Kapelsche Veer

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Aug 2025

 In a waterlogged area of the Netherlands northeast of Brada, a subsidiary, swift-flowing channel of the Maas River runs along to the south side of the main channel, creating an island called Kapelsche Veer. The island is five miles long and one mile wide at its widest, and sports dykes up to 20’ high on the south side.  When not frozen, much of the land is boggy and impassible to tanks; attack frontages are one company wide, which meant that the assaulting force would be only equal in number to the defenders.  A small inlet on the north side of the island forms a harbour, and on either side of the inlet were two reinforced houses, which came to be called objectives Grapes (on the east) and Raspberry (on the west).

21^st Army Group was by mid- January, 1945, hard up against the south bank of the Maas River everywhere except at Kapelsche Veer. German paratrooper general Kurt Student held the island with a re-enforced company of his best paratroopers, and he kept the garrison fresh by replacing them every three or four days. They were supported by artillery batteries, self-propelled guns and mortar batteries on the north side of the river. 

The defenders were well dug in, and the approaches were open, and snow covered.  Army Group HQ decided that this small foothold of the Germans must be eliminated. 

The capture of Kapelsche Veer was turned over to the 4^th Canadian Armoured Div, and thence to the 10^th Bde (Brig JC Jefferson, OC).

The attack plan (Op ELEPHANT) ultimately required two battalions of infantry (L&W, A&SH of C), one tank regiment (SAR), and some 300 guns in artillery support.  There would be no preparatory bombardment.  In the original plan, the attack would begin in daylight on Jan 26^th by only one battalion, through a smoke screen. Wasps (flamethrowing Bren gun carriers) would accompany the attacking infantry.  Two infantry companies would attack from the east, and one from the west simultaneously, the objective being the harbor.  A bridge (nicknamed the Mad Whole’s Dream), prepared by RCE, would be hauled into place on the eastern end of the island at the commencement of the operation, enabling tanks to cross over, 

At 07:15 on 26 Jan, 1945, the smoke screen was laid.  At 07:25, C Coy Lincoln & Welland Regt. supported by four Wasps, crossed the bridge and linked up on the island with A Coy which had crossed the channel in Buffalo infantry carriers; a canoe party attempted to cross also, and was decimated by German fire. Of the 60 men of this party, 15 made it half-way over.   A Coy reached the house called Objective Grapes, but were driven back by German fire.  At 09:45 A Coy halted and dug in.  Nearby, from the other fortified house, codenamed Raspberry, the German paratroops counterattacked, and drove A Coy all the way back to C Coy’s position; C Coy in the process lost all its officers.  At 11:30 the attack was aborted, and both companies were withdrawn from the island.

In the west, B Coy, L&W, crossed in Buffalos and headed for Raspberry; but they too were stopped by heavy German fire.  By 12:00 hrs, this attack too had failed.  Brig Jefferson ordered the L&W to try again from the west, and sent the A&SH of C from the east with tank support.

The bridge in the east (the Mad Whore’s Dream) could take tanks, but in the west, the Shermans would have to be rafted over.  Approaching from the east, two Stuart tanks crossed the bridge but couldn’t make it up the tall dyke bank, and they and the accompanying Argylls came under heavy mortar fire.  In the west, a snowstorm and German patrols delayed the construction of the tank raft.  The infantry-only attacks on 27 Jan. were defeated on both ends of the island by German mortars, machine guns, and artillery fire.  Armour was the only way to break the stalemate.  Canadian artillery, however, was slowing down the German’s ability to reinforce the garrison, and only parts of a pioneer and an anti-tank platoon could re-enforce the fallschermjagers.

On Jan 28, two Sherman tanks crossed the bridge on the eastern end, and three Shermans were rafted across to the western end of the island; but the temperature had risen, and the frozen ground turned into mud. The second Shermans in the west became bogged down, blocking the one behind it, while the lead Sherman led the Lincs towards Raspberry.  German fire stopped them.  In the east, four tanks moved towards Grapes, where the Argylls were stopped by mortar and machine gun fire.  By 14:00, the Canadian attack had paused. One Sherman shelled a 25 man German platoon, killing 17 and wounding 5.  This caused German fire to slacken, and the Argylls managed to capture Grapes, followed by the Lincs capturing Raspberry.  Numerous German paratroops remained in bunkers and tunnels beneath the houses.  That night, they counter attacked and recaptured both buildings.  On 29 Jan, German mortar fire increased in ferocity, Canadian 25 pdrs replied with 14,000 shells. At 07:00, The Argylls and Lincs again assaulted Grapes and Raspberry. Mud was a big problem. Tanks were bogged down everywhere.  At 12:45, the Argyll arm of the attack, supported by two SAR Shermans, saw the Argylls retake Grapes, but Raspberry remained German.

The Germans were down to 70 men, including 20 wounded.  They held positions around Raspberry and on the west side of the harbor.  At dawn on Jan 30^th, two Shermans opened up on Raspberry, but not until 11:15 did infantry attack, and got nowhere as they were mown down by machine gun fire and mortars.  100 yards short of Raspberry, at 15:00 hrs, they tried again and were repulsed.  At 15:30, under a flag of truce, the Canadians were allowed to collect their wounded and dead.  Then, with four Shermans in support, Canadians tried for a third time, and the Argylls took Raspberry at the bayonet point.  However, advance beyond Raspberry was stopped by the German paratroops, 

On the eastern side, a German panzerfaust team knocked out one of the Shermans.  At 08:00 on Jan 31^st, the Argylls, pushing westward, linked up the Lincs; the Germans having evacuated the island during the night. 

German casualties were 64 KIA and WIA, with 34 PWs.  The Canadians suffered 133 KIA and WIA.

The CO of the Argylls, Lt-Col Dave Stewart, the hero of Hill 195, was relieved of command on Jan 25^th, having seen the original plan and refusing to lead his battalion on such a stupid misadventure.

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Drones, or Tac Air?

Drones versus NATO fires.

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Aug 2025

 The Russo-Ukraine war has seen a significant rise in the use of tactical drones; the Israelis too made much use of drones in their Op RISING LION air offensive against Iran.  Most readers will be familiar with the Reaper and Global Hawk drones, but these new types are smaller, cheaper, and used both for spotting and for tactical strike purposes.  The Ukrainians are using theirs as a practical substitute for Tac Air, long-range artillery, and guided missiles; and ‘substitutes’ is the point, according to Professor Justin Bronk, writing for the RUSI.

These newer drones come in two types, first-person view (FPV) uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), and one-way attack (OWA). Both are playing an increasing role in Ukraine’s defense. Russia has also, by orders of magnitude, scaled up her UAS and OWA capabilities. The battlefields of Ukraine now see millions of FPV-UAS, and thousands of OWA drones to supplement conventional cruise and ballistic missiles for long range strike campaigns.

Professor Bronk lists four reasons why NATO should not follow Ukraine’s example: (1) doing so plays into Russian hands; (2) the Ukrainians are making a virtue of a necessity, as they are lacking in traditional fires; (3) Ukraine still isn’t winning the war despite their proficiency in drones; and (4) drones are fill-ins and supplements to, not replacements for, traditions NATO fires.

Professor Bronk believes it would be a mistake to think that drones “render(s) Western equipment and doctrinal notions such as air superiority and armoured maneuver warfare irrelevant or obsolete.” Rather, he sees drones as a supplement to ‘legacy’ platforms such as artillery, tanks, fighter aircraft, and submarines. The Israelis used drones for SEAD/DEAD against Iran; in the latter case, massed drones acted as “window” once did, saturating Iranian air defense radars, and with some taking on the role of “Wild Weasels.”

Bronk does believe it important for NATO to develop their own counter-UAS (C-UAS) capabilities, since Russian forces would be expected to use UAS on a vast scale.

The Russians forces already have formidable C-UAS capabilities, which include electronic jamming, modified infantry weapons, and short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems integrated at all levels of their ground forces. Russian forces are already well-adapted to defend against drones, and losses among Ukrainian drone operators are mounting rapidly. However, the training required for C-UAS capability means less training against NATO’s areas of military strength.

Bronk observes that Ukrainian forces inflicted devastating defeats on Russian forces using massed artillery, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), and well-motivated infantry; and the switch to reliance on UAS has been driven by necessity, for when available, high-end ATGMs, anti-tank BONUS artillery rounds and regular artillery are preferred by Ukrainian commanders to counter Russian attempts to break through the frontlines. These latter systems are far more responsive and more reliable in knocking out vehicles and in suppressing mass infantry. FPVs are useful for inflicting a steady level of attrition against personnel and vehicles where the frontlines are static.

Bronk feels that UAS should enhance NATO firepower, but not replace NATO artillery and aircraft, which can strike targets responsively.  Drones can enable air forces, long range artillery, and high-end munitions such as AGM-88G AARGM-ER and GMLRS to get through to key targets without interception.

He argues, “nothing can compete with direct-attack munitions such as the GBU-38 JDAM or Paveway IV bombs where air superiority or at least access has been achieved. For unit costs in the region of $20-30,000, such bombs can destroy armoured vehicles, fighting positions, supply dumps, warehouses, factories and command posts. They can be delivered by a single jet with a targeting pod on each sortie.”

Bronk says that it is far easier to counter massed, cheap FPV and OWA drones used for primary lethality than to counter the airpower, long range fires, armour, artillery and mortars of a professional joint force.

Nevertheless, C-UAS capabilities remain essential, and should be seen as a theatre-entry standard for NATO armies in any Article V context against Russia.

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Is NOTCANZ in trouble?

Vincent J. Curtis

14 Aug 2025

NOTCANZ, elsewhere known as AUKUS, (for Australia, United Kingdom, United States) is a military alliance within the Anglosphere that does not include Canada or New Zealand.  It was organized for the purpose of transferring US nuclear submarine propulsion technology to the Royal Australian Navy. Its wider purpose was to counter increased Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

Something nuclear is a new departure for Oz.  The settled policy of Australia since Hiroshima was to shun nuclear power technology, and there have never been nuclear power electric generators in Australia.  The country has no means of dealing with nuclear waste. By contrast, Canada was an early world leader in the development of peaceful nuclear power, with the first CANDU reactor in service in 1962.  The nuclear reactor at McMaster University in Hamilton, ON, has since 1959 supplied the world with medical radionucleotides. But the political powers in Oz wanted nothing to do with nuclear technology.

The NOTCANZ saga began when Australia started looking for replacements for their Collins class diesel-electric submarines, which had been built in the 1990s by Kockums, a subsidiary of Saab.  The Australians turned to the French, and ordered a dozen of the French Barracuda class submarines, which are nuclear powered, but Oz wanted them with conventional diesel-electric propulsion; these were to be called the Attack class.

This complication caused delays and cost overruns that had the Australians worried. Despite assurances from President Macron himself about the rapid fulfillment of the contract, the Australians suddenly dropped the contract, and embraced an offer for US nuclear propulsion technology for the new fleet of Aussie subs. The cry of “maudit anglais” could be heard from Paris to Canberra, and the Australians paid the French some US$584 million to settle the cancellation.

Aussie submariners had worked aboard US nuclear powered subs, and were absolutely sold on the superior capabilities of nuclear propulsion for the task in view, namely the countering of Chinese presence in the Indo-Pacific region, a strategic end that happily coincided with American strategic policy.  Going with American technology had strategic advantages to the RAN: one being it would strengthen the strategic alliance between the RAN and the USN generally, and especially for the end of countering China; another lying in the difference between French and American nuclear propulsion technology.

American nuclear propulsion technology calls for the uranium to be enriched to the level of 93 percent, whereas the French technology utilizes uranium enriched only to the 6 percent level.  The higher American enrichment enables the reactors to run for the life of the submarine, making refueling unnecessary; the lower enrichment of the French technology requires refueling after ten years service.  Because Australia has no means of dealing with the nuclear waste from refueled nuclear submarines, any jump to nuclear propulsion would favor an American option.  And so, on September 21, 2021, AUKUS was born.

The two Pillars of AUKUS are (1) the acquiring by Australia of nuclear powered attack submarines, the AUKUS class, and the rotational basing of US and UK nuclear powered subs in Australia; while (2) entails “the collaborative development of advanced capabilities in six technological areas: undersea capabilities, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence, autonomy, advanced cyber, hypersonic, and counter-hypersonic capabilities, and electronic warfare; and two broader functional areas: innovation and information sharing.”

Then, in June 2025, just like that, the United States Department of Defense launched a review whether to scrap the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom.

As we’ve seen, the US is falling behind in deliveries of nuclear subs for its own fleet; the capability of delivering AUKUS class boats may not be there; and the US will not deprive itself of nuclear subs in order to fulfill a commitment to another country, no matter how close an ally.

There is a diplomatic opening for Canada here. It is to acquire French Barracuda class subs, with the prospect of leveraging a closer military and diplomatic alliance with France, counterweighting our dependency on the US.

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A Glance Over the Fence

Vincent J. Curtis

9 July 25

 After years of neglect, declining equipment readiness, retention problems, and procurement delays, the nation’s military, under new political leadership, is about to receive a surge of new funding.  This surge presents problems of a different kind.  No, I’m not talking about the CAF and the promises of the new Carney government, but about the US military under President Trump. It’s worthwhile to see how the US military is addressing its problems with acquisition and budgeting, a year before the CAF confronts similar problems of its own.  For this review, I’m going to concentrate on the US Navy.

In his first term, President Trump said he wanted a 350 ship fleet, but the US Navy operated 287 ships in Fiscal Year 2025, six fewer than in FY24.  For FY24, the US Navy requested funding for nine new ships; in FY25, six; but for FY26 the request is for nineteen!

The request for new ships includes the following:1 Columbia class ballistic missile submarine; 2 Virginia class attack submarines; 2 Arleigh Burke class destroyers; 1 America class amphibious assault ship; 1 San Antonio class amphibious transport dock; 9 medium landing ships; 2 John Lewis class oilers; and 1 Tagos class ocean surveillance ship.

The Columbia class will replace the Ohio class of subs that form the sea-based leg of the nuclear triad. (The others being land-based ICBMs and USAF carried bombs). The Columbias are supposed to be extremely stealthy carriers of ballistic missiles, and will be equipped with 16 Trident 2 D5s.  This class of 12 subs is expected to cost $132B. (Surprise: The program is already running behind schedule!)

The Virginia class sub is the USN’s current fast attack submarine. It can track enemy subs, and launch Tomahawk missiles. One of these requested ships will include a Virginia class payload module, which increases its missile load-out significantly.  Delivery of Virginia subs already on order is nearly three years behind schedule.

The Arleigh Burke class destroyers escort aircraft carriers, launch Tomahawk cruise missiles, and provide a ballistic missile and, with their Aegis combats systems, air defense also. The FY26 acquisitions are of the so-called the Flight III models, which come equipped with the AN/SPY-6 air and missile defense radars, a major upgrade over the AN/SPY-1D system on the Flight IIs. The Flight II DDGs are now pushing past $2.2 billion in cost, up from $1.8 billion. 

The America class Assault Amphibious ships are a mini-aircraft carrier for Marine Corps F-35Bs and helicopters.

Tagos ocean surveillance ships tow a sonar array that tracks submarines, and can map the ocean floor

Costs are rising, and deliveries are falling behind schedule: seventy percent of construction is behindhand.  Despite the shipbuilding budget doubling over the last 20 years, the number of ships the US Navy operates has remained essentially unchanged.

The FY25 ships won’t enter service for another 4 to 6 years. Delays are a real problem: the Kennedy, the next aircraft carrier, is delayed by two more years; and this may force the fifty year old Nimitz into another deployment or two. American procurement doesn’t run like a Swiss watch either, and looking to the US to supply Canada with naval assets may prove futile.

Out of a total defense budget request of US$962 billion, the USN portion is $292 billion, of which $248 billion is for the base budget.  The USN wants to increase its authorized strength by 12,300 to reach 344,600 sailors in FY26. In the US, funding above base is optional, and the selection of programs comes down to political decisions, if they’re funded at all.

One observes that the capabilities and size of the USN are astonishing, that delays and cost overruns are the norm at the bleeding edge of technology; that political neglect has ramifications years after it ends, that hesitation inhibits readiness and costs lots of money. The RCN can’t window shop and think over too much longer if it expects no gaps in capability and meet the budget,

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I Decline an Invitation

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Aug 2025.

I received the following invitation to attend a “TD Walter Bean Lecture” at the University of Waterloo, to be delivered by Sir Andrew Steer, as follows:

Hi Vincent,

The climate crisis is accelerating — and so is the need for courageous leadership.

Join us Monday, September 29 for a compelling public lecture from Sir Andrew Steer, former President & CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund and one of the world’s most influential climate leaders.

From building resilient cities to restoring ecosystems, Dr. Steer will explore what’s working, what’s failing, and how countries like Canada must lead — at home and on the global stage.

I replied as follows:

Dr. Frayne;

I’ve been a critic of the global warming/climate change fraud for over 30 years. Regardless, the question for Canadians is why, given that Canada is responsible for only 1.5 percent of global CO2 emissions, should Canada attempt to lead on anything related to CO2 reduction? Canada isn’t a part of the problem and therefore can’t be part of the solution. India and China far surpass Canada in emissions, and they’re doing nothing to slow the growth of their emissions of CO2. Even now, our burning forests are emitting multiple times the amount of CO2 that Canadians themselves emit annually, making a mockery of any feeble attempts on our part to reduce our CO2 emissions by some fraction.  A question, often asked but never answered, is by how many degrees will sacrifices by Canadian reduce the global temperature in the year 2100? The answer is in the hundredths of a degree Celsius. Immeasreable.

The very concept of a global temperature, on which the climate change panic rests, was destroyed in 2007 by two Canadians, mathematician Chris Essex of UWO, and Ross McKittrick of UG. They observed correctly that the earth, not being at thermal equilibrium and temperature being am intensive thermodynamic variable, the earth has no temperature, and that statistics can’t supply what physics denies. Their paper is found in J. Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics Vol 32 No 1 pp 1-27. They demonstrated that, given the many ways of calculating an average, from a set of numbers, trends of temperature both up and down can be obtained from the same data set by different methods of calculating the average.

Given all this, that Canada should lead on anything related to climate change reduction, is absurd, and never mind the implicit assumption that climate change can only be for the worse!

To save both ourselves the embarrassment of my heckling the speaker, I must decline your invitation.

Regards;

Vincent J. Curtis. M.Sc.

 

The C2 we could have had

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Oct 23

The squad support light machine gun, or LMG, has been a part of Canadian fighting technique since the Hundred Day campaign of WWI.  Then, an infantry platoon was task organized into one section of Lewis gunners, one section of grenadiers, and two sections of riflemen.  When encountering a German machine gun nest, usually featuring a water-cooled Maxim MG-08, the Lewis gunners would put continuous suppressive fire on the nest, enabling the grenadiers to get close enough to take it out with Mills bombs, predecessor of the 36 grenade.

After the war, Canadian defence went to sleep.  The British, however, closer to the danger, kept awake enough that they had ready to manufacture the Bren LMG and the No. 4 Lee-Enfield.  During the war, Canada’s John Inglis Company manufactured Bren guns, both in .303 British, and, for the Chinese Nationals, in the rimless 7.92x57 mm Mauser calibres.  The Canadian government created Canadian Small Arms, a Crown Corporation, to manufacture No. 4 Lee-Enfield rifles in a factory in Long Branch, Ontario.

When WWII was over, millions of rifles and thousands of Bren guns were left in Canadian hands.  Bolt-action rifles were obsolete, and semi- or fully automatic rifles were the firearms of the next major war.  NATO was formed in 1949 to keep the Soviet Union from invading through the Fulda Gap; and, NATO being a collection of countries, standardization became essential.  One of those standardizations was on the 7.62 x 51 mm NATO cartridge.

No particular design of rifle was chosen as the NATO standard, and Canada settled on the FN FAL pattern, which was dubbed the FN C1A1.

FN in Belgium had been a distributor of Colt Patent Firearms in Europe since 1900.  One of Colt’s designs was the Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, which the United States Army adopted in 1918.  The BAR was never tactically deployed in WWI, but the BAR remained in American service as a squad support weapon.  FN sold commercially a few Colt-made BARs in Europe in the 1920s, and in the early 1930s FN tooled up to manufacture their own pattern BARs.  FN made some improvements, such as adding a pistol grip.

For FN, WWII came and went; their factory was overrun, but the Germans didn’t use the BAR.  A number of militaries were then in the market for new weapons, and FN sold them their improved BAR, named the BAR-D.  The principal improvement to the sturdy and reliable BAR was a quick detachable barrel, making the FN BAR a true LMG.  Anyone who’s changed barrels on the C6 will be familiar with how that detachment system worked, and when the 7.62 mm NATO cartridge came along, the BAR-D1 was chambered in that calibre.

John Inglis hadn’t made a Bren in a decade, and it made no sense tooling up to convert 3,000 Canadian Brens into 7.62.  The factory in Long Brach was also long idle, and it was tooled up to make the FN C1A1 under licence.  The C2 was just a C1, except for a heavy barrel, and a three position change lever, which permitted automatic fire.  Its standard magazine was 30 rounds instead of 20, for the C1; and it was nothing for Long Branch to make a heavy barreled version of their standard production rifle.

The lack of a detachable barrel, and being on the light side for an automatic rifle, made the C2 rather ineffective as a support weapon, and it was uncontrollable in longer bursts.  For a little more money, Canada could have purchased 2,713 BAR-D1s from FN instead, since it also used FN-FAL magazines, and Canada would have had an excellent Bren replacement in the section support role.

Canada, in the C6, did get a BAR, of sorts.  The working parts of the C6 are nearly the same as the FN BAR, except turned upside down for feeding from the top.

The BAR-D1 is the C2 that Canada should have had, but luckily didn’t need.

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Fifty-four or Fight!

Vincent J. Curtis

15 May 25

“..somebody drew that line many years ago, like a ruler, right across the top of the country..” observed President Donald Trump in his first Oval Office meeting with Prime Minster Mark Carney. That line, sometimes called the 49^th parallel, was drawn by his predecessors, in 1818 and 1846.

The Treaty of 1818, between the United States and Great Britain, settled matters, including boundary disputes, that arose from the War of 1812.  The 49^th parallel was agreed as the boundary from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.  West of that terminus lay the Pacific North West, and no final resolution was reached concerning that region.

Called the Oregon Country by the Americans, and the Columbia District by the British (whence British Columbia), the Pacific North West, which includes the Columbia and the Snake Rivers, may be defined as that part of North America bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the West, the 42ºN latitude on the south; the continental divide on the east, and 54º40’N latitude on the north; the last being the southern boundary of Russian America.  Louisiana Territory, purchased by the United States from France in 1803, lay on the east side of the continental divide.

Captain George Vancouver, on behalf of Great Britain, discovered and mapped its sea coast; and Alexander Mackenzie, trekking from Canada by land, reached the Pacific coast in 1792.  For America, Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Columbia River in 1805.  In these early days, the fur trade was the main economic reason for controlling the area.  Starting in 1807, explorer David Thompson began developing the region around the Columbia River on behalf of the Montreal-based North West Company, then a competitor to the Hudson’s Bay Company.  In 1811, at the junction of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, Thompson formally claimed the land on behalf of Great Britain, the company erecting Fort Nez Percés on the site.  The American Pacific Fur Company set up a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia in 1811, but the company collapsed during the War of 1812, and its assets fell into the possession of the NWC.

Americans were as bad at geography then as they are now; many believed that the Louisiana Territory extended up to Russian America; and in 1818 American negotiators offered to saw-off the disputed territory along the 49^th parallel, a westward continuation of the boundary from the Rocky Mountains.  The British counter-offered the Columbia River as a boundary, as this would protect the trade of the NWC, and later the HBC. No resolution was reached, and the Treaty of 1818 established a joint occupation of the region for a period of ten years.  Discussions continued, but the Americans could not accept the Columbia River boundary, for they would be left with no deep-water port on the Pacific coast.  (San Francisco Bay didn’t fall into their possession until the Mexican-American War of 1846) Lacking resolution on the boundary dispute, the joint occupation agreement was renewed.  It is noteworthy that in this period the only continuous white presence in the region were the employees of the HBC. At its height around 1840, 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees were managed out of Fort Vancouver (modern day Vancouver, WA), and by 1846, only perhaps 3,000 white people lived in the disputed area.

Facts on the ground began to change in the 1830s when Americans began to settle in the Willamette Valley, and American presence rapidly expanded after the opening of the Oregon Trail in 1843.

By 1844, the annexation of the Republic of Texas was a central issue of the presidential election of that year. Texas was a breakaway province of Mexico; her annexation would inevitably lead to war; further complicating matters was that Texas would enter the Union as a slave state, upsetting the balance in the U.S. Senate, and spreading slavery outside the South.  The Oregon Country thus represented to the Democrats the prospect of balancing future free states in the new territory against Texas, as well as appeal to American expansionist sentiment. The danger was having to fight two wars against two enemies simultaneously.  Fighting a war with Great Britain over Oregon would see, as in 1814, the Royal Navy bombarding the major U.S. cities that lay on the eastern seaboard, which included Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Charleston.  Hence, the pledge to “Fifty-four Forty or Fight” was an audacious move by James K. Polk and the Democratic party in the election of 1844, though the slogan itself was actually coined by the Democrat press.  Polk raised tensions further in his 1845 State of the Union address, declaring that that U.S. title to the entire Pacific North West was “clear and unquestionable,” and he later recommended giving one year’s notice of the termination of the joint occupation agreement. Newspapers urged that it was “by right of the manifest destiny of the United States to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us.”

The British, however, were equally adept at rattling the sabre; but were also aware of the low commercial value of the Columbia District to Great Britain as compared to trade and good relations with the U.S.  Both sides were therefore privately inclined to compromise, and it was President Polk who re-offered the proposal first made by his predecessor, President John Tyler, for the 49^th parallel as the boundary, sweetened by ceding the entirety of Vancouver Island to Britain.  Lord Aberdeen, who sought good relations with the United States, agreed, and the matter was settled by the Oregon Treaty, signed on June 15, 1846.  The Mexican-American War broke out on April 26, 1846.

And that’s why the 49^th parallel forms the boundary between Canada and the United States today: by the proposals and agreements of successive U.S. administrations, from James Monroe to James K. Polk.

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