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Posted on 11/16/2025 4:54:24 PM PST by whyilovetexas111
Could Great Britain have crushed the American rebellion? An expert argues that, while better generalship and politics might have delayed defeat, the odds were stacked against London from the start. Holding a vast, underdeveloped continent with a small population, across an ocean, was a nightmare even for Europe’s strongest navy and army. Saratoga and French intervention made things worse, forcing Britain to fight a global war while trying to subdue the colonies. In the end, distance, imperial overreach, and political inflexibility meant the empire was likely to lose North America sooner or later.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalsecurityjournal.org ...
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Gangs of New York: America’s revolution was fought across the city — intimately and ferociously
Easily. The secessionists only won because the other super power of the day, France weighed in so heavily on their side.
The odds against the colonial secessionists of 1776 were far longer than the odds were against the Confederates - ie the children and grandchildren in many cases of the 1776 secessionists - in 1861. In the latter case, they just didn’t get a major foreign power jumping in on their side.
Agreed. Guerrilla movements need to be stripped of material support. Sherman invented the seek and destroy strategy against the Indians and wiped out their villages. Kept them on the run until they starved. It takes extreme violence and cruelty to end a war. Grant vs Lee is another example. Anything short of that is a waste of time.
Imagine what could have been...
People are reading your question as a "what if". I'm reading it as a reality, in the sense that since war victors write the history books of the conquered, we actually did lose the Revolutionary war.
Although, I'd qualify that to say patriots won the war for about 20 years, until the first Central Bank (Hamilton). We became beholden to London bankers at that point, continued the war during 1812, and bankrupted causing severe dependence on the bankers after the Civil War.
“The Colonial army could have been snuffed out in August of 1776 on Long Island if not for a fog bank. And any other number of battles and events.”
not just a fog bank, but brave soldiers from the Old Line state that sacrificed for freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1aZyYYm2k
The battle at Great Meadow, in 1754( Fort Necessity) was a year before General Braddock ever set foot on American soil. It was the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755 where Braddock and most of his officers got killed and Washington had to lead the retreat.
You know your history. Admiral de Grasse turned back the British fleet and 3,000 French marines gave Washington a professional reinforcement he badly needed.
I had a Virginia militia Colonel ancestor in charge of a blocking force on far side of the York in case Cornwallis tried escaping by that route.
I read that Britain also had to consider its presence in India. Both used a huge number of resources. I could understand a faction saying the colonies were not worth it.
It’s been done by Robert Sobel in his novel, For Want Of A Nail published in 1997. It’s available on Amazon.
My bad…confused the death and burial site of Braddock near Ft Necessity, with him being in command of that battle. That later Great Meadow battle was on Washington himself.
Just visited Ft Necessity and Braddock’s gravesite last weekend.
Earlier…not later…
Interesting the park historian at Necessity opined that had Washington not surrendered, he would have outlasted the French who were running low on dry ammo in the pouring rain while Washington had a large store of dry ammo protected in his tiny stockage …he also opined that the military battle prep lessons Washington learned stayed with him all of his life
Makes sense.
It was our B-17s and B-29 bombers that won the war in 1776 plus the M-1 carbine....
You’re right, but many of us had to memorize parts of the following poem about the midnight ride of Paul Revere when we were young...
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
LISTEN, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, —
One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good night!” and with muffled oarCover of piano music with a colorful, cartoon image of a man on horseback with other men observing
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, —
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, —
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock,
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, —
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farm-yard wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, —
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
From The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1903
As an ancient civilization, India provided rich booty in the form of large accumulations of gold and gems. The British grabbed all of it that they could. In addition, India also produced tea, spices, silk, and other export commodities in abundance and provided a captive market for British goods.
Notably, British interests in India were in the hands of the East India Company. Chartered by Parliament, the Company and its shareholders mostly organized and paid for its own military forces and campaigns. This helped limit the drain on the British treasury and on royal naval and military assets.
The great draw for the British in India was that much of the wealth gotten there came back to Britain as East India Company dividends, salaries, and as private thievery. In contrast to such sources of private wealth, the pickings in America were slim.
I admit, I am a sucker for movies with alternate endings and time-travel twists, but in real life, there is only one ending and no time-travel twists.
I loved the “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood” for an example of the former, and “The Final Countdown” as a secret pleasure as an example of the latter.
I am proud that our progenitors were tough, stubborn, and mean enough to have fought against a people they legitimately perceived as oppressors...and stuck it out long enough to prevail.
You can probably guess I regard George Washington as the Greatest American of All Time. An improbable man, at an improbable time...and most needed.
But it wasn’t me who said it. King George III said that “George Washington would be the greatest man in the world if he resigned his commission” (meaning he voluntarily relinquished the total power being pressed by a completely trusting people upon him to assume.)
And he did. Just an amazing man, to this day. An Amazing Man.
You’re right - and on a roll today. Again, thanks for sharing.
About 30 years ago a convention of British historians was held to decide who was the most dangerous enemy the British Empire ever faced. A majority voted for George Washington.
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