ARW dont succeed, no Yorktown

[mattep74]

WI admiral Rodney catches de Grasses fleet before yorktown and defeats the french navy. This is late in the war and Rodney OTL choosed to defend Barbados and not sail after De Grasse and prevent him from showing up at Yorktown.(i am reading first salute for the 5th time since i got it, first time since the turn of the century)

How does a defeat this late in the war affect the rest of the world if the ARW ends with a mediated peace by queen Katarina of Russia?



France is still bankrupt and will surley have to call the parliament anyway.

[037771]

It is very, very late in the revolution....

I think its too late for the Revolution to fail; if the British did succeed eventually in retaking the continent then methinks they have trouble with the Colonists for decades.

You raise the possibility of a negotiated peace though, brokered by the Empress Catherine of Russia...I would think an America would emerge, but with a largely undepleted British Army in the south then the UK is in a position to demand back what its troops are on.....so South Carolina, New York? Nicomacheus would know more about this than I.....

[metalstar316]

By that point the ARW was extremely costly to and unpopular with the citizens of Britain. They simply had no more stomach for war. Yorktown was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

If you'll recall, there where two years between Cornwallis' surrender and the actual signing of the Treaty of Paris.

[Grey Wolf]

Britain could win itself a stronger position to hold onto disputed areas - Maine, the Old North-West etc

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

[Nicomacheus]

I'm a little fuzzy on the POD: if de Grasse is caught by Rodney, then the biggest difference is that he can't send his transports to Washington in early September. However, Washington had been march toward Virginia since August 19 or so; by the time he de Grasse sent his transports, he was in Philly at least. Additionally, Wiki says that Washington visited Mt. Vernon on the way to Yorktown. I'm not sure if he did so by sea or by land; if the former, then we can conclude that the march to Yorktown may be delayed, but not thwarted. If the latter, then Washington should arrive on schedule, simply without de Grasse's 3,200 men and without much support from the French.

If the seige is delayed, Cornwallis may attempt to fight Wayne's forces before Washington arrives, but that would be a big gamble. He may prefer to wait for Clinton to send reinforcements from New York and thus allow a seige to begin. Either way, I don't really see what it means for there to be "no Yorktown" under such circumstances. There's going to be a battle of some sort.

Now, I think what the OP means is that the ATL battle lacks the finality of Cornwallis' surrendur, which leads to a mediated peace. I'm not sure Spain and France would go for this, since IIRC they still haven't failed to take Gibraltar or Carribean islands. Both of these nations are in the war to bloody Britain's nose and they haven't really had their chance in 1781. It's possible, then, that Britain is forced to concentrate both on manning troops in the USA and fighting off the Spanish and the French from 1781 onwards, which may well prove harder than OTL.

Furthermore, Russia will hardly be a neutral arbiter and will be disposed to give the US a good deal so as to give the British a bad one. Also, how exactly does Russia benefit from stopping the war? It's not as if they can force the British to terms and they don't benefit from France and Britain exhausting each other. Hence, presuming a peace under Russian auspices may result in a peace with the same borders as OTL, but with far different circumstances on the ground: more chaos in the USA, perhaps more trouble with freed slaves (which might be a long term boon). It might also result in the British retaining some land from GA to Ohio, but it might also not.