Quickest End to ARW, with US victory

Here's the problem: Britain genuinely believed, up until the very end, that the majority of the population was loyal, and just hijacked by radical extremists. The consensus was that in the south especially they would be greeted as liberators from an unjust government; and while many thought that the land north of the Potomac would be lost, the south is a different story.

....snip...

I've read that at the start of the ARW the population was about 45% Patriot, 25% Loyalist and 30% neither. How did these numbers change as the war progressed?

I've also heard that Patriot control of the Militia meant that they controlled the hinterlands and thus had a viable government in the countryside where most people lived. But the Patriots couldn't control the militia without significant support of the population, I'd guess more than 45%.
 
It's hardly 20-20 hindsight when essentially the exact same strategic situation could have been in the offing three decades later, well within the memory of living men in positions of authority in Britain.

I'm not sure what you mean? Britain was never invaded during the Revolution, and if there had been a peace before Yorktown, or had Cornwallis escaped, the peace treaty would probably have left the British with the southern colonies. Britain's plan was perfectly reasonable.
 
I've read that at the start of the ARW the population was about 45% Patriot, 25% Loyalist and 30% neither. How did these numbers change as the war progressed?

I've also heard that Patriot control of the Militia meant that they controlled the hinterlands and thus had a viable government in the countryside where most people lived. But the Patriots couldn't control the militia without significant support of the population, I'd guess more than 45%.

Those numbers for "neither" are way too low. There were many who hardly even knew the war was going on.

The numbers I heard (source: APUSH) were about 15% Loyalist, 35% Patriot, and 50% neither. Most of the loyalists were in British occupied places like New York, and spread throughout the south (which still had more patriots overall). The farther inland you got, the more "neither" becomes prevalent.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
However, the threat was there from the French, and

I'm not sure what you mean? Britain was never invaded during the Revolution, and if there had been a peace before Yorktown, or had Cornwallis escaped, the peace treaty would probably have left the British with the southern colonies. Britain's plan was perfectly reasonable.

However, the threat was there from the French, and the Spanish and French were certainly both in a position to threaten British interests in the Med, which is the point - the British always had more at stake in the Eastern Hemisphere, especially in Europe and the Med, then they ever had at stake in the Western Hemisphere, which is why for umpteen centuries the British always put the defense of the British Isles first, the Med second, and the rest of the empire - including their colonies in the Americas - way down the list.

They could not afford to use resources away from Europe and the Med when the Spanish, or the French, or the Germans were so much closer to home.

Best,
 
So we were fighting the Marathas in India and the Xhosa in South Africa at the same time. Poland was being carved up but there was nothing that required British Armies actually to be in Europe at that time (presumably the French joined in the ARW so that there wouldn't be British Armies in France but in America instead) which leads us back to British bloodymindedness.

Why would there have been British armies in France otherwise? France and Britain were not at war until France entered the conflict on the side of the Americans.
 
Had Germantown gone according to Washington's plan and Howe's army there been destroyed, the British would have left the war. Losing two land armies within a week of each other is going to be an immense shock to the British establishment: the North government will fall, Rockingham will get an early second ministry and send out peace feelers, and the Revolution never becomes a wider conflict with the continental powers.

The butterflies are immense, not only for the US but for Britain, too. The near-run aspects of the Revolution in terms of the fight against the continental powers highlighted some serious deficiencies in the contemporary British system which, when fixed, helped prepare the UK for the massive upheavals of the French Revolution. The British are going to go through an important period of introspection in the case where the American annihilation of two British land armies brings and early end to the war, too, but will it be as deep and insightful as that of the OTL?
 
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