JUST GOOD FRIENDS?

So you think you know about history? Hmmm. Let's take a wider view of the special relationship, from its inception to the present day.

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1. Race for the New World (1400's-1756)

England, as it then was, was a late arrival on the world stage when it came to foreign empire-building. It had spent much of the 1400's at war, first with France (First Hundred Years' War, 1338-1453) and then with itself (Wars of the Roses, 1455-1487), and the Tudor dynasty that resulted from the latter was initially more concerned with home problems than European or world affairs. However, five years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety-two and discovered the Caribbean, the English 'borrowed' a Genoese explorer called Giovanni Caboto, renamed him John Cabot, and founded a new land (Newfoundland), naming the attached continent after a mayor of Bristol who had funded the expedition, one Richard Ameryk. Unfortunately dynastic problems and religious strife delayed any settling of these lands, and the rise of Spain and Portugal and their rapid acquisition of overseas territories threatened the balance of power in Europe.

Spain and Portugal had planned to carve up the New World between themselves. The Pope even drew an imaginary line down the Atlantic (Treaty of Tordesillas), granting Spain everything west of it and Portugal everything to the east (the line was later shifted to enable Portugal to keep Brazil). However under the great Elizabeth I (1558-1603), increasing and highly-effective use was made of privateers (licensed pirates) to plunder Spanish treasure ships. Then in the 1580's two disasters befell England. First, in 1580 Spain conquered Portugal and became the predominant power on the planet. And secondly, Elizabeth had to execute her treacherous rival Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. The way now lay open for Philip II of Spain to invade, but his invincible Armada was decimated by English seamanship and polished off by the English summer weather. Three further armadas followed, but the balance of power was now clearly moving towards the island nation.

The English attempt to establish a colony at Roanoke Island in the 1580's failed, most probably wiped out by Native Americans. The initial aim had been to provide a check to Spanish expansion of their Florida landholdings all the way up the east coast, and the province, Virginia, was named after Elizabeth (the Virgin Queen). The name Virginia then applied to the bulk (though, critically, not all) of 'English' North America, which is why Roanoke Island today is in North Carolina. A second attempt, in the reign of Elizabeth's successor James I, was successful, and James Town eventually prospered. But another setback awaited the Old Country, for in the reign of James' son and successor Charles I, England was plunged into yet another civil war (1642-9), after which the monarchy was abolished the country became a republic for eleven years. In 1660 however the monarchy was restored in the form of Charles' son Charles II, and attention once more refocussed on the American colonies. And whilst the danger from Spain was receding (Portugal had broken free in the 1640's), that from the old enemy across the Channel was rapidly replacing it.

A brief mention of the Pilgrim Fathers, a group of some 120 who in 1620 set sail from Southampton for what was later to be called New England. Less than a third of this group were actually Puritans seeking escape from persecution, and they called in at Plymouth in Devonshire for repairs. Making their first landfall at Cape Cod, they finally reached a settlement they called - well, Plymouth. Fortunately they were better at establishing new countries than thinking up original names! They had apparently been aiming for Virginia, but landing just outside its boundaries were thus independent of it. The Massachusetts colony, though not in itself very profitable, proved a safety valve to religious tensions in England as victims of persecution there could sail off to the New World and persecute someone else instead. It was this that led disgruntled settlers to leave the Massachusetts area for new colonies in Rhode Island and Connecticut (1636). Another colony further south was established in 1632 by Lord George Baltimore at Maryland, named after a daughter of James I.

Although the French were now the main enemy, England first had to see off the new kid on the European block. The Dutch, having shaken off the Spanish yoke with much English help, had bounced the Swedes out of New Sweden (the Hudson Valley in New York), and it took three wars (1662-75) to prise them out in their turn, their territory becoming New York (after James Duke of York, later James II), New Jersey (named after one of the Channel Islands, south of England) and Delaware (after Lord Delaware). Carolina, named after Charles II's queen (1670), New Hampshire, named after an English county (1680) and Pennsylvania, named after the preacher William Penn (1681) soon followed. The trend continued through to 1732, when Georgia (named after George II) became the thirteenth colony (Carolina had proved too large to manage and had been divided in 1727). Most of Maine was considered part of British North America too, although it was officially still part of Massachusetts.

Between 1689 and 1815 Europe was beset by a series of wars, which historians later grouped together as the Second Hundred Years' War. In virtually every instance Great Britain (formed in 1707 by the union of Scotland with England) found itself up against France, and being an island nation the British naturally relied on sea-power. In these wars British North America was primarily seen as a source of revenue and as a market for British goods, even if this was to the colonists' disadvantage. The British, ever-mindful of the balance of power, also strove to retain good relations with the Native Americans, to stop their colonial holdings from expanding too far and becoming too powerful. It was a balancing act which could not last forever - and in 1756 the first strains began to make themselves felt.

2. Two Seven Years' Wars (1756-1783)

Considering the American apathy towards the English national game it is ironic that it was a cricket ball which changed American history. Back in 1748, the eldest son of King George II, Frederick Prince of Wales, was hit by one. He later died of internal injuries arising from this – a further irony, since he was the man who had done so much to codify the rules of the game in England. The consequence of this was that in 1760, on the king's death, it was his grandson (i.e. Frederick's son) who became George III. It is now believed that the new king suffered from porphyria, a disease of the blood in which excess amounts of red blood cells are produced, inhibiting brain function. The consequences for America and Great Britain were to be dramatic indeed.

In 1756 the fragile peace between Great Britain and France had finally broken, and a whole range of wars broke out around the world. In the Americas the French were striving to unite their Quebecois and Louisiana holdings, and so prevent the British colonists from expanding westwards. They now laid claim to the strategically important Ohio Valley. But the 1759 British capture of Fort Duquesne, later named Pittsburgh after the British prime minister, prevented this, and a whole string of victories ensured that Britannia triumphed. Yet the accession of the peaceable and meddlesome George III threatened all this. Although Great Britain did well out of the peace treaty, gaining Florida, Canada, Nova Scotia and a range of other territories, she had united most of Europe against her. And their chance for revenge would come all too soon.

The new king had an unfortunate desire to meddle in politics, and his choice of prime ministers (his own friends) were usually bad ones. In those days the king could choose any prime minister they wanted, although their choice had to have some command of parliament. Naturally there was no representation for the colonies at Westminster; anyone suggesting such a novel idea would have been carted off to the asylum pretty quickly! On the other hand, there was no representation for most of the British people, either. The entitlements to vote varied wildly from area to area, and the franchise was usually restricted to just a few rich people. Some seats had no voters at all, and were the gift of rich landowners. The Americans might soon cry 'no taxation without representation'; most of the British were entitled to say exactly the same. This is why the American Revolution would enjoy popular support in the very country it was fighting.

George's new administration now made several very bad errors. With the country all but broke from the war, they looked to the colonies to help restore the finances of the Empire. The Sugar Act (1764) was fiercely resented, whilst the American Stamp Act, a tax on legal documents (1765) was so widely evaded that it had to be abandoned. In 1766 the government felt the need to pass the Declaratory Act, reasserting their right to tax the colonies at all, and in 1767-8 imposed a whole new set of taxes on them. Naturally the rich landowners in the British parliament saw nothing wrong in reducing the Land Tax, about the only tax on the rich, by 25% at the same time! The colonies were not amused.

In 1770 the king found another idio... friend to be prime minister. Lord Frederick North repealed all the new taxes on the American colonies but one - the tax on tea. This was kept to establish the right to tax the colonies at all - and it led to disaster. In an attempt to prop up the ailing East India Company (a private company running British India) the government granted them a monopoly on the export of tea to the Americas. Prices of course shot up, and in 1773 the Bostonians had a Tea-Party. Contrary to what most people believe, this event was caused by taxes being reduced; Boston smugglers resented their loss of 'business' and staged the event. The British government responded quickly; the port was shut, Massachusetts' charter was revoked and soldiers were quartered on the colony. In 1774 the Declaration of Independence was drawn up in Philadelphia, but as yet there was not enough support to get it signed. American moderates appealed to George, but he ignored them. More fool him...

Minor skirmishes in 1775 at Lexington, Bunker Hill and Concord finally led on July 4th 1776 to the passing of the Declaration. The colonists initially had the better of things, but victories for the British at Germantown and Brandywine (both 1777) seemed to turn the tide against the rebels, in spite of the covert help they were receiving from Great Britain's European enemies. The turning point came with the American victory at Saratoga, largely thanks to interference in army plans by George. One by one Great Britain's European enemies declared war on her, and switched to openly supporting the colonists. The British position in North America crumbled and finally collapsed at Yorktown in 1781. But in many ways this was to be a complete reversal of the Seven Years War (1756-63), for this time Great Britain lost the war but won the peace. The loss of America enabled her to concentrate her resources elsewhere, with excellent results. By the time the independence of the colonies was recognized in 1783, her European enemies had been driven back, and in France's case her destitution was such that it led to the Revolution just six years later.

Incidentally, this also led to the last battle ever fought on English soil, when John Paul Jones, founder of the US Navy, attacked the important English port at Whitehaven in Cumberland. He lost, which is possibly why the battle isn't mentioned much.

3. Independence to Pearl Harbor (1783-1941)

The French Revolution was to indirectly lead the new United States into a renewed conflict with Great Britain, again largely due to the meddlesome George III. France's winning over of Spain meant she regained Louisiana (roughly the middle third of the modern US, which she had ceded to Spain back in 1763), and in 1803 she sold them to the US in order to fund the war ('the Louisiana Purchase'). Both France and Great Britain adopted measures which harmed American trade, but ongoing tensions with her old rulers led in 1812 to the Americans siding with France. They also wanted to conquer Canada and continue the foreign slave trade, which the British had just decided would stop. (Our navy ensured it did stop by sinking any slave ship they came across, which proved quite effective!) The war did little to change the balance of power in North America, though it nearly ruined many fledgling American industries, and resulted in Washington DC getting burnt by the British. The only other direct 'conflict' between the two nations in the 1800's came in the forties over the Oregon Question, during which the border with Canada was settled on the 49th parallel. Several other minor disputes around the world were settled with the minimum of fuss.

The two nations did however very nearly fall out over the American Civil War. The Confederacy naturally strove to bring outside nations into the war, and was helped by a distinctly tactless act by the Union. In 1861 a British-registered merchant vessel, the Trent, was boarded by Unionists, and three Confederates on their way to England were arrested. The British government was outraged and called for war, but were frustrated by Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria. He rewrote an angry letter the government had wanted to send to Washington, and Great Britain stayed out of the war. But the government did turn a blind eye to the construction of Confederate ships in British yards, for which they later had to agree to pay the US compensation. The Americans too were not above ignoring the rulebook when they thought they could get away with it; in 1912 they tried levying higher tolls on non-American ships passing through the Panama Canal, and British protests forced them to back down.

The Americans were reluctant entrants into World War One, with memories of their own civil war still painfully fresh. After the sinkings of the Lusitania and the French steamer Sussex, Germany initially reined in its U-boats, but in 1917 it said it would resume torpedoing neutral merchant ships, which it (correctly) suspected of carrying arms for Great Britain and her allies. It was only when the British intercepted a message (the Zimmerman Telegram) from Berlin asking Mexico to invade if America did enter the war that. The American impact on the war, however, was initially small, particularly as US commanders were convinced that if Americans walked across open ground towards machine-guns, they wouldn't be shot by the Germans. This theory, you will be surprised to learn, proved somewhat deficient. The real American effect came in the areas of resources (enabling the Allies to keep going when financially destitute) and morale (which had been close to breaking). Finally the war was won - but traditional American isolationism meant that the country failed to join the League of Nations, crippling this body from the start.

In the run-up to the Second World War, American policy was one of giving support to its favoured side up to but not beyond the point of getting involved. Thus between 1939 and 1941 Great Britain was receiving considerable military support and intelligence from the US. Naturally this was not without a price; America demanded and got access to Great Britain's Asian and Pacific ports, to shore up its own position against Japanese expansionism. In 1941 America had cracked Japanese secret codes, and was aware that an attack on Pearl Harbor was imminent - but it being a Sunday, the message was passed on too slowly, and only reached the base four hours after the attack had begun. It was not the most glorious start to the war.

It should be stressed at this point that the help given by the US in the 1939-41 period is little regarded in Great Britain today. Most people merely see that the island nation was left alone to defend humanity and itself in the Battle of Britain (1940), and that the Americans wandered in later and took all the credit. Whilst the Allies winning the War without the US would have been improbable (but not impossible), probably the best advice I can give to modern Americans is 'don't mention the War'. Too many Americans today seem to think they won the War single-handed, a belief Hollywood is only too happy to reinforce, often by outright lying.

4. World War, Cold War and after (1941-2001)

After such an inauspicious start, things could only get better. Instead they got worse. When Germany declared war, the US ignored British warnings about U-boats, and hundreds of American ships were lost off the East Coast as a result. From 1942 things started to turn, albeit slowly, in the Allies' favour. But the Americans failed to heed British warnings about Soviet expansionism, and the chance for an Allied assault on eastern Europe was lost, much to Stalin's relief. The War was eventually won, but Great Britain was a broken nation. However, the Cold War and the Berlin Airlift that resulted drew the two countries together.

In 1973 Great Britain was admitted to the European Union. The organization has never been popular in the country, primarily due to its Soviet-style incompetence, Soviet-style fraud and Soviet-style ways. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, the country regarded its special relationship with the US as important, as one commentator once remarked 'enabling our island to punch above its weight on the world stage'. The Falklands War of 1982 mirrored WW2 in one respect; early American attempts to remain neutral went down very badly in Great Britain, whilst later support was little publicized. The subsequent collapse of communism left America as the sole world superpower, but also left Communist sympathizers in the UK, strongly represented at universities and in the media, with no outlet for their anti-American hatred. On September 11th 2001 that outlet arrived.

5. 9/11 (2001- )

Though many Britons sympathize with their American cousins over this atrocity, there is an opinion, mainly among the liberal media and chattering classes, who believe (and often say) that the Americans had this coming, primarily because of their friendship with Israel (whom the anti-Semitic chattering classes hate). Whilst the bulk of opinion wouldn't go that far, I find that Americans are often regarded as taking a simplistic approach to other countries, seeing themselves as somehow 'above them'. There is also the view, which I must say is justified, that Americans were quite happy to fund Irish terrorists killing Britons for many years, and 'what goes around comes around'. Finally, there is an increasing number of reports about British people being picked on by American security and immigration services. This only adds to the feeling that America gets a lot more out of the Relationship (i.e. support in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq) than we do.

By most people, Americans are regarded as (fairly) welcome if noisy visitors to our island, who shouldn't be allowed within a hundred miles of history (see Hollywood's recent 'offerings'), but whom otherwise are harmless. However, take care. Recent mass unchecked immigration has filled some areas of our cities, particularly London, with incomers who are no friends of America, and there have been several incidents of Americans being attacked for... well, just being American. Do your research, and take care.