独特的情况，但也预示了美国在20世纪取得成功的关键。(填字游戏作者也很高兴。)

The naval war was a commercial disaster for both sides, more for the Americans than the British. For example the American whaling fleet in the Pacific was eliminated. Trade with Europe ceased. Loses to privateers and the respective navies on both sides were large but by 1815 the Royal Navy was blockading the entire US Navy and most privateers in American ports and also held French ports, effectively winning the naval war .
After successful walk overs destroying The government buildings in Washington DC the British Army loaded up for New Orleans, a raid with no strategic goal, where the commander not only seriously underestimated the firepower he was having his troops walk into but disdained optimal use of his naval assets and their mobile artillery and succeeded in making Jackson a hero and being the only general to lose more men to guns than disease in a tropical campaign. Famously it was not even during the war.

这场海战对双方来说都是一场商业灾难，对美国人的伤害程度比对英国人的伤害程度更大。例如，美国在太平洋的捕鲸船队就被消灭了。与欧洲的贸易停止了。双方都输给了私掠船和各自的海军，但到1815年，皇家海军封锁了整个美国海军和美国港口的大多数私掠船，并占领了法国港口，有效地赢得了海战。
在成功地摧毁了华盛顿特区的政府大楼后，英国军队把物资装好向新奥尔良进发，这是一次没有战略目标的突袭，指挥官不仅严重低估了他的部队将要面对的火力，而且不屑于最佳利用他的海军资产和机动火炮，并成功地使杰克逊成为英雄，让其作为唯一一位在热带战役中死于枪炮而不是疾病的将军。众所周知，即使在战争期间也没有将军死于枪炮。

The political reality after Napoleon was defeated was the UK and the USA were potentially their mutual best trading partners, even the Southern and Western states the home of the war party were better off at peace. There was no desire in London to reconquer the US, and in the US there was realization that Canada was a pipe dream.
Officially a draw

拿破仑战败后的政治现实是，英国和美国可能是他们相互最好的贸易伙伴，即使是战争一方的家乡南部和西部各州也在和平中过得更好。伦敦没有重新征服美国的愿望，而在美国，人们意识到征服加拿大只是一场白日梦。
官方的说法是平局

Mike Bowerbank
There are those who say that the US did win the War of 1812, which is quite amusing. They tend to talk about how the effects of the war benefitted the US over the long run. Yes, it's absolutely correct that the US did emerge stronger in the long run because of the war, but this does not mean the war itself was an American victory. Far from it.
Those who say Britain/Canada won the war point to the fact that Jefferson's assertion to Madison that the acquisition of Canada was "a matter of mere marching" was completely and utterly wrong. The US gained no ground, the colony was preserved, and out of that war began the bond between the colonists that provided a sentiment that would unite the future Canada. So as some in the US can state that they got some benefit from the war, so too can their neighbours to the north. At BEST, it was a draw for the US.

有人说美国确实赢得了1812年战争，这相当引人发笑。他们倾向于谈论战争的影响如何使美国长期受益。是的，从长远来看，美国确实因为战争而变得更强大，这是绝对正确的，但这并不意味着战争本身就是美国的胜利。远非如此。
那些说英国/加拿大赢得了战争的人指出了这样一个事实，即杰斐逊对麦迪逊的断言，即获得加拿大是“仅仅是行军的问题”，这是完全错误的。美国没有取得任何进展，殖民地得到了保护，这场战争开始让殖民者之间建立了联系，这种联系提供了一种情感，将未来的加拿大团结起来。因此，一些美国人可以说他们从战争中获得了一些好处，他们的北方邻国也可以这样说。在最好的情况下，这对美国来说是平局。

Look, let's break this down. The US had two main obxtives:
The first was to end impressment (although some argue this was an excuse to go to war, but let's put that aside for the sake of this argument). This obxtive was met, so the US 'won' on that front. (It should be noted, however, that impressment was ending anyway, but let's not deny the US a small victory here.)
The second was the eviction of the British from North America and the subsequent conquest of Canada. Anyone who doesn't think this was an obxtive of the war is ignoring history. Jefferson convinced Madison that invading Canada was the right move and that it would be easy. To say that they were wrong is an understatement. The Americans in Fort Detroit surrendered without a shot fired.
Sure, the US burned (and let's not forget looted and pillaged) York (present-day Toronto), but the British responded with the burning of governance buildings in Washington DC (note how the homes and residences in Washington were not torched, looted, or pillaged).

听着，我们来分析一下。美国有两个主要目标:
第一个是结束强制征兵（尽管有人认为这是发动战争的借口，但为了这个论点，我们暂且将其放在一边）。这个目标实现了，所以美国在这方面“赢了”。(然而，应该指出的是，无论如何，这种强制征兵的举动正在结束，但我们不要否认美国在这里取得了小小的胜利。)
第二个是将英国人从北美赶出去，然后征服加拿大。任何不认为这是战争目标的人都是在无视历史。杰斐逊让麦迪逊相信，入侵加拿大是正确的一步，而且很容易。说他们错了是不充分的描述，底特律堡的美军一枪未放就投降了。
当然，美国烧了(我们不要忘记抢劫和掠夺)约克(今天的多伦多)，但英国人的回应是烧毁华盛顿特区的政府大楼(注意华盛顿的房屋和住宅没有被烧毁、抢劫或掠夺)。

In terms of the invasion of British-held 'Canada', the only thing the US got out of the war was the 'Star Spangled Banner'. Nobody in their right mind can say that the US was successful in their invasion of Canada. Net territory gained: 0 square inches.
As I have said in other posts about the War of 1812, the US really blew it. By being a hostile and pillaging (see: York) neighbour, they created a mindset north of the border that still largely persists today: a distrust of the American government. That distrust resulted in a united Canada years later.
Had the US been a peaceable and friendly neighbour, it's at least possible that some of western Canada might have joined the US. (see: British Columbia, which had to decide which country to join before deciding it was a better idea to join Canada in 1871.) At the very least, BC and Alberta - two rich provinces - might be American today by choice had the US acted less like a bad neighbour and bully.
Oh, and one last thing... the US backed Napoleon Bonaparte. The dictator and self-proclaimed emperor of France - you know, because freedom. Napoleon lost. The British would have been able to send over it's "A Team" to the war and then the US might have experienced an entirely different outcome. The US was fortunate to get a draw - their best at the time was being held off by Britain's numerically inferior "B-Team".

就入侵英国控制的“加拿大”而言，美国从战争中得到的唯一东西就是“星条旗”。脑子正常的人都不会说美国入侵加拿大是成功的。净增地:0平方英寸。
正如我在其他关于1812年战争的帖子中所说，美国真的搞砸了。作为一个充满敌意和掠夺的邻居，他们在边境以北创造了一种心态，这种心态至今仍在很大程度上持续着:对美国政府的不信任。这种不信任导致加拿大在多年后实现统一。
如果美国是一个和平友好的邻居，至少加拿大西部的一些地区可能会加入美国。(参见:不列颠哥伦比亚省，在1871年决定加入加拿大是一个更好的主意之前，它不得不决定加入哪个国家。)至少，如果美国表现得不那么像一个坏邻居和恶霸，不列颠哥伦比亚省和阿尔伯塔省这两个富裕省份今天可能会选择属于美国。
哦，还有最后一件事……美国支持拿破仑·波拿巴。法国的独裁者和自封的皇帝——你知道，因为自由，拿破仑失败了。英国本可以派遣他们的“精选部队”参战，然后美国可能会经历一个完全不同的结果。美国队很幸运地获得了一场平局- 在那个时候，美国所能达到的最佳水平是被英国数量较少的“二流部队”所阻挡。