Anaxagoras
Banned
Like it says on the tin. Had you been advising the British on the best way to defeat the American Revolution, what would your advice have been?
What Would Have Been the Best British Strategy in the Revolutionary War?
- Thread starter Anaxagoras
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I'd tell them to appease the Spanish, give them some lands back from 7 years war like Minorca and east Florida. It'd allow the British to send thousands of troops from the Mediterranean (and some other regions) to the colonies and to focus their fleet more around the American coast and English channel rather than the Mediterranean and Caribbean. They'd have more soldiers to fight the rebels and be more successful at preventing the French from supplying and reinforcing them.
unprincipled peter
Donor
I'd advise them to send over some competent military leadership. Saratoga, for example, was largely a result of incompetence, and spiteful non coordination. Saratoga directly encourages France to ramp up recognition and assistance.
That's easy to say, but a good start would be to abandon political appointees and go with merit.
That's easy to say, but a good start would be to abandon political appointees and go with merit.
Announce an olive branch of representation for imperial issues in parliament, autonomy for internal issues, a colonial bill of rights, military troops partially accountable to legislature where they are stationed, reduced Quebec borders and a set £ amount they each need to contribute (varied depending on level of military protection they each request, to be raised however they want). Plus a date they need to stop hostilities by with an amnesty for all. Oh and fabricate some French plans to conquer the independent republic and enforce Catholicism. Should take the wind out of the rebellion and you can mop up the remnants much more easily.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Don't piss away Lord Dunmore's Army; and if the fighting has already migrated south, then go for broke and proclaim those slaves in still rebellious territories to be free under the law, and go all in recruiting and making use of escaped slaves.
I won't have to tell them that remaining loyalist planter class is just hedging their bets, and that there's no point in trying to avoid offending them, especially after all the crap the empire has already pulled up to this point; the reason they didn't do this OTL came down to wanting to restore the profitability of colonies, which to their mind meant maintaing the slave plantation system. And, of course, racism. So they likely won't listen, anymore than they did to the squeaks of protest at the time; fortunately those squeaks would, in time, grow into the roar of abolitionism.
I won't have to tell them that remaining loyalist planter class is just hedging their bets, and that there's no point in trying to avoid offending them, especially after all the crap the empire has already pulled up to this point; the reason they didn't do this OTL came down to wanting to restore the profitability of colonies, which to their mind meant maintaing the slave plantation system. And, of course, racism. So they likely won't listen, anymore than they did to the squeaks of protest at the time; fortunately those squeaks would, in time, grow into the roar of abolitionism.
Perhaps impose a tax on slaves, instead of on tea.
Somehow I can't imagine South Carolinians throwing a shipload of prime field hands into Charleston Harbour.
They pretty much did that IOTL, but due to slow communications the offer didn't reach the Colonies till after the DOI, by which time the momentum in favour of full secession was already too great.
If the PoD is after the revolt has started, perhaps the best course would be to do nothing at all - just sit patiently w/o invading the Colonies, wait for them to fall out among themselves, then try to reach deals with them one at a time.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
The crown did literally the opposite of this in Virginia -- in 1772, the House of Burgess, in light of a recent slave revolt in the Caribbean, voted to impose higher duties on imported slaves, with the goal of reducing the slave to free white man ratio (and/or to tilt their bonded population toward the native born, who they were implicitly less afraid of). In any case, the royal governor vetoed this bill, much to the consternation of legislators like Jefferson, who already had issues with British financial control of the colony (he and many men like him had much to say on how London merchants liked to keep farmers and planters in perpetual debt and dependent on imported goods).
It didn't help matters when the crown's representatives made threats of rising their chattel against them shortly after; and when Dunmore attempted to make good on this threat in 1775... well the rest, as they say, is history. For people unfamiliar with this kind of context, especially those who get a thrill out of taking potshots at the all too-often self-congratulatory and simplistic narratives promoted in American history classes, it can be tempted to label the Loyalist forces here as being the "anti-slavery" side of the conflict... except, that narrative is also simplistic and essentially false.
These weren't people who wanted to take Virginia or the colonies in a more progressive direction or break the power slavery had over them; hell, they weren't even using the conflict as an opportunity to weaken, much less destroy, the institution's role in colonial society. No, these were men who, without any sense of contradiction or of the moral implications of what they were doing, told the citizens which they were sent to help govern: "Obey the empire, or we'll have your property kill you." If they had given this the moral weight it needed, they would have utilized the army that formed when people fleeing their bondage answered their call, or come to terms with the fact that they had already crossed the rubicon where slavery in the colonies was concerned... or, you know, not gone to such lengths insuring that the slaves would be imported in such numbers in the first place before looking to weaponize them.
Sorry, that got a little off topic; point is that, while the Continental forces proved little to no better, despite the opportunities they managed to stumble into and the bumbling of a movement in Britain that cried for them to seize them, the British stayed firm in their resolve to maintain the status quo where the imperial economic policy was concerned, including the trade in human beings and the plantation system that exploited them. To the credit of the empire, when similar opportunities arose in the next crisis to come, the calls for a new abolitionist cause had organized themselves into a proper movement; and that time, they not only listened, but answered with action. And the rest is history.
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But presumably the duties imposed by the House of Burgesses would have been paid to Virginia, not into the British Treasury, which is what the Townsend duties were all about. And given that the slave traders benefited from the protection of the RN, it might seem eminently reasonable for them to pay toward its maintenance.
Another point. The slave trade was "triangular"- Britain to Africa to America to Britain - - so it could have been arranged for the tax to be paid in England rather than in the colonies.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Really, that' just another way of saying that the trade between the colonies, Britain, and the rest of the world was enriching the home island and her coffers in and of itself, and that it would have been smarter for Parliament to have paid their debts with economic growth rather than tightening the economic domination of their peripheries... advice which the government was getting, but ignored.
Not that I imagine it would make much difference -- it bears remembering, after all, that the affront that provoked the Intolerable Acts, which in turn provoked the Revolution, wasn't to the tax on stamps, on other goods, or even on tea; and it wasn't an attack harming government officials or protecting the loyal citizens of their empire, or her allies. No, the affront that simply demanded this kind of overreaction was specifically on the property of the East India Company, a incredibly wealthy and politically connected corporation. (Honestly, Parliament acting the way they did was pretty much akin to if, say, Donald Trump declared martial law in Puerto Rico because protesters had vandalized one of his family hotels.*)
*man, I miss the days when that sentence was ASB
I'm pretty sure they made an offer before the war started, too. (IIRC, the gist of it was that the colonies would pay a contribution to the defence budget, and in return direct British taxes on the colonials would cease.)
A concern was the safety of the Loyalists who were being beaten by thugs and having their stuff stolen early in the revolution... and after too but that's another story.
In the colonies as a whole neutrals > Patriots (rebels?) > Loyalists.
In NY, Georgia, and NC, it was neutrals > Loyalists> Patriots.
In NE, it was 75% Patriot and few loyalists at the start. Then most of the loyalists were evacuated by sea and those that stayed in Boston met the Lord earlier than expected. So they were willing to cut the Hudson communications and let NE simmer for 3-7 years.
You should have specified you meant the American Revolutionary War in the title. I know Americans do this with the American Revolution and the American Civil War, but this is an international forum.
Anyways, I would offer the colonies more say over their tax policy, and more autonomy in general.
Anyways, I would offer the colonies more say over their tax policy, and more autonomy in general.
Find a way to negotiate with the French to stop them intervening on the colonial side. If they do that they win, plain and simple.
But was it actually called that? I'm sure it was "The War of the First Coalition" even though it happened thanks tot he French Revolution. I think no British or American historian called it "French Revolutionary War" before 1900,