When Did The British Faced Failure

From early on the British were confronted with serious challenges with providing provisions for troops operating in America. During the war, British provisioning strategy relied heavily on sustainment support to come from the homeland. The 3000-mile trip proved to a tactical hindrance in feeding the troops as well as resupplying with ammunition, blankets, shoes and armament. Often taking several months to arrive, the supplies arrived spoiled and unusable. Further amplifying the issue, the U.S. Continental Congress authorized “legal piracy” which attributed to the seizing of over 300 British ships during the war.

As many American businesses engaged in credit sales with Britain, they were crippled when several financial crises gripped London in the 1760’s and 1770’s. These forced Britain merchants to call in their debts. Unable to generate any liquid form of currency, American businesses were frequently ruined and the colonial economy damaged. Outraged by these new laws and the Quartering Act which required colonial citizens to house and feed British troops, the American colonies began to systematically boycott British goods.”(1)

(Devore, Lecture #3.) Even though most of the credit was issued from England, it allowed the colonists to buy more things and further strengthen and enhance the cohesiveness of the colonies. By this time the colonies had already well established external trade relationships with both the Indians and other countries. One of their major trade partners was the West Indies, where the colonists procured molasses from which they made rum. (Devore, Lecture #3.) All of these economic developments – consumerism amongst the colonies, Anglicizing of the colonies, the newfound availability and use of credit and the abundance of external trade – play a major role in the reasons that lead up to the American Revolution.

As the French and Indian War ended, it left the British’s main focus to being the colonies. Controlling the colonies, ruling over the colonies, and taxing the colonies. Little did they know that the colonies had plans of

We, as a military can still learn much from the actions that George Washington took. The siege operation that was implemented emphasized just how important it can be for an army to have the ability to replenish their supplies. Without this capability, the British troops were rendered ineffective because they were severely depleted of rations, manpower, and even bullets. The Colonial Army basically gave General Cornwallis no other option than to lay down their arms and surrender.

Many factors contributed to the British losing the American Revolutionary War. By the 1770’s the American colonists were not socially, religiously, or culturally connected to Britain. The colonists has their own ways of life and thus were not British by culture. The majority of the colonists had immigrated to America to escape the rigid class structures of Britain and Europe.

Professor Freeman, in her lecture titled: “The Logic of a Campaign (or, How in the World Did We Win?)”, talks about “logistical” problems that the British Army faced. First and foremost was the simple problem of supply and demand; regarding both fighting men and basic supplies. England was an ocean away and America’s ports were not always welcoming. Second was the actual lay of the land. British forces were not accustomed to fighting over such a vastly spread out region, nor were the accustomed to guerilla style warfare (Freeman).

Shortly following the Revolutionary War, America built one of the strongest merchant fleets the world had ever seen. Overseas trade flourished America’s economy, with its peak specifically in 1807 with exports ranging around $100 million (Hickey). Throughout this period of growth for America, Great Britain’s Royal Navy was without a doubt the master of the high seas. Not helping the future war, Thomas Jefferson was elected into office in 1801 and one of his most notable actions was to shrink the Navy and Military significantly. The homelands defense now laid in the hands of a small fleet of mainly gunboats. They did have a few capital ships, however their primary tasks were to remain as the “floating fortress” of vital eastern seaboard ports. Only quite rarely did they ever see open water conflict.

The British enrolled about fifty thousand American Loyalists and enlisted the services of many Indians, who though unreliable, who fair-weather fighters, inflamed long stretches of the frontier”(135). This extra help from colonists, Loyalist, hessians, and the Indians only add to the army creating a bigger advantage towards the colonists. Even though they did not win it can said that the British seemed to have a bigger lead on the colonists. Colonists presented themselves as weak and disorganized, where one would presume that they wouldn’t win at all, “Yet the American rebels were badly organized for war. From the earliest days, they had been almost fatally lacking in unity, and a new nation lurched forward uncertainly like an uncoordinated centipede”(136). Organization is important for the colonists because they are competing against a well-developed and trained army.

In the book 1812: The Navy’s War, Author George C. Daughan gives the reader an inside look into the events that led to the War of 1812 and war itself. Within the book, Mr. Daughan analyzed the conflict between the recently discovered Unites States and Great Brittan. The book gives in detail the short-term consequences of the War, as well as the lingering effects the war brought to the United States. By the end of Mr. Daughan historic text it is abundantly clear that the War of 1812 forever impacted the way the United States military operated. Mr. Daughan gives an outstanding synopsis of the United State’s rise as a military power, specifically the United States Navy. Daughan gives the reader an in-depth look of these gruesome battles, by using letters, journal writing, and other first-hand accounts of those directly involved in the war.

British soldiers have been tirelessly working to maintain peace and stability among the savage colonists, but they oppose every plan and act created for their our mutual benefit. They refuse to comply with our rules that stress the importance of their mother country.

During the Seven Years War Great Britain received a new king his name was George III, he was an arrogant man and he began to take charge in the colonies. After the French and Indian war the british needed a way to keep the Indians and Colonist from fighting each other. King George said that this was not a problem and that he would just draw a line down the crest of the Appalachian Mountains. The Indians were to stay to the west of this line and the colonist to the east. This was known as the proclamation of 1763. The colonist tried to tell the king that the appalachian mountains had been settled already, but the king ignored there pleas.

Nether the Americans nor the British achieved their main goals. The US wanted to annex Canada as part of the United States, but failed. The British wanted to occupy the Ohio Valley and Mississippi basin and cut the new United States off from the western portion of the Continent, confining them to their original size of the thirteen colonies but failed.

How far do sources X and Y challenge Q about the effective supplying of the army?

There were various war themes identified during the Falklands war. One of the biggest challenges the British encountered during the war was logistics, which supports the theme on Resourcing and Sustaining the war. Considering that Britain is more than 8,000 miles away compared to Argentina which is less than 1,000 miles away from Falklands. The critical to the campaign of Britain was the transport of supply, troops rotation and reinforcement were difficult to handle. Admiral Fieldhouse pointed out that geographic location was his foremost considerations in transporting troops, aircraft and equipment from the United Kingdom to the operational theatre. Further, the British at that has limited number of ships required for the long transit of troops, equipment and logistic support. The British government was able to tap the assistance of private ship owners who lend their assets to boost the slack in the resources to transport the logistics used during the war which resulted to the success of the British war campaign in Falklands island.