American History Hit - Revolutionary War: When Was the Turning Point?

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

In 1775, revolutionaries went to war against the British. Seeking independence from colonial ties, they fought more than 150 battles over eight years.A relatively new nation of just 2.5 million people facing off against the greatest military power on the planet at that time, it seemed like a tall order. So when did the tide turn? When did it become certain that the revolutionaries would gain their independence?In this first of two episodes with podcast host Dan Snow and Major Jonathan Bratten of the National Guard, Don is pitting the British against the Americans once more. Join us to find out when the Revolutionary war was won.Edited by Aidan Lonergan, produced by Sophie Gee. The Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. On the morning of September 17, 1781, a drummer boy beats Parley as a British officer appears on the parapet of the British lines at Yorktown, tied to the end of his sword a white handkerchief.

The officer is blindfolded and brought behind American lines to secure terms of surrender for the 8,000 British soldiers and seamen trapped by the larger Franco-American forces. Six years after the battles of Lexington and Concord officially signaled the beginning of the Revolution, war, the unthinkable has happened. British General Lord Cornwallis has sought a ceasefire. I'm Don Wildman, and today I am joined by fellow podcast host Dan Snow and engineer officer and army historian Major Jonathan Bratton to explore the defeat of the British. When did it become clear that the Continental Army would reign victorious? In the beginning, it seemed unlikely, a colonial outpost of just 2.5 million people facing off against the greatest military power

on the planet at the time. And yet, in 1783, after eight and a half years of fighting, two years after the surrender at Yorktown, the British and Americans signed the Treaty of Paris. And the American Revolution was over. The British Army was defeated, and America had independence. So when was the turning point? Well, in this special crossover, of American history hit and Dan Snow's history hit, were diving headlong into the key moments of the revolution, trying to find the exact moment when Rebel Victory became inevitable. Dan Snow is here to give us the British perspective,

and on the side of the Star-Spangled banner, well, Jonathan Bratton. Hello, gentlemen. Are you doing good to be on the podcast? Pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Wish I could be there in person. Take your positions. My job today is to keep you man at a friendly distance here. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's give a quick overview.

From 1775 until 1783, after 100 years of colonialization and almost 20 years of unrest, revolutionaries from 13 of Britain's North American colonies were at war with their British rulers. The war began in skirmishes, with the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. The revolutionary forces were rudimentary, mostly using guerrilla tactics, against the more organized forces of the British military. In the summer of 1776, July 4th, the colonies declare independence from the British, giving their forces a much-needed boost.

Finally, the tables start to turn in favor of the Continental Army, the Americans, with the battles of Trenton and Saratoga. The Americans are further galvanized in 1778, when the French enter the fight with them, and when Spain and the Dutch declare war against the British. Now, rather than just trying to subdue a rebellion in the colonies, the British find themselves in a global war. Finally, in October 1781, with victory at Yorktown, peace is in sight for the Americans.

The war was brutal. Both sides had moments of brilliance and disaster, but were the colonies always destined to win? Gentlemen, give me an overview of what's at stake for both sides here. What are they fighting for? Jonathan, you first. So they're fighting for empire. They're fighting for essentially the British, and remember they're all British at this time, are fighting for this idea that the British Empire will extend to what is now Pittsburgh,

to the forks of the Ohio. It will extend to Canada. It will extend to the rest of the sugar islands. And of course, throughout the whole war, it will extend to India. But the idea is that you are fighting for empire. You can boil it down from a colonial provincial perspective that they are fighting for a variety of reasons, everything from a religious idea that, you know, those evil papists got to go to the idea that they'd like to have a little bit of peace and quiet on their frontier.

But at the end of the day, I think, you know, what you've got is you're fighting a war for empire, as historian Fred Anderson called it. What are the Americans fighting for, Dan, from a British perspective? Well, I guess we think they are fighting to avoid paying any tax, avoid paying their fair share, the seven years of all the French Indian wars cost a vast amount of money. that war was fought, started by the Americans, I should say, young George Washington strolls into the Forks of the Ohio, strolls into the Pennsylvania backcountry, and inadvertently starts a global war. So that war is being fought to protect these British colonies to ensure that they're freed

from French and indigenous enemies, and they don't want to pay their fair share. So it's, I guess, but for me, really, it's a war about dealing with the messy endings of the previous war. Now, we've heard with that in the 20th century. You might think about the Second World War and how it grows out of the first. You might think about the Vietnam in a way grows out of the Second World War as well. That's the nature of these things. Britain ends up with this massive, unexpected, very expensive, enormous North American Empire

stretches from really Florida up to Hudson Bay. And they've got to work on what to do. Who's going to run it? Who's going to pay for it? Who's going to control it? And one element, don't you think, Jonathan, is actually this war is also about who gets to enjoy the benefits of that new big empire? people in Virginia, people in Pennsylvania, people in the lower colonies, they're saying, hang on, we think we should be, not just extending up to the Forks of Ohio, we should be going even further. We want the land to the Mississippi and maybe even beyond. And actually the Brits are saying, no, no, no, no, this is not going to be just a free for all from our American colonies. We're going to take a more dark, you know, so this is an argument over the shape of this massive and unexpected gift, but it turns out to be a very, very poisoned gift that has landed in the British

pause on up. So I mentioned at the top, resources are obviously very different. Outgunned and outmaned. Thank you, Hamilton, for making that phrase very common. One advantage that Colonials have is home turf. Are they going to be able to use that, Jonathan? Is that really such an advantage? Well, the biggest advantage, it's the Atlantic Ocean. That's America's biggest advantage always. And Dan can sit there and say, well, you know, the Atlantic Ocean is just a great surface to convey the Royal Navy and the ships of the fleet and His Majesty's forces will crush the upper. No, it's a phenomenal barrier that means that anything that happens in the colonies, one, the information is going to take three weeks to a month or two to get back across the ocean. So the information war that can

be fought in the colonies because from the purposes of these nascent Americans, these rebelling individuals, trying to convey this idea of what on earth are we fighting for and why you should fight with us is probably more important than what we are going to do to the British, because first, in order to actually have anything to fight the British with, you actually have to have united colonies. And if there's anyone who's more fractious prior to 1775, I mean, I guess parliament, but also it's the 13 American colonies. I mean, they just cannot get along at all. And so first, so you have to have that. And then also anything that happens, it means that if the British are going to have to ship massive amounts of supplies across this ocean. So this long supply line, this long

line of communication, that's absolutely vital. So when we talk about home turf for the Americans, it's less the land. Now, I will say that the British officer perspective in North America, to quote a British officer who lands in 1755, I believe, and looks at the Ohio country and says, I cannot conceive how war is made in such country. That's probably a lot of the British perspective. but the terrain is going to be difficult for both sides. And learning from Jonathan for the first time that occasionally these U.S. states don't get on very well. I'm surprised to hear that. Fractious, you say. That's exciting news. One to watch, maybe. I think you're totally right. The Atlantic Ocean is a big disadvantage.

The landscape, it just swallows up armies. It breaks armies. There's far more water and marsh and bog and rock and trees than there are in the... The cockpit of war where the British Army is used to fighting in northern France and Belgium. But I also think that get the same problem you do in maybe Vietnam. When this superpower goes a long way away, it is able, when the enemy is standing in front of them, they're able to fight and often destroy them. It's when the enemy's not standing in front of it. It's when they just drift back. They're fighting communities.

There are people that turn up, pick up a musket, and just make life incredibly difficult for the British Army across all of the – it's just hard to hold down vast amounts of terrain. how big your army is. Well, you're talking about the guerrilla tactics, which all, every American student is raised to honor, you know, working with what you have, you know, and they learned it from the Native Americans, all these sort of mythology things that we learned. Definitely mythology. Yeah, exactly. Definitely mythology. Tons of mythology. And yet, it's the way things work at the battles of Lexington and Concord, but we, you know, lose these battles right through to the middle of the war. So at first, everyone has at hand is working out pretty well for the British. Things are going to go pretty well for them for a long time in this war.

I guess so. I guess the big problem is the British Army is not as big as it needs to be. The British have bet the farm since the 17th century, or maybe even before, on having a big Navy. Britain's an island. You think, well, we can protect our homeland and we can start to enjoy the opportunities of global trade and maybe even some colonies in the rest of the world by keeping a big navy.

So the idea of running a big navy and a big army at the same time. So Prussia has an army around 300,000 strong at this. point. And Prussia is, it stretches, I don't know, from what is today Maine down to maybe DC, the Chesapeake. That's just a small portion of these colonies. And Prussia has an army of 300,000 men. Britain has an army of like 50,000 men at this point. A lot of them in Ireland, which is itself in a near rebellious state most of the time. So actually, yeah, on paper, Britain's got lots of troops, but doesn't have anything like the amount of troops. You'd need to go town by town and stick a little union flag up the flagpole and leave.

a bunch of guys there to, and then move on to the next place. You know, that is, that requires massive manpower. So, yeah, Britain's got an advantage straight away. But British people hope, the Brit planners hope that what they can do is just took the Navy up and down the East Coast, blockade all these places like Charleston and Rodan and Providence and New York and Boston. And then the provincials just a reminder of their loyalty to the British Crown and decide to, but if that doesn't happen, Britain does have a problem.

You've got to put boots on the ground. You've got to put a lot. First turning point. Siege of Boston. April 1775 to March 1776. Following their victory at Lexington and Concord, the British troops are garrisoned in Boston. The colonial troops besieged them for 11 months. Jonathan, one of the Revolutionary Forces tactics during that siege? Well, it's try to use small blows to make a statement wherever you can. Remember, Washington's working with an army that is under critical shortages.

You know, Dan talks about the shortages of manpower for the Crown forces. Washington's facing the same thing. He can't even keep track of where his troops are day to day because half of them go home to tend their crops because this idea of serving in a long-standing army, a thing we've been taught is very, very bad. As part of our British tradition, that's another reason why the British army is not ever going to be large is because I guess you guys had some problems with a king using the army for bad things. I don't know. Some guy, Cromwell came along. It's some small history there. But this is very much a thing that is inherited by the Americans. There's not this idea that, yes, we're going to have long-serving armies. You mentioned

Lexington and Concord earlier as an example of success and also Boston. Well, the problem here is that it's a false measure of success. Lexington and Concord is a one in a hundred thousand chances that you get that exact scenario happening precisely where it did. You have Massachusetts being prepared more than any other colony to be able to fight this type of war. And then that ability, people just think, oh, we can duplicate that anywhere. Well, no, you can't duplicate a culture of 150 years of independent-mindedness and military tradition. And then the other piece is that, yes, Washington is dealing with an army that's got about 13 rounds per man and the siege of Boston. So you have to make little raids here and there. But ultimately, Washington would love a large-scale

assault to seize Boston, which is simply not practicable. His commanders tell him, hey, boss, you do this, you're going to stack up bodies like cordwood. Sure. And it's going to be Henry Knox bringing over the artillery over the Berkshire mountains through those horrible swamps, awful terrain in the dead of winter to place artillery over on Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston. And so Washington gets a win, but it's not the win that he wants because no one respects a siege win. People respect the bloody battle, the pitched battle, the outmaneuvering your enemy, forcing them to flee ingloriously before you. And that's not what he gets.

And so he has to now think about what are, how do I fight this war at the next battle, New York. What happens? I've always wondered, what happens when they leave? Did the British go back and say, okay, so that didn't work out very well? We need to reconnoiter here. And that's going to lead to a lot of ships in New York Harbor. That's right. And Jonathan's being very modest here.

I don't want to do his job for him. But, I mean, Washington, I think does brilliantly here. And they chase the British. They humiliate the British right at the beginning of the war. This is just shocking. Britain's poured reinforcements into this town to bring Massachusetts back to a state of subjugation to the Crown law. And here they are the people of Massachusetts and other New Englanders and led by a man

from junior, George Washington. They have strangled Boston. They forced the Brits to leave because of the shadow of the big cannon overhanging the city. Loyalists have left with them. Conditions were tough like the British Army's kind of starving. It's desperately rounding up cows. Everyone's laughing at it.

This is just brutal. And so, yeah, they head off to have. And then they think, you know, we need to go somewhere. We think there's plenty of loyalists in New York. We like the harbour in New York. It's a much better, it's a much more sustainable place. There's, it's easy to get food and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, they end up sending a big old fleet, the New York Harbor.

And this is where I think, if we want to play this game, I think the Brits come nearest achieving a pretty good result, this campaign. They could have, well, I'm sure we'll get on to it. But I think this is the bit where I think the Brits are living. down by their leaders in this bit, but I'm sure we'll talk about that. So these are warning signs. Do you think the British were spooked at all at this point, Dan? I think the British definitely spooked. And in fact, British commanders are writing home going, we've got a serious problem out here. The locals do not want us here. And it's not just a band of troublemakers. It is very widespread feeling. We've lost control of the hinterland.

We lost control. So, you know, we can control a port or two. We know, we can't actually, We've lost control the countryside. And you need a huge manpower to get this back. And the politicians are like, pull yourself together. It's a bunch of farmers. Yeah. They have demonstrated that the colonials have a certain will and determination to do what they want to do here.

We have strengthened the authority of that institution, that Congress that is so controversial, suddenly congeals, gets some authority behind it. And George Washington has emerged. They have a central leader. This is not good for the British. No, this is not good. The Americans are on their way to building a state, on their way to building an army and a Marine Corps and a Navy. I mean, this is bad news.

This is not just a provincial rebellion. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. But this is also a paper lion in many ways, right, Jonathan? I mean, Bunker Hill was not a win. Lexington Concord was one in the retreat, you know. That's where they did the damage. Oh, Lexington and Concord is a great win. What are you talking about?

This is utterly pulverizing an entire punitive expedition, driving it back, fleeing at the end to its Rear Guard, Banks, in Lexington. Bunker Hill, you know, it's a British victory. That's a clear win, right? You know, taken some ground at the cost of 10% of the officers in the British Army. But, you know, it's pretty catastrophic fighting that shows, I think it shows that the war is going to be long and it's going to be bloody and you're not going to get a quick victory by parading troops through towns in order to show the might

of the British Empire. I think we're also forgetting, we're being very Boston or New England or East Coast-centric. Remember, America has also just done a thing in Quebec. The American Army in the fall of 1775 launches a two-pronged invasion of Canada that seizes Montreal and but for a very untimely whiff of grape shot that blows Richard Montgomery into little bits outside the walls of Quebec City might have even taken Quebec City as well. And then you would be left with the situation of what on earth do you do with this 14th colony and how do you defend Canada? I think honestly, it's probably good that the colonials are forced out of Canada in the

spring of 1776 because otherwise you're just pouring more and more troops into this sort of black hole a little bit akin to what the British will do in the south post 1778. So there's a lot going on in the theater and it's showing that. that, hey, yeah, this is a rag tag, but they all just mounted an invasion that had a general Guy Carlton fleeing for his life up to Quebec City from Montreal, and now the British are not only have to contend with, hey, how do we put down this rebellious colonies in New England, but how do we get one of our own loyal colonies back? Yeah, but then they'd build on little fleet and chase Benedict Arnold down Lake Champlain, sinking

his boat. And Benedict Donald stings right back with his little fleet that he built out of nothing. But some hopes and dreams and Massachusetts sailors. All right. We're going to launch over vast territory here to July 1776, the Declaration of Independence, a hugely pivotal moment. In the school textbooks and in the media, we have this kind of image of all the Founding Fathers standing together lit by candlelight, gathered around a piece of parchment

as the whole image. It wasn't really this way at all, was it, Jonathan? No, I mean, it was very public, for one thing. If you're going to have a rebellion, you know, you've got to do some specific things in public and very openly takes place. And as with every good, you know, a constitutional convention, Philadelphia, stupidly hot, declaration planning at Philadelphia is stupidly hot. I can imagine that all these rooms stank to high heaven of all these perspiring would-be

politicians. But the, I think the critical piece of the decoration is how rapidly it is disseminated. After they wrangle over what it's going to be, and it is, there's a lot of wrangling. There's, there's, Jefferson originally has a piece in there. if you look at the grievances of the colonies to the crown, which is what the declaration really is, hey, here's the why of what we're doing. They're saying, hey, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this, we don't like it. We feel like our rights are being trampled. And then there's contentions, as I said, you know, the colonies are going to fight each other.

So there's a bit in there about, hey, the British are forcing the slave trade upon us. And South Carolina is like, wait a minute, hang on, nope, take that one out. And that one will We'll revisit that in 1861. But the, so after all that is ironed out. And then it is pushed out rapidly to the continental army, to the army itself, to their readings of the Declaration of Independence in New York City, where Washington has it read to the Continental Army there at Fort Pyconderoga, on Mount Independence, at all these critical places where the troops are.

It is explained to native allies. It is this mass effort to cause an information win that is something that I don't think the British foresaw was how this was going to be used to turn the narrative against, against specifically the crown, Georgia 3rd. This is treason. This is an act of treason. Don, you're darn right. It's treason and we're still upset about it.

Poor Georgia 3rd comes out. I mean, the list of grievances against George 3rd in the Declaration Independence is deranged. But anyway, we don't have to dwell on that. But I think, you know, and Jonathan mentions what's going on New York. At the same time, there's this campaign New York that I'm super interested. I, this is almost my key moment of the American Revolutionary War. And the British commanders in New York are a little bit hesitant, a little bit cautious. George Washington gets a little bit lucky, maybe once or twice to the weather.

And you get the so-called, you know, the miracle of when they managed to evacuate troops on Long Island, they managed to evacuate troops from Manhattan. And each time the Brits just keep failing to kind of put Washington in the bank, just get that army, capture it, destroy it. No, I'm not sure it would have made a huge difference. But it could have, if you lose the main field army of the, rebellion of the revolution of this young now, young republic, then maybe that would have made a difference. So there's a moment here, I think, where the Brits could have pulled it off. But like I

say, these British commanders, they're a little bit flat-footed. Yeah, right. So, Jonathan, the final statement on the declaration, it basically is a piece of propaganda is a negative word, but I mean, it is that kind of thing. And people don't really take that into consideration how important it was to get the message out, not only externally to foreign powers, but also internally. Well, and it's also, it gives a purpose for the war, because remember, I say this a lot, but the action, the events of April, May 1775, and even in June, you know, all the way up through the Olive Branch petition where the Congress says, hey, King George, you know, we could, I don't know, maybe come to an agreement, patch these things up. All of this is not, no, there's no widespread

movement saying, oh, yes, we are going to be a united and independent American entity. And that is what the Declaration is doing. It is taking this thing that was probably so far outside people's minds in April of 1775 and making it a reality rapidly. That is really just one year in a few months from the beginning of hostilities to a full movement for independence. And yes, it shores up one side. It also creates a very firm dividing line down the middle. Either you are for independence or you are not. And if you're not for independence, you are with the enemy. We talk a lot about The sort of numbers involved on who was loyalist, who is patriot, et cetera, et cetera. I also don't like those terms because I'm pretty sure all the loyalists,

not them themselves is very good patriotic Britons. But really, you've got about 30% of the population going for independence, 30% loyalists and 30 to 40% wholly in the middle just trying to survive, which is why you have these British commanders who are so frustrated when they go into a town and everyone pulls out a union jack and says, yay, George the third. And then they go, all right, cool, we've got this. space and then they march on and then those people will immediately sell supplies to the rebels

or or send drafts off to the Continental Army or support the militia. And you've got everyone from Cornwallis to Burgoyne to Sir Henry Clinton to Howe who packs it up in 1777, 1778, he's just like, I'm sick of this, I'm going home. All these British commanders who can't actually grasp the problem on the ground, which is that it is very difficult to defeat an idea and a popular way. will. It's very easy to defeat an army, which how does? Burgoyne and Clinton and Cornwallis all defeat, tactically defeat, rebel forces, but it doesn't matter. Well, within the year following, the Declaration of Independence does not go well for the Continental Army, with the exception of perhaps the Battle of Princeton. There's a lot of nooks and crannies there, but we head towards the

middle of 1777 and the Battle of Saratoga, which I think is fair to say is the next huge, pivotal point when things could have gone a lot differently than they did. Dan, we have talked many times about Saratoga. It is a complex event. But what are the headlines of this? The headlines are that the plan was very, very complex, as you say. Now, it was hugely ambitious, probably overly ambitious, but then again, there are examples in North America, whether it's in 1760 in the French Indian War or whether it's, as Jonathan talks about, in the American assault on Montreal in 1775. There are examples of big bodies of men moving across this very difficult landscape and all getting to the right place at the right time.

This is not one of those examples. So the Brits, they have this smart idea, which is they're going to maybe try and just divide, just create a firewall. The New England is the real problem here. And the middle colonies, the southern colonies, they may be a little more Tory, they're maybe a little more relaxed about the idea of the British Hemper. There is perhaps some truth in that idea. And they thought, what we need to do is just build a wall between these two groups.

So we've got to, well, let's get a force moving down from Canada. advancing south towards Albany down that great invasion corridor that's seen so many armies marching to and fro over the decades. We'll get an army marching from Lake Ontario, east towards Albany. So that's another prong coming in from Lake Ontario, coming towards Albany. And then we get a force moving up from New York, where we've captured New York and past New Jersey. So they come due north up the Hudson Valley. And so from three different directions, we kind of arrive at Albany and we cut off New England from the rest of the colonies. The problem is none of those forces do what they're supposed to and none of them arrive at the right time and none of the commanders do what they're supposed to.

Because of bad leadership? A little bit of bad leadership, a little bit of just logistics in the 8th century. Tough, boots fall apart, everyone gets sick, a lot of food, and then a bit of resistance by the Americans. I'm not doing them down here. So what is supposed to be a three-way attack ends up with one poor wars coming down from Canada and finding itself completely outnumbered at the end of a hideous supply route dealing with far too many defenders outside Albany. a place called Saratoga and the Brits know they're in big trial. Yeah, this is the first big surrender, right? I've any kind of, yeah, it is.

Thanks, Don, it is. It's a great own goal. It's a great own goal. It's a great own goal because it's the British, you know, it's Whitehall's job to oversee a cohesive war plan. And the problem is they approve every plan that they're given, including the one where how in New York says, oh, actually, I'm not marching north. I'm marching south to Philadelphia. Yes. Burgoyne knows this.

Everyone knows this. And Burgoyne goes, yep, okay, I'll meet you in all. Albany. A and B are not leading to C. They're doing A to F to Z. And it's, I honestly have massive sympathy for for these poor British troops because they're doomed from the start by one of the most colossally poor oversights of planning on the British perspective. Don't approve all the plans. Don't leave it up to commanders to choose their own adventure, if you will, when it comes to strategy. It gives a great showcase for the crazy Benedict Arnold to run around on his home. force, getting shot. He is. He's impressive at this part. But I think it, and once we've got this battle at Saratoga, again, you see this problem for the Brits, that yes, they do tend to perform better in battles in the American Revolutionary War. But when the Americans are well-led, when they are supplied, and particularly when they have the advantages of ground or defensive,

they can fire musket volleys that are as vicious as anything the British will come up against in Europe. And so you can't assume as the British army that you are just going to grind forward and disperse this group of amateurs. And actually, I think at Saratoga, the Brits find themselves repelled by very impressive American infantry tactics. And so that is to their credit as well. Jonathan, the upshot of this really is the French getting interested in joining this war. It's not just, it's not a done deal.

But this could be an advantage for them backing this army, right? Yeah, it's Saratoga. But then it's also the survival of Washington's army following Brandywine. He goes from a defeat at Brandy Wine on the defensive to a tactical defeat in Germantown where he's on the offensive. This is an army mounting an offensive after a defeat. That is a resilience. And not just in surviving these battles and then forcing what Germantown does, it forces how to keep his army inside Philadelphia. He can no longer move around the countryside.

It's the thing that I think we don't see a lot when we look at just strict wins and losses. The French see a captured army in New York, then they see a penned-up army in Pennsylvania. And they're going, okay, you guys are demonstrating enough that you have the French crown very much have a policy of, we don't really want to get heavily involved, but we would really love to bleed our traditional enemy as dry as possible. Was this just vengeance for the French and Indian War? just French at Indian War Dan, do you want to talk about how long back here? Listen, John, I don't know if you know about this.

Striving goes. We've got going on this island of ours, but we've got these neighbours called the French and it goes back and far away actually. So yeah, no, but then there's been, yeah, well, exactly. So there's been particularly since 1688, 69, the Brits and the French have fought some, I've followed some historians

who call it the second hundred years war. You get the nine years war, you get the war of Spanish succession. You get the war of Austrian succession. You get the French Indy War, the 70s War, you get the American Revolutionary War, then you get the French Revolutionary War, then you get the Napoleon. And it ends, and it's really a battle in some ways for kind of global hegemony. Yeah, can we just get the World War I and get over again?

Exactly. Well, then we're on the, then we're buddies again. And it ends, I need not tell you, British cavalry water in their horses in the Sen and the Duke of Wellington bedding Napoleon's mistress. But anyway, but it is, this is just part of this century-long struggle. And it goes on in India and it goes on in the Caribbean. It goes on. So the French are looking to take on the Brits wherever the Brits show weakness.

They'll fight the Brits in Ireland. They'll fight the Brits in India. They'll fight the Brits in West Africa. But at this time, it looks like the Brits are in a whole world of trouble on the east coast of America. And the French are happy to send muskets and gold. And they're going to bankrupt themselves doing it. That is a problem for later. They will bank up.

But you mentioned the Spanish, Jonathan. They get involved. Most Americans don't even know about that. They get involved. I mean, it's not to the same. same extent as the French. The Spanish have lost very heavily. They are going to eventually enter the war after France. On the condition of the famous Spanish condition always is, we want to brolter bat. You know, they're not going to get it. Spain's contribution to the war

is rocky. They demonstrate that they are still a great, a part of the great power competition. They are still part of this great game, as it will later be called. But, They don't demonstrate that they have this political will to openly support the Americans other than beyond sending some arms, a little bit of money, and then a small expedition through Florida and modern day, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. And so what you really have with Spain is it's another fleet. The addition of Spain's fleet into the war. And then also the Dutch.

And the Dutch come in heavily with money. The Dutch are floating massive loans to the Americans, which they'll be. nice enough to sort of overlook the fact that we absolutely screw them on the back end and don't pay anybody back. But this is, again, these are items for the future. But from the British perspective, you now have, I think, probably what no one in Britain wanted in 1775, which is all of a sudden, you have a world war again. You just had a world war. You're trying to figure out how to pay for the last one because, you know, William Pitt wrote a blank check to the colonies to do whatever they wanted and they took him at his word and they did.

And now here we are with massive British debt and another war. And the worst thing about a world war is you're fighting without allies. And Winston Churchill said, the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without allies. And so this is for all that my fellow Brits, and we like to talk about the British Empire, we like to talk about great British military successes, nearly all of them have been achieved.

The big important ones have been achieved as part of coalitions, big, big coalitions. That's been Britain's secret source. And now that their most unsuccessful war in British history is the American Revolutionary War when it's fighting absolutely on its own. Right. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. So we're moving on from the Declaration of Independence as a pivotal moment which really demonstrated the resilience of the colonists, willing to fight through failure. I'm hearing from you, Saratoga is probably the biggest pivotal moment.

We'll have to make this decision at the end. but definitely a huge moment of pivot when not only have the Americans won the battle, but also they've brought in foreign powers to fight them. They've made allies. So let's, again, move forward towards the end here, towards Yorktown. With French support and money, it feels very much that by 1781, victory for the Americans is in the cards. Our final turning point comes with the last showdown. Yorktown is under siege from September to October, 1781.

Washington's regiments joined by 4,500 French soldiers under the Marquita Lafayette. Up to 17,000 on land, Yorktown is under siege from September to October 1781. Washington's regiments are joined by 4,500 French soldiers under the Marquita Lafayette. That makes a total of 17,000 on land faced off against 8,000 Brits. French Admiral Francois Joseph de Gras and his fleet are in the Chesapeake, preventing the of Cornwallis and the British Army, and reinforcement by the British Navy. On September the 5th, the French take a victory over a British fleet in the Battle of Chesapeake, and it's clear Cornwallis's troops have no chance of escape or reinforcement. Troops suffer from disease,

dwindling supplies, and casualties. On October 17th, the drummer and officer signal surrender. Negotiations take place on the 18th, and the official surrender ceremony occurs on the 19th. Cornwallis does not attend, citing illness. So British Brigadier General Charles O'Hara surrenders to Washington's second in command, Major General Benjamin Lincoln, by handing him his sword. This is such a pivotal battle in the revolution. Dan, what state are things in for the British at the time of Yorktown? Well, it's just a little problem, which is the British army can move around America,

sometimes carried by ships, this overwhelming maritime strength. Other times they'll march, they'll march up. through the Carolinas into Virginia. But the problem is that every time they go somewhere and they liberate somewhere, or they get the union flags out, as Jonathan says, and the crowds all come out and say, okay, fine, King George, we're back. The minute they leave town, like the Viet Cong in Vietnam, or like the Taliban, I guess, in Afghanistan,

the patriots, the rebels, just drift back in and reassert their control. So you end up with marching this big distance, a British armies march all the way into this part of Virginia, and they haven't got anything to show for it. What they then try and do is they do whatever British, they do exactly what British armies have always done. They just look towards the coast and be like, where the hell is the Navy?

We need the Navy here. So, and they do that. They get Yorktown's on the coast and they build a, and they're not going to get the Navy because of the French? Well, this is the killer fact, Don, this is an absolute disaster. So they've built this before and they settle down. Normal service resumed here.

We are on the coast. We get the Navy bringing supplies in, food, more powder and shot and reinforcements. Then the unimaginable happens. I mean, this is very difficult for me to talk about really, but the French Navy turn up. In an astonishing and lucky and skillful and remarkable bit of coordination that crosses two continents and several months, the French Navy turn up in force, there's an inclusive battle off in the Chesapeake Bay, the British retreat afterwards to go and repair their ship,

so it's actually a defeat for the British. And for the, you know, this astonishing new experience for the Brits, they find themselves sandwich between enemy force, Americans and the French who are besieging them in Yorktown, and a French fleet out at sea. And the Brits do not like this situation. Jonathan, tell me about the American side of things at this point. Washington is, what is his aims, his strategic goals? So he's trying to coordinate with this, you know,

he's trying to take advantage of this new alliance, the 1778 Treaty of Alliance in Amity with France, to be able to make a joint, a joint combined attack. What he would really love to do in his heart of hearts is seize New York. get that festering insult away from him, get this thing that he's been carrying around with him. The loss of New York, I think, really, really, really feels. And there's been attempts to coordinate continental forces with the French Army and Navy. You've got an attempt in Savannah that ends terribly.

You've got an attempt in Rhode Island that doesn't end well. You have a lot of failure. And I think that's important to emphasize is you have a lot of failure, a lot of disappointment, and a lot of mistrust building on both sides. From the American side, I don't know if we can trust these guys to show up when we need them. And from the French side is, I don't know if we can trust these guys to fight when we show up. So there's a lot of tension that is going into this relationship, which makes 1781 that much more impressive. What the Americans are dealing with fundamentally is honestly a gift, which is that in 1778, the British turned to the south.

They say, we're writing off the main colonies, we're writing off doing that, we'll do so. stuff there. We'll keep our main forces in New York, but we are going to attempt a southern strategy. We are going to win the American South. We will have a limited victory. We will keep the South, the more lucrative colonies. And, you know, those dumb rebels in the North, they're intractable and they're poor and cheap anyway, those dumb Yankees. We can live without them. And this is a gift because this is where British manpower is pouring into. And they're able to combat this with a relatively, the Continentals and the militia, the state military troops, are able to combat this with a relatively low number of troops.

So by 1781, this weird assortment of Continentals and militia in the Carolinas have essentially caused Cornwallis to give up in frustration, to throw his hands up and say, I've beaten you everywhere. In every battle, I pursue you, I keep having to cross rivers and I'm running out of boats and my men are destroyed, my horses are starving. I have to go refit in Yorktown where he even, before that, he attempts to destroy a four of about 4,000 under Lafayette, which eventually ends up pinning him on the Virginia Peninsula. And so this incredible combination of British strategic mishap, I would say, or unable to read

the situation properly and this unparalleled moment in space and time where you get Washington, Rochambe and de Graa able to actually come in the Comptestan, able to come to the table and say, yes, we are going to attempt this to move across an entire, multiple theaters of war to converge in one space and time. Most of the troops for the, I think a lot of people don't understand, most of the continental and French troops, almost all of them, for the siege of Yorktown, began in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York. Yeah, right.

There's only a couple thousand under Lafayette that have been sort of scrapping it out in Virginia. And so this is just this incredible feat to concentrate rapidly at that right moment, as Dan said at this moment where the British are going, oh, wait, we don't have naval superiority. What is that? I mean, that's like telling the American Army today that, hey, you have to fight without air superiority. Right. That causes everything in my body to clinch up and this would want to hide in a little hole.

Dan, could they have come back after Yorktown? Do you think the British? Yeah. No. No? No. The Yorktown was a catastrophe. Another army.

A second entire army surrenders, just utterly, you know, something like 8,000 men. it would involve raising another army to send and I think people had they'd worked out that these armies it wasn't like oh we were doing so well before the army got captured but it's just stalemate at best you're fighting a global war

the Spanish are you know the other interests around the world you want to defend and the British have no option the British credit is under attack the British government is Britain is still you know it's not a dictatorship the British government is very shaky at this point that Parliament are doubting

the strategy. So Lord North, who's the prime minister, his grip on power will soon come to an end. We're going to have three prime ministers in one year after this, if you can believe that, which we only have in the gravest of crises like a couple years ago. And so Yorktown is a symptom of just a gigantic failure to come to terms with how to pay for, how to bring the Americans back to their obedience. And in a way, Yorktown puts the Brits out of their misery because it's so decisive that they just go, look, we can't do this. It's really a statement on how over-executive. extended they were. Yeah.

We haven't got the men. We can't send another army. So we can keep this going and sit in New York and sort of just exchange pot shots with the Americans. Or we can just cut this gaudingot. We can cut off this disease limb. And we can get back down what we want to do, which is defend our valuable sugar-producing islands in the Caribbean from the French, defend our possessions in India, defend our,

you know, Gibraltar, all those kind of things. And, yep, it's super sad. We, you know, the Brits, they've secured Canada. So, you know, maybe they just, maybe they lose the 13 colonies. You got the lumber. They got the lumber in Canada. You know, what's the best is going to happen? Those little 13 colonies.

And maple syrup. Well, you tell me exactly, my own. And beaver skin hats. Oh, yeah. You know, I'm sure those little 13 colonies, they'll never come to an end. They'll squabble amongst themselves. They'll be back. They'll be back.

Surprisingly, sporadic fighting does continue after this. There's a couple years here until this Treaty of Paris is signed. Jonathan, it seems interesting to me as Americans. We celebrate the Fourth of July, the Declaration of Independence, But we don't really celebrate the Treaty of Paris. It's weird, isn't it? Third of September. I mean, it's weird only from the perspective of actually asking Americans to look with a

realistic light upon their own history. What's more popular? Oh, well, we manifested our own destiny into existence, to borrow a phrase that will come later on in American politics. But this idea that, oh, well, we did it on our own. We willed it to happen. It's like Lexington and Concord. It was the embattled farmer who stood up and made this happen.

No, it was fought. as an all-American wars are always fought N-1, which is with allies, which is very difficult for us to admit. It is fought by a mixture of professional forces and part-time forces. Today, we'd have the regular Army, Army Reserve, the Army National Guard. And it's fought by drafting individuals. So by the end, the Continental Army is drafting people. It is forced service. Right. Because that is how you keep armies in the field and how you win wars. All of this, doesn't make for really good hand-clapping, you know, yay America feelings. And so, yes, we celebrate the July 4th because otherwise we would have to say, yeah,

we owe our independence probably mostly to France. We are very good storytellers, very good at building our own mythology. To this day, as a matter of fact. Dan, on this side of things, what's the, there's a whole empire to build. I mean, you've got plenty of work going on over here. Speaking of stories, this is the strange thing about the American Revolutionary Wars. the most disastrous war in British history. And what happens over the next 40 years

is one of the most gigantic expansions of British power in the history of the world. It's very weird. So there's an industrial revolution happening in Britain which will give it huge advantages going into the 19th century. So its economy is absolutely, it's on fire. It's going through one of the most important events

in human history, this industrial revolution, starts in little old England. And so although the loss of America is a catastrophe, and although there's a world in which Britain and North America go on being one great big imperial state and maybe fused together as a nation state, some state in the future, that's a very interesting world, but it's not the one we live in. But what does happen is chaos in Britain, political chaos, huge existential crisis, what are we doing here, we've got no money, it's a disaster. But under the surface, there's enormous dynamism and excitement going on with Britain's economy.

Amazing things are happening. And then France totally. implodes. The French Revolution happens, as you pointed out, to a large extent, because of the vast amount of money they spend in the American Revolutionary War and then the money they spend after that, still trying to catch up with the British fleet. And so Britain is drawn into this enormous war in Europe, these enormous wars in Europe, perhaps a little bit like World War II in the US and sort of lifting the Americans out of the remains of the Depression. Those actually, although they're very tough wars and some very tough years in those wars, they proved to have a kind of galvanizing effect on Britain.

Britain ends up conquering other colonies around the world, place like Southern Africa and extends its possessions in India. So Britain, it's strange. It's a disaster, but it doesn't seem to halt the trajectory of Britain into what will become a great global empire. There goes. It works out pretty well for them. So we've done a whirlwind tour of the biggest pivotal moments of this war. There were many, many in between.

But Jonathan, I think it's fair to say, well, I'll leave this to you. What do you, as an American, think was the pivotal moment when the Colonials imagined that they'd won this war? When did it happen? When did things turn? As to when they imagine they won the war, I don't know if they actually do imagine it until 1783. Washington himself is in disbelief that there will be any end to the hostile. I mean, he is ready for the assault on New York up until the point where the British troops leave in 1783. There's this intense idea that the war cannot surely be over, that they could not

have actually done this. From a, you know, stepping back, a geopolitical perspective, highly unpopular when we want to look at the patriotic idea of the revolution, I mean, I do think that when Britain loses the war is 1778, when it admits that it cannot control the northern most populous, most rebellious colonies and that that is where they they lose their way, so to speak. I mean, they give up. They essentially say, we are willing to achieve a very limited victory or a limited loss. Not unlike Vietnam, where Dan was talking about how the British Empire massively expands following this huge loss. Following Vietnam, the United States sees itself as the victor of the Cold War, sees itself coming out as the lone superpower. And then, of course, there's the big question that I think

Britain also had in the 18, mid-1800s, is what do you do when you're the lone superpower and how do you use that power? Those are for future podcasts. But I don't think that there's a simple answer. I would like to say it was Saratoga. That would be the easy answer. But I honestly don't think for the columnists themselves, I don't think that there was a time when they knew that they had won until it was actually done. And then they didn't know how big they'd won because the Brits make a really extraordinary decision, which is that they don't just give these 13 colonies this independent. Or they don't agree, accept the 13 colonies' independence. They give them a whole ton of territory that the Americans didn't even know they were asking for. And that is maybe a different podcast, but they give them

the whole of the Midwest, the whole the Mississippi, Ohio Valley. So these 13 colonies we talk about, suddenly it is the eastern chunk of what is now the U.S. So overnight, the peace treaty is as bigger victory for the Americans as any of these ones. Although it's almost a Trojan horse, too, because in it lies the seeds of the near destruction of this new republic that is going to get, you know, sorted out with the Constitution. But prior to that, you've got to imagine the Brits sitting back there going, yeah, you thought it was real easy to govern. Yeah, yeah. You try dealing with you assholes. Thanks so much, Dan and Jonathan, for joining me.

Next time we're going to explore what might have happened had the British won. Join us wherever you get your podcasts. And you can get more history from Dan on his podcast. Dan Snow's history hit. They cover everything from the ancient Egyptians to medieval kings and queens to Britain in the Second World War. You name it. They probably have an episode on it. See you next time.