“Infantry still determines who wins, ... whoever has “boots on the ground” owns it. ... during the Revolution, Britain still had to fight this war from an ocean away; it simply couldn’t be done as long as the colonists could live independently of them (and they could ...”
Hadn’t seen such a succinct misreading of the American War of Independence before. Not to mention factually mistaken at several points.
I have heard it put more wittily, that in AWI the British held cities and thought they were winning, while the Colonists held the hinterland and thought they were winning. So nothing much happened for a while.
If kearnyirish2 were thinking, instead of repeating commonplace “timeless truths,” he (she) should be puzzled that the British did not prevail: they put more and better boots on the ground, at almost every turn.
American success hinged not upon winning, but on not losing: possessed of strategic insight and a goodly amount of luck, General Washington avoided complete collapse of the cause by not engaging in any standup fight, toe to toe with enemy, that might have finished off the Continental Army.
In this fashion, the Americans managed to escape utter defeat, stringing the British along until the attention spans back home in England were exceeded, and the French could be convinced to agree to an alliance with the fledgling United States.
Sea power figured prominently at several junctures:
- General Washington outfitted several small men-of-war during the siege of Boston, to go out and capture British supply vessels. They only captured one of any size, but the success completely revitalized morale in the investing American forces (not to mention augmenting supplies of munitions and other warlike stores). He considered the mission so sensitive he kept it secret from the Continental Congress.
- American forces built a fleet of small warships at Whitehall NY (then named Skenesboro) on Lake Champlain. Ably and daringly commanded by Benedict Arnold - who had commanded a merchant vessel before the war - it suffered defeat and great loss at the Battle of Valcour Island, but delayed the British advance southward until after the winter of 1776-1777, gaining time for the American cause, until effective resistance could be mounted - leading to the Battles of Bemis Heights and Freeman’s Farm, near what is now Saratoga. The only strategic American victories of the entire war; British invasion strategy collapsed. Whitehall is still known as the “Birthplace of the American Navy.”
- As autumn 1781 loomed, General Washington, tiring of prolonged inaction, resolved to assault New York, which the British had held since early 1776. The French allies advised him not to attempt it. He nevertheless ordered the start of the march into assault positions. At this moment, word reached his HQ that Lord Cornwallis’ forces had retreated to Yorktown, and that the French fleet was sailing from the West Indies.
With an adroitness and flexibility still envied by modern commanders, General Washington redirected the march from the Hudson River above New York, across northern New Jersey and southeast Pennsylvania, to Head of Elk in Maryland - the northernmost inlet of Chesapeake Bay. There, American forces took ship in a fleet of small vessels and sailed south to lay siege to Lord Cornwallis’ forces.
The French fleet under the Comte de Gras engaged the British fleet under Admiral Graves; the Royal Navy was defeated and driven off. The total number of sailors aboard both fleets outnumbered the British Army and the Continental Army combined, with boots on the ground at that moment, in North America. Lord Cornwallis could neither be rescued nor reinforced, and the French were able to land reinforcements, supplies, and heavy artillery for use by American ground forces and their French allies in the siege.
When Lord Cornwallis surrendered, even the most diehard British leaders realized the American portion of the wider war was over. But the larger war continued elsewhere: Spain came in on the side of the French, as did the Dutch. The British came out of it nicely, winning a great victory in the West Indies.
But is it false to say “boots on the ground” brought victory to the American cause.
And to correct further factual inaccuracies, the Colonists were not self-sufficient enough to live independently of the British, or some equivalent source of equipment, supplies, and finished goods. They may have wanted to, but British attempts to enforce mercantile policies were a contributing factor in bringing about AWI. And American forces went in dire need for the duration, short of weapons, ammunition, uniforms, equipment, rations, and every single one of the items without number that an army even then required, to field an effective force. French officers, richly attired, abundantly supplied, riding at the head of column after column of the best troops in Europe, derided the Americans as downcast and threadbare. Doesn’t sound much like self-sufficiency.
Lord Cornwallis went off to India. He and Admiral Graves spent the rest of their lives, trading gentlemanly barbs in professional journals, over Who Lost America.
The truth is, the United States was founded as a trading nation. All such entities by definition are never self-sufficient, though they may become self-reliant. All the verbiage to the contrary, about shining cities on hills and the like, were never more than PR flummery, to heat up isolationist sentiments among a population already far too inclined to self-righteousness, self-congratulation, and self-regard.
Thanks!
They couldn’t fight the war so far away; they resorted to sending mercenaries, they couldn’t even hold Boston (probably the closest American city to London), and they had to defend Canada rather than use it as an offensive post. Holding the coastal areas of the US simply wasn’t a winning strategy; the “hinterland” to which you refer not only provided the colonists with everything they needed, but denied the British the very resources for which they ever wanted the colonies to begin with.
Can you envision any scenario under which Britain could win? Were they going to fill the colonies all the way to the frontier with redcoats? Once the colonists were armed the ensuing years were a mere formality; they could have won 100 more battles after Yorktown and would still lose the war.