The British Submarine Campaign of World War II

It is inevitable that the great deeds of British submariners in the Second World War would be overlooked by most. Their fight was not as critical as that of the German u-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic nor as single-handedly successful as the American submarine campaign in the Pacific, however, it would be wrong to ignore it. The submarines of the Royal Navy played, if not a decisive factor, certainly an extremely significant one in the ultimate victory over the Axis powers, particularly Germany and Italy. The British are mostly known, because of the world wars, as being on the receiving end of submarine warfare rather than the ones waging it and, indeed, Britain would lead the way in anti-submarine warfare particularly during World War II. Nonetheless, while the convoy escorts braving the perilous North Atlantic crossing or the warships chasing down German or Italian battleships got most of the attention, the submarines of the King-Emperor went about their work silently severing the vital arteries that kept the Axis powers functioning and their armies on the advance.

HMS Totem

Great Britain began the war with a fleet of 57 submarines, the exact same number as the Germans. The Royal Navy produced quite a large number of different classes of boats but three would be most prominent; the S, T, and U-class boats of which the most famous is probably the T-class. Like the Italians, who had a very large submarine force, the British opted for reliability rather than innovation. For instance, like the Italians, they stuck to the old-fashioned impact fuse for their torpedoes rather than the more sophisticated magnetic fuses used by the Germans and Americans. This made them less effective but, unlike both Germany and America, Britain did not have to go through a period of having unreliable or totally faulty weapons while the bugs were worked out of this new technology. Rather, the British compensated for the weaker destructive power of the impact fuses (in which the brunt of the explosion is focused away from the target) by having boats that packed a larger punch than those of any other navy. British T-class submarines were built to fire an astonishing 10 torpedoes at a time which, British naval engineers reasoned, would more than make up for the drawbacks of their fuses as well as the less advanced targeting systems of British boats. If ten torpedoes are fired at a single target, one or more will almost have to hit it.

When war broke out in 1939, British boats were deployed to Heligoland to patrol the waters off the southwest coast of Norway for German ships and u-boats. Unfortunately, this proved very dangerous even without the Germans as British submarines sometimes fired on each other, mistaking their submarines for German u-boats. Likewise, even when in their designating hunting areas, British submarines were sometimes attacked by the RAF who mistook them for German u-boats. However, the British subs did finally score their first victories with successful attacks by two S-boats. HMS Sturgeon sank a German ship in November and HMS Salmon sank a German u-boat two weeks later. The British submarines would gain a high reputation for their ability to sink enemy submarines at a time when surface ships were still assumed to be their primary targets. The Royal Navy proved that the best weapon to use against a submarine is another submarine and that fact remains true to this day. By the time the war was over, British submarines would account for the loss of 39 Axis subs.

Admiral Horton, 1940

In January of 1940 the Brits would step up their game with the appointment of Vice Admiral Max Horton to command the Royal Navy submarine force. He was a living legend in the submarine community for his fantastic record of success in the Baltic as a submarine commander in World War I. After Britain sustained her first losses to enemy action, it was Horton who ordered British boats to stay out of the shallower waters where German underwater detection gear was less effective. Horton planned to use submarine planted mines to cut off the supply of raw materials coming out of Scandinavia to Germany, which would likely force Germany to invade Norway. As it happened, the Germans did invade Norway though not for that reason. Unfortunately, due to weather conditions and bureaucratic slowness, the Germans were able to slip past the British boats and land their forces before the Royal Navy could react. Nonetheless, the British subs did get a few powerful blows in. HMS Truant sunk the German cruiser Karlsruhe and HMS Sunfish sank a 7,000-ton freighter followed by another before the day was out.

Unfortunately, even with 17 boats in the vicinity, the big game proved elusive. The prized German warships Gneisenau, Hipper and Scharnhorst all escaped attacked due to poor visibility and radio direction-finding by German shore installations which were able to direct their ships around areas where British submarines were on the prowl. This was a problem that would come up again later. There were other minor successes but the fact remains that the British submarine force had failed to stop the German invasion and the Royal Navy had been forced to rely only on the submarine force because of the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe in keeping the British surface fleet away. Likewise, operations off the North Sea coast during the German invasion of France and the Low Countries proved to be of little effect. Concentrating boats in these confined spaces had proved to be a mistake, due to the effectiveness of shore installations in homing in on their radio transmissions, the risk of “friendly fire” and the constant daylight in northern areas.

HMS Phoenix

Fortunately for Great Britain, much more success was to be found in the waters of the Mediterranean where British submarines would have their biggest impact on the war. The largest threat, obviously, was the powerful Italian navy and the extensive coverage over the Mediterranean by the Italian air force. However, due to the shortage of fuel and their industrial inability to keep up with any significant rate of attrition, the Italian surface navy would be forced to remain on the defensive. The first British submarine success in the Mediterranean was, due to confusion over their status, the sinking of a French sloop. While screening a convoy, the submarine HMS Phoenix spotted the main Italian fleet, leading to a fairly significant engagement, but the Phoenix was then sunk by an Italian torpedo boat on July 16, 1940. On the final day of the month, HMS Oswald was sunk by an Italian destroyer off the coast of Messina. As the Germans had done in the North Sea, Italian shore installations used radio direction-finding to locate the British submarine and the Italian destroyers then moved in for the kill.

Morale fell as British submarine losses continued and though successes did increase when the government in London authorized the use of unrestricted submarine warfare, the latter half of 1940 was fairly disastrous for the Royal Navy boats. While sinking less than 1% of Italian shipping to North Africa, Britain had lost nine submarines, five at the hands of the Italian navy and the rest to air attack or mines. At one point, Britain was reduced to only five operational boats in the Mediterranean. Clearly, something had to be done. Italian shipping losses had been extremely light in 1940, warships were not engaged and overall Italian superiority in the central Mediterranean had been maintained. It was a gloomy time as the British came to grips with the fact that, despite what Allied propaganda had told them, their enemy was a formidable one. However, the British did what they have traditionally done; learned from their mistakes and adapted.

HMS Upright

As with the Germans (or the Japanese for that matter), Italian underwater detection gear was not good. The British knew this and so finally came to appreciate that, other than aircraft, the primary way their boats were being located was by radio direction-finding. The British responded by ordering their subs to maintain radio silence unless communication was absolutely necessary. The British also ultimately adopted the practice of keeping their boats submerged throughout the daylight hours if at all possible, only surfacing at night. This reduced their mobility of course but also made them much less likely to be detected by lookouts on ship or shore or by patrolling Italian aircraft. The Admiralty also sent many more submarines to Malta such as 10 new U-class boats in early 1941. With a greater respect for their enemy, more care given to stealth and increased use of mines, British successes began to pick up. In February of 1941 HMS Upright attacked and sank the Italian cruiser Armando Diaz in a surface attack at night, the biggest victory British submarines had yet had in the Mediterranean.

In March, HMS Rorqual laid a minefield, sent two freighters to the bottom and then sank the Italian submarine Capponi. The same month, another British boat, the P31, made a successful attack on a large freighter using Asdic (sonar) alone, earning the commander the DSO. The following month also saw the beginning of a string of victories for the man who would be the most successful British submarine commander of World War II, Lt. Comm. Malcolm D. Wanklyn of HMS Upholder. He sank a freighter in April off Tunisia and two more on May 1, beginning what would be a very successful career, albeit a short one. Sadly, Wanklyn was killed in action in 1942 by the Italian navy but by that time had managed to sink 21 Axis vessels, earning the Victoria Cross. Because of men like him, things were turning around for the British war under the waves. In the first half of 1941 they managed to sink about 130,000 tons of Axis shipping while losing only two submarines, both to Italian minefields. Still, the rate of success was slow at less than two ships a month and of the shipping interdicted by the Allies, including the movement of Rommel’s Afrika Korps to Libya, less than 5% was lost to British submarines.

HMS Upholder

However, the British were steadily improving and were aided by two significant events; the invasion of the Soviet Union, which meant the redeployment of enemy air forces and the breaking of Axis codes which allowed the British to have up to date information on Italian naval movements. The British also very cleverly took care to move aircraft into the area of Italian convoys before the submarines arrived to make their attack so that the Axis high command would assume the RAF had spotted their ships and not catch on to the fact that their codes had been broken. This allowed for more British submarines successes going forward. In September of 1941 the boats at Malta were organized into the Tenth Submarine Flotilla and the “Fighting Tenth” would prove the most successful British submarine force of the war, though also the one with the highest casualty rate.

Having inside information on when and wear Italian supply convoys would be sailing, the British were able to post their submarines in picket lines in front of the enemy. In so doing, the British boats began to really bite into the Axis war effort, sinking four Italian troopships in a few weeks and badly damaging the new Italian battleship Vittoria Veneto which was attacked by HMS Urge and put out of action for over three months. In the second half of 1941 the British lost six submarines but received 13 new boats and in that time managed to take a significant toll on Axis shipping which was critical to the North African war effort. In the desert, logistics were paramount and when the supplies flowed, Rommel advanced; when they did not, the Italo-German forces fell back. The losses were serious enough to compel the Germans to dispatch some of their own u-boats to the Mediterranean, adding a new and dangerous foe for the British to deal with, proven when the U-81 managed to sink the only British aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, HMS Ark Royal, in November. Moreover, German and Italian air attacks on Malta proved to be devastating, eventually wiping out the RAF defenders, forcing the withdrawal of many ships and damaging three submarines.

HMS Unbeaten

Nonetheless, the British boats continued to put up a terrific fight with HMS Upholder sinking the Italian submarine St Bon in January of 1942 and HMS Unbeaten sinking the German submarine U-374 not long after. In March the Upholder sent another Italian submarine, the Tricheco, to the bottom off Brindisi. However, the Germans had developed better detection gear and shared this with the Italians to great effect. The Italian torpedo boat Circe took out two British submarines using the new gear. The Italians also made ever greater use of minefields and this, combined with the sinking of the British minesweepers, ultimately made Malta untenable as a naval base. The island was ripe for the picking, however, it was saved by German Field Marshal Rommel who convinced the high command to call off the invasion in favor of his attack into Egypt. At one point only 12 British boats were on hand in the area and the Royal Navy was more stretched than ever with the Empire of Japan now menacing the British Empire in the Far East. Many of the boats previously stationed in Malta had been transferred from Asia, which was now also under attack.

Dogged determination proved effective though and despite the reduction in numbers in April of 1942, British submarines sank 117,000 tons of Axis shipping along with the Italian cruiser Bande Nere (sunk by HMS Urge), a destroyer and six Axis submarines. It amounted to only 6% of the materials being sent to Rommel in North Africa but, due to the withdrawal from Malta, was significantly more than what the RAF had managed to intercept. British submarines were also being used to carry cargo to keep Malta alive as Italian naval forces prevented much of the surface convoys from landing their supplies. To fight back against this, British submarines were dispatched to prowl outside the main anchorages of the Italian fleet, to attack when possible but also to warn the high command of when they were moving out. The result was a fierce fight for control of the Central Mediterranean with wins and losses for both sides. However, the need for Axis air power on the Russian front gave the British some breathing room and soon more and more Royal Navy subs were posted to the Mediterranean with new flotillas organized in Gibraltar and Beirut.

HMS Urge

The British war effort was also aided by the fact that the increasingly critical fuel shortages meant that the main Italian battlefield was forced to stay in port most of the time and this, combined with the determination of British air and naval forces, meant that Malta was able to be built back up and more Axis shipping to North Africa was sunk. In October of 1942, even while preparing for the invasion of French North Africa, British submarines still sank 12 enemy ships and one destroyer. When the Axis powers began moving men and supplies into Tunsia to counter the arrival of the Americans, British submarines accounted for 16 ships lost while the RAF took out even more. Their actions were making it ever more difficult for the Axis forces in North Africa to be maintained much less take offensive action. By 1943 the Gibraltar flotilla moved to Algeria, Allied air power dominated the Mediterranean and the Axis shipping lanes were devastated with British submarines accounting for 33 Axis ships. In early 1943 the subs destroyed more ships at sea than any other force, surpassed only by Allied aircraft whose successes included ships in port.

Axis power was receding in the Mediterranean and the British boats were at the forefront of the naval victory thanks to men like Comm. J. W. Linton of HMS Turbulent who was killed in action after sinking 90,000 tons of enemy shipping and an Italian destroyer. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. Comm. George Hunt of HMS Ultor sank more Axis ships than any other British submarine commander at 30 for which he earned the DSO with bar twice. Comm. Ben Bryant was similarly decorated for sinking over 20 Axis vessels as well as numerous warships. With the capture of Sicily by the Allies, the naval war was practically over but, while outpaced by the air forces, Allied submarines, mostly British, accounted for roughly half of all Axis naval losses in the Mediterranean.

HMS Tally-ho

Of course, though less extensive, the Royal Navy submarine force also saw plenty of action in the Far East though they were only able to really establish themselves from August 1943 onward. Based out of Ceylon, their primary area of operations was the strategic Malacca Straits. In November HMS Tally-ho sank a small tanker, the first victory of British subs in Asian waters, but a more significant success was the sinking of the Japanese submarine I-34 by HMS Taurus. By 1944 the Royal Navy was getting back up to strength in East Asia and more submarines were dispatched as well. In January of 1944 HMS Tally-ho, commanded expertly by Lt. Comm. L.W.A. Bennington, sank the Japanese cruiser Kuma and, despite operating in only 15 fathoms of water, managed to escape the counter-attack of its escorting destroyer. Toward the end of the war, targets became scarcer and the Japanese were forced to resort to the use of primitive sailing ships not worth the expenditure of a torpedo. So, British boats, like their American counterparts, began making greater use of their deck gun.

East Asian operations were not as extensive but could still be intense. Lt. Comm. Anthony Collet of HMS Tactician saved a downed American pilot from the USS Saratoga despite being under enemy fire from shore batteries on Sabang and with a Japanese torpedo boat bearing down on them. For this act of heroism, Commander Collet was awarded the Legion of Merit from the United States. More British submarines were dispatched to the region and two new flotillas were organized. Their impact was not negligible and by late October 1944 the British subs had sunk 40,000 tons of merchant shipping, almost 100 small craft as well as a cruiser, three submarines and six smaller warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Not too bad. The smaller British subs were also able to operate in areas such as the Java Sea which were too shallow for the larger American boats. By March of 1945 all Japanese shipping in the Malacca Straits area had been virtually eliminated.

HMS Trenchant

In the build-up to the planned Allied assault on the Japanese home islands, British submarines at least 150 small craft but still managed to find some major enemy warships to target too. On June 8, 1945 Comm. A.R. Hezlet of HMS Trenchant spotted the Japanese cruiser Ashigara and fired a spread of eight torpedoes at 4,800 yards. Five hit home and the Ashigara went to the bottom. Perhaps the last really significant victory for the British was the attack on the Japanese heavy cruiser Takao at Singapore by the British mini-sub (XE-craft) XE-3 which earned her commander, Lt. Ian Edward Fraser, the Victoria Cross. The British submarines in East Asia performed very well and took a considerable toll on Japanese shipping while losing only three of their own boats in the process. They had also closed the Malacca Straits to Japanese shipping, choking off the supplies going to the Japanese forces confronting the British in Burma.

Overall, the British submarine force made a significant contribution to the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan. Early on, they suffered some serious losses and learned some hard lessons against the Germans in the North Sea and the Italians in the Mediterranean. However, they adapted and came roaring back, taking a considerable toll on Axis warships and plaguing the supply lines keeping Rommel and his Italo-German forces in the field in North Africa. One of, if not the most decisive factor in the successful British defense of Egypt was Rommel’s lack of sufficient fuel and supplies and the British submarine force played a major part in that. Once the Mediterranean was secure, Britain was able to focus on East Asia where not much had been left by the American submarine campaign (the most successful in history) and yet, there too, the British boats played a significant part in disrupting the Japanese lines of supply and taking out several major enemy warships. The Royal Navy impact on the surface might have been more significant, and they may not get as much attention as some others but the British submarine force earned a record in battle during World War II that they can be proud of, contributing to the tradition that would carry Britain forward to the present day.

Castling Prince Harry

As some of you may have heard, Prince Harry is getting married and, apparently, many people have a lot to say about that. Many people also have a lot to say about what other people are saying. As is not unusual for me in such cases, both sides shouting at each other are people I find annoying. One side is mad because other people have opinions on the subject and they are wrong; this is, in fact, rather out of the ordinary as a royal marriage and that can be legitimately talked about. On the other hand, the people who are complaining the most are complaining about the least important “issue” with this marriage. Prince Harry is marrying Meghan Markle next May at Windsor Castle. This is legitimately a cause for comment due to a number of reasons. Meghan Markle is a commoner (not very unusual at all anymore but still an innovation in historical terms), she is an American, she is several years older than the Prince, she is divorced, she is an actress (not a line of work traditionally considered socially acceptable) and she is of mixed-race background with a White father and a Black mother which seems to matter more to both sides than any of the other issues.

Another issue which seems to have been given no attention at all is that it was announced that Miss Markle will be baptized and confirmed into the Church of England the day before the wedding which, I assume, means she has never been a member of any Christian church before. Ordinarily, that would also be rather a big deal but it doesn’t seem to be to most, not even to the Church of England, nor does the fact that she is divorced. No, the biggest, most talked about issue is the racial issue which I have a hard time getting a grasp on simply because it only seems to be an issue because people say that it is an issue and point it out. I doubt most people would even know about it if someone else had not told them about her parentage. I think most people, knowing nothing else but what they see, would just take for a White girl with a tan. Yet, today, everyone is hyper-sensitive on this issue and so it might as well be dealt with right at the outset. Does it matter to me? Yes and no. Sorry to be ambiguous but it really does come down to being no big deal in one way and rather “problematic” in another, neither of which, it is important to add, have anything to do with Prince Harry or Miss Markle but rather with reaction to their coupling.

The reason is doesn’t matter is because interracial marriage is not anything new nor does it have anything to do with anyone other than the two people involved. It is not very common, most people choosing to marry people like themselves, nor is it “groundbreaking” even for royals. It isn’t even much of an interracial marriage given that one of them is White and the other is half White. Regular royal watchers will know that this has happened before and I don’t remember anyone making a big deal about it, perhaps because previous examples were from non-English-speaking monarchies. HRH Prince Joachim of Denmark married a woman of mixed European and Chinese ancestry in 1995, Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, (the two divorced in 2005) and HSH Prince Alois of Liechtenstein married an African-American woman in 2000, Princess Angela of Liechtenstein. It is also not completely unknown outside of Europe. The late King Hussein of Jordan married Queen Noor, an American of Syrian and Swedish ancestry, Princess Ubol Ratana of Thailand gave up her royal status to marry a White American man, Peter Ladd Jensen, in 1972. However, the princess did have to give up her status for this, her husband was given no titles or court recognition and the two divorced in 1998. The last King of Sikkim married a White woman from the United States as did the son of the last Crown Prince of Korea though he had no official status at the time and both of these marriages ended in divorce. The last Emperor of Vietnam married a French woman while in exile and I believe I recall a member of the Cambodian Royal Family marrying an American from New Jersey in 2002 (possibly not the first but don’t quote me on that). The most prolific were the Ottoman Sultans whose harems were almost completely full of women from the Balkans and southern Russia but, of course, those were not exactly voluntary marriages.

Obviously, interracial royal marriages, while not the norm, are certainly not unprecedented. In and of itself, it is not a major issue. Most, as you can see, have been second sons or granddaughters and thus not in direct line for the throne and the same could be said about Prince Harry. Were this not the case, there would probably be more uproar over it. Even for non-reigning royals, such as the heir to the Korean throne, many in the Royal Family were not pleased and pushed for ending the marriage, which was finally done on the pretext of it producing no children. It is not that out of the ordinary but neither is it terribly common and thus should not be seen as anything “threatening” to the royal line in and of itself. People should be able to marry whomever they wish and, as mentioned, most prefer to marry people who are like themselves. On the other hand, neither are most people royalty and if marriage was about romance and nothing else there would not be so many laws concerning royal marriages. For example, if Miss Markle had been a Catholic rather than non-religious, Prince Harry would not have been able to marry her or at least not without forfeiting his place in the Royal Family. Like it or not, the marriages of royals have been and in most places still are matters of state as well as the heart. However, suppose, just for a moment, that Prince Harry had proposed to an alternate version of Meghan Markle, one that was not divorced, not an American, one that was born and raised Church of England and even of aristocratic background but still the daughter of a White father and Black mother. Would there still be an issue? Yes, even though there shouldn’t be.

The problem is a societal one. The problem is that all the people saying you *have* to be ecstatic about this marriage because the bride-to-be is mixed-race are just as fanatical as those saying you *have* to be upset about it for the same reason. The problem is not these two individuals, the problem is the context in which studies have shown that the media, in Britain, have been pushing a false representation on this issue, presumably in order to foster the more rapid transition of the British Isles from one population to another. Interracial couples, while obviously more numerous in the past as the population becomes more mixed, are still quite rare and yet the media in Britain, studies have shown, portray a disproportional amount of interracial couples in order to influence people into thinking this is more common than it actually is. This puts pressure on people to conform with trend of population replacement as well as inflaming the racists who then provide just the sort of bogey man the people in power want to see (because they have always defeated them due to the fact that your average Brit is not a hateful, violent, bigot). As a result, the problem is not the couple in question but the hyped up level of virtue-signaling that is bound to go along with this as well as enabling people to call anyone who does not jump with joy over this event a racist.

Keeping in mind that Prince Harry is now quite a ways down on the line of succession (and more so since the abandonment of male primogeniture) and this really should not be such a big deal, the bottom line is that the fact that the bride to be is partly of another race than the husband to be is only a side effect of the far more central problem this is product of and why, no, I was not overjoyed with Prince Harry’s choice. First of all, in no particular order, she is an American and I have long said that it would be better for the monarchy if Prince Harry would marry a girl from one of the Commonwealth Realms as it would help strengthen ties with the monarchy in those countries. She is divorced which, in my old fashioned views, would make her unacceptable just as it once did for Mrs. Wallis Simpson. She is also common and before anyone brings up the Duchess of Cambridge, I was not exactly thrilled about her nouveau riche background either, though she had none of the other problems Miss Markle does. It is not unprecedented, in fact it is the rule rather than the exception these days, that still doesn’t make me have to like it. However, there is more to it than being common alone. This is someone who has been an actress and I don’t doubt she will probably be the first member of the Royal Family to have been seen half naked in sex scenes on television. This was another one of the things that not so very long ago would have been considered an immediate disqualifier to say the least of it. There is also the religious issue but, frankly, that doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should simply because the clergy doesn’t seem to either and that would have to be the bigger priority.

I am certainly not against interracial marriage as an individual choice and certainly not the slightly interracial marriage that this would be, it is when people start pushing it as part of an agenda that I have a big problem. I am against royals being “unequally yoked” to borrow a phrase from Scripture. As far as I am concerned, the biggest problem with this marriage is not the marriage itself, even with all of the “issues” it comes with but rather it is the more fundamental problem underlying it. That problem is the on-going leveling of the remaining monarchies of the world which has resulted in modern royals being seen as simply celebrities and thus having no problem viewing an actress as suitable material to be accepted as one of their own. I believe royals are different and can never be the same as ordinary people, that they should be set apart, exclusive, lofty and even a dramatic and overt reminder of the truth of inequality as a fact of life. That is my biggest problem with this and just as the mixed-race aspect is played up to feed a narrative that encourages something negative, it also coincides with things like royals going to school with the commoners, associating with the wealthy, liberal elite almost exclusively, with the abandonment of male primogeniture, traditional court protocols and the idea that imaginary things like “fairness” and “equality” have any part other than a destructive one in any sort of monarchy.

Monarchist Profile: Lady Mary Bankes

The English Civil Wars produced a great many heroic figures and one of my favorites is Mary Bankes though not all that many seem to know her story. This is, perhaps, not surprising as she rather goes against the preferred narrative of modern feminists in that Mrs. Bankes was a staunch royalist. She was born Mary Hawtry in Ruislip, Middlesex, England to Ralph Hawtry, Esquire of Ruislip and Mary Altham though exactly when I cannot say. August 8 is sometimes listed as the day of her birth but the date seems very unclear as I have seen accounts of her being born as early as 1598 to as late as 1605. In any event, her early years seem to have been blissfully uneventful. In or about 1618 she was married to Sir John Bankes who would go on to become the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Attorney-General to King Charles I of Britain. He was obviously a successful man with a fine legal career and in 1635 he purchased Corfe Castle in Dorset, with all attending manorial rights and obligations, from Lady Elizabeth Coke.

Sir John Bankes Esq.

Lady Mary was also quite successful at her task of wife and mother, giving Sir John ten children, six daughters and four sons (Ralph, Jerome, Charles, William, Alice, Jane, Mary, Joanna, Elizabeth and Arabella). However, their domestic happiness was cut short thanks to the antics of the Parliamentarians. In 1643 Sir John Bankes was called away by the King to take up arms against the enemies of the Crown at London and Oxford and so he departed, leaving Corfe Castle in the charge of his wife with their children, household staff and five fighting men for security. This would prove crucial as Corfe Castle was at the time the only armed royalist castle an the coast of Dorsetshire, having four cannons on its walls. The importance of the castle did not escape the notice of the rebel Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and not long after Sir John left about 40 Roundhead sailors appeared and demanded that the artillery be turned over to them. Well, Lady Mary was having none of that and promptly had her maids and the five men put the cannon in action and frighten the rebels away with a few shots.

That act of defiance showed what Lady Mary Bankes was made of but she also knew that it was a momentary victory and that the real importance of her position was the castle itself rather than the cannon. The enemy had retreated but were not far away and so she did, ultimately, decide to hand the guns over so that she could gather supplies which would enable her tiny household army to withstand a siege. This was very good planning indeed as not long after, in June of 1643, more Roundheads appeared, this time about 600 of them and laid siege to the castle. This went on for more than a month when the rebels began to feel rather silly being held at bay by a handful of men and some women and children so they began to attack the castle. Once again, Lady Mary, with her household, held off these trespassers by pelting them with stones and fiery embers from the castle walls until, after losing over a hundred men killed or wounded in August, the Roundheads conceded the victory to Lady Mary and pulled back.

The siege of Corfe Castle

It helped that a sizeable force of royalists was in the neighborhood as well and these came to call on the castle with Sir John even able to visit his wife and children briefly. A few more soldiers were left behind, bringing the total number of defenders up to 80 at most, but soon the situation shifted back to the way it had been before. The castle was still too important to abandon entirely and the rebel forces returned but remained at a distance. This second siege continued and continued for years. For Lady Mary, this was her darkest hour and at the end of 1644 her husband Sir John died at the age of 55, making her son Sir Ralph Bankes and the new lord of the manor. In spite of this heartache, Mary remained just as tenacious as ever and refused to surrender her fortress to the enemies of the King even as another year and another passed by. 1645 came and went and Corfe Castle still stood defiant, defended by Mary Bankes and her gallant little band. The enemy, perhaps remembering the more than a hundred casualties they had suffered trying to storm the place, simply remained at a safe distance to wait their enemy out.

The time for waiting finally ended in 1646. That year a young royalist officer, named Colonel Cromwell no less, managed to slip inside the castle with a small group of soldiers to offer Lady Mary the chance to escape. She was grateful for any help of course but refused to abandon her home to the enemy and, after all, she had been holding them off well enough for the past few years. However, this second siege would not go on for much longer, though, among her tiny force of children and scullery maids, it was one of the men of the small group of actual soldiers present who was to doom her little outpost. One of the men with her in the castle, one Lt. Colonel Thomas Pittman, slipped outside the castle walls to the enemy camp and offered to betray his King in exchange for his own safety. He persuaded the garrison commander, Colonel Henry Anketell to go to Somerset for reinforcements but the troops that came were Roundheads with their coats turned inside out. About half made it inside before Anketell suspected something and shut the small sally gate. Unfortunately, enough made it inside to secure key positions and hold them until morning when they were joined by a major Parliamentarian attack.

Modern ruins of Corfe Castle

Lady Mary Bankes, with most of her home overrun by the enemy, finally had no choice but to agree to surrender. Although, she did not do so until having her maids and children throw all the family silverware down a well so that it could not be melted down and used to fund the Parliamentarian cause. She was defiant to the very end. However, even the Roundheads were so impressed by her tenacity in holding off such superior forces for so long that they allowed her to keep the keys to the castle as a mark of respect. Not wishing to ever endure such an ordeal again, the Parliament ordered the castle demolished immediately. Lady Mary, for her part, retired to Eastcourt manor, purchased by her sons Sir Ralph and Jerome and remained there until her death on April 11, 1661. She was an extraordinary woman who earned an honored place in the pages of history for her steadfast and determined defense of her home for the sake of King and Country. Had King Charles I been blessed with a few more people with the courage and tenacity of Mary Bankes, he might just have won the war.

The Crimes of King George III

It was on this day in 1761 that Their Majesties King George III and Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom of Great Britain had their formal coronation. A long-reigning and much beloved monarch who saw his kingdoms through many perils, one would expect King George III to be remembered as one of the greatest of British or English monarchs. He was not severe or lavish, was hard working, prudent and conservative of public funds. He was a devoted father and husband who, unlike his predecessors, never took a mistress. He was a God-fearing man devoted to his duty and who took his obligations to his people seriously.

However, as we know, King George III is not remembered for any of that but rather as the man who "lost" America for the British Empire. If he is ever remembered for anything else it is most likely for being replaced by a regent at the end of his life on grounds of insanity. However, King George III is most remembered as the horrible "tyrant" whose alleged villainy was so great as to force otherwise peaceful and loyal colonists to take up arms against him and ultimately overthrow his authority in the thirteen colonies to establish the United States of America. As part of the propaganda war that ensured this would be the lasting impression of the conflict, the American Declaration of Independence, mostly remembered for a single silly and disingenuous line, included a long list of the "crimes" and examples of the terrible tyranny of King George III which justified the American War for Independence.

Most people, in either America or Britain, do not remember this part of the Declaration or think much on it and that is certainly all to the benefit of the American 'revolutionaries' as their laundry list of the King's misdeeds would certainly not stand up to scrutiny, certainly today. Of course, that is reason enough for us to do exactly that right here and now.

"Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world."
Start by casting yourself as the poor, unjustly maligned victim and the King as a horrible tyrant, no one can say that Mr. Jefferson was overly subtle in his style. Upon reflection, one might ask that if the King was so persistent in his crimes, his "repeated injuries and usurpations", why no one in any other part of the empire or his three kingdoms had risen in rebellion before? Needless to say, the word "Facts" should be taken with more than a grain of salt.

"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only."
That certainly sounds bad but I cannot be the only one to also find it so vague as to be meaningless. What is being said here basically amounts to, 'he refused to allow good laws to pass and made life inconvenient for legislators'. Care to give any specific examples Tom? No?

"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."
This, again, I can only find humorous. It really makes the legislators seem a bit on the lazy side doesn't it?

"He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within."
I must confess, I love the description of opposing the King, "with manly firmness". Jefferson, however, is probably offending a great many homosexuals, feminists and trans-gender people with lines like that. Tsk, tsk, tsk Tom...

"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."
Aha! Here we come to some real tyranny; the King was trying to cut back on immigration! The horror! The horror! Of course, as soon as the U.S.A. was established, one of the first laws passed was the Immigration and Naturalization Act but no one likes to talk about that nowadays as it restricted citizenship to 'free White persons of good character'. Very problematic these days obviously.

"He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."
Doesn't the second complaint rather contradict the first here? And as for the third, before you feel too sorry for the colonists remember that most of these "swarms of Officers" were assaulted, had their homes destroyed and were driven out of town by the patient and long-suffering colonists when they tried to to their jobs.

"He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power."
Yeah, who does he think he is, commander-in-chief of the military or something?!

"He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:"
Yes, he sent troops in to Boston after an armed mob destroyed a huge amount of private property and then allowed a quite fair trial for the soldiers who killed some civilians who were attacking them as part of another angry mob. Far from being a "mock Trial" Tom, one of your own cohorts acted as their lawyer because he believed they were in the right! And he did not cut off trade with all parts of the world unless you mean his closing of the port of Boston which, again, was done in retaliation to mob violence which the local authorities refused to prosecute or even apologize for.

"For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies"
Yes, this is true. It refers to Canada in which, via the Quebec Act, the King allowed the French Canadians to keep their own legal system and allowed them to freely practice their own religion. So what Jefferson is complaining about here is that the King was allowing French Catholics in Canada to administer their province as they wished and to have freedom of religion. What a creep, huh?

"For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."
Again, yes, when you started behaving like criminals instead of loyal subjects, he started treating you as such. Yes, he started waging war on you *after* you killed his soldiers, assaulted his administrators and ransacked the property of those who were loyal to him.

"He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands."
Yes, he is fighting a war, a war which the colonists started by, I repeat myself, firing on government troops. As for the part about mercenaries, virtually every army in Europe employed mercenary regiments just as the United States itself would and still does.

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."
Here Jefferson is referring to the offer of freedom to any African slaves who escaped their bondage and fought for the King, so Jefferson is blaming the King for any potential slave rebellion. I doubt many would sympathize these days. He also will not win many admirers by referring to the Native Americans as "the merciless Indian Savages". But, it is true, most Indians fought for the British as the King had recognized their right to all the land west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River, lands which the Americans wanted to colonize. So, again, Jefferson is not entirely wrong here. Those merciless Indian savages did indeed fight for their land not to be taken from them.

"In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
Not true actually, the colonial petitions for redress, of which there were few, basically amounted to, 'give us what we want or we will break the law and do it anyway and it will be your fault if we do'. It should be clear though why Jefferson was so vague in most of his accusations as, on the rare occasion in which he does give a specific policy or at least be clear enough for the reader to divine what he is referring to, the colonists come off looking more like petulant jerks that "a free people". The King wanted British subjects to buy British goods, to support the British rather than the Dutch economy. He allowed French Catholics to worship as they pleased and he gave Indians the lands they occupied to avoid future trouble with them. When the colonists destroyed property or killed soldiers, the King responded to uphold law and order. That is basically what all of this comes down to but, when all of the Jeffersonian 'spin' is removed, the King doesn't look like such a tyrant, does he?

The Rocky Record of Anglo-American Relations (Part II)

Continued from Part I

During the inter-war years, American isolationism became the popular position and this was seen very much as an anti-British attitude. There were disputes over arms agreements and a succession of American administrations that were less than friendly to Great Britain. A critical moment came when the United States made it a condition of good relations for the British to break off their alliance with the Empire of Japan. The British Empire was itself divided on the issue. Canada, heavily dependent on trade with America, wanted Britain to ditch the Japanese in favor of Anglo-American solidarity. The Australians, however, near to Japan and far from Britain, wanted the Japanese kept on side. The British government decided to end the alliance with Japan, even though America offered no similar alliance in return, which caused the Japanese, who had long entertained anti-colonial enemies of the British Empire in Asia, to view all British possessions in the Asia-Pacific region as ‘fair game’. When Japan finally joined World War II alongside the other Axis Powers it would be with the claim that it was fighting to end western colonial rule, for “Asia for the Asians” and to eradicate the White population in East Asia.

Ready to fight the U.S. invasion?

In 1930 the U.S. military drew up “War Plan Red” in preparation for an eventual war with the British Empire. Earlier, in 1921, the Canadians had also drawn up a plan in case of war with the United States. The British had given the matter some thought as well, though not along the same lines as Canada. The British viewed Canada as a lost cause and planned to instead focus on a naval war in which Britain and America would be fairly evenly matched. Nothing came of it of course, and these were only contingency plans, but they do reveal that such a thing was not considered totally beyond the realm of possibility. Anglo-American relations were at an overall low point during the historically lengthy administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. President Roosevelt totally opposed the existence of the British Empire and made little effort to conceal that fact. As the first world leader to recognize the government of the Soviet Union, FDR seemed friendlier toward Moscow than London. Yet, both countries often found themselves on the same side of the fashionable causes around the world in the 1930’s. Both were critical of the Japanese in China, both sympathized with Ethiopia against Italy and both favored the republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. Neither liked the look of Adolf Hitler.

Yet, once again, when Britain went to war against Germany a second time in 1939, the United States again declared neutrality. The American public was more isolationist than ever before, felt they had been burned by participation in the First World War and wanted no part of another one. Yet, Britain scarcely had a prayer of winning without American participation and so tried to rekindle the fires of Anglo-American kinship and solidarity. To some extent, this worked but they were opposed by the likes of the “America First” committee and by the socialists and communists who denounced the war as a capitalist crusade to benefit European imperialism. Naturally, they completely reversed themselves as soon as Germany invaded the Soviet Union at which point they became more interventionist than anyone else.

Charles Lindbergh, America First Comm.

President Roosevelt, also became noticeably more warlike after the Axis invasion of Russia. America was neutral but not impartial and FDR began a number of schemes to aid Britain, the Soviet Union and China (in their war against Japan) while remaining officially “neutral”. Roosevelt squeezed British gold reserves dry in exchange for the food, medicine, supplies and weapons that Britain desperately needed just to hang on. Roosevelt wanted to get involved but the American public did not. FDR’s attitude was certainly not because of any real pro-British sentiment as he would make clear. He would fight to defend Britain but not to defend the British Empire which he was determined to see come to an end. Churchill, of course, was outraged by this attitude but by going to war against Germany and Italy, the British government had placed themselves in a position they could not escape from without American help and Roosevelt knew that no matter what he demanded, Britain would have no choice but to agree.

The American public, however, remained stubbornly isolationist and Roosevelt realized he could do nothing unless he could provoke one of the Axis powers to attack the United States. Germany and Italy were in a position such that it was impossible to do any more to them than was already being done but Roosevelt could put the squeeze on Japan. After the Japanese occupied French Indochina, Roosevelt put sanctions on Japan which the British government and Dutch government-in-exile had no choice but to go along with. Japan would either have to back down or attack and the Japanese decided to attack. On December 7, 1941 the bombs rained down on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. declared war and the Axis powers were officially doomed. By 1945 it was all over and Britain and America were victorious. However, Britain was also so heavily indebted to the United States that the relationship had practically come full circle in terms of the power and influence of each. Thankfully for Britain, FDR did not live to see the end of the war, being succeeded at his death by President Truman who was at least not as anti-British as FDR had been.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee

Unfortunately, the beginning of the Cold War, in which Britain and America were allies in the United Nations and NATO also saw the start of an unfortunate situation in which British and American leaders were seldom on the same page at the same time. So, while Harry Truman was more anti-communist than FDR had been, Truman at least wishing to see communism ‘contained’, his British counterpart, Prime Minister Clement Attlee, was farther to the left and was intent on abandoning the British Empire and reducing British military strength, depending more and more on the United States for defense, in order to fund the social welfare programs he envisioned. So it was that the Attlee government saw the creation of the National Health Service and the British welfare state along with the abandonment of India and Pakistan, Ceylon, Burma, Jordan and Palestine. Still, the U.S. supported the British campaign against communist revolutionaries in the Malayan Emergency (which was successful) and Britain provided the second largest military contribution to the Korean conflict, a UN effort led by the United States.

Once Attlee was out, Churchill returned and he favored holding on to the British Empire but things became sticky under his successor Sir Anthony Eden in dealing with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower. There had been talk of maintaining a smaller “third British Empire” focused on Africa but that was squashed when the Eisenhower administration undercut the British effort to hold on to the Suez Canal in Egypt. Eisenhower thought that by backing the Egyptians against the British, he could win their loyalty in the fight against communism. It did not work and this wishful thinking by American leaders would be repeated in numerous countries all to the same effect. The loss of Suez also seemed to completely break the morale of the British and ended any further desire to try to hold on to any vestige of the empire. The U.S. had also been rather put off with Britain over the refusal of London to back the French fight against communism in Indochina the previous year. However, Eisenhower later admitted that his bullying of the British over Suez had been the greatest mistake of his presidency. Too bad no one learned from it.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had a good working relationship with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and this is not surprising given that both agreed that the British Empire needed to be cast into the dustbin of history. British colonies in Africa were abandoned, often to communist dictators and there was some U.S. grumbling that Britain refused to support the American fight against communism in Vietnam (Australia did but no one now considers this to have been a good thing, the prevailing wisdom of the liberal west being that communism should never be opposed). Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, who inherited the Vietnam problem, pleaded with Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson to send even a token, symbolic force to Vietnam to show a united front against the communist bloc but Wilson refused because leftist anti-war fervor in Britain was so high. It was a mutually harmful relationship in this period with the Americans refusing to help maintain British colonies and the British refusing to help American military campaigns against communist expansion.

Personal relations were better between President Nixon and Prime Minister Heath, but overall Britain became more anti-American and America became, in turn, more anti-British. When Heath took Britain into the EEC (forerunner of the EU), Nixon saw this as a move toward Europe and away from the USA and Anglosphere. When Heath later said he had to consult Europe on defense policies before America, the U.S. stopped sharing military intelligence with the U.K. for about a year. In the Middle East, during the Yom Kippur War, America backed Israel while the British refused. Britain stopped allowing America the use of British bases on Cyprus and in retaliation the U.S. again cut off intelligence sharing with the British. Things did improve after that though, particularly moving into the 1980’s when Britain and America each had leaders who liked each other and seemed to be on the same page in regard to their politics and worldview, these were, of course, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless, a generally anti-American attitude continued to entrench itself among the British public and this showed itself in some rather absurd ways.

Maggie & Ronnie, BFF's

For example, when war broke out between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, the United States offered to mediate the dispute. The offer was not accepted and America supported the British in the war, though saw no need to intervene militarily. The USA provided, instead, supplies, logistics and intelligence to the British. However, presumably because of the original offer for mediation, many in Britain accused America of not taking their side and doing nothing to help them. On the other hand, when Grenada (a British possession) was taken over by communists and the Queen’s Governor-General overthrown and imprisoned, President Reagan sent in the U.S. Marines in a surprise attack that subdued the communist guerillas (backed by Cuba) and set the Queen’s representative at liberty again. Reagan expected the British would be overjoyed at this but instead the British media, public and many in positions of authority expressed their fury at the whole operation, denounced the U.S. for not discussing it with them beforehand and even calling it an act of aggression against a Commonwealth nation, even though, as the Queen’s representative was being kept in a prison cell by the communists, the British were certainly not in control at the time of the invasion -which was the whole point!

British and American forces cooperated in the First Iraq War and NATO campaigns against Yugoslavia, both of which were quick and victorious missions that came and went with little lasting fuss. However, British and American public opinion was about to be laid bare. In America, those on the right tended to like Britain for what it was but dislike Britain for what it is while those on the left tend to like Britain for what it is and dislike it for what it was. The British, on the other hand, just dislike America in general. Usually, Americans have lived in blissful, unconcerned ignorance of what other countries think of them but British, and European generally, views of the country came into public view in a big way after the 9-11 attacks and the subsequent “War on Terror”. While the government and Royal Family showed proper sorrow and solidarity, the American public saw that this was not a reflection of the British public. In the immediate aftermath, during a popular BBC political talk show, a former American ambassador was driven to tears by the British audience which was almost unanimous in basically saying that the United States had got what it deserved. The BBC was so embarrassed by this accidental reveal of British public opinion that it apologized and removed the episode.

Bush & Blair, the toxic twosome

Britain participated in the U.S. led (nominally NATO) campaign in Afghanistan and, more controversially, in the Second Iraq War which was highly unpopular with the left in America and everyone in Britain. U.S. President George W. Bush was hated by the left in America and by everyone in Britain. When Prime Minister Tony Blair emerged as his closest ally in the “War on Terror”, he immediately became the most unpopular political figure in Britain, a plummeting fall from his earlier years in power. He received thunderous applause and glowing praise from Americans for his speech to a joint-session of Congress but it only made him more unpopular, even positively despised, in his own country for doing so. When Bush left office and was succeeded by President Barrack Obama, the British public cheered in approval but this was all the more odd given that Obama, doubtless because of his background, was the most anti-British president America had had, probably since FDR. When Obama’s administration seized on a BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as a ‘defining moment’ (wishing to contrast Obama with the Bush reaction to Hurricane Katrina, which was ridiculed in the U.S. and Britain) the left and environmentalists pushed an anti-British line which only increased anti-American sentiment in Britain.

The praise and adulation Obama had been given by the British public upon his election seemed to be fading. Aside from the oil spill fiasco, there were arguments over the release of a Libyan terrorist from prison by the Scottish government, British criticism of American treatment of captured terrorists and even the banning of a number of prominent Americans from British soil on the grounds that they were deemed “Islamophobic”. By the end of his presidency, when Britain was voting on whether or not leave the European Union, Obama had become so unpopular that his intervention, urging British voters to stay in the EU, was seen as a great boost for the “Leave” campaign. Obama even went so far as to threaten British voters with being put “at the back of the line” in trade agreements with the U.S. if they voted the wrong way. Right-wing Americans objected to this but also felt little sympathy, knowing that Obama was the President the British public had wanted. In the end, they voted to leave but Obama himself was soon gone as well.

President "The Donald" Trump

A clearly less-than-friendly U.S. President was gone and the new U.S. President was the son of a British (Scottish) mother, a man with business interests in the U.K. and who often spoke of how his mother kept a portrait of the Queen in their house and how pro-British he was. One might expect this to have been the start of a renewal of Anglo-American friendship and one might be correct were this president not Donald J. Trump. Trump came to office praising Great Britain as America’s most trusted ally and promising to give Britain pride of place in the new trade negotiations which will be required if and when Britain actually leaves the EU. The White House even received, “positively” we are told, a proposal for the United States to join the British Commonwealth, an idea reportedly approved by the Queen and put forward by the Royal Commonwealth Society. However, for all of Trump’s pro-British statements, the British public has responded to him with all of the hysteria and vitriol of the American left. Anti-Trump demonstrations were held in Britain and there were even votes in Parliament on the possibility of banning President Trump from the country, a truly unprecedented step.

The British public, media and political class has been almost unanimous in their condemnations of President Trump with even the most favorable not expressing support but simply arguing that condemning and banning the leader of your closest ally and most powerful country on earth is not prudent. The U.K. was originally at the top of the list of countries Trump wished to visit but the vitriol against him in Britain, particularly combined with the vote to ban him from the country and threats of huge, potentially violent, demonstrations if he set foot on British soil, have caused his visit to the U.K. to be quietly and indefinitely postponed. Traditionally, new U.S. Presidents go to Britain to visit the Queen (I like to think so she can inspect them) but opposition to Trump has put a stop to that custom. Originally, the White House was still insisting that the visit would go ahead at some point but the summer is almost gone and no more is being said about the matter, nor have there been any further effusions of pro-British sentiment from the President.

The Queen addressing Congress

That is where things stand today and I think it is worth keeping in mind both the ‘ups’ and the ‘downs’ of the Anglo-American relationship and to note how different the two countries have become. Once upon a time, despite occasional difficulties, each side viewed the other as family; family you did not always get along with but family nonetheless. Today that is increasingly not the case and if current demographic trends continue will certainly not be true (already, children of European-descent are a minority in the United States). There did seem to be a real chance at the beginning of the Trump presidency for the two countries to become closer than they had ever been before but that seems impossible at this point. In Britain, anti-Trump hysteria has blinded people to the potential repercussions of their behavior and this, I think, points to a deeper problem.

The British public, judged by the generally negative view of the United States, seems to think the “special relationship” was either never real or, if it was, is of no value, perhaps even detrimental. Likewise, the American public, increasingly sees no benefit to the current arrangement and isolationism seems to be on the rise. Whether one looks at Trump during his campaign, the views of the Libertarian movement or that of the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democrat Party, America seems to be moving in the direction of disengagement from its current commitments and network of alliances. In each country, I think this fits in with the overall disconnect felt by the people and their supposedly “representative” governments. Yet, contrarily, at the same time there is also the problem, I think caused by “representative government” that people seem largely incapable of differentiating between a country and its government. For America, this seems less of a problem to me because of the British monarchy, prime ministers come and go but the monarch remains and so illustrates that Britain is more than its government but for Britain, given the American system of government, this seems to be more of an issue.

I would say though, as advice to those who value Anglo-American friendship, despite what its prospects may be, you must take care to keep in mind what you are arguing for and who you are arguing with. I have certainly seen this in the case of other countries. If, for example, you are an Anglophile in America, you are never going to convince your audience to accept your argument if your attitude is one of, “Britain is always right and we are always wrong”. That is an anti-American argument rather than a pro-British one and no average American is going to be won over if they think you, the pro-British person, are anti-American as it can naturally be assumed your argument is intended only to benefit the British and not the United States. On the British side of things, anyone with pro-American opinions can only have my sympathy given the current state of public opinion but, in that direction, my only advice is that it is an unavoidable fact that America would not exist without Great Britain and it because of this fact that Americans have never been able to view Britain as just another country in the world. America would never have involved itself in two world wars had Britain not been imperiled and, as I’ve often pointed out, when you ask any American what he or she thinks about “the Queen” they will instinctively understand that you mean the Queen of the U.K. and not any other country. That is material to work with though, as mentioned above, that will be impacted by demographic changes going forward so it is material with a finite shelf life.