How accurate is it to say that it was French intervention in the War of American Independence that determined the British defeat by 1783?

Plan

• Thesis - French intervention determined British defeat

• Criteria - Scale of support, transformative, catalyst

• French intervention

• American strength

• British weaknesses

French intervention

• Joined June 1778

• Detracted British attentions -> 65% British army in 1778, 20% in 1780

• Intervention of French fleet at Chesapeake Bay -> de Grasse and French navy controlled the bay-> decisive battle of the war

• Boosted American forces -> French soldiers joined Washington’s army of 16,000 troops -> just under 10,000 soldiers, but more skilled than Continental Army which was randoms

• Judgement - catalyst, transformative → determined British defeat

American strength

• Ideological commitment -> 40-45% patriots, ‘Glorious Cause’, neutrals turned away from British, 12,000 copies of common sense

• Washington’s leadership -> Continental Army an increasingly professionalised, centralised military body supported and funded by Congress -> strategic retreats -> technically lost at Bunker Hill but British casualties were 1000/2500 and American less than half

• Fighting on their own land -> familiarity with terrain, ability to scatter, transport links and swift communication

• Saratoga without French -> first American victory, 5895 British POWs

• Judgement - Americans surviving but not winning → small scale

British weaknesses

• Expensive -> £232m national debt by 1783 -> City of London advised that war was harming trade

• Bad war strategy -> no seaboard and defensive strategy, no central body to attack, limited guidance from London -> Clinton returned to NY after siege of Charleston, leaving Cornwallis to fight southern campaign with 4000 men

• Logistically difficult -> loyalist support in pockets, armies deep in landmass, supply lines stretched further, reliant on generals to pincer colonials -> Burgoyne’s failure at Saratoga because of lack of communication

• Judgement → result of French intervention