Turning Points that Failed to Turn

[Valmy]

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil.

  The British certainly didn't think this.

Yeah the British generals and soldiers actually arriving over here were pretty sobered by what they found.  I think in Britain they thought the Patriots were some sort of radical minority and the majority of the population would support the King if they could somehow isolate the cancer.  In reality even the people who were personally loyal to the King were not all that useful to the British or all that enthusiastic about supporting the British cause (unless, like the Scotch-Irish in Appalachia or the African-American slaves, they had some sort of reason to hate the Patriots).

As a result it became quickly evident that the British Army simply did not have the resources or the will to finsh the job.  But without the French the Patriots had no ability to defeat the British either unless the Brits badly blundered like at Saratoga.  So who knows how long the thing might have dragged on or what sort of compromise peace the Americans would have had to live with once our economy collapsed under the constant strain without the French?

[Josquius]

Gets recognised as King of France heralding a new age of French oppression of England.

Leaving aside the myth of poor little England (as its basically rampaging around France at will), who would recognize him that didn't?

What myth of poor little England?
The myth is of big bad England and poor little France despite England just being dragged along for the ride in a French civil war. If the English side won the HYW though then France would be the dominant kingdom and the English more likely to be unhappy with the state of affairs.

Been ages since I read on the area so can't think of any actual names or deep details of French politics (not that I was ever an expert).  Things were really going heavily in his favour when he died, it was really bad timing, if he'd hung on just a few more years then he could have secured things so his son could inherit safely.

[Valmy]

Regardless of how right they may have been in our eyes, the chance of success of the American patriots by themselves was nil.

  The British certainly didn't think this.

John Burgoyne and Johann Rall may have.

They were operating on the entirely false assumption once the British Army arrived the oppressed loyalists would join them.  When nobody came Burgoyne got frustrated and stupidly said if they did not join he would sic his Native American allies on the people which naturally was the best recruiting tool the local militia could possibly have.  The problem was Burgoyne, and the British government in general, were just out of touch with what the circumstances were on the ground and bad assumptions and information leads to bad plans with disastrous results.  Even if that British Army had successfully made it to Albany they would have been surrounded in hostile country and pretty much useless at anything except controlling the territory within reach of their bayonets.  Just like all the other British Armies.

[Valmy]

Things were really going heavily in his favour when he died, it was really bad timing, if he'd hung on just a few more years then he could have secured things so his son could inherit safely.

But we are talking about the Lancastrians here not Edward III.  They were pretty English in culture would they have gone native so readily?

[viper37]

The Americans did win their greatest victory before European intervention.

True.  But without a war with Spain and France, all England had to do was send more troops.  They controlled the South, they controlled Canada, and there were indians to the west, not to keen on seeing foreing invaders.  AFAIK, most ports were still blockaded, so it was impossible to trade with foreign powers.

[Valmy]

True.  But without a war with Spain and France, all England had to do was send more troops.  They controlled the South, they controlled Canada, and there were indians to the west, not to keen on seeing foreing invaders.  AFAIK, most ports were still blockaded, so it was impossible to trade with foreign powers.

Yeah it was going to be impossible to really beat the British without foreign help.  Even just holding out was going to be tough without any money or foreign trade.

Also the whole reason Saratoga is the greatest victory was because it led to French intervention in the first place.

[Eddie Teach]

Yeah it was going to be impossible to really beat the British without foreign help. 

If we hadn't beaten them on the field, either we'd have beaten them politically(parliament giving the colonies seats) or kept up an insurgency that made occupation not worthwhile.

[Valmy]

If we hadn't beaten them on the field, either we'd have beaten them politically(parliament giving the colonies seats) or kept up an insurgency that made occupation not worthwhile.

Oh I am sure we would have reached some sort of deal that included some sort of self rule as everybody went broke and got exhausted.  But in the event the US pretty much got to dictate the terms and got everything they wanted.

[DGuller]

I'm sure having the French help us was supremely useful, but I was under impression that it was their troops, ships, and materiel support that did it, not their royal legitimacy. 

[PDH]

What the French did best was give the new USA someone to play the Brits off of at the peace table.  Hell, the US got the entire Ohio Valley because of it.

[crazy canuck]

@ Malthus,

That is my understanding as well, which is why I am a bit curious as to why JR thinks that it would be impossible for the Chinese to have expanded such a notion to trading with Europe, in the sense that the Chinese understood the concept.

Because the sense the Chinese understood the concept was categorically different from the way that Europeans (or indeed Arab traders) understood it.  The concept of "tribute" was not just some linguistic cover for face; it was an accurate description of what the Chinese understood themselves as doing.

Ok, but it was a transmission of goods and if Chinese goods could be obtained directly from the Chinese in their tribute ships then where is the impetus to find a route to China which bypasses the Venitians and Muslims if the Chinese have already done it?

[crazy canuck]

As far as turning points go an article in this Ecomonist this week reminded me of the opportunities the Americans had to acquire British Columbia and large chunks of Western Canada.

Your energy self sufficiency problems would be solved.

[Valmy]

What the French did best was give the new USA someone to play the Brits off of at the peace table.  Hell, the US got the entire Ohio Valley because of it.

Yep.  The British were so desperate to split the US and the French they basically paid us off.  And we backstabbed King Louis.  Good times.

[Malthus]

...except for the fact that, in order to operate effectively, Mongol armies need vast spaces to feed their hordes of ponies (a Mongol horsemen used up to six ponies during a campaign), and those ended at the Hungarian Alfold.

That means the Mongol army range is restricted to about 1-2 weeks march from Hungary. More than that, their mounts start to starve and they risk becoming dismounted after a battle or two - a death sentence to them.

The chances of a Mongol conquest of Europe were precisely 0%, due to logistical constraints.

(this is also why they couldn't get Egypt - their pasture grounds stopped at the Mesopotamian plains. Holding Palestine was already a serious problem).

I keep hearing this trotted out as a fact. Every time I do, I wonder - do the people making this argument simply forget that the Mongols managed to take Sung China? Or are they under the impression that southern China is open steppeland? 

Also - historically their failure at the battle of Ain Jalut had exactly zero to do with "logistics", and everything to do with internal Mongol politics - namely, that the Mongols were divided, and took most of their army home to contest the leadership. Indeed, who exactly were the *victors* at Ain Jalut? They were Mamluks - soldiers imported from central Asia who fought, in need hardly be added, as light cavalry - eactly like the Mongols. The Mongols, as one Arab historian wrote, were "defeated by men of their own kind".

If an army of light cavalry were "logistically impossible", it is kinda hard to explain why the Mamluks were able to dominate the area for a few hundred years with light cavalry, isn't it? 

[The Minsky Moment]

Ok, but it was a transmission of goods and if Chinese goods could be obtained directly from the Chinese in their tribute ships then where is the impetus to find a route to China which bypasses the Venitians and Muslims if the Chinese have already done it?

Tribute fleets are a "transmissions of good" in sort of the way that a country World's Fair pavillion is. (or used to be when they held World's Fairs).  The whole notion of a trade route is that there is regular long-distance trade which is being done to supply established market demands.  Tribute fleets are by nature one-off enterprises; it would be grossly uneconomic and inefficient to conduct regular trade using massive fleets of large prestige-built ships.