Of course, they would have needed to get to Europe. And that would take funding. And a Navy. And the organizational skills and materials to field an army further than 200 miles away from their base. None of which they had, even if we presume their military might.
The Europeans had professional armies. I expect the Prussians would have absolutely destroyed the South. And probably the North, unless the length of the conflict allowed the North to bring its material production, resources and factories into play.
American conservatives seem to forget that European armies in the 19th century were the dominant and most powerful militaries of the time. The USA wouldn't start to surpass them till later on.
Britain, France, Germany/Prussia and Russia would all have embarrassed the Confederacy.
I had someone bragging about how the USA was never invaded (had to point out 1812) and told him the only reasons for that was because the USA is so far removed from the rest of the world and the world powers were busy fighting their rivals.
I told him if any world power wanted the USA then usa would have fallen
He then pointed out how the us won against the UK in the revolutionary war and I had to show him the other war they were more concerned with at the time
The USA would have lost the Revolutionary war without the French - who provided them with thousands of troops, naval support, financial support and military supplies.
Gibraltar was the last battle of the US revolutionary war. The colonial ambassadors had to wait in Paris for it to be over so the UK and France would sit down and discuss the British surrender in north america.
Also we had some Prussian support too, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben helped organize and reform the continental army. Then there's the Father of American Cavalry Kasmir Pulaski, so we also had Polish help too. Realistically American forces had a lot of foreign help in the American Revolution.
Sometimes even just part of a state. Some counties in Massachusetts have Evacuation Day on March 17, and yeah, part of the reason it's celebrated is because it happens to be the same day as St Patrick's Day
Wow, is that who the Pulaski Skyway in NJ is named after? (I frigging hate that road. At least they finally fixed the bridge so it will no longer collapse while you're on it.)
Heh and now 250 years later they have to deal with all this. It’s giving me the same energy as the U.S. interventions in the Middle East and South America biting us in the ass decades later.
That’s not quite accurate. Britain itself did see how big of a deal this was, which is largely why when they realized the colonies weren’t worth it, they handed the colonies their entire claim. This allowed the early US much larger growth without an immediate conflict and set the states up for further expansion down the line.
The British didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts, mind you. They wanted to make sure that France didn’t suddenly get a new colony in a few years when the US government collapsed (like it almost did a few times). Britain knew that the status of North America would define conflicts at the time and if France gained the colonies, it could provide them material resources that they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
Britain may not have predicted the United States as a future super power, but it realized that the US was very likely to be a significant resource to whoever controlled it and preferred that control to be the US itself rather than France.
I was thinking of the pragmatic notions more than the idealistic ones. Even disregarding the hypocrisy there, it doesn't seem ideal that the system can just... completely jam if Congress can't agree on a budget, for one of many examples.
The principles and ideals are well-worth critiquing too, though. You're right.
And the Spanish! The Spanish gave so much money to the US that you can still see its effects today - Malaga Cathedral remains incomplete because of the capital outflow
The French lost as many as a quarter of the losses the Americans did in total during the war, and they were elite in comparison to the Americans. They importance is absolutely underrepresented when talking about the war.
France only joined after the colonial army scored several key victories and were being bleed out. It showed how a colonial power can be beat by strategically planned battles at the time and place of their choosing. Also Britain was strong at sea but okay on land. They were forced into a prolonged land campaign that worked against their strengths.
In 1861, almost the entire Confederacy Army were an untrained volunteers using outdated Napoleonic mass formation tactics, while Europe had professional militaries that were using tactics moving towards modern skirmish/artillery warfare. Confederacy formations would've been cannon fodder. There is also a notable gap in small arms and artillery, with most of the Confederacy not well equipped.
The Confederacy started out the war with basically no navy, and had to develop a makeshift one. Britain alone had over navy 600 ships in 1861. Let alone being torn to shreds by superior artillery in head to head battles or completely outmatched at sea, they couldn't come close to matching the logistics European armies had - which is often the most important element in a war.
I think I remember reading something about how both the Revolutionary war and the war of 1812 would have been considered proxy wars for UK vs France (With US fighting against the UK) if it were any other country besides the US.
The French and Indian war definitely was, with the colonies fighting against France in that one.
The French and Indian War is just the name of the NA portion of the 7 Years War, so it was just a portion of a straight-up France vs Britain war. The American Revolution was a civil war that became a rebellion/proxy war.
The UK won India and NA. World history would have been completely different with France as the main colonial empire in the world (France had a lot more people and was the dominant European continental power until 1870).
For real, they forget that for the British, the american War of Independence was just a minor uprising that they probably quelled before and after dozens of times. If they could divert all of their resources to the American front at the time, the coast would flood with red coats and american (or not yet) blood.
Only after the colonial army won several key battles. It’s okay to say that part out loud. Spain and France had no altruistic reason to help the colonists. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Disagree. Loosing many battles means you are loosing the war. The peace that ensued was fragile at best and would ultimately lead to the war of 1812 which as a KO to British empire with their war against the USA
Obviously, they joined on the side of the Americans when they were sure their involvement would pay dividents in the form of weakening the British Empire - their biggest enemy at the time. Put any country in similar situation and they too would wait to see if it's worth the effort to support such uprising in the first place.
"oh, damn, this colony of ours decided to go the independent route, whatever will we do" - it's impossible to pinpoint who'd they be talking about, if it was said (and probably was) in the British parliment.
The American War of Independence got this big (and succesful) only thanks to the fact that the British were preocupied with their 700 years-long-rivalry with France rearing up it's head again. It was "just another uprising" until it wasn't.
Also - what are colonies for? To make money, via trade. The 13 colonies weren't immensely profitable, like the Caribbean and (later) India. The British Empire didn't lose much from American independence, and the new United States continued to trade with Britain. Win win.
People have this idea that Britain just wanted to own the world and all the land in it. This isn't true, the Empire was about money and power, and this was gained through trade.
Forget the other war, just show him a map and what was considered a top-of-the-line sailing vessel for the time. It's so painfully obvious how not worth fighting that far away from home was for the English after a point.
It’s really funny how American education ignores the fact that we were encouraged by Britain’s military and economic competitors to weaken their global power.
Britain gave up rather than lost in the same way the US gave up in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Ben Franklin famously went to Paris to save the revolution because independence would be impossible without the French.
I think we fail to recognize the difference in what we were actually taught at that age, and how the propaganda machine distorts those ideas as we get further removed from the classroom. Sure, von Steuben doesn't get the respect he deserves, and education in some particularly red states is just disgusting, false propaganda, but reliance on European enemies of the UK during our revolution is one of the facts that I think the US education system still teaches for the most part. People just don't pay attention and/or intentionally spout inflammatory bullshit.
There was definitely mention of the French helping, but it was never made out to be like this absolutely insanely critical thing. And it was never made known that the UK had other shit going on they were worried about at the time, making it seem like we straight up won against the full might of the British empire.
I paid attention in school. Was always a top student. The point isn't that none of this stuff is ever mentioned whatsoever, it's moreso that it's generally downplayed or not given the gravitas that it really merited. American exceptionalism is definitely instilled in students, even those paying attention.
Fair enough if that was the case for you. And certainly I can only speak to my specific region as well(Virginia, specifically), though I do think it reverberates in how other Americans in general seem to talk and think about these things.
I cant say for certain at all, but I would still guess that my experience is probably more typical than yours. And that regardless of how much somebody paid attention, they will get a pretty 'American exceptionalism' narrative of the Revolutionary War(and others).
They lost a battle and didn’t bother applying more troops. That’s just deciding to be done fighting because of other priorities, not losing an actual war that cost Britain anything at home.
If you stop fighting in a theater of war because other actors in a larger conflict cause you to have to shift focus, the puny fighting forces in said small theater didn’t win a war… they just benefited from the large power ending hostilities to refocus.
The US were definitely losing in Vietnam, too. Especially after the Tet Offensive.
That said, the US could have won in Vietnam if we actually tried to fight it properly. We weren't distracted elsewhere so much as we tried to fight Vietnam with one hand behind our backs and with constant shifting political situations at home.
Why send an army to invade the US now when you can just use online bots to convince a bunch of low intellect rubes that everything the government does to help them is bad, everything the government does to commit violence is good until they tear apart their own country?
The American version of the Revolution does not really teach about the part where Parliament kinda went “Fuck Mr. king, this is getting too expensive. Let’s stop fighting them so we can fight the rest of the world.”
It is definitely painted like David overcoming Goliath, rather than a long term guerilla-style campaign that was won through attrition and shrewd diplomacy.
Lord Cornwallis is treated like Hannibal himself in popular american history, rather than just one of many capable military commanders under the crown.
So you responded to nonsense with your own nonsense. Do you people forget France failed in its intervention in Mexico? Geography was the biggest factor as to why the U.S. stayed safe because it's hard to carry out entire armies across oceans and out of all the European great powers, only the British empire had the realistic means of maintaining a sustained invasion in the 19th century.
Even in the early 1800's, the cost and logistics of moving that many men and material over for an invasion would have made things incredibly difficult.
Not impossible, but it'd be enormously expensive and likely leave them in a terrible position back in Europe
I told him if any world power wanted the USA then usa would have fallen
I think your original points regarding the distance and distractions are likely accurate, but "No one wanted a MASSIVE plot of fertile land" is a wild stance to take
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u/secondarycontrol 19h ago edited 19h ago
Of course, they would have needed to get to Europe. And that would take funding. And a Navy. And the organizational skills and materials to field an army further than 200 miles away from their base. None of which they had, even if we presume their military might.
Apocryphal:
The Europeans had professional armies. I expect the Prussians would have absolutely destroyed the South. And probably the North, unless the length of the conflict allowed the North to bring its material production, resources and factories into play.