| Copyright | ||
|
Home Great Britain and her Relations with America after the Seven Years War, 1763-1783 1763-1783; Part 6 |
1763-1783; Part 6But the British made the mistake - not unusual with them - of underestimating their enemy; one expert, for instance, declared that four regiments would be sufficient to conquer America. Moreover, they made inadequate preparations for the dispatch of reinforcements to the army in America when they saw that war was probable; and they began the war in a half-hearted way, with ideas of conciliation and compromise, forgetting "that it is impossible to wage war on the principles of peace ". The British, also, not only failed to produce a great general, and fought largely with hired German troops, but possessed in Lord George Germaine - the Lord George Sackville who refused to charge at Minden - a minister of war who was to exhibit conspicuous incapacity. The colonists, on the other hand, had in a Virginian planter, George Washington by name, a man as commander-m-chief who, without being perhaps a great general, was a thorough gentleman, upright and truthful, untiring in organization, and persistently courageous and steadfast even in the darkest periods of the war (Washington came of an old American family, and was a country gentleman of wealth and position. He had fought against the French and Indians before and during the Seven Years War, having been made adjutant of the Virginian forces at the age of nineteen and commander-in-chief at the age of twenty-three; in Braddock's unfortunate expedition of 1754 he had shown great bravery, and had four shot-holes in his coat).During the first three years of the war (1775-7) the British missed their opportunities. The military operations of the first year (1775) centred round Boston, which was held by the British troops. The campaign opened with an attempt made by a detachment from these troops to seize some military stores a few miles away from Boston: on its way back to Boston it was somewhat severely handled^ especially at Lexington, This attack showed that the Americans-would fight, but the British commander, General Gage, was both over-confident and dilatory. He made a quite unnecessary frontal attack upon an entrenched position on the top of a hill situated on a peninsula overlooking Boston, and known as Bunker's Hill. It is not surprising that his forces, burdened with three days' provisions, and marching through long grass on a hot midsummer day, should have only succeeded in taking the hill at the third attempt, and with the loss of two-fifths of their number Later on Gage wasted his opportunities by not vigorously attacking Washington, who was besieging Boston with hardly any ammunition. Fortunately, however, a brilliant attack by the Americans upon Canada failed in its chief object the capture of Quebec, owing to its able defence by Carleton. Moreover, in 1774, the British Government had passed an Act, known as the Quebec Act, which 'by judicious concessions, especially with regard to the Roman Catholic religion, had conciliated the French Canadians; and hence the invading army found no support in Canada. |
Chronology |
| copyright by uuo-ununoctium.info |