<P> When the United States attacked British North America, most of the British forces were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars . Thus, British North America had minimal troops to defend against the United States, who had a much larger (though poorly trained) military force . For most of the war, British North America stood alone against a much stronger American force . Reinforcements from the United Kingdom did not arrive until 1814, the final year of the war . The repelling of the American force helped to foster British loyalties in the colonies that later became Canada . </P> <P> The nationalistic sentiment caused a suspicion of such American ideas as republicanism, which would frustrate political reform in Upper and Lower Canada until the Rebellions of 1837 . However, the War of 1812 started the process that ultimately led to Canadian Confederation in 1867 . Canadian writer Pierre Berton has written that, although later events such as the rebellions and the Fenian raids of the 1860s were more important, Canada would have become part of the United States if the War of 1812 had not taken place, because more and more American settlers would have arrived and Canadian nationalism would not have developed . </P> <P> The War of 1812 was highly significant in Britain's North American colonies . After the war, British sympathizers portrayed the war as a successful fight for national survival against an American democratic force that threatened the peace and stability the Canadians desired . Throughout the war, most of Canada's inhabitants assigned the war to an American desire to annex the British colonies, a perception reinforced by American Generals like William Hull, who issued proclamations stating that Canada would be annexed . </P> <P> An alleged Canadian myth from the war was that Canadian militiamen had performed admirably, while the British officers were largely ineffective . Jack Granatstein has termed this the "militia myth", and he feels it has had a deep effect on Canadian military thinking, which placed more stress on a citizens' militia than on a professional standing army . The United States suffered from a similar "frontiersman myth" at the start of the war, believing falsely that individual initiative and marksmanship could be effective against a well - disciplined British battle line . Granatstein argues that the militia was not particularly effective in the war and that any British military success was the work of British regular forces and the result of British domination over the sea . Isaac Brock, for example, was reluctant to trust the militia with muskets . </P>

What were the effects of the war of 1812 on the united states