What do you think accounts for the American victory in the Revolutionary War of

Question: What do you think accounts for the American victory in the Revolutionary War of 1776!?

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The Revolutionary War should be thought of in proper context!. This was one of the first world wars!. The english were fighting around the world and were unable to sustain a protracted land war in North America!. Their army was relatively small in comparison to other European nations!. Projecting naval power was their strength!. As long as the Americans continued fighting, Britain would eventually lose!. Washington knew this and pursued a strategy of mobile defense!. That is, keep your enemy engaged and wait until he makes a mistake, then capitalize on it!. In the broader context of a world war, the english won a fantastic victory that ensured British dominance for the next one hundred and fifty years!. Although the north american colonies were lost, more important colonies were secured and new ones captured!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

There are a number of reasons, of which many have little to do with the success of American combatants!.

Firstly, the British were not keen on fighting what were fellow Englishmen, albeit the colonial variety, and many in the colonial camp did consider themselves as such and not just the loyalists either!. The idea of subjugating a group of people whom Parliament wished to remain on good terms with was not only unpalatable but self defeating!.

Many British citizens in the home country were also against armed intervention, believing it to be a fruitless exercise and especially since the merchant class were losing valuable trade they made complaints to their local MP's!. This attitude was similar to that experienced by the US during the Vietnam conflict and we all know what happened there!.!.!.

The distance to supply British troops also proved difficult and this minor conflict in a far outpost of the Empire was of secondary importance to competing with the French in claiming India and other far more profitable lands in Asia!. Therefore second class commanders were sent to America with the majority of ground troops being Hessian, Hanoverian, Prussian and of course the largest group being Loyalist colonials!. There were very few actual British involved!.

In the traditional 18th battle the colonial militia proved fairly inadequate with the greater percentage of "stand-up fights" actually being won by the Redcoats!. Militiamen had a tendency to break easily and take themselves back home at various points!. However, their true skill played an important part in the ability to fight unconventionally, in that they were adept snipers and were able to use their knowledge of the land far better than their opponents!. They also went against the traditional "rules" in that they would specifically target officers (something previously unheard of and considered "bad sportsmanship" by the British) which would throw untried regiments into confusion without a leader!.
The ability for the colonial army to move swiftly across land meant that the British ended up playing a game of cat and mouse, eventually chasing their own tails!.

But the greatest help militarily for the colonials came from the French!. Without whom the chances were that the conflict could have dragged on much longer until either the British gave up and went home or involved better forces - the result of which can be seen in the War of 1812 where the US suffers terrible defeats, has it's capital and White House burnt and almost loses control of the Northern States were it not for a hasty discussion of peace brought about by the Belgians - either way there would have been some serious bloodletting!. The intervention of the French navy proved decisive and the extra training they supplied Washington's men was extremley advantageous, finally putting the nail in the coffin of Cornwallis' hopes of an escape from Yorktown!.

Had the British the desire to come back and finish the job they certainly had the capability to do so and even learned some valuable lessons in how to fight against a "guerilla-style" enemy!. But they knew this would not win over hearts and minds (to use a modern phrase) and bring eveyone back under the wing of the Empire, so Britain wrote off it's American colonies but retained control of Canada, giving land to many loyalists who had fought for them when they began to suffer persecution (feather and tarring, brandings, mutilations, destruction of property) at the hands of the victorious rebels!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

And the British were without doubt glad to be rid of it!.
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Rage After you troops marched on Concord to show force and shoot a handful of yanks by the time they got back to Boston over 300 were killed by enraged farmers We yanks refer to that as the shoot heard around the world
For the post below the English enlisted the American Indian and shipped Germans over to fight and kill us 150 years you say well we declared war on you in 1812 and won and when y'all invaded Mexico with French and Spain in 1863 we told y'all to get out of the Americas you and Spain had the good sence to listenWww@QuestionHome@Com