Transcription
welcome to today's lesson on the American Revolution. today we're going to be comparing the two armies, the American Army, otherwise known as the Continental Army, and the British army.
let's start by talking about the differences between even some of the American colonists. there were two different groups. one were called the Patriots, and these were colonists who supported the break of the colonies from Great Britain. and there was also a group of colonists called Loyalists, because they were loyal and supported England. so the colonists were divided as to whether they thought they should rebel and form their own country, or the Loyalists who thought they should stay in the colonies. the split was basically in thirds, where a third of all the colonists thought that they should break away and form their own country, a third remained loyal to Great Britain, and a third were neutral or just kind of wanted to stay out of it.
all right, let's talk a little bit about the American Army then. so the Continental Army, one strength that they had is that they were fighting for a cause, they were fighting for a reason, their own independence. the colonists also knew the terrain, they knew the land well, as they had been living there for a couple of centuries. and George Washington was a very bright military leader, even though in the overall grand scheme of things, he actually lost more battles than he won during the revolution. and another strength came later in the war, where France jumped in to aid the colonies when they signed an alliance with them. so France aided the colonies with weapons, supplies, generals, and eventually their Navy.
but the American Army did have their weakness. the colonists were not a trained army. the colonists had to enlist for months instead of for years, due to not being able to pay them. many quit the army due to a lack of pay and lack of food. and the colonists were often short on money, weapons, and supplies to fight a war.
now let's take a minute and switch gears to talk about the British army. now the British at that time were considered the most powerful army and navy in the world. they had an experienced, professional, or paid army. they well outnumbered the continental army. they were well supplied with the equipment and weapons that they needed. as mentioned before, they had the most powerful navy or military force by sea in the entire world. and to top it all off, they had the monetary resources to be able to buy more soldiers. they um purchased these mercenaries, these Hessians, which is essentially like German soldiers from the time.
the British weren't without their weaknesses though. the British did not have the cause that they were fighting for. they were fighting just because King George III ordered them to. the British officers are viewed as more careless and not as great of leaders. in addition, the British had to cross the entire Atlantic Ocean, taking at least a few weeks to be able to send more men and more supplies needed for the war. and finally, the war was very unpopular in Great Britain, as many people didn't want to pay the taxes needed to fight the war.
all right, let's take a minute to talk about the strategy that each side had in trying to win the war. let's start first on the American side. they wanted to keep their colonial army together, um, because they were outnumbered, they needed to try and stick together so they would have a chance against the larger British armies. Washington wanted to stretch the British army away from their supply lines, so to keep them from getting reinforcement of supplies. they thought it was beneficial to harass their enemy and defeat them rather than defeat the British in major battles. so they learned guerrilla warfare from the Native Americans, being able to attack and then retreat, and attack and then retreat, rather than meeting them head-to-head in an open field where the results would probably not end in their favor. and then finally, and probably one of the most important things that they did to try and win the war was to simply get allies to win. um, this is a big role that Ben Franklin played during the war. that even though he wasn't a soldier and didn't help out on the battlefield, he was a diplomat. so he went over and served as an ambassador to France, where he was eventually able to convince France to help us with the war after we won the Battle of Saratoga, which is often considered the turning point in the revolution. so those were some of the major strategy areas for the Continental Army.
on the other hand, Britain also had their strategy. they wanted to destroy the colonial army. they wanted to make an example of these rebels. they wanted to regain control of the colonies region by region. they wanted to take the fight to the colonial army using European war tactics. so they thought there was a proper way to engage in warfare, and it was not the same as the guerrilla warfare that the colonial army was using. and then finally, they wanted to use the Loyalists, the colonists who still supported Great Britain, they wanted to use those Loyalist support against the colonies.
so those are some of the major tactics used, and it gives us an overview of what the armies' strengths and weaknesses were. thanks for watching.