Or did the British discover they had more pressing matters…that being France joining on our side…and let the war end?
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman
Either way, we won – whether by default or skill, the outcome was the same.
Story goes that, years after the Viet Nam war ended, General Westmoreland met the Vietnamese communist General Giap. Supposedly, Westmoreland told Giap, “You know, your men never beat ours in a single battle.” And, without hesitation, Giap replied “That is true but irrelevant.”
Well, if George Washington met Cornwallis years after the Revolution, their conversation probably would have followed similar lines. What did Washington or Giap care HOW they got what they wanted? Fact is, they GOT what they wanted: their people’s independence.
In the final analysis, what’s the difference? A win is a win, whether it’s in war or in sports, and the American colonies got the independence they wanted… so they won.
It’s true that, had the British army brought ALL its might to bear against the Minutemen, the Revolution would have had no chance. But so what? You have to realize that the colonists didn’t HAVE to conquer the British army to achieve what they wanted, just as the Viet Cong didn’t HAVE to conquer the U.S. army. All they had to do was inflict enough damage, and cost the enemy enough men and money, that eventually they’d give up and go home.
Yep. Just like we lost Viet Nam. It does not matter whether the outcome was determined solely by direct military conflict; very few wars are. Victory is determined when one side achieves their objective. America is not governed from England. Viet Nam is a unified nation under communist rule. Now, if we want to discuss phyrric victories . . .
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
Um, while the intervention of France on our side certainly played an important part in helping to end the war, to assert that GB just gave up and let the war end is a bit much.
The strategic picture in America from 1778 to 1781 needs to be considered. General Clinton marched from Philadelphia to New York, fearful that the French, now allies with the revolting colonies, would cut him off by sailing up the Delaware River. Please note that Clinton’s predecessor had sailed from New York in 1777 and taken Philadelphia. What this sequence of events shows is that the British were unable or unwilling to field a sufficient force in the American colonies to hold all the major population centers adequately. They gave up the middle area (New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland), held New York and Boston, and contested the south.
From mid-1779 to the war’s end, most of the fighting was in the south. Savannah had been captured by the British in 1778. An American force, with the help of a French fleet, failed to re-capture the city in 1779. Clinton, with Cornwallis, sailed from New York to Savannah and used it as a base of operations in 1780. In May, the British captured Charleston. An attempt to win it back was unsuccessful, and the American general (Gates) had to retreat to North Carolina. For the rest of 1780, American forces resorted to raiding the British with irregular forces.
This policy of ‘hit-and-run’ attacks was formalized by General Greene, who took over command in the south in December of 1780. He lured the British forces north through North Carolina, then administered a strategic defeat at Guilford Courthouse in May, 1781. At that time, the American forces outnumbered the British about 4000 to 2000.
Cornwallis then got reinforcements, and marched north to take on the American forces at Richmond. However, Lafayette refused to come to open battle with Cornwallis, and Cornwallis retreated to the sea to maintain contact with his fleet. When he was trapped there at Yorktown, he had about 7,000 men, and was surrounded by an army of roughly 16,000 combined French and American forces. The French fleet had seen off the British fleet and on October 19, Cornwallis surrendered rather than be annihilated.
Therefore, the military difficulty for the British was simple. They didn’t have enough forces to control the major population centers AND defeat the American forces in battle. Yes, there were plenty of blunders by the British (e.g. the failed Hudson river campaign of 1777, but the Americans didn’t always do so well, either. In the end, they were defeated by the strategy employed by the Americans and French.
Following the Cornwallis defeat, the Tory ministers of George III lost influence and the elevation of Pitt the younger to Prime Minister in 1783 guaranteed that the colonies would be let free.
Could the British have held the colonies if they had invested more effort? Probably for a time, but most certainly not for too long, not once the French and Spanish were on our side. To have done so would have been to risk other colonies that Britain held, such as India, not to mention leaving the homeland vulnerable to attack. Plus, as the British found out during the war, it is easy to start such an occupation, but as time goes by, you have to start rethinking the situation as you continue to need to send in more men.
Man – today is my day for posting just after someone else expresses the same thought. In my defense, this time the web page was “busy” and would not let me reply (I blame FORMERAGENT. Phaedrus was obviously right about him.) Udderwise, Ida bin dare fust.