In 1775, we Americans were only able to achieve self-determination from our British motherland through six years of bitter warfare and two years of tough negotiations.
Erm no, Americans were only able to achieve independence because France intervened. They would have been completely crushed otherwise, and this is not even an hyperbole.
That’s a detail that’s not really important to the point being made.
I know that the Americans have a creation myth where they see the British as unspeakably evil and Americans as an oppressed people, but the reality is that the situation was very messy and there were differing views on all sides.
The fact is that American independence actually had some sympathy among the British establishment. This made the Treaty of Paris possible, which made American Independence legal and recognised internationally. There is no longer a disagreement about the status of the United States because of this.
There is no such support for Taiwanese independence in China and I cannot see them ever recognising a Taiwanese State, no matter how badly they lose a war. Without Chinese recognition i cant see Taiwan ever getting much recognition internationally.
There is no such support for Taiwanese independence in China
How can there ever be since China is a totallitarian state with complete control of information and repression of dissidents? They have setup the game to have a consensus that everyone else is Evil and they are the only ones in the right.
Do we? I think our creation myth maintains that the English were irretrievably stuffy, and that’s pretty much good enough for all of us. I never saw them as irretrievably evil, just comical really.
France & Spain were very strategic to how things played out, but they joined years into the war after the failure of the Germain plan at Saratoga. Once the US revolution got under way, England had a herculean task of trying to occupy the entire east coast & US population of 2.5 million, the entire British army was only 48k people (spread across 3 continents) at the start of the war. The war was also incredibly un-popular in England, until France got involved, so devoting resources was difficult. It was almost a civil war since the colonists were British, not a foreign threat. Top military brass actually turned down the post of overseeing the war rather than fight their countrymen & opposition MP's wore the colors of Washington's Army to parliament.
Not exclusive, but it's like saying "We French won World War II after a bitter fight of 6 years against the German Reich" and completely omitting the American intervention.
That's an interesting theory. How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through, and only after the Americans started winning major battles at, e.g., Saratoga?
There's no doubt the French were instrumental in, par exemple, Yorktown. But my admittedly not well-informed view is that "crushed" is a significant overstatement.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.
Those are the site guidelines. If you want to truncate quotes so you can attack a straw man, go somewhere else. (x & y) and (x) dont mean the same thing and you know that.
Of course their involvement was significant in how things played out. But your analogy would like be saying the USSR would have been dominated by Germany without the US entering the war with a Europe first strategy. It would have been a strategically worse situation, but it's really not clear if that would have made Germany successful on the eastern front.
Roderigue Hortalez and Company (aka: France) started giving USA arms in 1775, at least a year before the Declaration of Independence (but after the "Shot heard round the world" / Battle of Lexington).
Without those guns and support, the revolution would have been dead before it even started.
How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through
because you don't set up a massive expedition like that from one day to another, especially in the 1700s. I know we are all used to Amazon-speed these days but just even knowing WHAT was happening on another continent took months at the time.
Comments
Erm no, Americans were only able to achieve independence because France intervened. They would have been completely crushed otherwise, and this is not even an hyperbole.
That’s a detail that’s not really important to the point being made.
I know that the Americans have a creation myth where they see the British as unspeakably evil and Americans as an oppressed people, but the reality is that the situation was very messy and there were differing views on all sides.
The fact is that American independence actually had some sympathy among the British establishment. This made the Treaty of Paris possible, which made American Independence legal and recognised internationally. There is no longer a disagreement about the status of the United States because of this.
There is no such support for Taiwanese independence in China and I cannot see them ever recognising a Taiwanese State, no matter how badly they lose a war. Without Chinese recognition i cant see Taiwan ever getting much recognition internationally.
How can there ever be since China is a totallitarian state with complete control of information and repression of dissidents? They have setup the game to have a consensus that everyone else is Evil and they are the only ones in the right.
Do we? I think our creation myth maintains that the English were irretrievably stuffy, and that’s pretty much good enough for all of us. I never saw them as irretrievably evil, just comical really.
France & Spain were very strategic to how things played out, but they joined years into the war after the failure of the Germain plan at Saratoga. Once the US revolution got under way, England had a herculean task of trying to occupy the entire east coast & US population of 2.5 million, the entire British army was only 48k people (spread across 3 continents) at the start of the war. The war was also incredibly un-popular in England, until France got involved, so devoting resources was difficult. It was almost a civil war since the colonists were British, not a foreign threat. Top military brass actually turned down the post of overseeing the war rather than fight their countrymen & opposition MP's wore the colors of Washington's Army to parliament.
These two things are not mutually exclusive.
Not exclusive, but it's like saying "We French won World War II after a bitter fight of 6 years against the German Reich" and completely omitting the American intervention.
That's an interesting theory. How do you square that with France not joining the war until more than halfway through, and only after the Americans started winning major battles at, e.g., Saratoga?
There's no doubt the French were instrumental in, par exemple, Yorktown. But my admittedly not well-informed view is that "crushed" is a significant overstatement.
Going by your logic the US involvement in WWII wasn't significant because it didn't started with the war. History manuals are saying otherwise though.
Those are the site guidelines. If you want to truncate quotes so you can attack a straw man, go somewhere else. (x & y) and (x) dont mean the same thing and you know that.
Of course their involvement was significant in how things played out. But your analogy would like be saying the USSR would have been dominated by Germany without the US entering the war with a Europe first strategy. It would have been a strategically worse situation, but it's really not clear if that would have made Germany successful on the eastern front.
Roderigue Hortalez and Company (aka: France) started giving USA arms in 1775, at least a year before the Declaration of Independence (but after the "Shot heard round the world" / Battle of Lexington).
Without those guns and support, the revolution would have been dead before it even started.
because you don't set up a massive expedition like that from one day to another, especially in the 1700s. I know we are all used to Amazon-speed these days but just even knowing WHAT was happening on another continent took months at the time.