The French & the American Revolution

[StarOfAfrica2]

And the man who placed those sharpshooters and put them to such good use?  

Benedict Arnold, probably the greatest reason we won Saratoga.  He may have been a pompous prettythang and (ultimately) a traitor, but he was hell on wheels leading his troops into battle.  If he'd ever gotten the attention and petting his ego craved, he'd probably have been remembered as a great hero of the Revolution instead of going down in history as a back-stabbing traitor.  He's always fascinated me.  The first time I read about him in History class in school, I wondered what could drive a man trusted by the greatest names in the country to turn traitor.  His is really a very ineresting story.

On the other side, its amazing the things the British DIDNT do that cost them the war.  I mean, they were supposedly the greatest army (and navy) in the world at the time, and yet they made bone-headed mistake after mistake.

Not that I'm complaining mind you.  It just makes me wonder if there werent divisions in the British Parliament we know nothing about that helped us win that war.

[Shuckins]

Fraser was shot at the Battle of Bemis Heights.  His regulars were carrying out a flanking movement around the left flank of the American forces.  The main attack took place to his east.  That attack had already been broken when Fraser's regulars were engaged by Daniel Morgan's men.  Even tho slightly outnumbered, Morgan's men had already broken up several British attacks.

Benedict Arnold, who had been relieved by Gates the day before, disobeyed direct orders and rode into the thick of the fighting.  Seeing Fraser attempting to rally his men, Arnold told Morgan that the man was worth a regiment.  Morgan ordered his men to shoot him.  The British attack continued to fall apart as a result.

But the Battle of Saratoga did not hinge on the death of one man.  The victory at Saratoga was the culmination of a long and extensive campaign that began in July of 1777 and ended in October of that year.  Several hard-fought battles took place, and the British were roughly handled in most of them.  Barry St. Leger's column, approaching from the Great Lakes, was defeated and turned back for Canada, leaving Burgoyne's forces isolated.

The Battles of Bennington and Freeman's farm inflicted heavy casualties on Burgoyne's forces and deprived him of needed supplies.  The Battle at Bemis Heights was the last, desperate attempt to remedy a situation that was rapidly becoming untenable.

The Americans didn't win by luck.  The British were out fought and out-generaled by Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan.  Daniel Morgan would later break the back of Cornwallis' attempt to gain control of the Southern Colonies at the Battles Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse.

The Victory at Saratoga was no accident.

[Shuckins]

Sailor,

I once read a history of the Revolutionary War which stated that the only flashes of tactical brilliance demonstrated during the conflict came from a handful of American leaders;  Benedict Arnold, Daniel Morgan, Francis Marion, Nathaniel Greene, and George Rogers Clark.

By contrast, the majority of the British generals were plodding dullards.

Regards, Shuckins

[Toad]

Well, let's see what the US Army has to say about it.

From the OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY:

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: FIRST PHASE

American strategy was primarily defensive and consequently had to be shaped largely in terms of countering British moves. Uncertainties as to the supply of both men and materials acted on the American side even more effectively to thwart the development of a consistent plan for winning the war. Yet Washington was never so baffled by the conditions of the war or uncertain of his objective as were the various British commanders.

After some early blunders, he soon learned both his own and the enemy's strengths and weaknesses and did his best to exploit them. Though unable to develop a consistent plan, he did try to develop a consistent line of action. He sought to maintain his principal striking force in a central position blocking any British advance into the interior; to be neither too bold nor too timid in seeking battle for limited objectives; to avoid the destruction of his army at all costs; and to find some means of concentrating a sufficient force to strike a decisive offensive blow whenever the British overreached themselves. He showed a better appreciation than the British commanders of the advantages in mobility their Navy gave them, and after 1778, when the French entered the war, he clearly saw that the decisive blow he desired could be struck only by a combined effort of the Continental Army and the French Fleet.

 

Various quotes from the Second Phase of this document:

Again in 1777 the late arrival of Howe's reinforcements and stores ships gave Washington time that he sorely needed. Men to form the new Continental Army came in slowly and not until June did the Americans have a force of 8,000. On the northern line the defenses were even more thinly manned. Supplies for troops in the field were also short, but the arrival of the first three ships bearing secret aid from France vastly improved the situation.

[/b]

With the French in the war, England had to look to the safety of the long ocean supply line to America and to the protection of its possessions in other parts of the world. Clinton's orders were to detach 5,000 men to the West Indies and 3,000 to Florida, and to return the rest of his army to New York by sea.

As Clinton prepared to depart Philadelphia, Washington had high hopes that the war might be won in 1778 by a co-operative effort between his army and the French Fleet. The Comte d'Estaing with a French naval squadron of eleven ships of the line and transports carrying 4,000 troops left France in May to sail for the American coast. D'Estaing's fleet was considerably more powerful than any Admiral Howe could immediately concentrate in American waters. For a brief period in 1778 the strategic initiative passed from British hands, and Washington hoped to make full use of it.

The British forfeited several chances for military victory in 1776-77, and again in 1780 they might have won had they been able to throw 10,000 fresh troops into the American war.

For all these American virtues and British difficulties and mistakes, the Americans still required French aid—money, supplies, and in the last phase military force—to win a decisive and clear-cut military victory. Most of the muskets, bayonets, and cannon used by the Continental Army came from France. The French contested the control of the seas that was so vital to the British, and compelled them to divert forces from the American mainland to other areas. The final stroke at Yorktown, though a product of Washington's strategic conception, was possible only because of the temporary predominance of French naval power off the American coast and the presence of a French army.

French aid was doubly necessary because the American war effort lacked strong national direction. The Revolution showed conclusively the need for a central government with power to harness the nation's resources for war. It is not surprising that in 1787 nearly all those who had struggled so long and hard as leaders in the Continental Army or in administrative positions under the Congress were to be found in the ranks of the supporters of a new constitution creating such a central government with a strong executive and the power to "raise armies and navies," call out the militia, and levy taxes directly to support itself.

Allow me one repetition from the OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY:

For all these American virtues and British difficulties and mistakes, the Americans still required French aid—money, supplies, and in the last phase military force—to win a decisive and clear-cut military victory

[/b][/u]

[Masherbrum]

Originally posted by lasersailor184
I can deny it, I can deny it all day long.

Sure the french gave us some money, but that hardly means anything.

Sure they stepped in.  But the war was already won by the time they did anything.

Just when you think laser is smart, he does this.   Some of you are real cards.

[Shuckins]

As I said earlier Toad, French aid was invaluable.  Yet it didn't start arriving in appreciable amounts until after 1778.  If memory serves, Rochambeau's forces at Yorktown were relatively small, compared to the American forces deployed there, amounting to only five thousand men.

The three ship loads of supplies mentioned in the Army history you cited went to the Continental Army.  This would have had little impact on the fighting at Saratoga.  Of the fifteen thousand colonial troops engaged there, a little over a thousand were dispatched by Washington.  The remainder were made up of the regulars in Gates' army and a large number of militia.  I doubt that the three ships carried enough supplies to fully equip both the Continental Army and the large numbers of troops engaged at Saratoga.

Saratoga is arguably the most brilliant victory by American forces in the entire war, even when compared to Yorktown, and was achieved almost totally with our own men and resources.

Regards, Shuckins

[Toad]

Saratoga was one battle, not the whole war.

Allow me to reiterate: Without French soliders, without French ships and ESPECIALLY without French money... the Americans would have lost.

It is simply undeniable.


The American Revolution would never have succeeded without the help of the French.

[Holden McGroin]

Toad, French or no French, the war was entirely about slav....

oops, sorry: wrong war, wrong thread.

[Shuckins]

Toad,

Fair enough.  Final victory could not have been achieved without French aid.  No doubt about it.  Yet there were victories, especially early in the war, that were the result almost solely of our own efforts.

Undeniably, those efforts were unsustainable, in the long run without French aid.  Yet still, the bulk of the fighting on land in North America and the casualties endured, were American.

Regards, Shuckins

[straffo]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Enter the Corsican egomaniac...Napoleon Bonaparte...whose meteoric rise to "emperor" saw the return of the French government to the control of a dictator.

A very short summary of a very complex event I will admit.  Yet it sorta captures the "spirit" of the times, don't you think?

You just miss a point , under the corsican dictature people were ,ot less free than under the revolution or under the Capet/Valois/Bourbon.

[StarOfAfrica2]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Sailor,

I once read a history of the Revolutionary War which stated that the only flashes of tactical brilliance demonstrated during the conflict came from a handful of American leaders;  Benedict Arnold, Daniel Morgan, Francis Marion, Nathaniel Greene, and George Rogers Clark.

By contrast, the majority of the British generals were plodding dullards.

Regards, Shuckins

Have to agree, if it hadn't been for his physical problems, Morgan would have been one of those with his name in the history books alongside Washington and Franklin.  He was a backwoods scrapper, rough as rough can be and tough as old boot leather.  Great grasp of tactics though and the tenacity of a bulldog.  Fighting was what he did, and he did it very well.

Greene's forte was organization.  He pulled supplies out of his butt and kept his men going when other leaders and other armies would have starved in the same place.  While he made some early mistakes, he also had a good grasp of tactics and knew how to make the most out of what he had.  He used small, light bands of fast moving infantry to constantly harass the British and draw them into battles in terrain chosen with care to give the advantage to our troops.

[Shuckins]

Straffo,  I'm not trying to make the point that the French people were less free under Napoleon than they were under Louis XVI.  I merely pointed out that he was a dictator.

The reason that the French were no better off under Napoleon than they had been under the Bourbons was the result of the ruinous wars that he involved them in.  The economy was wrecked and the French army suffered more than one million casualties.  Civilian casualties are difficult to assess, but definitely numbered in severl hundred thousands.

Several of these wars resulted from his egomaniacal desire for more fame and more conquests.

[straffo]

I'll reply later ... for now I need to assimilate the wine I drank

[Toad]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Toad,

Yet there were victories, especially early in the war, that were the result almost solely of our own efforts.

True.

We also had a lot of help from the British Generals.  

[Neubob]

Rarely, if ever in human history, has any coherent, organized army been able to permanently put down a sustained, well-supplied and locally supported partisan movement. Armies can defeat armies, but they simply cannot keep fighting a war with what we, today, refer to as insurgents. It becomes too costly, and, unlike the American revolutionaries, the British had no viable way of producing loyal soldiers in the colonies, much less fanatics that did not play by the rules of 18th century combat. The war could well have gone on and on and on, taxing both sides and turning the colonies into a wasteland, but, in the end, it would simply have proven unsustainable for the British, no matter how great their technological superiority.