Factors Contributing to the Outcome of the Revolutionary War

There are many reasons why the British lost and the Patriots won the Revolutionary War: near the top of the list is money, specifically the lack thereof.  Wars are expensive and as the 1700s drew to a close, Britain was up to her neck in them.  The Revolutionary War was but the American theater of a much wider war in which Britain was involved and the Brits were simply overextended.  In 1778, France formed a formal alliance with the American colonies.[1]  French naval pressure upon British shipping prohibitively increased the cost to Britain of maintaining its already expensive trans-Atlantic lines of communication to the American continent.  Moreover, in 1779 Spain entered the war against Britain and, the following year, so did the Dutch.[2]  By this time, Britain simply had too many irons in the fire and began to adjust its national strategy to focus upon the more immediate threats to its national security—the Spanish, the French, and the Dutch—which meant that it had no choice but to curtail its efforts to put down the rebellious American colonies.  Besides, by the early 1780s, Britain had little to show for its campaign against the colonies despite substantial investment in terms of men and resources.  Economic pressure fell much more severely upon the patriots, however.  Their only way through was to print money and rely upon foreign loans—primarily from France.[3]  Moreover, they held the home field advantage.

Another significant determining factor of the war’s outcome was the formal entrance of France into the war on the side of the Americans in 1788.  The French had already been providing limited support to the colonists, sort of under the table, but after the patriots victory as Saratoga, France was convinced that the Americans could indeed win the war.  Consequently, it entered into Treaties of Alliance with the colonies[4] and significantly increased its material and financial support of the fledgling Patriot cause.  The French navy interdicted British shipping, keeping much needed supplies from reaching His majesty’s troops.  The patriots’ gaining of the French alliance came as the Continental Army emerged from its dreadful winter at Valley Forge and was a huge boost to its morale and to the outlook of its commander in chief.  Washington was more than encouraged by this turn of events and believed that the French treaties “would tip the scales and that things were ‘verging fast to a favorable issue.’”[5]

The strength of the American Resistance was underestimated and British hopes of assistance from the American Indians went largely unfulfilled.  While the fledgling Unites States greatly benefited from its alliance with the French, the British had hoped to similarly benefit from its alliances with American Indians.  These, however, turned out to be hopes that were largely misplaced.  At the same time American resistance to British sovereignty was much stronger than His Majesty’s government realized or could ever understand.  The British constantly underestimated the colonists and especially their insistence upon independence.  Compounding this error, they also overestimated the strength of British loyalists residing in the country, especially in the south.  Unexplainably, the British government was never fully cognizant of the significant sense of distrust that existed between the colonists and the Crown, especially from Pennsylvania and northward from as early as 1709-1711 during the colonial wars.[6]

The British government created much of this resistance.  Its policies of establishing the Proclamation Line of October 1763, of garrisoning the West with a standing army to enforce the Line and regulate the fur trade, and of taxing the colonies to pay for its army in America thoroughly rankled the colonists.[7]  Resentment continued to build over time with Britain’s passage of the Stamp and Quartering Acts.  At Lexington and Concord, the dam finally broke.

Adding to its government’s failure to recognize political discontent within the colonies, British military officers remained baffled by the American militia system and militia support to the Continental Army, created in 1775 obviously for the purpose of defeating Great Britain in a war for American independence. The British continually underestimated the patriots’ numerical strength, willingness to fight, and staying power.  They unexpectedly faced “an armed and angry populace employing irregular tactics,” methods of warfare strange to the British but familiar to the Patriots learned through hard lessons of constant conflict with the Indians.[8]  Though inexperienced and poorly disciplined, the Continental Congress said of its forces, that “facts have shown that native Courage warmed with Patriotism is sufficient to counterbalance [Britain’s] Advantages.”[9]  Moreover, the colonists were driven by a fierce “determination fostered by ideology” the almost instinctive “notion [that] they were fighting for their own liberty.[10]

George Washington

A final reason for events turning out as they did was George Washington’s Generalship.  The text points out that Washington came to embody the revolution; that the commander and the national cause became one in him.[11]  Though he started poorly,[12] suffering a series of defeats in and around New York and driven back by Howe through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, he recovered and struck back with notable effect at Trenton and Princeton.  He learned to protect his smaller force and commit it to battle only at times and places of his own choosing. He learned to employ his subordinate commanders effectively and became proficient in the employment of combined arms warfare, bringing both land and naval forces to bear against British formations.  His greatest contribution to the war, however, was his unequaled leadership.  A telling line from the text encapsulates the “force multiplying” effect Washington’s leadership had upon his Army—

“Riding to the sound of the guns, Washington rallied his men.”[13]

There are many reasons why the British lost and the Patriots won the Revolutionary War.  The most indispensable reason was the generalship of the Army’s first commander, George Washington.

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[1] Allan R. Millett and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 72.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: The Penguin Press, 2010), 336.

[6] Millet and Maslowski, 32.

[7] Ibid, 52.

[8] Ibid, 55.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Donald R. Shaffer, “Quill and Musket Lecture Series,” MILH 202: Survey of American Military History: Week 1 Lecture (American Public University: 2012), 11.

[11] Ibid, 59.

[12] Shaffer, 11.

[13] Millet and Maslowski, 73.