The Madison administration expected Napoleon to hold Britain's attention while the United States quickly took Canada. That plan also assumed Canadians would greet the invading army as liberators and accept union under the American flag. Many inhabitants were French-speaking Canadians or Loyalists who had left the new United States precisely because they did not want to belong to it. This political misreading helps explain why territorial optimism did not produce an easy campaign. The expectation of a welcoming population became a weakness in the American strategy.
Notable Point · 22:31-24:16
Canada was not waiting to be liberated
American plans assumed that Napoleon would keep Britain occupied and that Canadians would welcome annexation, but the population contained large French-speaking and Loyalist communities with little reason to do so.