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
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Shouldn’t this be Great Debates?
I’m not really sure I understand the question. For the Americans to win independence, they had to convince the British that continued fighting for control of the American colonies wasn’t worth the effort; therefore, Britain ‘giving up’ because of fear of France would be as much a ‘win’ as anything else, short of a cross-Atlantic naval invasion of London with George Washington burning down the Parliament building and personally hanging King George.
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Thanks…I’ll take it there.
If you can’t convince them, confuse them.
Harry S. Truman
I’m interpreting your topic question to mean, did the U.S. win the revolution simply by out-fighting the British on the field of battle?
The answer is no. It wasn’t a simply matter of the colonists beating Britain. Those troops that the British could spare were surrounded and forced to surrender in a few notable battles, just as the French beat a lot of British ships on the Chesapeake. So early guerilla warfare, diplomacy, naval battles (which often as not didn’t involve any North Americans), and old-fashioned slugging matches all played a role.
The thing is, this really the only way Britain has ever been defeated. Since 1066 anyway. With its tremendous empire, it needs tremendous armed forces to defend it all, which means only a small portion are in any given place. The Zulus (19th Century) and Argentines (20th Century) failed not because they failed to defeat the UK writ large, but because they couldn’t defeat the forces which could be spared to fight them. (Granted, in the Falklands war, the Royal Navy sent pretty much everything that could make the trip, submarines excepted; the point is, most of the Army and a lot of the RAF could not conceivably have been brought to bear.)
The American colonists won because they were able to do that, with the help of the French. So in answer to your second question … I don’t think it’s fair to say that the British just let the war end; they really had no other choice if they wanted to keep their less rebellious colonies, while protecting their Isle against continental threats (France and, I can’t remember, but probably a few from the following: Prussia, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands).
Okay, the RN sent submarines to the Falklands as well, just not all of them. I mean, there would be no point in sending a Polaris nuclear boat down there.
Waaa! Everybody ignores me 'cept the Republicans!
Not only did the Americans win the war militarily (with help from the French) they won it politically. People like Edmund Burke pointed out to his fellow members of Parliment that the Americans were fighting for the same rights that those who opposed them held dear. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin and even some Englishmen like Burke were as resposible for American victory as were Washington or De Estang.
Elmer J. Fudd,
Millionaire.
I own a mansion and a yacht.
Well…did we lose in Vietnam? I’d say yes. In exactly the same sense, the British lost the American Revolution, i.e. we won.
Slight tangent…
Boris B - you’re right about the subs. The nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed the aging Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano on 2 May 1982, with the loss of 368 lives from a crew of 1,000. The event was particularly controversial as many believe that the Argentinian ship was outside the naval exclusion zone at the time and heading away from the Falklands.
I never touched him, ref, honest!
Greater Tangent:
The Belgrano began life as the USS Phoenix in 1938, and, true to her name, survived the Pearl Harbour attack.
She was sold to the Argies circa 1953. She is the only warship ever to have been sunk in action by a nuclear-powered submarine.
Launcher may train without warning.
I score USA-Britain during 1775-1783 as a 17-14 USA win. Without French help it would probably have been 27-13 British.