Dave
The french played no part in the Independence in the end Britain only retreated and gave up because if you actualy look at the wars Britain was involved in at the time, They were in no more that 11 wars. Now if that was today that would cripple any army!! So count yourselfs lucky you have a great country but a pathetic outlook at the rest of the world.


RE: Dave by Occams
Not true at all.
The American War of Independence was decided at the siege of Yorktown. Up until then Britain was more or less in control and would eventually have cornered the fragmented Continental army and wiped it out.
Yorktown was a very European style of battle. No brave militia or heroic frontiersmen. No hiding in the forests or walking up in lines. It was a text-book professional fortress siege supported by a naval blockade to isolate the besieged from external support. Then it was artillery that forced the surrender. The artillery and naval blockade were all French, and a Frenchman made all the decisions.
You are quite correct about all the other pressures on the British army. For that reason the PM Lord North and Parliament thought it wiser to abandon the 13 colonies to the French. No doubt the Brits thought that the French would be a much worse colonial master, so the rebels would be punished in the long run.
However, France gave the USA its freedom.
Suck it up. Its true.
RE: Dave by Occams
The french played no part in the Independence in the end Britain only retreated and gave up because if you actualy look at the wars Britain was involved in at the time, They were in no more that 11 wars. Now if that was today that would cripple any army!!
That is a popular view, but it is mostly a myth – not at all true. For some months after the siege of Norfolk was won, entirely through a brilliant combined army and navy operation of the French, neither side knew that the war was over. That was decided by British PM Lord North after a debate in Parliament which decided that the 13 Colonies were just not worth the cost of a continued war.
I suspect tat the British felt that the colonies would be taken over by the French, and that would be a well-deserved punishment for the American traitors.
I am making this point only because of the modern tendency of Americans for disparaging the French as cowards and “surrender monkeys”. There is a sound basis in fact for the view that the French gave the USA its independence. This idea is totally abhorrent to Americans brought up on a diet of proud myths about the War of Independence.
It was incredibly brave for those colonial rebels (mostly merchants and lawyers rather than soldiers who would have known better) to challenge the British with a Declaration of Independence, and the new country certainly would not have achieved its independence without their courage, but the actual war was decided by a predominantly artillery siege battle between professional British and French troops in which Americans hardly participated at all on either side. In a real way this was an extension of the long-running Anglo-French war in Europe. If the Battle of Yorktown had not taken place it is highly likely that Washington and his deserting rag bag army would have been mopped up during the following summer.
If you want to learn about some genuine worthy defeats of the British by Americans, look at the War of 1812, but be careful about which battles you choose, because overall they came out about 50/50. Even though the British objective then was not to win back the colonies, I suggest that the War of Independence should include that period, so it did not end until 1814.