How important was George Washington to the ARW

That is a possibility of course, but you are never going to penetrate the mindsets of the Sun Never Sets crowd who truly believe that the Fall of the British Empire was all the fault of the Evil Emp-Uh, I mean, the United States of America.:p

Or those who think the US is the Second Coming.

My own view of GW is that he was a Jack Of All Trades who knew how to capitalise on lucky breaks and took it to the logical conclusion
 
Or those who think the US is the Second Coming.(1)

My own view of GW is that he was a Jack Of All Trades who knew how to capitalise on lucky breaks and took it to the logical conclusion

1) No matter how much I post, no matter how many footnotes, SOMEBODY tries for a chink in the armor to launch a tit-for-tat. I had almost posted a swipe against the American Exceptionalists myself. I suppose I should have expected such a response as this without that swipe.:rolleyes:

I would say the title Jack-of-all-trades is probably too much a complement to George, (2) as his knowledge in most military matters was limited, especially regarding cavalry, artillery, and siegecraft. His skills at logistics were so-so, infantry was better, while his leadership skills were anything BUT routine. In that field, he was the superior of any of his subordinates OR enemies.

I would describe GW the officer as a man of great strengths, mediocrities, and weaknesses.

2) I take jack-of-all-trades to mean average abilities in all things, rather than stellar skills in some areas and poor in others. Like Patton. Jack-of-all-trades MIGHT be applied to Mark Clark (or Wavell), but I think he has too many critics here for that to be accepted generally.
 
I think everyone can agree that he's LESS important then most American History courses, particularly pre-High School ones, make him out to be.
 
Well, this discussion took an unintended direction. But I guess the title of the thread warranted it. To get a more intended answer let's start with what if Washington was killed at the battle of Brandywine by Patrick Ferguson or one of his marksmen?
 
Well, this discussion took an unintended direction. But I guess the title of the thread warranted it. To get a more intended answer let's start with what if Washington was killed at the battle of Brandywine by Patrick Ferguson or one of his marksmen?

BIG TROUBLE. I don't even want to think of who his successor might be, but IMO only Nathaniel Greene could have taken his place.
 
1) No matter how much I post, no matter how many footnotes, SOMEBODY tries for a chink in the armor to launch a tit-for-tat. I had almost posted a swipe against the American Exceptionalists myself. I suppose I should have expected such a response as this without that swipe.:rolleyes:

I would say the title Jack-of-all-trades is probably too much a complement to George, (2) as his knowledge in most military matters was limited, especially regarding cavalry, artillery, and siegecraft. His skills at logistics were so-so, infantry was better, while his leadership skills were anything BUT routine. In that field, he was the superior of any of his subordinates OR enemies.

I would describe GW the officer as a man of great strengths, mediocrities, and weaknesses.

2) I take jack-of-all-trades to mean average abilities in all things, rather than stellar skills in some areas and poor in others. Like Patton. Jack-of-all-trades MIGHT be applied to Mark Clark (or Wavell), but I think he has too many critics here for that to be accepted generally.

If you tit then others will tat.
However I wasn't tatting merely agreeing with you and adding the additional statement that some people have their rosetinted glasses on when it comes to the US not just the former British Empire.

I accede that perhaps JOAT is too lenient an appellation to GW.
 
I think everyone can agree that he's LESS important then most American History courses, particularly pre-High School ones, make him out to be.

Have you ever taken pre-High School history in an American school? In my public education, Washington or even the ARW at all was barely mentioned. My kids have social studies textbooks that literally give equal time to Crispus Attucks. The actual content on Washington is half a page, with another half a page devoted to asking the students to think through the issue of Washington and other Framers having slaves. Not in an unduly biased or attacking way, I hasten to add.

The real hagiography of Washington is from a long time ago and is mostly legendary. To the extent it still has any real-life occurence, its in popular history biographies published for the American reading audience.
 
BIG TROUBLE. I don't even want to think of who his successor might be, but IMO only Nathaniel Greene could have taken his place.

This. While we all might quibble on how good a military commander Washington was I don't think anyone here is going to disagree that his death would have been catastrophic for the cause of the American rebels.
 
Well, this discussion took an unintended direction. But I guess the title of the thread warranted it. To get a more intended answer let's start with what if Washington was killed at the battle of Brandywine by Patrick Ferguson or one of his marksmen?

the short answer is the Americans lose the Revolution...

why?

Greene is a gifted commander, but I don't see him stopping the Conway conspiracy from putting Gates in charge of the Continental Army. He lacks the prestige and the political support from the Tidewater states that Washington has for one thing. This of course assumes the Continental Army holds together during the winter at Valley Forge or wherever else they fall back to after his death.

Of course Saratoga is not a certain win either but as they are happening essentially at the same time we will assume the historical result as one is not dependent of the other.

So Gates is probably the Commander in Chief of the Continental Army as he has the credit for Saratoga. His absolute failure at Camden makes it clear that if he is leading the army in the field against the British the Continental Army will be shattered and very possibly destroyed in the first major engagement that follows.

No Continental Army means that the British can focus on pacification instead of warfighting. The British actually pulled this off in South Carolina and Georgia in OTL until Guilford Courthouse and Kings Mountain, battles that might not even occur now.

New York and Pennsylvania were very strong in Loyalist support (historically most of the Loyalists who fled after the war were from this area), and concentrating on this region, plus Georgia and South Carolina means that the Tidewater, New England, and Appalachia are unable to assist each other in military terms.

The destruction of the Continental Army completely offsets the victory at Saratoga as well. Which means that the Spanish probably don't join in, and neither are the Dutch likely to do so, and the French probably would find an excuse to end their involvement.

Washington is the glue that holds the Continental Army together at Valley Forge, and while he had his weaknesses, he was not a self serving moral coward who completely abandoned his army in defeat (which Gates did at Camden and would likely do in this ATL).
 
And name a peer to Washington who did as well, against odds as long?

Bolivar? L'Overture?

I'll wait.

Please. Washington benefitted from French money and military help as well as those of Spain and the Netherlands. France spent so much money on the Rebels that it led to the French Revolution. If Wikipedia is to be believed, in today's dollars, France spent an equivalent of 13 billion US dollars on the Rebels alone. That speaks to Washington's and the Rebels ineffectiveness against the British.

Yorktown was a French victory with Rebel support, not the other way around. It was French strategy, equipement and soldiers that won the battle.

Did Bolivar and L'Ouverture beneifit from such help like Washington did?
 
Please. Washington benefitted from French money and military help as well as those of Spain and the Netherlands. France spent so much money on the Rebels that it led to the French Revolution. If Wikipedia is to be believed, in today's dollars, France spent an equivalent of 13 billion US dollars on the Rebels alone. That speaks to Washington's and the Rebels ineffectiveness against the British.

Yorktown was a French victory with Rebel support, not the other way around. It was French strategy, equipement and soldiers that won the battle.

Did Bolivar and L'Ouverture beneifit from such help like Washington did?

Yellow Fever and Malaria wiped out whole French armies, which is better than money

Bolivar indeed had help (from Haiti, which is kind of amazing), but that doesn't take away from his accomplishments but he ultimately failed to build an enduring unified state (his goal), while obviously the Americans had better luck with that
 
Please. Washington benefitted from French money and military help as well as those of Spain and the Netherlands. France spent so much money on the Rebels that it led to the French Revolution. If Wikipedia is to be believed, in today's dollars, France spent an equivalent of 13 billion US dollars on the Rebels alone. That speaks to Washington's and the Rebels ineffectiveness against the British.

Yorktown was a French victory with Rebel support, not the other way around. It was French strategy, equipement and soldiers that won the battle.

Did Bolivar and L'Ouverture beneifit from such help like Washington did?

Please. How much French support was present at Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Britain's evacuation of Boston, and the first failed attempt to take Charleston? You make the ARW pre-French involvement sound like a campaign against Red Indians.:rolleyes:

I'm sorry, but much of your logic would suggest the same nonsense used by American Exceptionalists that the USA's participation "won" the First World War.:rolleyes:

I suggest you study more some of the particulars of the Battle of Yorktown, the only battle in which the French Army (all 7000 of them) participated in on a large scale. Mind, Rochambeau did a fine job, but he was not C-in-C, and in the end, Washington had final approval of tactics, operations, and strategy.
 
Have you ever taken pre-High School history in an American school? In my public education, Washington or even the ARW at all was barely mentioned. My kids have social studies textbooks that literally give equal time to Crispus Attucks. The actual content on Washington is half a page, with another half a page devoted to asking the students to think through the issue of Washington and other Framers having slaves. Not in an unduly biased or attacking way, I hasten to add.

The real hagiography of Washington is from a long time ago and is mostly legendary. To the extent it still has any real-life occurence, its in popular history biographies published for the American reading audience.

Sounds like you came into a post-PC era, while I was educated in a Post-Lost Causer/pre-PC era.
 
If you tit then others will tat.
However I wasn't tatting merely agreeing with you and adding the additional statement that some people have their rosetinted glasses on when it comes to the US not just the former British Empire.

I accede that perhaps JOAT is too lenient an appellation to GW.

If you check my posting history you will find an Anglophilic Anti-Exceptionalist. That said, I have a very hard time tolerating Anti-American Britons who have a rose-tinted glasses POV regarding their own country. Not referring to you or Astrodragon, though. See his "Whales" and "Whales 2.0" TLs, frex.

As I said, JOAT is probably too easy AND too hard on GW as a descriptive term.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Actually, the British supported the

Please. Washington benefitted from French money and military help as well as those of Spain and the Netherlands. France spent so much money on the Rebels that it led to the French Revolution. If Wikipedia is to be believed, in today's dollars, France spent an equivalent of 13 billion US dollars on the Rebels alone. That speaks to Washington's and the Rebels ineffectiveness against the British.

Yorktown was a French victory with Rebel support, not the other way around. It was French strategy, equipement and soldiers that won the battle.

Did Bolivar and L'Ouverture beneifit from such help like Washington did?

The British supported the Latin American revolutionaries, overtly or covertly, from the days of Miranda through to the end, largely because they were at war with Spain for much of the same period...

There's a reason men like Cochrane, Grenfell, et al ended up having ships named after them in multiple South American navies.

As far as the French, Spanish, and Dutch weighed in against the British during the Revolutionary War, there were reasons why - primarily because the British excelled at making enemies in this period. ;)

None of the European powers intervened for charity; they all had strategic goals of their own in mind.

Best,
 
The British supported the Latin American revolutionaries, overtly or covertly, from the days of Miranda through to the end, largely because they were at war with Spain for much of the same period...

There's a reason men like Cochrane, Grenfell, et al ended up having ships named after them in multiple South American navies.

As far as the French, Spanish, and Dutch weighed in against the British during the Revolutionary War, there were reasons why - primarily because the British excelled at making enemies in this period. ;)

None of the European powers intervened for charity; they all had strategic goals of their own in mind.

Best,

Primarily based on how Britain ended its role in the 7YW: Once they got everything they wanted, they bugged out while leaving the Prussians in the lurch. Had not Czarina Elizabeth died, Prussia would have been destroyed, and Britain's actions remembered even today by historians as one of their greatest diplomatic betrayals in British history.

So its hardly surprising what happened when various European powers started DoWing Britain in the ARW. Britain made its call to arms to its usual list of potential allies, only to discover that not only were they not invited to the feast, nor at the beggars table. They found themselves locked out of the dining hall. They had mercenaries and Native Americans. Nothing to distract enemies on the Continent from preparing for Sealion 0.5 in the Age of Sail. Were it not for sickness in the Franco-Spanish fleets in the Channel...
 

TFSmith121

Banned
True ... It's almost like

Primarily based on how Britain ended its role in the 7YW: Once they got everything they wanted, they bugged out while leaving the Prussians in the lurch. Had not Czarina Elizabeth died, Prussia would have been destroyed, and Britain's actions remembered even today by historians as one of their greatest diplomatic betrayals in British history.

So its hardly surprising what happened when various European powers started DoWing Britain in the ARW. Britain made its call to arms to its usual list of potential allies, only to discover that not only were they not invited to the feast, nor at the beggars table. They found themselves locked out of the dining hall. They had mercenaries and Native Americans. Nothing to distract enemies on the Continent from preparing for Sealion 0.5 in the Age of Sail. Were it not for sickness in the Franco-Spanish fleets in the Channel...

True ... It's almost like the Americans knew what they were doing, isn't it?;)

Best,
 
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