Oh denuseri, denuseri: it wasn't your nose I was tweaking!

But my sources are American (there's virtually nothing online from British sources). But I would look at them all, not just one side's version, if I could.

There were 2 wars? Oh yes. That other one. It was a stalemate (and of even less interest to Britons than the Rebellion: Bonaparte was much more of a problem). Neither side lost anything or won anything - except we developed Bermuda and organised a great fireworks display in Washington. But, then, your lot had fun in the Battle of New Orleans. Honours even. Canada regards it as a British (Empire) win because they thwarted US expansionist plans.

I don't know much about British involvement in trying to prevent Israel being formed (I had believed we were closely involved in its formation - but apparently I'm wrong. I do remember my father cursing the Israelis for behaving just like terrorists, though - for example, by murdering a captured British soldier, stringing up his body and mining the ground underneath him, to kill whoever tried to cut the poor man down. I hastily add that I bear no such grudge.) What I do know is, Britain had been involved in the Middle East since the fall of the Ottonman Empire, and many of the arab countries were under our protection. Many others were involved with France.

Our experience of dealing with the arab nations and tribes was that they were ruthless fighters. They were also tolerant, independent, proud and noble people with a great sense of right and wrong, and enormous loyalty to their friends and allies. We probably let them down. We certainly laid the foundations for all the problems that exist in the Middle East now.

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The American Rebellion by Rudyard Kipling.


1776


BEFORE

TWAS not while England's sword unsheathed
Put half a world to flight,
Nor while their new-built cities breathed
Secure behind her might;
Not while she poured from Pole to Line
Treasure ships and men--
These worshippers at Freedom's shrine
They did not quit her then!

Not till their foes were driven forth
By England o'er the main--
Not till the Frenchman from the North
Had gone with shattered Spain;
Not till the clean-swept oceans showed
No hostile flag unrolled,
Did they remember what they owed
To Freedom--and were bold.

AFTER

The snow lies thick on Valley Forge,
The ice on the Delaware,
But the poor dead soldiers of King George
They neither know nor care.

Nor though the earliest primrose break
On the sunny side of the lane,
And scuffling rookeries awake
Their England's spring again.

They will not stir when the drifts are gone,
Or the ice melts out of the bay:
And the men that served with Washington
Lie as still as they.

They will not stir though the mayflower blows
In the moist dark woods of pine,
And every rock-strewn pasture shows
Mullein and Columbine.

Each for his land, in a fair fight,
Encountered, strove, and died,
And the kindly earth that knows no spite
Covers them side by side.

She is too busy to think of war;
She has all the world to make gay;
And, behold, the yearly flowers are
Where they were in our fathers' day!

Golden-rod by the pasture wall
When the columbine is dead,
And sumach leaves that turn, in fall,
Bright as the blood they shed.