Historic Anglo-American Relationship


Figure 1.--This wire serice photo shows a woman holding a sign "None of Our Boys for Europe's War". The occassion was Ambassador Halifax visiting San Francisco. The caption read, "Ord/Mothers of America Picket." The photograph was taken in July 1941. Interestingly, Lord Halifax as Foreign Secretary has supported Prime Ninister Chamberlain's policy of apeasement and eve defended it in his menoirs. Churchill replaced Halifax with Anthony Eden (December 1940) and assigned him to serve as ambassador to the United States.

The United States for much of its history saw Britain as the great enemy of American democracy and Manifest Destiny. This was in part the Revolutionary War experience and perhaps even more the War of 1812 and the impressment issue. There were also other entanglements, including Florida, the Canadian border and Oregon. Anerica had invaded Canada twice and there was a real poosibility of war over Oregon (1840s). The major test of Anglo-Anerican relations was the American Civil War (1860s). There was considerable sympathy for the Condederacy among the English upper class, in part because it would have divided a potentially dangerous rival. Thankfully, wiser heads like Prince Albert helped to avoid involvement. Some immigrant groups, especially the Irish, were strongly anti-English. This anti-English sentiment appeared in popular weriting. A good example is Little Lord Fauntleroy. The last major Anglo-American crisis was over Venezuela (1890s). America fought alongside Britain in World War I. After the War, however, many Americans came to feel that participation in the War was a mistake and that Britain had dupoed the United states in entering the War. President Roosevelt not only faced a strongly isolationist America, but considerable lingering anti-British feeling. The British for their part viewed American naval power with suspicion and as late as he 1920s, Royal Navy planning assessed America as a possible adversary. The American upper class was stronly pro-British. The same was not true of working-class Americans. Many Americans in the 1920s and 30s, however, still saw the world through the lens of their ethnic backgrounds. The British were hated by many Irish Americans. This was not just a result of the Potato Famine of the 1840s which propelled many Irish to emigrate to America, but the fight for Irish independence throughout the 19th century was propelled to the forefront by the 1916 Easter Rebellion. The terror of the IRA and the counter terror of the Black and Tans generated passions to a fever pitch in the 1920s. American politicians, especially those courting the Irish vote still made inflammatory statements in the 1920s. The mayor of Chicago threatened to poke King George V in the nose if he ever came to the city. The rise to power of Hitler and the forging of the Axis alliance between Germany and Italy generated anti-British feelings among some German and Italian Americans. But the much more prevalent attitude was that Britain was not going to drag America into another European war.







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Created: May 13, 2003
Spell checked: 1:54 AM 11/21/2009
Last updated: 1:54 AM 11/21/2009