Friday, February 11, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
PF in the Cleveland Plain Dealer
With 'Perilous Fight,' Stephen Budiansky drags the War of 1812 out of obscurity
Published: Tuesday, February 01, 2011, 11:02 AM Updated: Tuesday, February 01, 2011, 11:12 AM
Perilous Fight, Knopf, 422 pp., $35 Until Vietnam, no war in American history had been so unpopular and so divisive as the War of 1812. It was "the forgotten war," says Stephen Budiansky in "Perilous Fight: America's Intrepid War With Britain on the High Seas, 1812-15," an excellent new history of what was, in effect, American's second war for independence.
Here was a confrontation long in the making. It nearly bankrupted the young republic, still struggling to pay off its Revolutionary War debt. But it proved for a second time that these former British colonies were now a nation to be respected, and reckoned with.
For years Americans called it simply "the late war," until war broke outwith Mexico in 1846-48. Its enduring name, "The War of 1812," says Budiansky, conveniently "sidestepped any memory of why the war had been fought, or even whom it had been fought against."
Military historian Budiansky illuminates and brings to life a conflict that, even for those of us who think we know our history, has always seemed obscure. Its principal cause, British "impressing" or kidnapping American sailors off American ships to fill their undermanned crews, seems arcane until we learn the count exceeded 10,000, plucked from a nation of about 7 million.
British warships, too, regularly seized American merchant ships and goods they claimed (often correctly) were trading with Napoleon's France, then at war with Great Britain.
With nine-tenths of its citizenry living on farms, America was fast becoming an important trading force on Britannia's oceans -- its exports of cotton and wheat crucial to Britain's own economy.
Important here, however, was a healthy dose of "attitude" on both sides. "The Revolution had given America independence in name," Budiansky writes, "but her claims to a place among the civilized nations of the world struck even sympathetic British observers as pretentious or simply laughable."
On the high seas, where gentlemanly codes of honor prevailed, American seamen were seen as "inferior in both martial prowess and personal honor -- which in itself came to be a justification in the British mind for refusing to accord Americans the chivalric treatment due an equal."
Budiansky's narrative, like the war itself, spins on this opposition of minds and perceptions, as much as on the unequal struggle between adversaries with a 100:1 imbalance in sea power. It's a history by turns grand and grandiose, tragic and mean and appallingly bloody, and often mordantly funny, like the worst of family feuds.
While the British crews plied their traditions of "spit and polish" and made their vessels shine, the Americans relentlessly practiced their gunnery and improved their aim.
And the American technology revolution of the 19th century, then in its infant phase, was producing ships that were lighter, fleeter, and more maneuverable than the British. In short order, the U.S. triumphed in five one-to-one warship engagements, much to the shock and outrage of the British public.
"Perilous Fight" is highly readable and engaging. Budiansky is a master at cutting through complicated historical and technical material, and focusing on what's essential, in this case the war at sea, where the key issues were decided.
The War of 1812, where a small naval power successfully fought a hit-and-run strategy against the world's greatest naval power, offers innumerable parallels to our wars today, particularly in the way ingrained attitudes and perceptions shape strategies and tactics.
It's a book that many people, and especially those in the military, would read with profit.
David Walton is a critic in Pittsburgh, Pa.
© 2011 cleveland.com. All rights reserved.
Review of Perilous Fight in Kirkus Reviews
This early entry in the likely flood of books on the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 focuses on the naval action.
Journalist and military historian Budiansky (The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox, 2008) notes that 1812 has as good a claim as any American war to the title "the forgotten war"—understandably, considering that it was at best a draw for the United States. In Jefferson's administration, the government wasn't sure it needed a navy at all; only the Barbary pirates seemed to justify keeping a few warships. Attitudes changed when Britain, embroiled in its war against Napoleon, began raiding American ships for sailors. A British ban on American merchants trading with France also gave the U.S. a casus belli. Britain's refusal to concede these points resulted in open conflict, during which America was effectively forced to invent a navy from bare bones. Surprisingly, American sailors gave a good account of themselves in the early going. But William Jones, recruited to serve as Secretary of the Navy, recognized that single-ship duels were a losing strategy and issued orders to concentrate on commerce raiding. Consequently, for the majority of the war, American privateers and commerce raiders preyed on British ships, from the Pacific whaling grounds to the Irish Sea.
Budiansky gives a solid account of all major naval actions and a fine picture of the personalities of the key figures—especially the proud American captains William Bainbridge, Stephen Decatur and Isaac Hull, and their British counterparts. The author also looks at the fate of American prisoners of war and at the larger political issues behind the war. The Treaty of Ghent brought the war to an end early in 1815, with Britain formally conceding none of the American demands. In practice, the impressments of American sailors ceased, ending the major bone of contention. Budiansky sees the result as an early example of asymmetric war, in which a weaker power prolongs the conflict by choosing to fight only on favorable terms until its opponent grows tired of the exercise.
Highly readable and especially useful as an overview of the early days of the U.S. Navy.
8 maps, 11 photographs, 16 pages of illustrations, 8 pages in color
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/non-fiction/stephen-budiansky/perilous-fight/
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