I've really enjoyed reading "The Men Who Lost America" by the entertainingly named Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy. The premise behind the (non-fiction) book is very simple: the story of the (American) Revolutionary War as told from the British perspective.
O'Shaughnessy is an academic historian, and notes that surprisingly almost all scholarship has been performed by American researchers; the British historically seemed embarrassed to plumb deeply into the details of the episode, so most uncovering of primary sources on the British war effort have been performed by Americans abroad rather than home-grown academics.
The book is structured really well. Each chapter focuses on a particular individual responsible for leading a major aspect of the British war effort. They are also organized such that the chronology generally advances forward: there's definitely overlap, but usually a following chapter will describe how someone attempted to recover from the shortcomings of a previous leader. The chapters are also grouped into three overarching sections: first the political leaders, then the army generals, and finally the admirals. This turns out to work nicely in making sense of the overall conflict, as the political sections can go into a lot of detail on the background leading up to the war, the generals have non-overlapping reigns of chief commanders, and the admirals' efforts prove instrumental in securing non-disastrous terms for the British and paving the way for their navy-powered world domination in the 19th century.
I won't recap everything in the book, but broadly speaking, it was pretty eye-opening for me. A lot of things that I've taken for granted since early childhood turn out to be inaccurate or incomplete; I've gotten a better understanding of the broader context and stakes of the war beyond the border of the 13 colonies; and it was really compelling to see how certain key incidents like Benedict Arnold's betrayal or the Siege of Yorktown were seen from the British side.
The first chapter covers George III. I've just dismissively thought of him as a crazy, inept king, but he comes across really well in this book, albeit with some significant flaws in judgment. (This pattern will FREQUENTLY recur!) O'Shaughnessy notes that, almost right up until the outbreak of the war, George was actually generally better liked in America than he was in Britain. Stepping back a bit: Britain had spent a great deal to defend America during the French and Indian war (aka the Seven Years War) (Which, although O'Shaughnessy doesn't really get into it here, was basically single-handedly sparked by George Washington). America received a lot of the benefits of being protected by British military and diplomatic power, but the per-capita tax burden on people living in America was a miniscule fraction of what the average Englishman paid. So there was a growing sense in Parliament that America would need to pay more to contribute towards the upkeep of the Empire. As we all know, Americans strongly disliked this: actually paying taxes isn't fun, and beyond that, they resented being told what to do by people on the other side of an ocean, and more broadly felt disrespected and oppressed.
For most of the decade or two leading up to 1776, the conflict was seen as upholding the doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament - that is, the idea that Parliament is the ultimate authority on all matters in the British empire. This is significant, in that the principal dates to the Glorious Revolution and is in some ways anti-monarchial. George III wasn't especially concerned about the colonists one way or another, but the politicians were keen to keep Parliament strong as an institution. So, there was this interesting dynamic where the colonists for a while were directly petitioning George to shield them from the actions of Parliament, implicitly promoting monarchy over democracy.
While George wasn't involved in the various taxes and acts that first assessed and later punished the Americans, once the situation escalated to the point of armed rebellion, he became firmly on the side of defeating the revolution by force. A kind of switcheroo occurred where Parliament, who previously had been so gung-ho on showing the Americans their place, began to have second thoughts and much more sympathy towards the rebel cause; while the king, who had been predisposed to show mercy, became intransigent on the need to unambiguously defeat the rebellion. And in fact the main reason why the war dragged on as long as it did, several years after Yorktown, is because George refused to give in.
Returning briefly to the topic of his mental state - as I wrote above, I've typically just dismissed George III as a "crazy king". He comes across as extremely stable, thoughtful, and rational in this book, with an awareness of the logistics of the conflict, strong understanding of the various people, and a grasp of details. Several people have audiences with the king and are very moved by the experience. Anyways, his famous "madness" turns out to have been a blood disease of all things. The symptoms would include seizures, period of delirium and incoherence, and, tellingly, purple urine. While this is a malady he struggled with, from this book it doesn't seem debilitating, more of an episodic thing that gradually increased with age but never really overwhelmed him.
The second chapter covers Lord North, who was the Prime Minister leading up to and during most of the war. He's a really fascinating character: while nominally the most powerful man in Britain, he's cripplingly indecisive, unable to set clear policy, resolve disputes between subordinates, or clearly express his aims. As with most of the people in this book, he does have some very strong talents: he was also the Chancellor of the Exchequer, prior to and during his term as Prime Minister, and seems to have been a financial genius, ably managing the empire's challenging loans and expenditures. But he is wholly inadequate to the wartime task, and recognizes his own limitations. It's both comical and pathetic how frequently he asks to be allowed to resign, only to be turned down over and over and over again: all of his potential replacements are opposed to the war, and King George demands a supporter in this role.
Among other things, this book is an interesting snapshot into a particular window in the development of institutions: we learn that North was one of the first people to carry the specific title Prime Minister, and people were still trying to figure out exactly what that job entailed. He leads a Cabinet, but there wasn't really a concept of a unified Cabinet policy, it was more of a collection of powerful individuals, who in this case often publicly warred with one another. We still see the remnants of a feudal patronage system, as certain individuals in the House of Commons or the House of Lords will have a certain number of members of Parliament in their pocket, and appeasing these specific factions is required in order to maintain a majority for the present government. Fascinating stuff!
Jumping forward to the army: much like with Lord North, there's a strong strain of indecisiveness that seemed to paralyze British action for the crucial first years of the war. Fundamentally, both sides still saw each other as British: many Americans wanted the respect and representation of their island ancestors, while the British wanted to discourage their wayward children and bring them back into the fold. So while the British arrived with a significant military force to exert their will, they didn't really want to use it: the commanders understood well that violence would harden the Americans' resolve and make rapprochement more difficult.
At this time, most leaders of the military were hereditary nobles, which meant they also had active political careers, and as a result many talented leaders were not eligible to lead the American war because they had opposed the war. The first pair of leaders were two brothers, General George Howe and Admiral Richard Howe. In some respects they were the best leaders of the war because they collaborated so well between the army and the navy; throughout the rest of the war, the two branches notoriously failed to cooperate. However, the brothers insisted on also being appointed as peace commissioners, so they arrived with fig branches in addition to rifles.
Howe seems to have been a good military commander, thrashing George Washington in a series of battles that ended with New York City firmly under British control. But he and his subordinates failed to prevent the escape of the Continental Army, which could have delivered a decisive knock-out blow. There's a lot going on in that escape, but one big element, again, is that Howe didn't really want to kill the Americans: their goal was essentially a "shock and awe" campaign that would make the Americans realize their cause was hopeless and end the war before too much bloodshed occurred. That dual role of peace commissioner and military commander made it hard to decisively pursue strong victories, in much the way that Lord North had a hard time deciding on a specific course of action.
There are of course many factors that lead to Britain's loss, but I came away from this book with the impression that the single greatest error was that Britain assumed that the silent majority of Americans were loyalists, and that the revolutionaries with a small and loud minority, so the thinking went that all the British had to do was show up, then loyalists would flock to their side and they would collectively steamroll the opposition. That wasn't the case, of course: yes, there were loyalists, but far fewer strongly committed loyalists than strongly committed revolutionaries. When loyalists did declare for the British, the army felt compelled to protect them, which then necessitated defending those areas and limiting the available forces for offensive actions. Otherwise, when the British left, the loyalists would be driven out or even killed by partisans. The Howes like many later commanders realized that they couldn't in good conscience call upon the loyalists unless they were prepared to protect them.
One of many factoids I learned throughout the book is that the size of both the British and the American militaries steadily declined after 1777. On the American side, the pay was bad, the currency inflated into near-worthlessness, conditions were generally miserable, with shortages of food and clothing and shelter and heat. The British had supply problems of their own but didn't need to worry about soldiers deserting; rather, their problem was that Britain had to defend a far greater area than just America. Even as the war started they were nervous about the situation in Ireland and retaining Canada, and once France and Spain entered the war they had to worry about their possessions in the Caribbean, Gibraltar, Jersey, India and various East Asian islands. The commanders on the ground in North America always recognized that they had far too few men to accomplish their mission, but despite that were always being ordered to send men to Jamaica, to Nicaragua, to various other places. So their resources kept dwindling, and yet King George and the Secretary of State Lord Germain demanded offensive actions and taking the initiative. Little wonder that the commanders fared so poorly.
After the strong initial opening in New York, General Burgoyne's decisive defeat at Saratoga rocked the British on their heels, with everyone belatedly realizing that this war would drag on for years. After the Howes were recalled General Clinton took command. He comes off as amusingly whiny in this book: like everyone else in his position, he realized that his situation was hopeless, and he just cannot stop complaining about it, constantly feeling that he's being set up as a scapegoat to pin the failure on.
Dysfunction is a huge recurring theme of the book, with people and organizations unable to cooperate. Shipping vinegar from Britain to America takes seven months. Something like twenty separate departments are responsible for transporting supplies for the war, and none of them are under the control of the War Department. Generals Clinton and Cornwallis start off on fairly cordial terms, after some catty comments and stirring up drama, they get into a situation where they won't talk with one another for months. Clinton is hunkered down in New York City while Cornwallis is rampaging throughout the Carolinas; Clinton thinks that Cornwallis is making a mistake and accomplishing nothing, but doesn't bother to order him to do anything different. Cornwallis eventually reaches the Chesapeake Bay, after which Clinton sends his first direct order in half a year, to fortify a harbor as a new naval base. Neither of them are aware that the British Navy is mostly in the Caribbean and Cornwallis is dangerously exposed. This all leads to the huge defeat at Yorktown, the single biggest military disaster of the war.
The last part of the book focuses on the admiralty; shorter than the others, it just has two chapters, one on Rodney and the last on the Earl of Sandwich. Like most people in this book, Rodney has many facets. He wins great renown for the Battle of the Saintes and for relieving the siege of Gibraltar. But much of the chapter focuses on his capture and plunder of St. Eustatius, a Dutch free port in the Caribbean. Rodney was badly in debt and stood to personally benefit from a share of plunder, so he basically ignores the military needs of Cornwallis and other generals to instead go after a rich trading port. This is a pretty dark section, and we read about Rodney's anti-semitism and general nastiness in this episode. While his action pretty directly contributed to the loss of America, he's just about the only person in the book who emerges from the war with his reputation enhanced, thanks to his victories elsewhere at sea.
Finally, the Earl of Sandwich (who, yes, does seem to be the inspiration for the word "sandwich" as we use it today) is a pretty compelling character. He's the oldest member of the cabinet and an institutional link with the earlier regimes of government. He's the First Lord of the Admiralty, which is usually held by an admiral, but he's a very capable administrator. Much like Lord North in the Treasury, Sandwich provides excellent reforms for the navy: across two terms in office, he personally walks the docks to inspect them, sees chronic issues like rotting timbers, and starts a significant program to improve Britain's process for procuring, building, repairing and replacing ships.
One of many ironies in the book is that the Earl had strongly argued early on for greater investments in the navy, as much of the fleet is mothballed in peacetime and many of the remaining ships are past their useful life. Lord North and others deny him. Later on, once the war expands to include France and Spain, England becomes hugely vulnerable to their combined navies. The government belatedly begins to fund the expansion, but it takes years to build new ships, so they can't arrive soon enough to be of help in this war: in fact, despite the wartime infusion of investment, the size of the navy actually declines, as older ships need to be retired before the new ones can replace them. The Early of Sandwich becomes one of the most hated people in the entire book, blamed for all the deficiencies of the navy, despite the fact that he recognized those deficiencies before anyone else and tried to have them fixed back when it could have done some good.
The book ends with a relatively upbeat assessment of the legacy of the war for Britain. Yes, Britain "lost": she had to surrender the colonies. But thanks to some late naval victories, Britain was able to negotiate separate peaces between America, France and Spain, and received better terms than otherwise might have been achieved. Thanks to the vision and drive of the Earl of Sandwich, Britain ended the war with a powerful and well-functioning navy, which directly paved the way for the globe-spanning Britannia empire of the 19th century. The early chapter on Lord North similarly notes how, thanks to his prudent management of Britain's finances, the war, while painful and expensive, could ultimately be borne by Britain's credit markets; on the flip side, France, which "won" the war, acquired incredible debt as a result, which directly led to the summoning of the Three Estates, the French Revolution and the end of the monarchy. When you zoom out a few decades, it isn't crazy to think that Britain came out of the war rather well. In fact, we learn that the value of Britain's trade with America was greater after the war than before it.
So, yeah! Good book. I thought it was interesting, well-written, well-structured, gave me new perspectives on old stories and introduced me to some (to me) brand new stories. I'd definitely recommend it to folks who enjoy history.
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