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The other week some of the guys at my club were playing a game of AWI, with usual comments made about sneaky Colonials and are "are you sure that Redcoat is bright enough?" Aside from the usual comments there was much discussion about the War itself and how it panned out. Now over the years I've heard different opinions on and was wondering if there is an official verdict on it?

I know that some Americans say that we got whipped and some Brits say they cheated by using guerrilla tactics. However I have heard both Brits & Americans say that it wasn't a clean cut win for the Americans and the Redcoats weren't that bad. I'd be interested to know more.

As an aside I realise that there potential for derogatory comments to be made but lets try and keep it to non offensive leg pulling You say Independence, I say Revolution

The best way to judge whether something is revolutionary or not is to assess continuity vs. change.

Before: wealthy white, slave-owning elite who possessed enough local political power and support to ignore the British crown.
After: wealthy white, slave-owning elite who didn't have to worry about the crown anymore and could take the Indian land west of the Appalchians (the Proclamation of 1763 having forbid that).

Definitley not a revolution.

olympia wrote:The best way to judge whether something is revolutionary or not is to assess continuity vs. change.

Before: wealthy white, slave-owning elite who possessed enough local political power and support to ignore the British crown.
After: wealthy white, slave-owning elite who didn't have to worry about the crown anymore and could take the Indian land west of the Appalchians (the Proclamation of 1763 having forbid that).

Definitley not a revolution.

Now this backs up something that was mentioned in a documentry called Redcoats, it pointed out that one of the motivations for the conflict was that the Crown was stopping expansion to the west. It basically said it was greed, not oppression that paid a big part in the whole Revolution. Is this a possiblity?

Wolfstan wrote:

Now this backs up something that was mentioned in a documentry called Redcoats, it pointed out that one of the motivations for the conflict was that the Crown was stopping expansion to the west. It basically said it was greed, not oppression that paid a big part in the whole Revolution. Is this a possiblity?

It's common knowledge! The Proclamation of 1763 specifically forbade further western expansion by the colonists. It guaranteed the rights of the native americans to these lands. The colonists had always accused the British crown of being to accomadating to the "savages" since Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The crown was interested in trade (fur and timber) and the colonists were interested in trade but more importantly land.

The British were certainly not beaten by unfair guerilla tactics. They were very familiar with those sort of tactics from the long years of French and Indian wars. It's one of those cherished national myths like Britain's soldiers' superb firepower (Crecy, Waterloo, Omdurman, Mons.)

The first key failure was at the Battle of Long Island. Sir William Howe the British C-in-C missed the chance to cut off the retreat of the Continental Army. Capturing the army and Washington would clearly have been a huge blow to the colonists.

It's impossible to say if it would have been fatal. Given that support for the revolution was far from unanimous among the colonists, we can speculate that capturing Washington and his army might have swung the weight of popular sentiment behind the loyalists.

Britain's chances were clearly fatally damaged by the costly failure of the Philadelphia Campaign, which was caused by bad planning and execution by Howe.

The results of that campaign not only tipped the balance of forces in north America to the colonists, it also encouraged France, Holland and Spain to join the war on the Americans' side.

For an interesting and balanced history of the War of American Independence, read 'A Few Bloody Noses' by Robert Harvey. It's excellent - the war is portrayed as our 'Vietnam'. Public and political distaste for killing fellow Brits prevented the Gov't from enacting a 'total war/scorched earth' policy - and by the time of Yorktown, most ministers felt that the costs (in lives and money) where outweighing the potential benefits of keeping America. The West Indies produced more money for Britain on an annual basis than America at that time. Plus the French were breathing down our necks.
Anyone who says the empire that defeated Napoleon couldn't have defeated the Americans has bought into the spin a little too much, IMHO.

Albatross wrote: Anyone who says the empire that defeated Napoleon couldn't have defeated the Americans has bought into the spin a little too much, IMHO.

Actually if it wasn't for the arrival of the Prussians at Waterloo our empire would of had its backside handed to it by Napoleon...
Mick

Mick A wrote:

Albatross wrote: Anyone who says the empire that defeated Napoleon couldn't have defeated the Americans has bought into the spin a little too much, IMHO.

Actually if it wasn't for the arrival of the Prussians at Waterloo our empire would of had its backside handed to it by Napoleon...
Mick

I don't know how true that is, there is plenty of articles out there that say that their arrival helped, but by then most of the work had been done. I get the feeling that the fear of their arrival played a bigger part in the battle.

Mick A wrote:

Albatross wrote: Anyone who says the empire that defeated Napoleon couldn't have defeated the Americans has bought into the spin a little too much, IMHO.

Actually if it wasn't for the arrival of the Prussians at Waterloo our empire would of had its backside handed to it by Napoleon...
Mick

Not quite. It would simply have prolonged the war at great cost to the nations of Europe.

Don't forget the Napoleonic Wars weren't Britain vs France, they were Britain + Portugal, Spain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Saxony and Sweden vs France and Poland. (Involvement of all participants fluctuated, with Britain, France and Russia the most constant.

Wolfstan wrote: It basically said it was greed, not oppression that paid a big part in the whole Revolution. Is this a possiblity?

I would agree with this. I believe the rich colonists were spoiled. I never believed the propoganda I was taught in elementary school that the English were totally to blame for the revolution. They certainly made mistakes(like being arrogant, and treating colonials like spoiled children), but I think the revolution had more to do with England holding rich colonials from making as much money as possible, and the colonists realizing they had a huge ocean as a buffer zone from the most powerfull army in the world at the time.

Now.... the war of 1812 was different, England certainly was totally to blame for that one. ;-)

GG

In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans
And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans.

[Chorus:]
We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin' on
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We looked down the river and we see'd the British come.
And there must have been a hundred of'em beatin' on the drum.
They stepped so high and they made the bugles ring.
We stood by our cotton bales and didn't say a thing.

[Chorus]

Old Hickory said we could take 'em by surprise
If we didn't fire our muskets 'til we looked 'em in the eye
We held our fire 'til we see'd their faces well.
Then we opened up with squirrel guns and really gave 'em ... well

[Chorus]

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**

We fired our cannon 'til the barrel melted down.
So we grabbed an alligator and we fought another round.
We filled his head with cannon balls, and powdered his behind
And when we touched the powder off, the gator lost his mind.

[Chorus]

Yeah, they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles
And they ran through the bushes where a rabbit couldn't go.
They ran so fast that the hounds couldn't catch 'em
Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.**

Politically, the colonists really were reacting to the efforts by the Crown to reassert their authority over the colonies. For the most part, the colonies had been self governing, including efforts against Indian Tribes. Only in the French and Indian war (or seven years war) did the Crown really have a strong military presence in the colonies.

The 13 colonies were also different from other British holdings of the time, including canada. The colonists were mostly yeoman farmers, seeing an opportunity to own land and work for themselves, rather than a lord. roughly 150 years of self government created an incredibly iconoclastic populace.

In the end, the colonists main argument was that they were being controlled by a government they had no say in. The impact of that government wasn't that out of line, but the colonists simply didn't like being in that position.

As for the military tactics, Washington used a classic Fabian strategy, long used by revolutionaries: as long as you're still fighting, you're winning. The Americans got lucky a few times (Ticonderoga and Saratoga especially), and Washington's audacity generally paid off. In terms of the PR war, Howe was in a tough spot. The people were clearly supporting the continental army, but any actions to stamp down that support would only lead to full scale uprisings.

Still, most true success came, not from guerrilla tactics, but from either winning pitched battles, or losing but not losing the full army. The failure to destroy the continental army meant that the Crown seldom controled more than 10-15% of the area of the colonies.

The aid given by France was invaluable, both in money and men, but especially at sea. The French fleet prevented Cornwallis from escaping at Yorktown, which was the final defeat that convinced Parliment to settle the war.

There seems to be this running idea that everyone was after the Indians at this time and it wasn't true. It was more often the yoeman farmers causing problems invading their lands. The US government post RW was not that different than the Crown and the Proclamation of 1763. We have letters and legal documents detailing the governments efforts to keep frontiersmen from invading Indian territory. It was leading up to Andrew Jackson that the government/politicians attitude totally went 180 degrees from considering them allies to a nuisance with land ripe for the taking.

Jackson had a slightly different er world view.