Cliches of a failed American Revolution-

raharris1973

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1) Even if failing in the Atlantic seaboard colonies, the Patriot leaders could/would have set up a regime to the west of the mountains.

Sobel's "For Want of a Nail" might be responsible for this one, with its feature of refugee founding fathers creating a new state in Mexico.

In any case, not too likely at all the Patriots would succeed west of the mountains if they failed to the east. Despite the existence of settlements west of the mountains in places like Kentucky, the demographic center of the colonies was definitely the east. Hardly any majority or critical mass of Amerindians had reason to work with the American rebels, there was far more self-interest in working with the British. Among whites west of the mountains there was not a Patriot consensus either, there were many loyalists in the west as well.

2) In a perpetuated union of the 13 Colonies under the British Empire, the imperial capital is likely to move to America eventually, and not only to America, but somewhere in the middle of the continent rather than east coast

I've seen this a few times, not sure entirely where it comes from.

Countries are resistant to moving their capitals out of both tradition and self-interest. Decades after a failed revolution, the British Isles would still have a larger population and higher GDP than British North America.

Yes the circumstances of the Napoleonic war and the particular circumstances of the Portuguese empire result in the dynasty fleeing from Lisbon to Sao Paulo, but it's the exception that proves the rule. This did not happen in the Spanish Empire despite some advocacy for it in Spanish America. Additionally, there's not many likely scenarios in which the King and Parliament would be driven out of the British Isles.

Also, look at the United States. For all its westward expansion, and the major growth of the demographic weight of California and Texas (and the lack of corresponding eastern expansion), the capital has remained in Washington, DC near the east coast since the `18th century.

3) After defeating the Patriots, the reunified British-American Empire would most likely go on a conquest binge against Spanish America.

That would probably be expensive and uncertain of success. The prize would be alot of thinly populated territory considered desert, but the tropical areas of greater value would be disease-ridden death traps for the British, and they had experienced some of this before.

Additionally, the timing of the American Revolution after the great conquests of the French and Indian War was an object lesson in expansion not necessarily bringing stability

4) Every leader on the Patriot side would hang

This could happen depending on the particular circumstances of a British victory (like if it's overwhelming), but many of the PoDs for a failed revolution also involve diminution or elimination of French support. While that makes Yorktown impossible, to settle the bleeding ulcer, Britain is likely to have to end the war in a negotiated manner, the first thing the rebel side being sure to negotiate being their lives and property. Once agreed to as a package deal, there would be high costs in Britain politically in doing a bait and switch, conducting a star chamber and hanging the former rebel leaders.


5) Defeating the American Revolution would lead to a relatively stronger British monarchy over the long-term and a weakened parliamentary position

Sure there's one less example of a republic, but internal factors limiting the power of the King had been around a long time, and over the long-term pressures for broadening the franchise would continue


6) With no American revolution or a failed American revolution, there cannot be a French Republic.

Yes America was the *largest* republic of its day, but there were examples of republics from Europe including the admittedly short-lived Commonwealth of Britain, Switzerland, Venice and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

If France gets involved in the American Revolution and loses, its finances are still screwed.

If France stays uninvolved but does not otherwise reform its fiscal systems, an Estates General is probably going to happen and be an opportunity for an explosion.

Some say that while an overthrow of the absolutist regime as it was was likely, but that the National Assembly would find a Republican government inconceivable without the American example.

But the lack of an American example still would not take away the ever-worsening alienation of the King and National Assembly. If the Revolutionaries decide they have to kill him, they are sort of a Republic by default. How would a new King be selected?
 
1) Even if failing in the Atlantic seaboard colonies, the Patriot leaders could/would have set up a regime to the west of the mountains.

Sobel's "For Want of a Nail" might be responsible for this one, with its feature of refugee founding fathers creating a new state in Mexico.

In any case, not too likely at all the Patriots would succeed west of the mountains if they failed to the east. Despite the existence of settlements west of the mountains in places like Kentucky, the demographic center of the colonies was definitely the east. Hardly any majority or critical mass of Amerindians had reason to work with the American rebels, there was far more self-interest in working with the British. Among whites west of the mountains there was not a Patriot consensus either, there were many loyalists in the west as well.

This is from Sobel, but look at the Boers in Africa. This doesn't seem so crazy to me. The American patriots move west, either with or without Spanish support. They aren't, IMO, going to create a globe-spanning superpower, but they'll be there and they'll be a headache.

3) After defeating the Patriots, the reunified British-American Empire would most likely go on a conquest binge against Spanish America.
That would probably be expensive and uncertain of success. The prize would be alot of thinly populated territory considered desert, but the tropical areas of greater value would be disease-ridden death traps for the British, and they had experienced some of this before.

California was perceived as valuable relatively early OTL, and there'd be voices in America advocating expansion.

Yes America was the *largest* republic of its day, but there were examples of republics from Europe including the admittedly short-lived Commonwealth of Britain, Switzerland, Venice and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

These are hardly great examples, right? The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swiss, and Venice are basically losers by the 18th century. And you don't have the experience of thousands of Frenchmen fighting alongside a democratic republic in the 1770s.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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This is from Sobel, but look at the Boers in Africa. This doesn't seem so crazy to me. The American patriots move west, either with or without Spanish support. They aren't, IMO, going to create a globe-spanning superpower, but they'll be there and they'll be a headache.

Hmm, Kentucky as a a Transvaal or Orange Free State. Maybe [although the Indians and Loyalists did win at Blue Licks near the end of the war in Kentucky]. Americans of former patriot sympathies being the mayor and town council of St. Louis and other locations along the Mississippi - a nontrivial chance I'd say.

These are hardly great examples, right? The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swiss, and Venice are basically losers by the 18th century. And you don't have the experience of thousands of Frenchmen fighting alongside a democratic republic in the 1770s.

The French being French will likely think they can do it better of course, and won't consider themselves bound by the failings of the other, smaller, lesser republics. Enlightenment thought will be there to radicalize the French revolution, and they'll think of themselves as a new kind of republic (an anti-aristocratic one) anyway, or one modeled on the successful old ones like rome. Of course the outlook for France continually reverting to republicanism in the long-term can be darkened.

However, my main point, is that a failed American experiment is not going to make the ancien regime as it was much more tolerable, and it won't make Louis more accepting of constitutional changes imposed by others. If the revolutionaries need to kill the king they will. If they can't imagine a non-monarchical system they'd want a "people's king" who wouldn't be regarded as a real king by other Europeans anyway. The King is dead, Long Live the King [when we hire one] isn't the best want ad when seeking a new King from a legitimate dynasty.
 
France went into debt helping the US in the first place, so a failed American Recolution might mean no circumstances that enabled the French Revolution.

And another extremely annoying cliche is that British North Anerica will indefinitely stay part of the empire, which doesn't seem to have any bearing in fact at all.
 
France went into debt helping the US in the first place, so a failed American Recolution might mean no circumstances that enabled the French Revolution.

And another extremely annoying cliche is that British North Anerica will indefinitely stay part of the empire, which doesn't seem to have any bearing in fact at all.

I thought French finances were so bad it was still just a matter of time for them to implode as they did, the ARW just hastened it.

But the Eternal Empire being a lie is definitely true. You can make vague, vague parallels on American ties to Britain in culture and especially economics for when a political independence could be achieved, but a de-facto dominion is pretty much going to have to be done in the middle 1770s if you avert the war itself, and definitely by the late 1780s assuming the war was won and forced the colonies to stay within the empire. And probably full independence by the 1830s-1840s, vaguely equivalent in time to Canada's responsible government.

I wouldn't doubt America remains a loyal ally and friend to the Empire - Americans still had an admiration of Britain, witnessing Jefferson's denouncement of the Federalists as 'Anglomen' in the 1790s-1810s, but it'll want to focus on its own hemisphere and even if it joins Britain in wars - equivalents to the ARW's international scene, the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars - it'll send combat troops to its own backyards and not off to Europe.

In a lot of ways a Dominion of America will be much like America of reality in de-facto relations and economics to Britain, even if they're far more friendly and possibly even more economically tied together than OTL. America's world was almost within itself because it had an entire hemisphere to gaze upon and a ton of room in its own national backyard to settle, not interested in imperial adventures unless they directly benefited itself.
 
2) In a perpetuated union of the 13 Colonies under the British Empire, the imperial capital is likely to move to America eventually, and not only to America, but somewhere in the middle of the continent rather than east coast

I've seen this a few times, not sure entirely where it comes from.

Countries are resistant to moving their capitals out of both tradition and self-interest. Decades after a failed revolution, the British Isles would still have a larger population and higher GDP than British North America.

Yes the circumstances of the Napoleonic war and the particular circumstances of the Portuguese empire result in the dynasty fleeing from Lisbon to Sao Paulo, but it's the exception that proves the rule. This did not happen in the Spanish Empire despite some advocacy for it in Spanish America. Additionally, there's not many likely scenarios in which the King and Parliament would be driven out of the British Isles.

Also, look at the United States. For all its westward expansion, and the major growth of the demographic weight of California and Texas (and the lack of corresponding eastern expansion), the capital has remained in Washington, DC near the east coast since the `18th century.

3) After defeating the Patriots, the reunified British-American Empire would most likely go on a conquest binge against Spanish America.

That would probably be expensive and uncertain of success. The prize would be alot of thinly populated territory considered desert, but the tropical areas of greater value would be disease-ridden death traps for the British, and they had experienced some of this before.

Additionally, the timing of the American Revolution after the great conquests of the French and Indian War was an object lesson in expansion not necessarily bringing stability

A couple more things to add onto, since I agree entirely with these:

2) I think this came up as a cross of Sobel making *Pittsburgh (Burgoyne) the capital of the American dominion, and OTL speculation that America (since they were merely Englishmen Across the Sea) would hold the capital as the British-American Empire eventually expanded westward. But I agree entirely otherwise, because even the speculation on an American capital (independent or British) focused almost entirely on it being Philadelphia or New York.

3) I can see much of OTL western America falling to British America during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars but precisely for the same reasons it did in OTL to the USA come the 1840s - almost empty land, almost undefended, there for the taking as Yankees spill westward. Even in reality, during the Napoleonic Wars, San Diego got shelled and held hostage by an American ship and an American-Tejano revolt (Magee-Guitierrez) in Texas temporarily succeeded. Imagine if, say, the troops representing the Anglo-American armies in the OTL War of 1812 and Royal Navy with American support went west together in the Napoleonic Wars instead, capturing the Louisiana Territory, Texas, and Upper and Lower California - that's no contest in fighting and right up America's alley in terms of imperial projects, since as in OTL Canada it'd be a matter of time before "British Territory in America" (like Rupert's Land) becomes part of "British America" (Dominion of Canada) locally ruled by the colonies.

And even in OTL Quebec was never anglicized and considered a thorn in terms of culture, so there's no reason why a British America would want more Catholics, much less the mass of brown-skinned/Mestizo Catholics that lived in New Spain, to also be a part of their domain. Anything south of the Rio Grande is as sensible as conquering China, it's already a world of its own, absolutely full of cultural aliens. Even the much vaunted attempt to capture Buenos Aires was because beyond the River Plate valley the Rio de la Plata viceroyalty was somewhat-empty land (re: Patagonia and the like).

Cuba? Maybe. Spain was extremely desirous to hold onto it, considering it an integral part of the kingdom up to 1898 (and the famed Aranda Plan of the 1780s kept the Spanish Caribbean within the King of Spain's personal domain) and Britain even in OTL gave back France's most valuable Caribbean islands come Haiti's loss (Guadeloupe and Martinique) to France. Taking so much from Spain in the mainland means Britain may pull a "New Louisbourg" and deliver an Anglo-American captured Cuba back to Spain to keep a balance of power. The southerners will howl but eventually learn to deal as they settle newly-conquered Louisiana and Texas westward.
 
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