J.L. GRANATSTEIN, "A NATION BORN IN BATTLE," NATIONAL POST  (NOVEMBER 13, 2000).

Copyright National Post 2000

The National Post has invited a panel of historians to review the CBC series Canada: A People's History. Today J.L. Granatstein, a historian who was director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum from 1998 to 2000, reviews Episode 5.

Each year, Remembrance Day reminds us of those Canadians who died in the great wars of this century for Canada and democracy. Episode 5 of CBC's Canada: A People's History serves most usefully to remind us that without earlier wars and earlier sacrifices, there would not have been a Canada for our soldiers to preserve.

Titled "A Question of Loyalties," this superb episode focuses on the period encompassed by the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In effect, this was a 40-year-long civil war between republicans and the monarchists, a struggle to determine which system of government would prevail in North America. The republicans, the American rebels led militarily by George Washington, invaded Canada in 1775, their aim to seize Quebec and thus to prevent the British using it as a jumping off point to attack the revolting colonies. Good luck saved Quebec City when the Americans, led by Benedict Arnold (not yet a traitor to the American cause), attacked on New Year's Eve. The victory bolstered pro- British opinion among the Canadiens who, just a dozen years since the Conquest tore them from France, were at best neutral in the struggle; indeed substantial numbers defied the Church to welcome the Americans, as did many of the American merchants who had come north after the Conquest. But victory on the battlefield of Quebec preserved Canada.

The new United States won the war, however, an event that precipitated the flight of a hundred thousand men, women, and children who left their homes and farms behind because they believed in Britain and George III. Half the Loyalists came north, settling in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Canadas, providing the new land with English-speaking inhabitants and a burning, long-lasting hatred of Yankee republicanism. The Loyalists had fought with the British, matching Yankee cruelty with Loyalist atrocity, and they became the first anti-Americans, the ideal anti-Americans, the anti- Americans, historian Frank Underhill said, in the mind of God.

A vicious struggle came again in 1812, when the Americans declared war on Britain and set out to capture British North America. It would be "a mere matter of marching" to take the colonies, the former president Thomas Jefferson said vaingloriously. Jefferson should have been right for "late Loyalists," Americans who had come to Upper Canada for free land after the Revolution, outnumbered the Loyalists four to one. But the British had a soldier of daring in General Isaac Brock, in command in Upper Canada. Moving quickly, he confronted a large American army at Detroit and bluffed it into surrender with the threat of unleashing his Indian allies. He seized Michilimackinac, and when the Americans crossed the Niagara River, he beat them again at Queenston Heights. Brock died in that last victory, but he had saved Upper Canada. The Yankee sympathizers of 1812 decided to wait and see, an attitude enforced by the hanging of the few who were incautious in word and deed.

The only British commander to equal Brock was Colonel Charles- Michel de Salaberry, a French-Canadian and a regular officer in the British army. De Salaberry recruited and trained the Voltigeurs, a well-trained regiment of French Canadians. When a strong American army moved north toward Montreal, de Salaberry's tiny force routed them in the Battle of Chateauguay. The French Canadians, 50 years after the Conquest, showed themselves loyal to the British Crown and antipathetic to American republicanism.

Thus Canada was saved and North America divided between monarchy and republicanism. The two societies were to follow different courses. "A Question of Loyalties," like the previous episode on the Conquest of New France, succeeds brilliantly in telling a complicated story with style and accuracy. The images are glorious, the quotes from generals and private soldiers, Loyalists and rebels, aptly chosen. After a slow start, Canada: A People's History has now hit its stride.