Background:
1. Britain won Canada in 7 Years War from France.
P0D:
1. The American Revolution continues as in OTL.
2. In OTL 1776, a force of 30,000 Britons and Germans showed up and spent the year kicking the Continental Army's ass. The majority of this reinforcement force was German. Note that many thousands of German mercenaries and Hanoverians were also hired to man other areas of Britain's domains, thus freeing up Britons to fight that otherwise could not (some went to the Channel Islands, Ireland, the West Indies, India, Gibraltar, Minorca). Britain did find a few more thousand from other German states but they were of poor quality.
Best luck was with using mercs in "safe areas", where they weren't called on to do much real fighting. Worst luck was, after the ARW became a world war the number of "safe areas" quickly dropped to zero. Unless the British try to use German mercs in India, Canada, and the UK!
The poorer quality mercs tended to desert at the first opportunity in the 13 Colonies.
3. With Hanover gone (they lent 5,000 at least to Britain) and Brunswick/Hesse/Lippe unable to sent reinforcements (they rented 30,000 at least, 20,000 in 1776), in 1776 Britain could probably only dispatch closer to 10,000 men to America to reinforce William Howe's 10,000 or so already there (the remnants of the Boston force had sailed to Halifax for the winter). With only 20,000 men total from Quebec to Florida, how would 1776 have played out?
Would Britain send any reinforcements (OTL was about 10,000 under Guy Carleton) to Quebec, thus keeping Quebec safe throughout the end of the War
Absolutely. With the Seven Years War ending so badly, and the Quebecois having proven themselves so loyal in the 1775 campaign against the invading Americans, the British CANNOT lose half a continent (which failing to relieve the besieged Carleton would mean) and give the Americans such an easy victory. The North Government would almost certainly fall, even if George III then jump started North again.
or would they risk Quebec and concentrate on a "knock-out blow" in New York?
New York isn't going anywhere, and Howe has the forces to save Quebec, drive Arnold back to New York State, and kick Washington's ass still. Its just that more of Washington's army may escape (before they desert anyway), and the Tories mayl have less enthusiasm in NYC than OTL (which was ALOT).
Would Howe dispatch several thousand men under Clinton in a failed attack on Charleston?
No. Something's gotta give somewhere.
Would the small garrisons in Florida been viable?
Yes, as long as Europe is still staying out of things.
Would less of an ass-kicking at the hands of a weakened British Army in 1776 bring France and/or Spain into the fight a year early?
No. Spain was much less enthusiastic about supporting the American rebels than France, and France's entry was based on a very deliberately paced military build-up, mobilization, and naval strategic redeployment to allow them to sortie the fleet before the British could employ their traditional methods of blockade to neutralize the Franco-Spanish fleets.
By the time that the French went to war, the Royal Navy had discovered to their dismay that the French Navy had departed their harbors and were long gone. Worse yet, in a deliberate policy between 1763 and 1778, the French Navy had adopted a policy of "build, build, build", while the RN's seemed to be "rot, rot, rot".
Quantitatively and especially qualitatively the French fleets in 1778 were probably closer to parity with the Royal Navy than at any other time between the two countries ever. Before or since. But the French had to wait to be ready.
This was an unpopular war in Britain, volunteers hard to come by for most of the war. Would Britain take more..FIRM...measures to draft soldiers, at the possible expense of British public ill-will?
Actually, once France entered the war volunteers swarmed into the army, especially the militias.
Then there's the problem of conscription. If you really need to enact a DRAFT to raise an army to squelch a domestic rebellion, what does that say about the political foundations of your own cause? Talk about a rich man's war
Would the role of Loyalists (arguably ignored much of the war) be greater?
The problem with using Loyalists is that you need the kinder gentler leadership which you aren't going to find in the British Army of the 1770s. No "Hearts & Minds" here. Just "SUBMIT OR ELSE!" For every Ferguson in the British Army, they had three or ten or fifty Tarletons.
Give the British Army in 1775 a hundred Fergusons, and they can raise a Loyalist Army capable of standing up to any Patriot force other than Washington's own. Make ALL officers in the British Army in America Fergusons, and military resistance will be crushed.
Britain didn't have any allies at this point in our timeline, so not sure how much difference it makes. That was why the Revolutionary War was so harmful to them. In this scenario, a Russian-British alliance might even be more likely.
Catherine the Great is ruler of Russia and she led the League of Neutrality. Butterflies aren't making her a British ally. Especially as its been such an enormous goal of Britain to make sure the Russians can never achieve a free open year round large warm water port.
There is one additional issue, which is this complaint in the Declaration of Independence:
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
That's one inflammatory issue taken off the table. Although it probably doesn't make too much difference.
Delete "foreign mercenaries" and insert "native savages", and its back on the table.
If the Revolution goes ahead, Britain is either resorting to conscription or is pretty screwed.
They could I suppose empty every last prison in the UK and make for draconian courts issuing sentences for trumpery (fake) charges that allow judges to order (healthy male) defendants to "serve in the army or die" for the crime of parking in the handicapped zone

Or something.
I think they probably adopt a defensive position with respect to Canada early if they can't implement a draft.
Agreed. Once Canada is saved it stays saved. And forget Johnny Burgoyne's expedition, meaning Saratoga is butterflied! Good news for London, even though they won't know it.
I still find it struggling that those minor German states could provide 30,000 men.
Believe it. If anything, those numbers are a little on the low side. I would have thought closer to 50,000. Though over the course of the entire war, 1775-1783. Also, the German mercenaries were a sieve in terms of resources. Expensive to equip and maintain, unreliable, prone to desertion, and insured to elevate Patriot activity wherever they marched. Machiavelli warned that mercs were very much a two-sided sword. As usual, he was right.
I don't remember the source

, but IIRC the theory was that the main reason Howe didn't "march out and destroy Washington's army once and for all", which logically he could have, was because of all the mercenaries he had under his command.
Clinton advocated that the whole of the Colonies would have to be occupied by British garrisons to insure that the rebel scourge was and would remain completely wiped out (this was in his own memoirs).
But apparently Howe was concerned that the deeper his army advanced into the American interior, the more spread out his army would become, and the greater the opportunity for German mercenaries (many of them dragooned off the streets and highways of Germany, with no interest in being soldiers) to desert.
ITTL, that won't be a problem. OTOH, Howe won't have the forces to engage in deep penetrating campaigns either. No conquest of Philadelphia.
I'm also not sure the Revolution goes ahead on schedule. George III's humbling in the Seven Years' War might make him a less belligerent man in terms of interfering politically. That could have ramifications.
Mad King George
How would Long Island go?
OTL
they still win long island. no quebec expedition. the british try a loyalist based "enclave strategy of holding nyc the loer hudson and northeast new jersey. france jumps in. france will probably focuss on the seaboard and cairribean but will have a st lawrence option. if british holdings around nyc are stable the british may try a second enclave based on georgia.
That means Britain has no war strategy beyond "holding on". George wanted Submission, which passive enclave strategies won't get him.
Hi. I don't know much about the American Revolution, but could Britain not having those German reinforcements make them open to negotiating a deal that keeps the colonies as part of the empire?
That would mean changing all British policies towards the 13 Colonies from 1763 onwards. Quite frankly, the British mercantile system was incapable of handling the American Colonies by 1763. Worse, after the 7YW London decided to start running the colonies directly from Westminster, after 150 years of the Colonies having been forced by benign neglect to look after their own affairs.
Essentially, once the shooting started, after the Second Continental Congress' appeal letter (of respectful moderation to use Winston Churchill's words) was dismissed out of hand by George and Parliament, and London went to DEFCON 1 against the Colonies by sending the largest possible army that they could mobilize to NYC, the die was cast. No more negotiations. The Declaration of Independence was issued even as the first British troops were landing in Long Island.
Possibly, though most Britain's would think in 1776 that 20,000 would be overkill to defeat colonists.
Absolutely. American militia performance was horrendous in the 7YW, mainly due to a total lack of training. So the British impression was understandable. What we know today as the United States Army didn't truly exist until after the winter of Valley Forge, when the Prussian Major General Steuben was able to train Washington's army up to a decent state of professionalism.
The American Tory Militias got much better preparation before becoming mobilized.
Really, continental politics could go any which way-
Most dangerous course of events for Britain would be if the Franco-Austrian-Russian alliance stays together for decades, its members don’t war on each other, they possibly all reach a deal to partition the Ottoman Empire, they promote their own industries and restrict British trade, and France uses its strong position to take over the southern Netherlands, overawe the Dutch Republic, build up its navy and start peeling back British colonies around the world.
Is that most likely?
Probably not –
Of the three, any of France, Austria or Russia will probably fall out with the others and have a war with them over the next half century.
Since the ARW goes forward, does the Wars of the French Revolution (OK! OK! You can declare Nappy "butterflied") stir the pot a bit?
I think 2 kinds of british colonies must be distinguished : the settlement colonies and the classic exploitation/control colonies.
Considering the demographic dynamics and advance, by that time nobody but the settlers themselves could oust Britain out of the core of the north american east coast, except for Territories north fringe of those colonies (Maine, Vermont, and what became British Canada).
It was not a matter of sea power but of mere demography. Just consider Portugal with Brazil or Spain with its continental american colonies because they had a critical mass of settler population nobody could challenge. Time, having been the first and only one to reach this critical mass on these territories ensured that those territories would remain culturally mainly creole portuguese, creole spanish, ... etc.
The other classic exploitation/control colonies could be lost to a rival power.
Matteo
Best analysis on this thread.
