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They actually did indeed try that very thing! But you might not have heard much about that particular conflict. Well, at least that aspect of it.Their effort is called the War of American Independence or “The American War” as it was known in Europe back in the day.The sentiment supporting that war:“The idea… prevails at large through Europe, that we are proud, full of our own importance, and that it will not be amiss if we are brought a little more upon a level with our neighbours” — Sir Joseph Yorke, British Ambassador to The Hague (Netherlands), July 13, 1779.That full war to bring Great Britain down a level, including its global theaters & side-conflicts, lasted from 1775 to 1784.The war had two main stages:Stage 1 - 1775–1777: Continental Congress/USA rebels officially alone versus Great Britain.Stage 2 -1778–1784: USA + several European powers + Mysore in India versus Great Britain.…. which second period included:1780–83: The League of Armed Neutrality (a formally neutral, but de facto anti-British, coalition of most leading European powers)The League’s Members: Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Ottoman Turkey, Portugal, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Basically all the remaining main powers of Europe.While not every European country, or even most, waged active warfare in the conflict to humble Great Britain, the countries of Europe (and elsewhere) presented a nearly united European and global front against what was widely seen as British arrogance and excess domination. A broad consensus emerged among the powers of the day that felt London’s position in the world needed to be rebalanced and brought down one or more degrees of magnitude.The American rebellion, beginning in 1775, proved a particularly opportune moment to try to achieve that very thing.Three of Europe’s major nations would engage in full-on official direct open warfare against Great Britain and its possessions as part of the War of American Independence.“Because England wants war against the whole world, they will have it!” — Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia in early 1781 (describing the expanding conflict & universal anti-British sentiment — though neither himself nor Prussia became direct belligerents in the conflict).—————————————————————1763 & Forward:The Gathering Storm: British Arrogance and World Reaction—————————————————————An unwelcome attitude of haughty supremacy was widely seen as emanating from London, especially after about 1763, more than a decade preceding the rebellion in British America’s 13 colonies.That perceived haughtiness had grown intolerable for a great many around the world — including former allies and current subjects of Great Britain. This appearance of excess superiority followed the latter’s victory in the Seven Years War (1756–1763).That conflict is also known in the USA as the “French & Indian War”, but it was more descriptively called, among the British at the time:“The Great War for Empire”.Great Britain had secured a position of “unipolar” global supremacy.Indeed, by that war’s end, King George’s army and navy sat as conquerors in Manila, Havana, Pondicherry, Quebec, and Senegal — among other places — especially after his and Parliament’s top-notch and enormous Royal Navy had bottled the French navy, its best opponent, inside France’s ports.Historians, probably inaccurately technically, often call the Seven Years War “the first world war. Given its scope and consequences, we can allow it.So the “second world war” after that is The American War under discussion here: Round-Two to the Seven Years War.—-The Seven Years War of 1756–1763 was arguably the defining war of modernity, until the conventionally known Second World War (1939–1945).That role arises from the fact that the Seven Years War established the British-dominated geopolitical world that defined modern history from the late 18th to the mid-20th centuries.And British attitudes and posture at the end of, and immediately following, the Seven Years War were soaring to their most aggressive and (over)confident to date.“Gunboat diplomacy” is a standard description of one British Ministry’s typical imperial foreign policy soon after the Seven Years War was finished (a Ministry whose colonial and fiscal policy also ticked off Britain’s American colonists).See: The Gunboat Diplomacy of the Government of George Grenville, 1764-1765: The Honduras, Turks Island and Gambian IncidentsA crisis over the Falklands Islands in 1770 saw a further intimidated and publicly humiliated France and Spain back off claims there. The American colonists meanwhile grew increasingly reactive to more intrusive measures by London into their finances, commerce, boundaries, and government. Those measures were typically responses to new post-Seven Years War conditions, especially Britain’s overhanging war debt and capture of much of North America.And those steps were working towards nurturing a stronger London-managed empire.——————————————-Opportunity Arises: France and Spain Wade In——————————————-In the subsequent American rebellion and independence conflict starting in the mid-1770s, the French, and later the Spanish, struck back hard, and with increasing directness, at British supremacy.First, they provided behind-the-scenes assistance to the Americans, then afterward waged open official war on Great Britain, bolstered particularly by a renewed preparatory naval buildup by the French aimed at rebalancing military power on the high seas.The geopolitical strategy of reducing the supremacy of Great Britain using American unrest was actually underway well before the Declaration of Independence of the American rebels in 1776.It was being readied even as news of the rebellion started to cross the Atlantic.“…The degree of exhaustion of the two parties [Britain & the American rebels] shall determine the [timing] of [our] striking the decisive blow which shall reduce England to a second-rate power....It is certain that if His Majesty [King Louis XVI] seizes [this] unique opportunity, which centuries may probably never reproduce, to contain…the dominating schemes of Great Britain, France would command peace [in Europe] for many a year.…Ambitious, covetous, unjust, and faithless … [Great Britain] respects only those who are able to make her fear.”— Charles Gravier [Comte] de Vergennes, Foreign Minister, Kingdom of France (from various memos to court & king 1775–76).The French in early 1778 formally allied themselves directly with the American rebels and committed France, publicly, to the Americans’ cause of independence. In the next year, the Spanish took on Great Britain by allying themselves directly with the French (via a dynastic agreement (“the Family Compact”) among the Bourbon family monarchs reigning in both Paris and Madrid).Spain, however, did not recognize or ally with the 13-colony North Americans formally during the war as the French had done. Their sole official target was not American Independence but the overreach of Great Britain.———————————————Europe United in Refusal: The Neutrals Resist Britain’s Interception of Trade & Try to Isolate It———————————————Portugal, normally a near permanent ally of the British, went shockingly neutral, suggesting how widespread resentment of Great Britain had become.The “neutrals” also included Prussia, a former British fighting ally in the previous war which now showed its hostility to that former ally by prohibiting transport of America-bound German (imprecisely called “Hessian”) contracted and allied troops through Prussia and on to Britain or America.Russia, under Empress Catherine, set up a League of Armed Neutrality during the American war to protest and hopefully block recurrent and aggressive British seizures of neutral vessels, even though Russia, like Prussia, had been a British ally at the end of the previous war. (“My children” was how Catherine described her nation’s maritime military and merchant vessels.)Additionally as early as 1775, Catherine had flatly turned down a direct request by King George for mercenary Russian troops to help suppress the rebellion in America. (Her initial delay in saying no may have had the effect of buying time for the American rebels in Boston and elsewhere to consolidate their positions and permit the rebellion to gain necessary traction.)The Baltic nations also joined in her later-established Neutrality League.So off-putting were British heavy-handed naval interception practices and attitudes that even Russia’s arch-rival Ottoman Turkey ultimately joined Catherine’s League!The League threatened armed resistance to British naval seizures during the American war and promised unified retaliation to armed captures of merchant vessels. (The League had started as more generally neutral, but France’s Foreign Minister Vergennes rather smartly persuaded Spain to back off seizing Russian and other neutral ships, realizing correctly that the main sentiment of the more powerful neutrals would then turn anti-British.)Austria and Prussia meanwhile aborted a major European war of their own, the War of the Bavarian Succession, partly because their patrons in the previous war, France and Britain respectively, couldn’t or wouldn’t support them. Those patrons were instead spending their all duking it out full throttle for European supremacy (with America as the immediate pretext and occasion of that conflict.)But both Austria and Prussia, despite their mutual enmity, were pretty much genuinely rooting against or positioned against the British, the latter nation especially so. As noted earlier, Prussia from the very beginning phases typically wouldn’t let German mercenaries pass through its territory to Britain. Prussian monarch Frederick the Great felt that the British Tory government had sold him out at the conclusion of the Seven Years War despite his alliance with them.Austria, in turn, was formally a standing French ally (though it undertook no direct belligerence in the American war). Emperor Joseph in Austria was also the brother of French King Louis’s wife Marie-Antoinette. Joseph additionally sought an anti-Turkish alliance with Russia’s Empress Catherine who was interested, but accordingly cracked her whip on him to stop the central European Bavarian war from being a distraction and a waste, even as Austria’s patron France refused to endorse it.So both Prussia and Austria joined Catherine’s de facto anti-British League of Armed Neutrality which, as noted, threatened combined retaliation for British seizures of ships and was a vehicle for isolating Great Britain as the broader war raged. (Also joining the League was the smaller but central Mediterranean state the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.)In actual practice, though, the League’s threat of armed neutrality was more bark than bite. The relative impotence of even armed merchant vessels against Royal Navy warships and armed British privateers was clear.But the League served to isolate Great Britain politically and was taken quite seriously by the British both in general and in particular cases, particularly as the claim of neutrality was a shield and conduit behind and through which Britain’s enemies — the Americans and French especially — traded or received supplies.Great Britain’s constant heavy-handed and unilateral interruption of global commerce in the hopes of cutting off rebel and other enemy supplies and trade fueled the pervasive resentment against Great Britain’s world-straddling supremacy among a great many of those who had been ordinarily or previously friendly. Or otherwise non-hostile.“We have no one friend or ally to assist us, on the contrary all those who ought to be our allies. . . act against us in supplying our enemies with the means of equipping their fleets.”— John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, to King George III, early 1779.A world power all alone, and deserted.—————————————-——-An Isolated Britain Keeps Fighting & Turns Viciously on one Neutral____________________________________Still, Britain stuck to its guns despite the neutrals’ resistance and trade with the enemies. The pressure by the Royal Navy on neutral merchant shipping fell heavily especially in places (like the Baltic and the Netherlands) that served as starting and transit points for key military stores going to the enemy Allies.In fact, when Holland decided to join the Neutrality League at the end of 1780, it found itself and its possessions pounced upon in full fury by an angry Britain which declared an official and total war against the Netherlands.London was already furious over Dutch West Indian colonies (especially the ports and warehouses on St. Eustatius) serving as sympathetic and vital military supply transit points to the Americans, and Holland also serving as a military stores route to France from the Baltic. All this happened while the city of Amsterdam’s local government was discovered to have flirted directly with the rebels with plans for possibly recognizing American independence.Meanwhile, the Dutch in general very confrontationally defied repeated British imperious demands on Holland’s trade and diplomacy. Britain felt also that older treaty commitments by the Netherlands to aid Britain had been breached.Prussian ruler Frederick the Great had now turned so much against his former patron that he took the time to escalate the hostilities between Holland and Britain, writing a scolding rebuke to his niece in the Netherlands, before Holland was at war with Great Britain. (Frederick did not take up direct war himself, however.)“You have done too much for the English,” Frederick chided the Princess, who was married to the Dutch head of state, the Prince of Orange.“You permit them to pillage your vessels at their pleasure!”Friedrich Edler, the classic historian of the Dutch at this period argued that “Frederick the Great sought to influence the United Provinces [of Holland] against England, and there is no doubt that he…was responsible for their final attitude towards their former ally [Great Britain].”————————————————————————————-The Worldwide War of Everyone Against Great Britain——————————————————————The War of American Independence was thus a broader struggle involving Everyone Against Great Britain — in sentiment, orientation, posture, and diplomatic practice, if not in actual open warfare.Three European major powers came to engage in overt official direct war against Britain during the course of the American war, as others ignored traditional enmities to combine in a cold neutrality hostile to British naval activity and superiority.And in India, the British East India company was fighting on two fronts. In one direction, they fought against the French-aligned and assisted Mysoreans of the south. Mysore’s dynamic leader Hyder Ali — later to be honored by having the de facto allied American rebels name a ship for him— declared war in response to British East India Company movements against American-allied French possessions in India.Those areas were lying within Mysore’s declared sphere of influence.Separately but simultaneously, the British East India Company also fought the Marathas in the center of India, while the British naval forces’ might was additionally engaged against Dutch bases throughout both India and the Indian Ocean area after war between Britain and Holland opened up over 1780–81.In this conflict and in that theater of operations, European control over Sri Lanka went back and forth among different countries during the early 1780s.And so around the world, an anti-British warring coalition along wit armed neutrals all aimed towards their common effect:Bringing Britain Down a Notch, or Several Notches ……And that seemed to work……Initially, and for a period, at least.French/European Alliances and Participation Radically Reverse the American Rebellion’s Sagging Momentum,Combined French naval and land forces — joined by the main rebel American army at the Siege of Yorktown/Battle of the Capes in late 1781 — climaxed a series of coordinated land and sea operations in America that effectively dealt the death blow to Great Britain’s political and military efforts to defeat and recover its insurgent 13 colonies.A while earlier in 1778, the mere active threat of a French naval strike in the western Atlantic had caused the British to mass-evacuate Philadelphia and the Chesapeake region in semi-panic, as well as to redeploy very large numbers of troops away from North America to the newly arising Caribbean theater of war.The initial threat engendered by French North Atlantic naval operations turned the ground war momentum in America back over to the rebels who were famously thawing out and undergoing Prussian-officered basic training at Valley Forge.Britain now faced a rival strong adversary in warfare across a global hemisphere. The threat was much much bigger than an overseas rebellion.The object of the war being now changed and the contest in America being secondary consideration, our principal object must be distressing France and defending … His Majesty's [other] possessions." [Emphasis added]—John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty of Great Britain, to Admiral Lord Richard Howe, Cmdr-in-Chief, North American Station, 22 March 1778The Spanish joined in. Energetically led locally by governor Bernardo de Galvez in New Orleans, they encircled the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, with Spanish troops taking southern North America up through West Florida and eventually the Bahamas as well, while the French took important British-held Antilles islands positions like St. Kitts, and Spanish forces in America menaced the British lumber operations around what is now Belize (British Honduras).Galvez also drove the British out of the Mississippi river basin, clearing a path to more directly supply to the American rebels through the back door, something he had already been long doing unofficially prior to formal Spanish entrance into the war in 1779.The island of Jamaica, the sugar-rich money-maker of the British Caribbean empire, was effectively isolated, surrounded, and seemingly doomed, a primary target of Spanish imperial and French military operations.A young Horatio Nelson, stationed there, began to study French in expectation of the island’s upcoming capture by a French fleet. Nelson had also led a disastrous expedition designed to defeat the Spanish in Central America.The British units there (in what is modern Nicaragua) suffered the worst casualty rate — largely from disease —- than from any other operation or engagement of the War of American Independence, including the dramatic defeats and hard-won victories in places like Boston, Saratoga, Minorca, Gibraltar, and Yorktown.The Europeans Take the War to the English Channel and Rattle Britain Internally———————————-During the war’s pendency, the British also nervously and realistically anticipated a Franco-Spanish invasion of England itself, thereby holding naval and other resources back from America, the Caribbean and other operational areas.What was feared almost came to pass early on in 1779.A combined fleet of the Bourbon allies — described by one historian as one of the largest fleets ever assembled in history — carrying thousands upon thousands of ground troops nearly landed on England’s southern coast that year in sort of a reverse D-Day.It was stopped only by internal Franco-Spanish operational factors — delay-induced and delay-inducing heavy shipboard disease, vessel erosion, and very poor operational coordination among the anti-British allies. (The British home island of Jersey was also twice invaded and nearly captured by the French during the war.)It was in conjunction with that grand intended invasion of the island of Great Britain itself that the famed American (and French supplied) seaman John Paul Jones performed his reputation-establishing attack on the Serapis.His celebrated operations were actually a small preliminary decoy effort in support of a Franco-Spanish combined fleet’s grand operation to invade the British homeland.Somewhat related public panic from the French-Spanish invasion fleet of 1779 may have helped tear the city of London apart in the next year, with levels of rioting and anarchy rarely seen in the capital city, before or since. The so-called Gordon riots in the next year 1780 were anti-Catholic in nature but possibly amplified in sentiment because it was the religion of the two main enemy belligerents, France and Spain. The riots were only ended when King George, on his personal authority, sent out security forces which gunned down citizens in the street in large numbers to clear the city of rioters.The more specific occasion of those 1780 riots, however, was a step directly engendered by the American war.The provocation to anti-Catholic sentiment arose from Parliamentary legislation reducing restrictions on Catholics, a move partly but explicitly inspired by a desire to recruit more British and Irish into fighting in the now-expanded American war, a war which came dangerously close to landing a huge number of enemy forces directly onto England’s shores.The Kingdom of Great Britain was additionally stressed internally as agitation against London for self-government in Ireland became dramatically accelerated by the American war, leading to a profound change of governance.France and Spain went so far as to dispatch agents to investigate the possibility of fomenting rebellion in Ireland. That failed in part due to successful British counter-intelligence, but nonetheless, the call-out of the volunteer militia in Ireland because of the invasion threat helped directly drive successful activism for a form of home rule (Grattan’s Parliament).____________________________________________________Erosion of & Threats to the Larger British Empire____________________________________________________The British strategic position in the Mediterranean was also battered badly by a successful Spanish-French amphibious assault on the British base on the west Mediterranean island Minorca about the same time as the 1781 Yorktown campaign in America, and involving a smaller but still large number of fighters on all sides.Soon after that, it became time for the climax in the Eastern Atlantic/West Mediterranean theaters: a final French and Spanish crushing attack to seize British-held Gibraltar!Gibraltar’s hoped-for capture, if successful, would mean the complete restoration of Bourbon control of the western Mediterranean and the end of the British presence on Spanish soil at the strategic western entry-chokepoint of the Mediterranean.A French fleet meanwhile intercepted and stopped a British attack force aimed at capturing Dutch South Africa, while French forces retook a key base in West Africa, reintroducing their presence in the region and restarting the rule there they would advance over the next centuries.————————————————————The Slow But Late Royal Navy’s Return: The Reassertion of British Global Power————————————————————But the winds of war started to shift………This thing called the British Royal Navy showed up more and more where it was supposed to, with its traditional ferocity and skill reasserting itself, and with faster more seaworthy ships. Factionalism in command-level decision-making, logistical problems in ship construction began to be fixed, while a new and useful ship-construction technology was being rapidly introduced in England.Boldly, the Royal Navy kept breaking through to Gibraltar keeping that strategic city’s small British garrison supplied as it held out heroically against a Spanish-French three year siege by land and sea. Finally, in September 1782, about a year after the Yorktown defeat across the waves, a massive combined land and sea attack on the town by the French and Spanish using specially-designed floating batteries not only failed to break the defense, but the Royal Navy-sustained British defenders destroyed each of the Spanish vaunted “hi-tech” (as we’d say today) attack vessels without the British defenders even sailing out from their land position on Gibraltar.So effective was the British defense there, centered on the use of “hot-shot” to set the attacking vessels on fire, that the trapped and heavily bombarded garrison on Gibraltar ended up sending out rescuers to save the burning and drowning attacking Spanish crewmembers!British Gibraltar held firm throughout the American war to its end in one of history’s most epic and successful siege resistances.Meanwhile, in April 1782, the very same French fleet that had won the day at Yorktown several months previously and was thereafter slated to join the Spanish in an attack on British-held Jamaica was intercepted by British Admiral George Rodney at a place called the Saintes in the West Indies near the island of Dominica.Rodney’s ships “broke the line [of battle]”, slicing through and across the procession of French vessels, inflicting a devastating & historic defeat on the French, perhaps one of the most important British naval victories of all time.They scattered the French fleet, capturing several ships including the French commander’s, thereby restoring Great Britain to supremacy in the strategically and economically vital Caribbean, if not, ultimately, the entire world.Suddenly the British Empire didn’t appear quite so much on the ropes any more.Britain’s naval strength had remained robust and formidable, and ultimately effectively supreme, though somewhat initially caught in literal or figurative drydock when the demand for the navy first soared when the American war went international.The Navy was the key to Britain’s strength, the sinews of its global muscle.The British Royal Navy had nearly as many usable line-of-battle warships as its three actively fighting European adversaries combined. (In fact, The War of American Independence may have contained the most fleet-to-fleet naval direct engagements in all of human history through to today. And certainly in Caribbean history).On board the ships were strong, experienced, and generally more meritocratically selected commanders and crews. (Swarms of authorized free-agent nautical “privateers” from Britain’s enormous merchant fleet —perhaps one-third of which were originally American built! — also supplemented the effort by seizing enemy trading and supply ships.)And new technology, ever more rapidly assimilated, played a key part.Increasingly, as the American war progressed, the British vessels were more and more incorporating a technique called copper-bottoming or copper-sheathing which enabled better and faster movement during longer periods at sea.An important primary result of the superior naval power was that the international trade of Great Britain, being protected by that Royal Navy, assured the existence of a superior economic base to pay directly for fighting sustained long wars, and for obtaining affordable financial credit towards that extended warfare.The failure of the nations and rebels arrayed against them to decisively destroy British trade, combined with that country’s relatively efficient and open tax collection and public budgeting system — fortified by a creditworthy debt-rollover practice using debt consolidation instruments called “consols” — meant that Great Britain could keep on waging war despite heavy setbacks.And the damage done by the Royal Navy and its supportive privateers to the trading of enemy belligerents, much less the angry neutrals, was enormous.A quick illustration:Over the year 1780, when still formally neutral, the Netherlands sent 2,050 commercial trading ships into the North Sea and the Baltic.In 1781, however, after Great Britain declared war on the Dutch, the total annual number of Dutch-Baltic trading ships was. . . . 11 !At one point also, it was noted that maybe only about 10–20% of French commercial ships returned home uncaptured.The widespread combined resistance to Great Britain thus began to take serious hits and run low on steam and fuel.It further unraveled as 1782 moved along.——————————————————————Britain’s Government Collapses While Division Hits The Enemy Allies——————————————————————In early 1782 as a response to fall of Yorktown near the end of the previous year, and also perhaps in response to the very early 1782 losses of Minorca and St. Kitts, control of the British Parliament changed parties.It fell to the dominance of a more pro-American party, the Whigs.Parliament voted to prohibit the further waging of offensive ground war in America against the rebels.This act of giving up was not a surrender, but more importantly, it did not mean Great Britain was in worse shape, when it came to its global enemies.Rather, the increasing compartmentalization of American continent objectives from the war with the European enemies, meant that Great Britain now had more — and increasingly better — resources to spare against its European enemies: the actively warring coalition of France, Spain and Holland. And the American rebels had less active need to continue the war.(The war in America itself didn’t fully end before a peace was signed in early 1783. Perimeter skirmishes around British-held cities in America continued, pro-British Native American conflicts with the rebels settlers continued, and the Royal Navy and British privateers continued to intercept ships trading with and supplying the Americans, as well as vice-versa. But major fighting was over.)Soon after Britain had thrown in the towel in America, to France’s chagrin and in violation of the spirit and likely the letter of the Franco-American alliance, the Americans began to separately negotiate behind the backs of their European ally with a much less unfriendly London (due, as noted above, to the relatively pro-American Whig faction’s takeover of Parliament after that body lost confidence in the ruling Tories’ abilities to wage war following Yorktown and other defeats).The interests of the allies were growing apart.France and Spain and Holland also began to pursue their own separate interests in negotiations as Catherine of Russia ramped up mediation services to the European belligerents. Mutually adverse horse-trading and peace proposals between and among same-side belligerents regarding strategic and wealth-producing possessions were floated behind the scenes, and would follow through into more formal negotiations.The anti-British coalition was unravelling.Britain’s still relatively strong global position was notable in the later stages of the war.Beginning in 1781, Holland was being rapidly and thoroughly emasculated as a European great power by the British Navy. Dutch possessions worldwide — in Sumatra, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Suriname, and key Caribbean islands — fell one after another to British assaults, as a helpless and blockaded Netherlands looked on. (And as noted earlier above, it required a French fleet, not a Dutch one, to intercept and stop a planned British conquest of Dutch South Africa while Dutch international trade fell over 99%.)In addition to the historic victory at the Saintes, the British navy also dueled a well-commanded French fleet to a tough but creditable draw in the Indian Ocean and around India itself. (Most historians agree that the French fleet under the very able commander Suffren were out-performing the British around India, but it remained more of a draw since no decisive victory on land or sea took place.)And the East India Company, with British government naval supply and assistance, came out about the same, a draw, with their local Indian enemies on land. (More wars with the same belligerents would happen over the next decades to decide who would rule where in India.)A proposal in late 1782 from within the Bourbon allies to revive the Franco-Spanish plan to take Jamaica in the Caribbean sputtered from lack of enthusiasm at the highest levels of an increasingly budget-pressed and trade-harassed France, which was also growing far more concerned about something else:Ominous developments were stirring in Eastern Europe, more disturbing than the American war.A new crisis was unfolding as Tsaritsa Catherine II decided to have Russia invade Crimea to pressure a Turkish-aligned government there experiencing a succession crisis.Alarmed, the French nervously pivoted eastward over 1782-83, deciding to finalize (without waiting for news from India or elsewhere) and close down the expensive and now frustrating American war, the aim of which — for the European enemies of Britain — had been to affordably cut Britain down to size: i.e., from superpower to merely one of several European great powers.But they had not really achieved that goal despite years of expensive hard-fought war and the defeat of Britain on the American continent.The mastermind of the whole global conflict, French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier de Vergennes, now thought his country might work best with the relatively friendly new British Whig PM Lord Shelburne in hopes of bringing him and Britain around to supporting Turkey against a greater fear than the French had of British power: the threat of a growing Russian expansion into Europe completely destroying a French-led balance of power on land.Vergennes envisioned a sort of Anglo-French entente to support the balance of power on the continent. The French viewed their traditional — but increasingly militarily impotent — ally, Turkey, as an important presence blocking Russian expansion into Europe and the Mediterranean. (A foreshadowing of the Crimean war of about 70 years later.)This attention was consistent with the French Royalist regime viewing itself as the rightful grand arbiter of continental Europe’s international order. And that overall vision of France as the proper arbiter of Europe’s order was the same driving vision of France’s status that had drawn them towards, and into, the anti-British American war in the first place.Contrary to what is often glibly stated, it was not just a desire for revenge for earlier losses in the Seven Years War that motivated France in the American War. It was more. It arose from a sense of national destiny, purpose, and self-image which held that a more just, honorable, and peaceful Europe, led properly by France, had been undermined and threatened by Britain’s arrogance and position after the Seven Years War (i.e., 1763 and forward).———————————————————————————Outcome: Britain Loses America But Remains Global Leader———————————————————————————At the end of the American war, with the Peace of Paris of 1783, the British had lost the 13 colonies (plus Florida and Minorca to Spain) but held on to or recovered most of their other key global bases and to their superior position on the seas and throughout most of the world.This occurred despite the near-uniform active and passive hostility in Europe and much of the world to London’s dominance during the previous years of war.The War of American Independence had expanded from a civil insurrection of rebellious colonies into a multi-Great-Power, multi-continent, and multi-ocean World War-to-Cut-Britain-Down-to-Size.But that war failed to achieve the larger international geopolitical aims of the Great Powers that intervened in it or cheered it on from a position of anti-British neutrality, even as the war very successfully secured the smaller more immediate one of rebel American independence.Only the Americans obtained a major unambiguous historic gain from the grand and world-wide investment and destruction of lives, bodies, and resources in the War of American Independence.Their rebellion, more by coincidence than design, was perfectly timed with an across-the-board European and global common desire to see Great Britain taken on . . . and taken down.France got hugely expanded debt on a very shaky Treasury and regime, though it did rebuild its Navy aggressively, which would be seen again in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. France also kept access to valuable fisheries off Canada which it had retained in the Seven Years War.Spain got Florida and Minorca but not its ideal prizes of Jamaica or Gibraltar.Holland, despite keeping overseas imperial possessions in the final agreement, got itself reduced by a decisive and brutally thorough British pummeling into a permanent second-rate, vulnerable, and temporarily internally unstable state inside Europe.Great Britain lost America’s 13 colonies (plus Florida) but broke even in Europe and the world (minus small Caribbean areas traded for others, and non-essential places like Minorca and one Senegalese port).But its beneficial economic and trading relationship with America did not fundamentally change in the long run, while a hoped-for (by France) better trade relationship between France and America did not takeoff afterwards.Rather soon after, as well, from both the American war and other later critical financial woes, France’s economy and finances drifted downwards towards a different revolution with destiny.Meanwhile, Great Britain still held most of North America’s raw land, with a strong continuing influence over Ohio valley Native Americans, while only conceding full defeat to another group of (now former) Englishmen.Because Great Britain had already been at the highest rank of European and world powers at the beginning of the war, “breaking even” simply means it remained a singular superpower after the American war, as it had been before, and despite the combined active and passive opposition of most other major European and more than one Indian subcontinent nation.This globally dominant a status was one that that nation would maintain — despite another extended close call in the next decades with a differently-governed France — through the next centuries.

Here’s something that’s mainstream opinion in Europe, but barely ever whispered in the USA: Not only was the American Revolution destined to fail without French aid, it would also most likely have failed without the help of Baron von Steuben, or if the Spanish and Dutch hadn’t gotten involved.Spanish forces defeating the British in the Battle of Pensacola, an event that’s often left out of American history books. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.At this point, many of my fellow Americans will feel some cognitive dissonance. Weren’t the American revolutionaries a determined group of bold patriots who used Native American guerilla tactics to embarrass the British until they gave up? That’s what we were taught in school, and it’s not entirely wrong. It’s also not the whole story. It would be like telling the story of World War II by describing the brave exploits of Charles De Gaulle and the Free French, while glossing over British, American and Soviet contributions.None of this is to say that Washington and the other revolutionaries were a bunch of starry-eyed fools with no chance of victory. Like De Gaulle and the Free French, they had a plan. To understand this, we need to take a look at what was going on in the Thirteen Colonies at the outbreak of war. So strap in, because it’s time for a history lesson. And history can be complicated, so this is a long answer.1775: The year a local rebellion in Massachusetts turned into a warThe thing that’s most often misunderstood about the American Revolution is that it wasn’t just a war. It was also a political movement. Much of George Washington’s genius was off the battlefield, in the business of keeping thirteen fractious colonies united in their common struggle.I’m going to try to limit this answer to the war itself, but trouble had been brewing in the colonies for some time. What’s important to remember is that the Thirteen Colonies were separate entities, with their own competing interests and their own complaints against the British Crown. The Canadian colonies of Rupert’s Land, Newfoundland, Quebec, and Nova Scotia were administratively similar, but none of them ever sent delegates to the Continental Congress or joined the revolution.Another thing that’s misunderstood is the timeline of the war itself. Many people will probably remember something like this: A bunch of politics happens, then the Declaration of Independence then the Revolutionary War breaks out. In fact, war broke out more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was signed in July of 1776.The war started back in April 1775. Due to a long series of trade disputes, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had declared an official boycott on British goods. As a result, the British Parliament declared the Colony of Massachusetts to be in revolt, and authorized the use of military force to put down the “rebellion”. On April 18th, a detachment of British Army regulars set out to disarm the Massachusetts Colonial Militia arsenals at Lexington and Concord. Militia troops fought them off, and within a day a militia army of over 15,000 troops was besieging the British garrison in Boston.The Battle of Lexington. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.By June 14th, the Continental Congress approved the formation of the Continental Army, and on June 15th George Washington was marching to Boston to assume command of the now 22,000-strong Continental Army besieging the British. By July 18th, the Continental Congress had called on all thirteen colonies to raise troops to fight the British.Why did they think they could win?Rule Britannia: Why Conquer the World When You Can Buy It?To understand Britain in 1775, we have to understand that it wasn’t just Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. It was a whole bunch of territories around the world, from the coast of West Africa to India and Ceylon, to the Caribbean. You can’t see it on the map because it’s so tiny, but they also already controlled Gibraltar.The British Empire in 1776. Image courtesy of Desmond Ng, from: Desmond Ng's answer to Did Great Britain have the greatest empire in the world during the American War of Independence as claimed by Americans?This was an empire based on trade. Tea from India. Slaves from Africa. Sugar from the Caribbean. Tobacco and fur from North America. To protect this trade, the British had built the Royal Navy into the world’s greatest naval force. They had over 100 ships of the line, 80 cruisers, hundreds of transports and numerous smaller vessels.With this massive naval force, the population of the British Isles (between six and eight million people in 1776) ruled over an empire of millions of others around the globe. They didn’t do it with their (relatively paltry) army of 50,000 men. They did it by ensuring a constant flow of trade, and propping up political allies in their colonies around the world.Twelve years before the American War of Independence, in 1763, the British had been on the winning side of the Seven Years’ War (the French and Indian War to us Yankees). Without going too much into history, this was a major European war that involved most countries in Europe, and Britain didn’t win a single land battle on the continent. What they did instead was use their massive navy to strangle France’s colonial possessions to death. Between 1756 and 1763, France lost its territory in India and West Africa, as well as islands in the Caribbean and all of New France (a huge territory extending from modern-day Louisiana through the American Midwest up through the Eastern half of modern-day Canada). Well-fed, well-supplied British expeditionary troops and their local allies easily smashed French forces that were overextended, undersupplied, and had no hope of reinforcements from the homeland. While the British economy continued to thrive on global trade, France’s economy ground to a halt. At the war’s end, France managed to salvage her Caribbean islands and Indian outposts, but lost everything else.This was a bit of a digression, but it goes to show two things:The British strategy of naval supremacy, combined with a “divide and conquer” diplomatic approach to local populations (more on that later) allowed the British Empire’s economy to prosper, in war or peace.In 1775, France was angry at Great Britain. King Louis XVI was eager for any way to smack down the British, and was willing to back any credible anti-British rebellion.King Louis XVI of France; in this war, at least, he managed to keep his head. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.Basically, the British Empire in 1775 was a maritime empire with a small army. It could shut down the shipping of any other nation on the planet, isolating them economically. It could offer payments to local allies to fight for Britain in any theatre. But was not prepared or willing to engage in a protracted land war in the European style: regular army lined up against regular army.This plays against some familiar stereotypes. If you went to school in America, you were probably taught about how the British lined up in long rows, shooting at the enemy in organized ranks, and how the American colonists used more modern tactics to defeat them. For more explanation on why British tactics were much smarter than they seem to the modern eye, see David Loeb’s excellent answer to: What is the official name for 18th century ground warfare, where one side engages in a slow march toward the other? Why were such inefficient tactics and strategy used? Was it based on the concept on civility of warfare?Long story short: The idea of lining up in ranks and firing at a relatively short-range enemy was the natural evolution of earlier military tactics. Every military of the time used these tactics. Moreover, the British redcoats may have been a small army, but they were well-trained and well-supplied by the standard of the times. The colonial militias used the same tactics in several major battles — Bunker Hill is one example — and they failed against better-trained troops. This led to the use of guerilla tactics. Not because they were objectively better tactics given the technology of the time, but because the Continental Army couldn’t possibly stand toe to toe with the British Army without some help.Remember how I mentioned the British divide and conquer policy? This was most obvious in the British Raj, where the East India Company managed to dominate Indian trade with only a few thousand troops. They did this by allying with local rulers, paying them to fight other local leaders who refused to submit to a British trade monopoly. The British did a similar thing in North America to check the ambitions of the Thirteen Colonies. At the end of the Seven Years’ War, King George III signed the Royal Proclamation of 1763, forbidding colonists from settling lands West of the Ohio River. This made many colonists angry, particularly in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, which all claimed parts of the Ohio Territory for themselves. However, it ensured that the Iroquois Confederation, the Cherokee and the Algonquin tribes would side with the British Crown in any dispute with the Thirteen Colonies. So, not only were the colonists battling the redcoats and the Royal Navy, they also had to deal with British-allied Native Americans in the Northwest.Finally, the British did have one major disadvantage against the colonists: logistics. While the colonists were fighting in their own backyard, travel time between Britain and North America was roughly a month each way. This wasn’t just an issue for moving troops back and forth. It also affected basic communications, meaning that instructions from the home island were often months out of date by the time they arrived in the New World.The Thirteen Colonies: David Searching for His SlingIn 1775, the population of the Thirteen Colonies was approximately 2.4 million people, as opposed to the British population of between 6 and 8 million. Let’s call it 7 million. Right off the bat, the colonists were outnumbered roughly three-to-one, and that’s not counting the British Native American allies.Furthermore, unlike Great Britain, the Thirteen Colonies lacked a professional army. They did rectify this quickly as I mentioned above, but militia units played a huge part in the war up until the very end. Nonetheless, most of these “soldiers” were farmers and craftsmen. Times being what they were, most of them would have had experience with firearms in hunting, but being able to bring down a ten point buck is not the same as being able to maintain discipline in the face of cannon fire.The exception to this was the officer corps and some of the militia veterans, many of whom (including Washington) had served under the British in the Seven Years’ War. Those people did indeed have military experience, but it was the exception rather than the rule.George Washington in British uniform as a member of the Virginia Colonial Militia (1772). Image courtesy of atlasobscura.com.Many people also forget that the colonists were not all united. Historians disagree on the exact numbers, but only about a third of the colonists sided with the revolutionaries. This group came to be known as “patriots”, while those who favored the status quo (also about a third of the population) came to be known as “tories”. So not only were patriot militias fighting British regular troops, they were also dealing with tory militias.As for strengths, the Thirteen Colonies did have one major advantage, and it’s the one my fellow Yankees were taught in school: home field advantage. I won’t belabor the point because it’s one of the few things our American high school history books got right. The colonists knew their local terrain, had the advantage of supportive friends and neighbors, and had a personal stake in the outcome (unlike the average British redcoat who was there for a paycheck).Plan A: Use the Threat of War to Apply Political PressureGiven the obvious British advantage, how did the colonists expect to win? As you probably guessed from the fact that the war broke out by accident, nobody could agree on a plan. Indeed, in 1775, some revolutionaries still opposed outright independence. As late as July 1776, early revolutionary leader John Dickinson famously refused to sign the Declaration of Independence.While not all revolutionaries were agreed on independence, they were violently opposed to British economic and trade policies, as well as being opposed to paying taxes while having no representative in Parliament. While the British army could certainly defeat them, the thinking went, it would be a costly endeavor. Fire a few shots at the redcoats, seize a few key strategic forts, and surely King George would negotiate. Then the trade imbalances would be fixed, the colonies would elect representatives to Parliament, and everyone could go back to being loyal British subjects.I’ve been long-winded so far, so I’m not going to spend 10,000 words writing a blow-by-blow history of the first year of the war. Suffice it to say that King George did not negotiate. He ordered more troops sent to the colonies to put down the rebellion. Nonetheless, there was a strong Whig faction in the British Parliament that opposed the war and did their best to obstruct funding. This faction was active up until the end of the war. The British public was also divided on the issue, with many of them opposed to what they saw as violent repression against people who were, at the end of the day, fellow Englishmen.During the first year of the war, the patriots drove the British out of Boston, occupied Montreal, and forced the British fleet to evacuate from Boston to Nova Scotia. Perhaps encouraged by their early successes, the Continental Congress famously voted to declare independence on July 4th, 1776, although it wasn’t officially signed until August. There would be no political compromise. Plan A had failed.Plan B: Deny the British a FootholdThe first year of the war had been mostly successful for the revolutionaries. With the British driven out of Boston, and with no significant British forces in the rest of the thirteen colonies, the British army couldn’t fight effectively or resupply. If the British were going to put down this rebellion, they would need to take control of a major harbor to bring supplies and troops into the theater. Washington knew this, and had already moved his army to New York City to defend the harbor there.Even as the ink was drying on the Declaration of Independence, a British force of of 73 warships, over 300 transports, and 30,000 troops was massing on Staten Island. On August 22nd, they began ferrying troops to Long Island. Washington deployed troops to defend the island, and the British attacked on the night of August 26th. Washington’s force was badly defeated, and he was forced to withdraw to Manhattan on the night of August 30th. To his credit, Washington did not lose a single man or piece of equipment during the retreat.But the damage was done. By the end of September, the British controlled all of Manhattan, and the Continental Army was retreating south into Pennsylvania. Worst of all, the British now had a foothold in the colonies. The war to come was guaranteed to be long and bloody.Battle of Long Island. Note that the Continental Army’s battle flag already has some familiar red and white stripes. Image courtesy of the U.S. National Guard.Plan C: Keep an Army in the Field Until Something ChangesOn their way south, Washington’s army famously crossed the Delaware River to drive out the British garrison in Trenton, and ended up capturing 900 Hessian mercenaries who were quartered there. He went on to defeat a British force at Princeton before finally settling into winter quarters in Morristown, NJ.While these incidents are famous, and were significant because they boosted the morale of the Continental Army after their series of losses in New York, the strategic situation remained bleak.The colonial forces consisted of roughly 11,000 troops in the Continental Army under George Washington, a smaller army/patriot militia force under Horatio Gates in New England, and a variety of disparate state militias in the Southern states. This was the force the colonists had to fight the mightiest nation on Earth.The strategy Washington developed is the same strategy that has been used by revolutionaries since then, most notably by Mao Zedong during the Long March and by the Taliban in Afghanistan: keep an army in the field. Washington understood that the British could not keep fighting indefinitely. They could certainly win, if they defeated the Continental Army, but as long as the colonies kept an army in the field it would require the British to spend resources fighting them. Eventually, King George would have to give up.This was probably a rose-colored view of things. Unlike the case of Mao Zedong versus Chang Kai-Shek, King George was thousands of miles away, and the Continental Army could not directly threaten the British homeland. Unlike the case of the Taliban versus the Soviets, the patriots did not have the overwhelming support of the local population.However, there is one parallel here worth noting: just as Mao’s revolutionaries managed to control the countryside, slowly isolating Chang Kai-Shek’s army to urban centers, the patriots began to dominate the colonial countryside. While tory militias could, in theory, have gone toe-to-toe with patriot militias, tory militias began to disband, and tory citizens were migrating to British-controlled cities en-masse. They did this because they feared patriot militias, and they were seeking protection from British regular troops. Patriots, on the other hand, could count on no such protection, so they remained in the countryside, conducting guerilla raids on British patrols and supply trains. Thus, by fielding a large regular army on the American continent, the British unwittingly strengthened the revolutionary cause in the countryside.Nonetheless, the picture looked grim. And the British had an intangible factor that was as potent as the colonists’ home-field advantage: George III’s stubbornness. To understand this, let’s put the British military effort in perspective:At this point in the war, there were over 30,000 British regulars and mercenaries in the colonies, with more on the way. This is more than twice as many troops as the US has in Afghanistan in 2018, and we have a population more than fifty times the British population during the American Revolution. Furthermore, the logistical nightmare of moving troops and equipment halfway across the world in 2018 doesn’t even compare to the challenges the British faced with 18th-century technology. This was a huge, expensive undertaking, and it wasn’t unreasonable for the colonists to expect the British to negotiate. George III’s stubbornness is what kept the war going.George III’s coronation portrait. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.The Continental Army faced numerous difficulties that had nothing to do with the British, and I’m not going to spend another thousand words going into them here. Suffice it to say that the Continental Congress had some funding issues, and ended up paying their troops in paper currency that only had value if you were buying from patriots who believed in the cause. Inflation rates were on par with Weimar Germany, and Washington’s army nearly disbanded more than once due to lack of funding. They also faced a Smallpox epidemic, and were so poorly supplied that Washington had to personally go to Congress and demand that they issue blankets to his troops or they would all freeze to death. Washington is often criticized for his dubious tactical decisions, but he deserves credit for keeping an army in the field at all. Had the war continued from here, with no foreign support for the revolutionaries, it’s reasonable to suspect that the British crown would eventually have won.Except, as mentioned before, the French had a bone to pick with the British, and a young French nobleman named Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roche Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de LaFayette, came to visit Washington. This mission was not officially approved by the French crown. Indeed, France had considered sending officers and military advisors a year earlier, in 1776, but King Louis had decided against it. Nonetheless, the young nobleman made the journey on his own, and arrived in the colonies on June 13th, 1777.LaFayette in 1791. Image courtesy of Wikimedia CommonsBy the 31st of July, LaFayette had met with Congress, and obtained a commission as a major general in the Continental Army. By August 15th, he had been introduced to Washington, who immediately took a liking to his fellow mason. On September 11th, he saw his first action at the Battle of Brandywine. The Americans were initially routed in the battle, but LaFayette rallied the troops and salvaged an orderly retreat. He was also wounded in the battle, and his courage earned him command of a division.On November 5th, LaFayette fought in the Battle of Gloucester, where the 350 troops under his command defeated a force of 450 Hessian mercenaries, suffering only 1 killed and a few injured in the process.The Battles of Saratoga also took place during this time. An American army had surrounded a British army a few miles south of Saratoga, New York. The British tried to break out twice, and failed both times. These battles, on September 19th and October 7th respectively, were hugely consequential. Had the British broken out, they would have marched south across New York to meet another British army near Albany, effectively cutting the 13 colonies in two by isolating New England from the middle and southern colonies. Instead, their army of over 6,000 men was captured.Between these military victories, entreaties from American diplomats like Benjamin Franklin, and glowing reports from LaFayette, Louis XVI was convinced to formally join the cause of independence. On February 6th, 1778, France formally recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation, and signed a treaty of defensive alliance. On March 13th, the French ambassador announced the treaty to the British. On March 17th, Great Britain declared war on France, and the two nations were officially at war.Baron von Steuben Visits Valley ForgeIn the middle of all this, a renowned Prussian officer named Baron von Steuben was on his way to the colonies. The Prussian Army was to the 18th century as the American Army is to the 21st century: better trained, better disciplined, better drilled than any other army in the world. And von Steuben was one of their best, having served as an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great during the Seven Years’ War.Driven out of Prussia due to rumors he was gay, he fled to Paris, where the French Minister of War introduced him to Benjamin Franklin, the American ambassador to France. Franklin was impressed by the Prussian Captain, and wrote him a letter of recommendation to George Washington that mistranslated the word “Captain” as “Lieutenant-General”, further burnishing his resume.Von Steuben departed in late summer, and arrived in New Hampshire on September 26th, 1777, but he and his men had gotten bad information, and arrived dressed in British Redcoats uniforms. The confusion was soon cleared up, and they passed through Boston on December 1st, and finally arrived in Valley Forge on February 23rd, 1778.Baron von Steuben in 1780. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.Von Steuben quickly impressed Washington with his military acumen, and was appointed provisional inspector general of the Continental Army. He quickly toured the camp, and ordered changes in layout and sanitation that would be the world standard as late as World War I. He also selected 120 of the best troops to be an honor guard for Washington, trained them in the latest Prussian drill methods, and appointed them as trainers for the rest of the army.On May 5th, Congress commissioned von Steuben as a major general in the army, and made his position of inspector general official. Von Steuben immediately set to work, and uncovered a number of schemes by Congressmen and others to siphon off military supplies for their own profits. By some estimates, he saved the US $600,000 in material (over $15 million in 2018 dollars).In 1779, he published “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States”, which came to be known as the “blue book”, the very first US Army manual. Von Steuben’s reforms turned the ragtag Continental Army into a force that could contend with the best militaries of Europe, as they would ultimately prove in the decisive siege of Yorktown two years later.Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown. Image courtesy of goodfreephotos.comSpain Jumps on the BandwagonIn 1779, Spain joined the war, eager to avenge losses to the British in the Seven Years’ War, particularly the loss of sugar-producing Florida. This was significant, because the Spanish Navy, combined with the French Navy, was able to challenge Britain’s control over the Caribbean. A combined Franco-Spanish force also laid siege to Gibraltar.The siege lasted from June 16th, 1779, until February 7th, 1783, making it by far the longest battle of the war. The British garrison only survived because they were resupplied three times by sea, due to a combination of British naval daring and Franco-Spanish naval incompetence. The Spanish fleet also sank two major British supply convoys in 1780 and 1781, hampering British military efforts in the Americas.In February, 1780, the British sent a fleet, including a young Horatio Nelson, to attempt to seize Nicaragua from Spain. Nelson acquitted himself with valor in the first battle. The British did successfully seize a Spanish fort, but a combination of bad weather and disease forced them to abandon the expedition and return to Jamaica.Spanish forces in then-Spanish-controlled Louisiana attacked over land, overwhelming British defenders in Mississippi and driving out the last British troops in Florida at the Battle of Pensacola in 1781. This eliminated any possibility of British troops resupplying from the south, or opening a second front along the Mississippi river.In 1782, the Spanish seized the Bahamas from Great Britain without firing a shot, and a plan was underway to invade Britain’s last Caribbean possession - Jamaica - when Britain finally surrendered in 1783.Dutch Material AidFrom the beginning of the war, individual Dutch traders, angry about British trade abuses, began surreptitiously funding American revolutionaries. The Royal Navy started seizing many of these ships and the Dutch joined the League of Armed Neutrality, a collection of European countries who reserved the right to trade with anyone and would fire on hostile interceptors.In 1780, Britain declared war, kicking off the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. While the Dutch eventually lost, this war further overstretched British resources.In Conclusion: Why Plan C WorkedSome historians have argued that the Battles of Saratoga were important in and of themselves, and showed that American armies could defeat the British in large-scale battles. This may be true on paper, but these battles were fought in conditions that uniquely favored the Americans. The Battles of Saratoga took place far from the Royal Navy, far from any British forts, in an American hinterland that was dominated by patriot forces. It would probably have gone quite differently if the battle had taken place somewhere the British had naval support or even fortifications.Were these battles important? Undoubtedly, they kept the colonies in the war for another year, and convinced the French to join the war, but the idea that they prove the Continental Army of 1777 could go toe to toe with British regulars is pure American cowboy fantasy. By the end of the war, they most certainly could, but this is not due to American-made ingenuity. Improvements in Continental Army training happened thanks to Baron von Steuben.French and Spanish military action, as well as Dutch aid, were indispensable to the war effort. Without the Royal Navy being stressed to its breaking point, the Continental Army would ultimately have succumbed to British military might.This is not to say that the founding fathers don’t deserve credit. They do. They just don’t deserve sole credit for defeating the world’s strongest military through sheer American can-do spirit. What they deserve credit for is winning the political struggle. While Washington kept an army in the field and wisely made use of von Steuben’s genius, Ben Franklin and others cajoled France, Spain and the Netherlands into joining the war. Sadly, many Americans give our founding fathers far less credit than they deserve by downplaying the American Revolution as a mere military victory, rather than a geopolitical victory.Edit: Several of the comments contain interesting facts that would make this answer way too long, but are definitely worth learning about. Thanks so much to everyone for commenting and also for corrections. I’ve also added a few more pictures.

Great Britain is one of many countries who fought in the Revolutionary War in the late 18th century.Great Britain was once a part of the powerful and expansive British Empire, which ruled numerous continents during the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries before it was eventually dismantled due to the lack of resources necessary to keep the vast empire intact.Great Britain Before the American Revolution:The British Empire was one of the most extensive empires in world history and was a product of the European Age of Discovery in the late 15th century.The British Empire can be divided into two categories: the first British Empire in the 17th and 18th century and the second much larger British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th century.During the first British Empire, the British began colonizing other countries due to the need for trade and raw materials. It established thirteen colonies in North America, as well as colonies in the Caribbean and India.During the early to mid-1700s, Great Britain adopted the policy of Salutary Neglect, in which it left the thirteen colonies alone to self-govern in the hopes that they would flourish and that Britain would reap the benefits in increased trade, tax revenue and profits.In 1756, the Seven Years’ War (aka the French and Indian War) broke out, which was a global conflict between Great Britain and France for control of North America.Both countries had colonies in North America and were trying to expand those colonies into the Ohio River Valley, which they both claimed as their own.Great Britain defeated the French in 1763 and the region known as New France became a part of the British North American colonies. This land included French Canada and all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River.In order to protect this new land, Great Britain sent a large number of British troops to the newly conquered land to prevent the French colonists from revolting against the British. This was expensive and required a lot of troops and resources.In addition, the Seven Years’ War had left Great Britain deeply in debt. In 1763, George Grenville, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated that Britain’s budget deficit was in excess of £122 million.Great Britain needed to find a way to generate revenue to pay for the British troops in North America and to pay off its debt from the Seven Years’ War.Great Britain During the American Revolution:The American Revolution began after Great Britain passed a series of new taxes designed to generate revenue from the colonies in 1763. These new taxes were highly unpopular and were met with a lot of resistance in the colonies in the form of protests and riots.In response to this resistance, in 1768, the British government sent a large number of troops to the colonies to enforce these new laws. The presence of the troops in the colonies only escalated the conflict.The situation finally came to a head on April 18-19, 1775, when British troops stationed in Boston were sent to Concord to search for the colonist’s hidden ammunition supplies.During the mission, the troops encountered hundreds of minutemen and militiamen in Concord who feared that the troops were there to set fire to the town. The two sides collided, which resulted in the Battle of Concord, during which the “Shot Heard Round the World” was fired.On August 23, 1775, the British government issued the Proclamation of Rebellion, which declared that the American colonies were in an “open and avowed rebellion” and ordered officials of the British Empire to “use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress such rebellion.”On October 27, 1775, the British government expanded on the proclamation with King George’s speech to Parliament in which he indicated that he intended to deal with the rebellion with armed force and asked for “friendly offers of foreign assistance” to help the British army suppress the rebellion.The proclamation further damaged relations between the colonists and the British government and made it clear that the king was not interested in finding a way to resolve the dispute peacefully.On July 4, 1776, the 13 colonies officially declared their independence from Great Britain.Over the next few years, many other countries, including France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of Mysore in India, joined the war as American allies, causing it to become a vast global conflict.In February of 1782, after a long and costly war, the House of Commons voted to concede American independence.A committee of appointed negotiators, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, began peace negotiations with British officials shortly after. The preliminary articles of the treaty were signed on November 30, 1782.When the peace preliminaries were published in London in 1782, they caused considerable controversy in Parliament and in the press.Three successive British governments were involved in the negotiations in 1782-83 and a fourth one was established by December of 1783.On September 3, 1783, the United States, France, Spain and Great Britain signed the the Peace of Paris of 1783, which were a set of three treaties known as the Treaty of Paris and the Treaties of Versailles, officially ending the American Revolutionary War.According to the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the United States were granted:Independence under the name “United States of America”Expansion of their territory westward to Mississippi, as well as ownership of “Indian territory”A clearly defined border with Canada and the equal partition of the Great Lakes, except for Lake Michigan, which was granted to the Americans in fullFishing rights off the banks of Newfoundland and Nova ScotiaGreat Britain obtained:The recognition of debts it contracted before, during, and after the conflict (to be repaid in pounds sterling)Amnesty for the Loyalists and permission for them to resettle in other British colonies (Québec, Nova Scotia, Bermuda, the British West Indies, etc.)The Treaty of Paris was ratified by the Continental Congress on January 14, 1784.The only parts of Great Britain’s North American land that it was allowed to keep were the colonies of Nova Scotia, Quebec and Newfoundland as well as its colonies in the Caribbean.The loss of the thirteen British colonies marked the end of the First British Empire.Great Britain After the American Revolution:In 1785, John Adams was designated as the American Minister to London. King George III told him that although he was the last to consent the separation, now that it was made, he always said that he would be “the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.”According to The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution, the war had a profound effect on Great Britain:“The American War had promoted significant, thought not revolutionary, political changes in Britain. It had brought down a powerful government that still retained the full support of the king. It brought to power three short-lived administrations that were willing to concede American independence, to sue for peace, and to promote legislation to reduce Crown influence over Parliament. Outside Parliament, it created in Britain a popular reform movement demanding parliamentary reform, and in Ireland it brought about a popular movement that weakened Britain’s influence over the constitutional position and political behavior of the Irish Parliament.”Great Britain may have lost the thirteen colonies in America, but it still had Canada and land in the Caribbean, Africa, and India.Great Britain began to expand in these regions, building up what has been called the Second British Empire, which eventually became the largest dominion in world history.Although losing the thirteen colonies was difficult for Great Britain, many historians argue that, in the end, it actually made the country stronger, according to an article, titled British Revival, on the British Library’s website:“The loss of the colonies rocked the ship of state, but did not cause it to capsize, despite hyperbolic talk of civil war or rebellion at home and a growth in radical agitation. Indeed, some historians argue that support for the crown grew. Political life quickly settled into much the same patterns as before the war, albeit with a greater emphasis placed on public opinion, a stronger sense of political parties and more concern with economic reform and corruption. Demobilisation caused temporary difficulties, but low tariffs helped to stimulate trade and the economy recovered rapidly: by the 1790s, Americans were purchasing twice as much from Britain as they had as colonists in the 1760s.”Great Britain’s attitude toward how to build its empire changed as well. Britons began to think of colonization more in terms of conquest and annexation and, as a result, it governed its colonies in a more authoritarian manner.The loss of the American colonies also led to the colonization of Australia as well. Since Great Britain could no longer send British convicts to the American colonies, they needed to find a new place to send them and decided to build a convict camp in Botany Bay in 1787.In the end, although Great Britain suffered temporarily due to the American Revolution, it eventually became an even more powerful and expansive empire as a result of it.Britain’s refusal to send more troops to the American theatre resulted in the British being outnumbered almost 4 to 1, even with such a massive numerical disadvantage, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the British almost won the war on several occasions, (ironically, these victories more than likely only demonstrated to the king that he was correct).Of course, the Americans won their freedom from British rule. However, what started in 1775, as an American rebellion against British rule in the thirteen colonies evolved into a far-reaching global war among world’s most powerful nations. Fighting between Britain and American allies including France, Spain and The Dutch Republic spread to the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Asia.Britain fared well in many of the conflicts waged outside the thirteen colonies, especially those fought after 1781. Consequently, there were significant favorable outcomes of the American Revolution for Britain, especially when viewed in context of the late 18th century state of affairs.On June 17, 1778, when Jean Isaac Timothée Chadeau, Sieur de la Clocheterie French commander of the frigate Belle-Poule formally touched off the global conflict by refusing the customary “presenting his ship” to a 20 ship British fleet, commanded by Adm. Augustus Keppel while sailing off the southern coast of England. Admiral Keppel responded to this affronting slight by opening fire on the Belle-Poule,which suffered a 40 percent casualty rate. The French had a causus belli (an act which justifies war) to openly support the Americans, which it had been covertly doing with increasing intensity. With the French intervening in the American rebellion, the North American war became a global conflict.France’s principal goal was to gain equal status with Britain as a world mercantilist power with substantial colonies throughout the world providing economic and trade advantages. France sought to expand its fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland, increase its holdings in the Caribbean, and to reestablish its commercial relations with North America. Other commercial goals were freedom of trade in India and Africa and the implementation of trade provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) that ended the War of Spanish Succession that Britain had not been honoring. In addition, as a way to cement its standing in the world, France sought to gain a measure of retribution for its loss in the Seven Years War (known in North America as the French and Indian War). France even sought to invade Britain to compel the attainment of these goals.French foreign minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes realized that control of the seas and trade routes were critical to successfully prosecuting the war with Britain. However, the British possessed a stronger navy and more ships of the line than France. To counter this deficit, Vergennes sought to bring Spain along with its navy into the war to take on Britain’s navy, the largest in the world. Since 1733, the Bourbon kings of France and Spain periodically renewed a military alliance called the Pacte de Famille(Family Compact or Bourbon Alliance). Vergennes negotiated with the Spanish chief minister José Moñino y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca to renew this alliance Under Vergennes’ and Floridablanca’s direction, a renewal of the third compact called the Convention of Aranjuez was signed on April 12, 1779, which paved the way for the Spanish to declare war on Britain in June 1779. In the exchange for the Spanish entry into the war, the French agreed to militarily support the Spain’s principle war objective of capturing the vitally strategic fortress of Gibraltar. Gibraltar is the southern most part of the Iberian Peninsula and guards the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.In addition, the Spanish war aims included the re-capture from Britain of both East and West Florida that it lost in the Seven Years War (1763) and the return of the western Mediterranean island of Minorca that Spain lost during the War of Spanish Succession (1713). Further, the Spanish sought to remove the British from South America including settlements on the Bay of Honduras and timber cutting on the coast of Campeche, located in the southeast coast of today’s Mexico. There is no mention of the United States in the Treaty of Aranjuez, further demonstrating the importance of the conflict outside the thirteen colonies.As the conflict spread throughout the world, each side sought to deny armaments and naval supplies to their opponents by disrupting normal commerce and trade. Neutral countries became incensed when belligerents detained or captured commercial merchantmen. Under the leadership of Catherine the Great, Russia formed a League of Armed Neutrality that included Denmark-Norway, Sweden, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire. The alliance goals were to protect the neutrals’ ships and commercial trading rights. As neutral trade was more important to Britain’s enemies, the United States and France officially recognized and respected the League’s rights.Britain tacitly agreed and did not interfere with neutral shipping with one exception. The Dutch Republic was tied by treaty to support the French. Dutch merchants provided critical naval stores that under previous treaties were not classified as military contraband and could legally be transported unimpeded to French ports. The British government was concerned that the Dutch would join the League of Armed Neutrality and therefore, any attempt to confiscate Dutch ships would bring all members of the league into the war against Britain. To counter this threat, on December 20, 1780 the British declared war on the Dutch and unilaterally re-classified naval stores as contraband.In addition to European powers, the Indian Kingdom of Mysore, which is located on the southwest coast of the Indian subcontinent, declared war on Britain in 1780. Mysore a French ally, sought to reclaim the French trading port of Mabé captured by the British. Arms and munitions critical to supply Mysore’s army flowed through Mabé. Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore made it clear to the British that the French presence in this port was under his protection and by assaulting the French forces, Britain waged war on Mysore.Therefore, Britain stood alone fighting a vast global land and naval conflict. It faced many threats including potential invasion of the homeland, loss of valuable colonies and associated lucrative commercial trade and mounting debts to finance a long, intensive conflict. The need to protect British interests on numerous fronts and in many military theaters thoroughly stretched army and naval assets. Difficult strategic decisions had to be made to re-position limited military assets to counter emerging threats in multiple theaters of operation.Each belligerent sought to gain tactical advantage in one theater without exposing other theaters to peril. In many cases, the most valuable colonies received the first claim on military assets at the expense of less valuable colonies. For example, British army and naval resources were diverted from North America to counter expected new French and Spanish threats in the Caribbean.British NadirAs 1782 began, the war was not going well for the British and they were on the defensive. The Duke of Chandos, a member of the House of Lords referred to the October 1781 Yorktown defeat as a “calamity” and a ”disaster.” It was clear to British leaders that the British Southern strategy failed and that they could not forcibly compel the American colonialists to end their rebellion.News on the other fronts was not encouraging, either. The French were on the verge of taking control of the lucrative Caribbean sugar trade by capturing islands in the eastern region of the Caribbean called the Lesser Antilles and threatening Jamaica. Earlier in the war, French forces captured the British held islands of Dominica (1778), St. Vincent and Grenada (1779) and Tobago (1781).After Yorktown, French Admiral de Grasse and his fleet left the Chesapeake Bay region for the eastern Caribbean and established naval superiority there. In February 1782, Admiral de Grasse attacked and captured the vital islands of St. Kitts, Montserrat and Nevis. The loss of these islands was “disagreeable news” and sent shock waves among London merchants.The British government viewed the Caribbean islands as more commercially important than North America. British leaders even discussed withdrawing from North America to protect the more economically important sugar islands in the Caribbean. The Caribbean islands provided the funding to continue the war and King George III was willing to even risk French invasion of the British homeland to protect these vital territories. (King George was literally insane).The British also faced a deteriorating strategic position guarding the trade routes in the western Mediterranean region. In August 1781, a combined French and Spanish invasion fleet descended upon the British held western Mediterranean Sea island of Minorca. Re-conquest of Minorca, annexed by the British in 1713, was a key Spanish war goal. The island’s deep-water port at Mahón was strategically important as a naval base and convenient port for British privateers which were ravishing Spanish and allied shipping. The French and Spanish invaders completely surprised the widely dispersed British garrison and on February 6, 1782, the last British soldiers laid down their arms. The loss of Minorca increased Spanish pressure on the British fortress at Gibraltar.In the North American, the Caribbean and European theaters, the British were losing significant battles, its forces stretched to the breaking point and popular domestic opinion was turning against continuing the war. There were calls in the press for the British to end the war in America.The whole history of the American War was, from one End to the other, one continued Proof that Systems and Abilities were not to be found in the Management of our Force in the Colonies; An Army was marched from Canada, and captured at Saratoga; another from Charles-town, and surrendered at York-Town. Revenue was the first Object of the War, but that was long since renounced.Further, opposition members introduced a motion in Parliament to end the war in America:… it only asserted a Fact, that among the Operations of the War, America should not be a theater.Reacting to losses at Yorktown, Minorca and in the Caribbean, political displeasure with the conduct of the war intensified. The Prime Minister, Lord North, lost the majority in Parliament and resigned on March 20, 1782. However, there was much more at stake and the British could not simply recognize American independence and end the war. The British situation looked bleak.British TurnaroundHowever, the winter of 1782 turned out to be the British low point in the global war against its European foes. A dramatic turnaround for the British started in the economically vital Caribbean region, continued in Europe and later spread to Asia.In the Caribbean, the Spanish and French planned a large-scale invasion of Jamaica, the largest of the British held sugar producing islands and vital to the British economy. They assembled a 150-ship invasion fleet to transport 15,000 French and Spanish soldiers for the assault. A 35-ship French fleet under the command of Adm. Francois-Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse provided escort ships.On April 9, 1782 a 36-ship British fleet under the command of Adm. Sir George Rodney intercepted the Franco-Spanish invasion force in the waters between the windward islands of Dominica and Guadeloupe in the Eastern Caribbean. Over the next four days, the two fleets fought a destructive and bloody engagement later referred to as the Battle of the Saintes.Using superior speed and maneuverability, the British captains cut the French fleet into three groups with an effective “breaking of the line,” an innovative naval tactic designed to concentrate firepower without exposing oneself to counter fire. While controversial as to whether it was intentional by Admiral Rodney, this highly successful maneuver led to the defeat of the French fleet. While there is retrospective controversy that Admiral Rodney could have more thoroughly defeated the French Caribbean fleet, it was largely degraded as an offensive fighting force. The balance of power shifted to the British.Given the strategic and economic importance of Jamaica, the British press lauded Admiral Rodney’s victory and he received the title of baron and was recognized by the House of Lords:… thanks of the House to Sir George Rodney, and the officers and the seaman, who gained the glorious and compleat victory on the 12thof April last, in the West-Indies; a victory which his Lordship allowed to be the most brilliant of any which the naval history of this country …The victory greatly improved the British negotiating position in the peace talks as the French and Spanish lost the military initiative and realised that they could not defeat the British in the Caribbean and capture Jamaica.The British military turnaround continued in the European theater. In September 1782 a joint Franco-Spanish force of over 35,000 troops escalated a siege of the British fortress at Gibraltar held by 7500 men. However, Gibraltar’s natural defenses made a land assault very difficult without disabling key waterfront gun batteries. Chevalier d’Arcon, a French military engineer and Colonel devised and built a new floating gun battery to assault these gun batteries.However, anxious Spanish commanders rushed the new vessels into action without adequate testing and crew training. As a result of unfavorable winds, poor seamanship and a lack of coordination with the Spanish fleet, the British destroyed all of the unprotected floating gun batteries. With no other way to blast a route into Gibraltar, the French and Spanish called off their attack.The next month Adm. Richard Howe led a fleet of 35 ships of the line and a large convoy of merchantmen to re-supply Gibraltar. The blockading Spanish fleet under the command of Adm. Luis de Córdova sailed out to engage the British fleet. The two fleets fought an inconclusive battle off the coast of modern day Morocco (the Battle of Cape Spartel). While the two fleets maneuvered for a fighting edge, Admiral Howe’s transports slipped into Gibraltar with needed food and military supplies. As a result of the floating gun battery debacle and a successful resupply, the Franco-Spanish force lifted the siege and the British gained a vital victory by holding the Spanish coveted Gibraltar.On a second front in the European theater, the British effectively blockaded the Dutch Navy at its principal navy base on Texcel Island preventing any offensive operations. The one attempt by the Dutch Navy to engage the British Navy resulted in a 3 hour and 40 minute encounter called the Battle of the Dogger Bank. Each side suffered the same level of battle damage and the engagement was a bloody, tactical draw.After this ineffective attempt, Dutch naval forces remained in their anchorages unable or unwilling to sortie with Franco-Spanish fleets and leaving their merchant shipping fleet unprotected. The Dutch were ready for peace, but continued the conflict due to alliance obligations to France. Dutch military forces contributed little to the anti-British alliance other than tying up valuable British ships of the line that could have been deployed in other military theaters.Finally, the British successfully thwarted the French and their Indian Mysore allies’ attempts to seize British held territories in southeastern India. Starting on February 17, 1782 French and British Naval Forces fought a series of inconclusive naval engagements off India’s eastern shore. The French did land 3000 troops to assist Mysore. However, without clear naval superiority, the French/Mysore alliance could not recapture the British held territories.Entering peace negotiations in the fall of 1782, the global strategic situation for the British was significantly more favorable than the situation right after Yorktown. While the British could not quell the American rebellion, in North America they held the valuable port cities of New York, Savannah, Charleston, Penobscot, St. Augustine and all of the territory of Canada. Against its European enemies, Britain controlled the balance of naval and commercial power in the West Indies, Europe and Asia. Further the United States, France and Spain were all running out of money and resources to further prosecute the war.The Treaty of Paris and its ImpactTo maximize leverage, the British insisted on negotiating a separate treaty with the Americans and each of its European allies. This allowed the British to “give up” American independence while preserving maximum advantage over the French, Spanish and Dutch. The allies realized that only by coordinating their treaties and staying together, could they keep a strategic balance to maximize leverage during the negotiations.Therefore, negotiations proceeded in parallel and final separate treaties were not signed until there was an agreement with all parties. Britain signed final individual peace treaties with America, France and Spain on September 3, 1783. War with the Dutch formally continued until a fourth Treaty of Paris was signed on May 20, 1784. Mysore concluded a peace agreement with the British on March 11, 1784.British newspapers heralded the peace treaties as containing terms more favorable than expected.The Definitive Treaty having been signed by the French, Spaniards and Americans, peace may be said to be fairly established, and to the honor of the present Ministers, upon terms greatly more advantageous to this country than could have been hoped for from some Preliminary articles settled by the late Administration.After fighting the world’s most powerful nations with no military allies, the British only lost the 13 colonies to independence and Florida and Minorca to the Spanish. The resulting peace agreement preserved British control of its most valuable colonial assets, the sugar producing islands in the West Indies, some of which had been captured by the French. Colonial control of most West Indies islands largely reverted to pre-war status. The British regained the French held islands of Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat. Only the small island of Tobago was transferred from British to French control. Spain also returned the Bahamas to the British, which it captured in May 1782.With respect to North America, Britain maintained its Canadian colony and in conflict with the final peace treaty, retained military forts in American territory to protect valuable trade with Native Americans. These northwest frontier forts of Oswego, Niagara, Detroit and Michilimackinac were not turned over to the Americans until 1798. Britain further benefited by no longer funding military security for the thirteen colonies and continued to impress American sailors at will.The subsequent rise in commercial relations with America further validated the British strategy of pursuing international trade dominance. The United States became extremely valuable to British manufacturing and trading industries. In the ten year period following the war, Britain exported over £25 million of goods to the new United States while importing £8 million of principally raw materials and food. This large balance of trade surplus financed commerce with other trading partners and was vital to the Britain’s economic prosperity.In Africa and India, the pre-war situation was restored with a minor exchange of a few territories. The British protected and expanded trade in India and Asia, a key wartime goal. The British gained valuable trading rights in the Dutch East Indies and employed Indian ports to illicitly trade valuable goods with Dutch holdings on Ceylon.Although a “victor,” France gained almost nothing from its considerable war investment. The French monarchy received a modicum of retribution for losses during the Seven Years War and gained pride in assisting the thirteen colonies become independent from its archenemy. However, France did not unseat Britain as the preeminent commercial and naval power and did not gain equal geopolitical status with Britain, its principle war objective.The final treaty granted France minor territorial concessions. Britain returned Saint Lucia to France and surrendered the small island of Tobago in the Caribbean. France re-affirmed its rights gained in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 to fish off North America and reconfirmed its ownership of two small islands south of Newfoundland in the Atlantic Ocean. Also, France won the right to re-fortify the English Channel port of Dunkirk that it lost in the peace treaty ending the Seven Years War. These small gains came at a huge financial cost. War cost estimates range from 772 million to 1250 million livres. This financial burden almost bankrupted the French government and severely weakened its monarchy. And the King of Great Britain could continue to call himself King of France; a claim that dated back to the 14th Century and one that the Britain would not relinquish until 1800.Although almost bankrupt at the end of the war, Spain fared better in the final peace terms than France and at a much lower military and financial cost. The Spanish negotiated to keep their military conquest of East and West Florida that it lost in the peace agreement ending the Seven Years War and maintained the valuable port city of New Orleans, thereby controlling trade on the Mississippi River. They kept possession of Minorca, which they captured, from the British. However, they did not gain Gibraltar, their principal wartime goal.The Dutch yielded nothing from their participation and suffered significant economic losses due to capture of their merchant ships and loss of trade. Fortunately, the French pressed the British to principally return Dutch holdings in Asia and the Caribbean to the pre-war status. However, the British forced the Dutch to provide access to trade in the Dutch East Indies. Never again would a Dutch fleet represent a meaningful threat to the British Navy and their economy would require many years to recover. Symbolically, Dutch ships were required to salute the British flag when they met in the open ocean.The Indian Kingdom of Mysore also did not gain any advantages from its alliance with France and its participation in the American Revolution. The resulting peace treaty restored the pre-war territorial ownership and control. Over the next few years, Mysore and Britain would go on to fight two more wars.So from a European and global view, the aftermath of the American Revolution was relatively positive for the British. In fact, some British political observers believed that American independence was a good development for Britain.I say, I am glad, that America had declared herself independent of us, though the Reasons very opposite to theirs. America, I have proved beyond the Possibility of a Confutation, ever was a Millstone hanging around the Neck of this Country, to weigh it down: And as we ourselves had not the Wisdom to cut the Rope, and to let the Burden fall off, the Americans have kindly done it for us.The British were not the big losers as depicted in American historical accounts and may have “won” as much as they could and made the best of a difficult geo-political situation. Their European opponents did not achieve their war objectives: France did not become a geo-political equal of Britain, Spain did not win Gibraltar and the Dutch economy was severely injured. Victories over its European foes preserved Britain as a global trading colonial empire, which strengthened, and endured through the 19th Century. Lastly, Britain turned the United States into a major trading partner and a central component of its commercial empire.Sources:[1] As a result of this service to the King, de la Clocheterie was promoted to Captain and given command of several ships of the line. He died in the pivotal Battle of the Saintes in 1782.[2] Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence (Princeton, NJ: The Princeton University Press, 1975), 118-9.[3] Spain’s ambassador to France Conde de Aranda and the French ambassador to Spain Armand-Marc Comte de Montmorin-Saint-Hérem also played key roles.[4] Treaty of Alliance between France and Spain, concluded at Aranjuez, April 12, 1779, Ratification by Spain, May12, 1779, and Ratification by France, April 28, 1779, full text Charles Oscar Paullin, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies (Clark, NJ: The Lawbook Exchange, LTD., 2004), Vol. IV, 145-6.[5] David Syrett, The Royal Navy in European Waters during the American Revolutionary War (Columbia, SC: The University of South Carolina Press, 1998), 128.[6] Indian sources spell Hyder, Haider.[7] In March 1778, Britain moved 5000 soldiers from New York to the West Indies. They were employed to capture the Caribbean island of St. Lucia on December 13, 1778.[8] Salisbury and Winchester Journal, February 11, 1782, 2.[9] Hampshire Chronicle, February 4, 1782.[10] Derby Mercury, March 21, 1782, 4.[11] Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2013), 294-5.[12] Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, “Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean” (Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 208.[13] Northampton Mercury, December 17, 1781, 2.[14] Northampton Mercury, December 17, 1781, 2.[15] Jamaica’s population was estimated at 219,600 in 1775 surpassing Cuba at 172,000 as the next most populace. Granville W. and N.C. Hough, Spanish, French, Dutch and American Patriots of the West Indies During the American Revolution Part 7 Spanish Borderland Studies (Midway, CA: Society of Hispanic Historical Ancestral Research, 2001), 4.[16] Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1913), 207.[17] For a complete description of the “Breaking of the Line” naval tactic, see Bob Ruppert, Who really crossed the T in the Battle of the Saintes?, Journal of the American Revolution, Who Really “Crossed the T” in the Battle of the Saintes? - Journal of the American Revolution, accessed June 5, 2015.[18] Stamford Mercury, May 30, 1782, 4.[19] René Chartrand, Gibraltar 1779-83: The Great Siege (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, LTD., 2006), 62-3.[20] David Syrett, The Royal Navy in European Waters during the American Revolutionary War, 130-1.[21] Piers Mackesy, The War for America 1775-1783 (Lincoln and London: The University of Nebraska Press, 1964), 497.[22] Stamford Mercury, Reprinted from the London Gazette, September 9, 1783, 1.[23] For an overview of the West Indies region and a graphical depiction of the change of control of the West Indies islands see a web page: http://www.xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/WI2.htm, accessed June 7, 2015.[24] Antonio de Alcedo and George Alexander Thompson, The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of America and the West Indies (London: Carpenter & Son, 1815), xvi-xvii.[25]James Breck Perkins, France in the American Revolution (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911), 498.[26]Jonathan R. Dull, “France and the American Revolution: Questioning the Myths,” Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History (1974): 110-119.[27] Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1935), 254.[28] Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Diplomacy of the American Revolution, 254.[29] Mysore and Britain fought two more wars, the first of which Lord Cornwallis personally commanded the British forces. Although a loser at Yorktown, Cornwallis was a successful Governor General and Commander in Chief in India.[30] Josiah Tucker, Four Letters on Important National Subjects, ed. Max Beloff, The Debate on the American Revolution, 1761-1783 (New York: The British Book Centre, 1949), 297.