Dan Snow's History Hit - How did the Colonies win the American War of Independence?

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

In 1775, American revolutionaries went to war with the British. Seeking independence from colonial ties, they fought more than 150 battles over eight years.How did a relatively new nation of just 2.5 million people face off against the greatest military power on the planet at that time? And when exactly did the tide turn?In this first of two episodes with Don Wildman, host of American History Hit, and Major Jonathan Bratten of the National Guard, Dan represents the British in the Revolutionary struggle.Edited by Aidan Lonergan, and produced by Sophie Gee, Mariana Des Forges and Charlotte Long.Join Dan and the team for a special LIVE recording of Dan Snow's History Hit on Friday, 12th September 2025!To celebrate 10 years of the podcast, Dan is putting on a special show of signature storytelling, never-before-heard anecdotes from his often stranger-than-fiction career, as well as answering the burning questions you've always wanted to ask!Get tickets here, before they sell out: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/dan-snows-history-hit/You can now find Dan Snow's History Hit on YouTube! Watch episodes every Friday here.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.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

Hi folks, Dan here. I have some very, very exciting news for you. To celebrate our 10th anniversary with you, we are doing a live show of Dan Snow's history, the first for a very, very long time. So please join me on Friday the 12th of September in London town. By popular demand, I'll be retelling the story of the legend Thomas Cochran, the Goat, greatest of all time, the man who inspired the movie Master and Commander, and looking back over 10 years of making this podcast, Prime Ministers, Oscar winners, World War II veterans, Holocaust survivors, and some of the greatest historians in the world.

It's a time for me to hang out with you guys and answer any burning questions you may have. So don't miss it, it's going to be an epic party and there is no one I'd rather spend it with. All of you dedicated listeners. You can get tickets at the link in the show notes, but hurry because they are selling fast. See you there. In the morning of October 17th 1781 a drummer boy beat out the parley, a particular rhythm on the drum recognisable to friend and foe alike. It was a signal the British wanted

to talk. As was the white handkerchief tied to the end of the sword of a British officer, a man who mounted the parapet on the British defences at their stronghold on the shores of the Chesapeake, in Virginia, at Yorktown. The officer was blindfolded. He was brought behind American lines to secure terms of surrender for around 8,000 British soldiers and sailors trapped by Franco-American forces. Two days later, on the 19th of October 1781, the forces of the British general Lord Conwallis marched out of the fort and laid down their arms at the feet of their enemies. This really marks the effective end of the Revolutionary War in North America, a war that had begun six years prior with the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

It would take two more years after the surrender at Yorktown for the British and Americans to finally agree a peace treaty. They signed the Treaty of Paris and ended the war for good. The British army had been defeated in North America, and the United States of America had their independence. So how on earth did this, certainly at times, ragtag continental army defeat one of the greatest military powers on earth? Today on Down Snow's History we're exploring the American Revolution.

Now we're obviously going through many of the key 250th anniversaries in some detail as they crop up. I mean you can listen to episodes about the Boston Tea Party and Lexan and Concord which we've just broadcast. But in this one we thought we'd bring you an overview of the whole thing. We'd break down some of those key moments and turning points and try and figure out exactly how and why a rebel victory became inevitable. We're going to have a little discussion here.

I'm going to go head to head with US Army historian. He's also an engineering officer. He's a friend of the podcast, Major Jonathan Bratton. I'll be representing the British perspective and tactics in the war, and Jonathan will be giving us the American side of the podcast, Major Jonathan Bratton. I'll be representing the British perspective and tactics in the war, and Jonathan will be giving us the American side of the story. To stop an all-out war breaking out once again, the conversation will be mediated by our very own Don Wildman, host of our wonderful sister podcast, American History Hit. He'll umpire us, he'll also stop us getting too distracted by tiny irrelevant details, so you'll keep us trundling through the timeline of the war so no one gets left behind, hurt, or remains in ignorance. It's a fun one, folks. Enjoy! Hello gentlemen. How 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 men at a friendly distance here. Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let's give a quick overview. From 1775 until 1783, after a hundred years of colonialization and almost twenty years of unrest, revolutionaries from thirteen 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 4, 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 those evil papists gotta 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 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 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

back country 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, they 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 and unexpected, very expensive, enormous North American Empire stretches from

from really Florida up to Hudson Bay. And they've got to work out what to do. Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna pay for it? Who's gonna 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, the Mississippi, and maybe even beyond. And actually the Brits are saying, no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to be just a free for all from our American colleagues. 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 poison gift that landed in the British Empire's lap. Yeah. So I mentioned at the top, resources are obviously very different. Outgunned and outmanned. 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. Yeah. And learning from Jonathan for the first time that occasionally these US 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's 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 cockpit of war where the British

army's used to fighting in France, 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 them, it's when they just drift back, there's this, 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,

no matter how big your army is. Well, you're talking about the guerrilla tactics, which every American student is raised to honor, working with what you have, and they learned it from the Native Americans, all these sort of mythology things that we learn. Definitely mythology. Yeah, 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 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, 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. The idea of running a big Navy and a big army at the same time. Prussia has an army around 300,000 strong at this point. Prussia 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. 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 and then move move onto the next place. You know, that is, that requires massive manpower. So, so yeah, Britain's got an advantage straight away, but British people hope, the Brit planners hope that what they can do is just put the Navy up and down the East coast, blockade all these places like Charleston and, and Rhode Island, Providence and New York and Boston.

And then the provincials just are reminded 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, what are 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. It's 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 the king using the army for bad things. I don't know. Some guy Cromwell came along. It's a 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 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. 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 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 in gloriously before you. And that's not what he gets. And so he has to now think about how do I fight this war at the next battle in New York? CB 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 reconnoitre here. And that's going to lead to a lot of ships in New York Harbor. That's right.

And you know, 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 Virginia, 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. The conditions were tough,

like the British army is kind of starving. It's desperately rounding up cows. Everyone's laughing at it. This is just, this is brutal. And so yeah, they head off to Halifax and then they think, you know, we need to go somewhere. We think there's plenty of loyalists in New York. We like the harbor in New York. We, it's in New York. It's a much better, it's a much more sustainable place. It's easy to get food and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, they end up sending a big old fleet to 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 onto it, but I think this is the

bit where I think the Brits are let 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 can't actually, we can't, we've lost control of the countryside. And we, and you need a huge manpower to get this back. And the politicians are like, pull yourselves together. It's a bunch of farmers. Yeah. Well, 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,

the 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. behind it. And George Washington has emerged. They have a central leader. This is not good for the British. No, this is not good. This is the Americans are on their way to building a state on their way to building an army and, and, and a Marine Corps and a Navy. I mean, this is, this is bad news. This is not a, just a provincial rebellion. But this is also a paper lion in many ways, right? John is, I mean, Bunker Hill was not a win. Lexington Concord was one in the retreat the retreat you know that's where they did the damage.

No lesson in concrete is a great when what are you talking about this is utterly pulverizing an entire punitive expedition. Driving it back fleeing and it's a little bit of Lexington. The 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, you know, a very untimely whiff of grapeshot that blows Richard Montgomery into little bits outside the 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 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, hey, yeah, this is a ragtag, but they all just mounted an invasion that had a general Guy Carleton 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, this rebellious colonies in New England, but how do we get one of our own

call our loyal colonies back? Yeah. But then they'd build on little fleet and chase Benedict Arnold down Lake Champlain, sinking. And Benedict Arnold 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 know with the whole image wasn't really this way at all was it John? I mean it was very public for one thing if you're going to have a rebellion you know you 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 Philadelphia, stupidly hot, declaration planning, Philadelphia, stupidly hot. I can imagine that all these rooms stank to high heaven of all these perspiring would-be politicians. But I think the critical piece of the declaration is how rapidly it is disseminated. After they wrangle over what it's going to be, and there's a lot of wrangling. Jefferson originally has a piece in there. If you look at the grievances of, of, 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, no, take that one out. And that one will 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 Ticonderoga, 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 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, George III. That's fine. 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 George III comes out. I mean, the list of grievances against George III in the Declaration of Independence is deranged.

But anyway, we don't have to dwell on that. And Jonathan mentions what's going on in New York. At the same time, there's this campaign in New York that I'm super into. 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, the miracle of when they managed to evacuate troops in Long Island, they managed to evacuate troops in Manhattan.

Each time the Brits just keep failing to kind of put Washington in the back, just get that army, capture it, destroy it. Now, 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, 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, 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 the 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 one really just one year and a few months from 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 was patriot, et cetera, et cetera. I also don't like those terms because I'm pretty sure all the loyalists thought of themselves as very good patriotic Britons. But really you've got about 30% of the population going for independence, 30% loyalists, and 30 to 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 III, 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 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 will. It's very easy to defeat an army. Which how does Burgoyne and Clinton and Cornwallis all defeat, tactically defeat, rebel forces? Sure. But it doesn't matter. Listen to Dan Snow's history. This is the American Revolution. Summer is finally here, but for those of you just like me who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in and it's finally acceptable to spend a whole weekend binge watching True Crime in your PJs. After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week.

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Hit. 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. 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. These troublesome, the New England is the real problem here.

And the middle colonies, the southern colonies, they may be a little more Tory, they may be a little more relaxed about the idea of the British Empire. And 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 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 passed

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 eight 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 force 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 at a place called Saratoga and the Brits know they're in big trouble. Yeah, this is the first big surrender, right, of any kind. 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, to oversee a cohesive war plan. And the problem is they approve every plan that they're given, including the one where Howe 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 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 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 making. It gives a great showcase for the crazy Benedict Arnold to run around on his horse in his shot.

He is impressive at this point. But I think, 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 Brits 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 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. You know, he goes from a defeat at Brandywine 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 resilience and 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 a 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, who very much have a policy of, we don't really wanna 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 and Indian war. Dan, do you want to talk about how long back- Well, listen, John, I don't know if you know about this- Striving goes. We've got going on this island of ours,

but we got these neighbors called the French and it goes back a fair way actually. So yeah, no, but then there's been- Then 66 and all that. Yeah, well, exactly. So there's been, look, particularly since 1688, 1689, the Brits and the French have fought something, 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 Indies War, the Seven Years War. You get the American Revolutionary War. Then you get the French Revolutionary War.

Then you get the Napoleon War. 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 it? Exactly. Well, then we're buddies again. And it ends, I need not tell you, British cavalry watering their horses in the Seine and the Duke of Wellington bedding Napoleon's mistress. But anyway, this is just part of this century long struggle and it goes on in India and it goes on in the Caribbean. 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 bankrupt themselves. 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 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 brought her back. You know, they're not going to get it. Spain's contribution to the war is rocky. They demonstrate that they are still 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 some arms, a little bit of money, and then a small expedition through 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 will 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, the big important ones have been achieved as part of coalitions, big, big

coalitions, it's been, that's been Britain's secret source and now their most unsuccessful war in British history is the American Revolutionary War when it's fighting absolutely on its own. Right. 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 Marquis de 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 Marquis de Lafayette. That makes a total of 17,000 on land faced off against 8,000 Brits. French Admiral Francois Joseph de Grasse and his fleet are in the Chesapeake preventing the escape 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' troops have no chance of escape or reinforcement. Troops suffer from disease, dwindling supplies, and casualties.

On October 17, 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 this, it's this whole 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, or they, 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, the British armies

march all the way into this part of Virginia, and they haven't got much to show for it. What they then try and do is they do whatever British Army, they do exactly what British armies have always done. They just look towards the coast and be like, where the hell's the Navy? We need the Navy here. So, and they do that. They get York towns on the coast and they build up. 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 ships. So it's actually a defeat for the British. And for this astonishing new experience for the Brits, they find themselves sandwiched between an enemy force, the 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. You can listen to the American Revolution on Dan Snow's history. More coming up after this.

Summer is finally here, but for those of you just like me who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in and it's finally acceptable to spend a whole weekend binge watching True Crime in your PJs, After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week. Tudor Murder, Ancient Ghosts, Victorian Mysteries – our podcast has you covered. I'm Maddie Pelling. And I'm Anthony Delaney. And we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments.

Step inside Tutankhamun's tomb, which is apparently cursed. Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England. Find us every Monday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. Jonathan, tell me about the American side of things at this point. Washington is, what is its aims, its 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 and Amity with France, to be able to make 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 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 some stuff there. We'll keep our main forces in New York, but we're 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 milk troops are able to combat this with a relatively low number of troops. So by 1781 this this weird assortment of 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 force

of about 4,000 under Lafayette, which eventually ends up hitting 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, Rochambeau, and De Graa able to actually come and the Comte d'Estaing 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. 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. 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 had nothing. It wasn't like, oh, we were doing so well before the army got captured. It's just stalemate at best. You're fighting a global war. The Spanish, 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 still, it's not a dictatorship. The British government is very shaky at this point. The 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 of 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 overextended 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 potshots with the Americans or we can just cut this gourd knot. We can cut off this disease limb and we can get back to 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 kinds of things. And yep, it's super sad. The Brits, they've secured Canada. So maybe they lose the 13 colonies. They've got the lumber. They've got the lumber in Canada. What's the best that's going to happen, those little 13 colonies? And maple syrup. Well, you tell me exactly what's going to happen. And beaver skin hats. 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. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Surprisingly, 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.

Yeah. 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, we did it on our own. We willed it to happen. It's like Lexington and conquered. It was the embattled farmer who stood up and made this happen. No, it was fought as all American wars are always fought and won, 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 Revolution. It's 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 a 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 nation states, some states 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. Exactly.

French Revolution happens, as you pointed out, often 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, places like Southern Africa and extends its possessions in India. So South 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 it goes. Works out pretty well for them. So we've done a whirlwind tour of the biggest pivotal moments of this war. There are 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 imagined 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 Haas. 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 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 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 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 independence, or they don't agree, accept 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. Right. The whole of Mississippi, Ohio Valley. So these 13 colonies we talk about, suddenly, it is the Eastern chunk of what is now the US. So overnight, the peace treaty is as big a victory for the Americans as any of these ones we discussed.

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 sorted out with a 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, you try dealing with you assholes. Well, there you have it folks, a little introduction to the American Revolutionary War. We will be looking at this history much, much more over the coming months and years as those 250th anniversaries crop up. If you'd like us to cover something in particular with Jonathan or Don

or by myself just send us an email, you can find the address in the show notes. And of course, if you want more American history, you have to head over to American History Hit, hosted by Don Wildman. It's available wherever you get your podcasts. They cover everything from the Mayflower to the Vietnam War, from the Comanche to the 20th century. Go check it out, folks. Bye-bye for now. you