Master & Commander link on BBC

[tamaranth]

"If we'd have followed the descriptions in the book, you would have ended up with Laurel and Hardy at sea." (Russell Crowe on gaining and losing weight to play Jack Aubrey: plus Weir saying that it "proved impossible to explain the 1812 war satisfactorily".)

Comments

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

it "proved impossible to explain the 1812 war satisfactorily"

Presumably it's too hard to explain that the Americans got their arses kicked ...

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

But only when the White House was burned down. The fighting elsewhere was fairly fruitless, and the eventual result was more or less a draw.

Damn, it *is* harder than I thought....

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Well, kinda-sorta: it's one of those affairs where you could make a case for each side having gained at least some of their initial aims: Canada got to stay free and independent (burning Washington sort of made up for the burning of York (aka Toronto)), the Americans got to beat the British at New Orleans (admittedly after the final whistle), so that makes the land war sort of a score draw.

The war at sea was a little different, though: the US Navy was disturbingly good and the whole impressment/allegiance argument wasn't so much solved as just went away into a mist of irrelevance.

I don't think anyone can claim to have won overall, but then again, no-one can claim anyone else lost, either.

Re: Damn, it *is* harder than I thought....

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. That's why it's hard to explain to Americans, who tend to see it as another victory along the lines of the War of Independence. And also not to see it in the context of the Napoleonic Wars.

Re: Damn, it *is* harder than I thought....

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

And the average Brit has probably never heard of the War of 1812 at all.

Re: Damn, it *is* harder than I thought....

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

... but they can hum along with the overture.

Re: Damn, it *is* harder than I thought....

[reddragdiva]

"And the Whitehouse burned, burned, burned
But the Americans won't admit it"