Alternate Revolutionary War

1775: Battle of Lexington: Americans route British

Battle of Concord: British route Minutemen

Battle of Bunker Hill: British win battle with only 29 casualties, all officers; the American commander, General Nathaniel Greene is captured, and exchanged with Second-in-command Joseph Andre, who was captured in the fighting.

1776: Benidict Arnold, British commander in Boston, defects to the Americans. He is captured on the way to New York City and court-martialed; he is ultimately executed in a trial presided over by George Washington.

Declaration of Independence signed in Philadelphia.

Battle of Long Island: George Washington, British Commander, defeats Nathaneal Greene.

Battle of Ticonderoga: George Washington defeats Horatio Gates.

Shortly afterward, George Washington defects to the American side, taking with him most of the Army in America, after Parliament refuses to raise him to the rank of Major General.

1777: General Burgoyne, the British commander-in-chief, defeats George Washington in the Battle of Trenton.

Battle of Monmouth: General Burgoyne shot in the leg and forced to withdraw. He nonetheless defeats Washington decisively, winning him New Jersey.

Battle of Philadelphia: General Horatio Gates (who defected to the British) decisively defeated by Nathaniel Greene in what was an attempt to capture the city.

1778: Benjamin Franklin, wooing the support of King of France, wins French recognition of America.

Battle of Chesapeake: Admiral de Grasse defeats Admiral Cornwallis and captures Yorktown.

Battle of Rhode Island: British military commander in New England, Lord Howe, defeats George Washington outside Newport, which was a center of American privateering.

Second Battle of Chesapeake: Admiral Cornwallis defeats De Grasse, recapturing Yorktown.

First Battle of Saratoga: Lord Howe wounded and desicively defeated by George Washington.

Second Battle of Saratoga: Lord Howe defeated and captured by Washington, but his army is reduced to 1600 men.

1779: Third Battle of Saratoga: British Army under Horatio Gates decimates Washington’s Army, winning control of New England; Americans under the still uncaptured Washington exchange Lord Howe in return for safe passage out of the area.

Spain recognizes America.

Third Battle of Chesapeake: Admiral De Grasse wounded and captured off the Chesapeake by a fleet lead by Admiral John Paul Jones.

1780: General Burgoyne lands in Williamsburg, capturing the city unopposed.

Battle of Kings Mountain: Lord Howe, ordered to invade the South, is badly defeated by George Washington.

Battle of Guildford Courthouse: Lord Howe almost captured by an army under Nathaniel Greene. His army is subsequently reinforced.

Nathaniel Greene defeated and captured in Charleston.

A one-year truce is negotiated in July.

Holland recognizes America.

1781: Fourth Battle of Chesapeake: De Grasse decisively defeated and forced to leave Chesapeake Bay by British under Admiral Cornwallis, cutting off Washington’s escape route.

Battle of Yorktown: Lord Howe defeats George Washington, capturing him and his 7000 men.

1783: Treaty of Paris: US rescinds Declaration of Independence and submits to authority of the British Crown; Britain agrees to exempt colonials from most taxes for 5 years, after which taxes gradually raise. Office of viceroy, an elected position, is formed.

1788: Colonials elect George Washington first viceroy; he is reelected in 1792, but refuses to serve another term.


What is wrong?

Greene was not present at Battle of Bunker Hill.

Benedict Arnold was never British commander in Boston. He was allied with the Americans in 1776. Also, he was never convicted for treason in a trial presided over by George Washington; that describes Joseph Andre.

George Washington was never allied with the British; he and Greene were always on the same side in the conflict.

Horatio Gates was never allied with the British.

George Washington never defected to the American side; he not once in his life asked for the rank of Major General.

The winners and losers are reversed in the battles of Trenton and Monmouth that they are in real life; also, there is mention of neither the crossing of the Delaware River nor of Hessians. General Burgoyne was never shot in the leg; that distinction goes to Benedict Arnold,

Gates never marched on Philadelphia; also, the British took Philadelphia without resistance.

Cornwallis was never Admiral; the French never captured Yorktown until 1781.

The Battle of Rhode Island was not until 1780; at the date of the Battle of Rhode Island in this fictional timeline, George Washington was in Valley Forge.

There was no Second Battle of Cheaspeake, nor was there a Third or Fourth.

There was no Third Battle of Saratoga; Lord Howe was neither captured by the Americans nor exchanged for any reason. Also, George Washington was never present in the Battles of Saratoga, nor was Lord Howe; the actual commanders were Gates and Burgoyne.

Admiral De Grasse was defeated and captured in 1783 (after the War had ended), not in 1779; John Paul Jones was never on the side of the British.

Lord Howe was the British Commander neither in the Battle of Kings Mountain nor in Guilford Courthouse. The American Commanders at Kings Mountain and Guilford Courthouse were switched; Greene commanded at Kings and Washington at Guildford.

Nathaniel Greene was never captured in Charleston.

There was no universal truce at any time during the Revolutionary War before 1781 (This truce was my lazy solution to fill the gap between 1780 and 1781)

George Washington was not defeated at Yorktown; he won that battle, and it was Cornwallis that did. Conversely, Lord Howe, the loser of the naval battle (as Admiral) to stay in the Chesapeake in real life, becomes the winner of the naval battle to enter the Chesapeake.

I wrote this at least 3 years ago. Just discovered this, the first alternate-history writing I ever did.
Thoughts?
 
What is wrong is that your final settlement is hugely incoherent with the course of events you describe.

What you describe is a strategic triumph for Britain. George Washington so many times defeated and finally captured would end winning either 12 bullets or a necklace rope. And if ever the british spared his life, they would never ever let him be elected vice-roy of british America and the people of the 13 colonies would probably in majority not want as their leader the man who lost so constantly the battles in which he engaged the armies with which he was entrusted.

It is as if you imagined Edward I putting William Wallace on the throne of Scotland after capturing him, or the duke of Bedford making prisoner Joan of Arc as plenipotentiary of Charles VII to negotiate a deal, or naming Paul Kruger as head of South Africa just after the second Boer war.
 
What is wrong is that your final settlement is hugely incoherent with the course of events you describe.

What you describe is a strategic triumph for Britain. George Washington so many times defeated and finally captured would end winning either 12 bullets or a necklace rope. And if ever the british spared his life, they would never ever let him be elected vice-roy of british America and the people of the 13 colonies would probably in majority not want as their leader the man who lost so constantly the battles in which he engaged the armies with which he was entrusted.

It is as if you imagined Edward I putting William Wallace on the throne of Scotland after capturing him, or the duke of Bedford making prisoner Joan of Arc as plenipotentiary of Charles VII to negotiate a deal, or naming Paul Kruger as head of South Africa just after the second Boer war.
Yeah, my 15-year old mind wasn't really writing plausible stuff.
Who would be a more likely viceroy?
 
Yeah, my 15-year old mind wasn't really writing plausible stuff.
Who would be a more likely viceroy?

Don't know who although It is obvious that It will be loyalist settlers. And I know how many : not 1 but 13 viceroys.

Dividet ut regnat was the basics of running and retaining an empire, especially defeated rebel provinces.
 
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Don't know who although It is obvious that It will be loyalist settlers. And I know how many : not 1 but 13 viceroys.

Dividet ut regnat was the basics of running and retaining an empire, especially defeated rebel provinces.
Ah. 13 viceroys instead of 1 is definitely something I see the Brits doing.
 
You have Benedict Arnold and Nathaniel Greene as highly ranking Generals pretty early. Neither were of the social status of receiving that rank so early.

Did you mean John Andre instead of Joseph Andre? He would not be the second-in-command at this point. He was too junior an officer. I'm not even sure if he was a major yet.

How did George Washington become a general? It was not British policy to let an unknown Virginia Colonel to command what I presume is a mixed British-Loyalist Army. If the British treated Americans as equals, there wouldn't have been a war.
 
You have Benedict Arnold and Nathaniel Greene as highly ranking Generals pretty early. Neither were of the social status of receiving that rank so early.

Did you mean John Andre instead of Joseph Andre? He would not be the second-in-command at this point. He was too junior an officer. I'm not even sure if he was a major yet.

How did George Washington become a general? It was not British policy to let an unknown Virginia Colonel to command what I presume is a mixed British-Loyalist Army. If the British treated Americans as equals, there wouldn't have been a war.
Out of these three good points, which one of the these three things is most unrealistic?
 
John Andre was a very young officer at this time. At Bunker Hill, there were four Generals present. He simply would not have been ranked so high in the chain.

Greene was still barely a regimental colonel at this time. He would not be commanding armies. That would have fallen to Artemis Ward or one of the other original Major Generals.

Arnold might have been a commanding General within a year or so if he'd managed to take Quebec and didn't have to share the glory with Montgomery.

You didn't really go into why/how Washington ended up a Loyalist. It may make sense if he got his British Army commission he wanted in 1760 and went on to a 15 year British career instead of going home to Virginia in a huff after the French and Indian War. Otherwise, I'd say him commanding a British army was impossible. At most he'd be a Brigadier commanding a Loyalist Regiment.
 
John Andre was a very young officer at this time. At Bunker Hill, there were four Generals present. He simply would not have been ranked so high in the chain.

Greene was still barely a regimental colonel at this time. He would not be commanding armies. That would have fallen to Artemis Ward or one of the other original Major Generals.

Arnold might have been a commanding General within a year or so if he'd managed to take Quebec and didn't have to share the glory with Montgomery.

You didn't really go into why/how Washington ended up a Loyalist. It may make sense if he got his British Army commission he wanted in 1760 and went on to a 15 year British career instead of going home to Virginia in a huff after the French and Indian War. Otherwise, I'd say him commanding a British army was impossible. At most he'd be a Brigadier commanding a Loyalist Regiment.
So what I have in store for Arnold and Washington are quite plausible?
 
If the POD on Washington is early enough. I don't see him sitting in his Virginia plantation in 1775 and then spontaneously being given command of a British army. He would have to work his way up the ranks in the British army from 1756. Maybe get his commission as Colonel in the colonial army upgraded to the British Army if the 1st Virginia Regiment were to be taken directly into British service. This was not uncommon. In the American Revolutionary War, several regiments were raised by British nobles whom paid for their founding (thus saving the Crown money). Obviously, career officers often resented men with no experience being given full Colonel's (or major's, or Captain's) ranks and these regiments were often derided by "standing armies".


Then maybe Washington could transfer over to a long-standing unit via the commission purchase system and serve in some out of the way British post that British officers would not want (maybe India or the West Indies) and get some battle experience. That would allow him to be promoted to a General Rank in time for the American Revolutionary War. When the King wanted an officer with local experience (like Gage and Howe whom fought in the French and Indian War, Henry Clinton was born in America) to command the British force in Boston, Washington might be a natural choice.

I don't see Arnold being in command of the American Army in 1775. He was still a little know officer whom got his rank by offering to march on Quebec (which few others wanted to do) and that, I believe, was occurring at the same time of the Siege of Boston. However, the conquest of Quebec would no doubt make Arnold a candidate for command of the American army after Artemis Ward's incapacity was evident.
 
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