No French intervention in American Revolutionary War, how long could Rebels Hold?

What would happen to the American revolution if Louis XVI placed financial concerns over strategic/prestige ones, and did not interwine in the ARW as much as OTL?

Granted, European Powers, France included, still wanted the to see the British tied up in America. So there would still be some sort of aids to the rebels. If the French tried to do this in relatively inexpensive means (spy, diplomacy, trainers, etc) that doesn't place a great burden on their coffers, would the Spanish or the Dutch increase or decrease their own aid to the continentals?

And without help from the French as much as OTL, how long would the Americans hold before they were defeated? (Or how much longer would it take for them to win?)

(Bonus if you talk about consequences on France itself)
 
If the French continued to aid the Americans, I think the Americans would still win. Sending arms, and officers to train American troops did quite a lot, and though the British wouldn't be so distracted, they still would likely be pushed back. The Americans have home-field advantage, and now a well armed military thanks to French aid.

The war would probably drag on for quite a long while, though, and may result instead in a treaty where the American colonies rejoin the Empire with more autonomy. Still technically an American victory, however.

Without even French aid, however, the Americans won't make it much more than two years, if I had to guess.
 
As I understand it the French support lay in three principal areas. In no order of importance. The first is generally being a nuisance elsewhere thus tying up British military resources. Secondly driving the Royal Navy to prioritise the protection of the Caribbean. This removed the vital ability of Loyalist troops to rapidly relocate themselves anywhere along the seaboard at will. Thirdly they supplied much of the gunpowder that was otherwise in desperately short supply.

As to how long the rebellion could last I cannot comment.
 
See also

Poll: Could America Have Won the Revolutionary War Without French Help? (Multi-page thread 1 2 3)
Anaxagoras

ARW: How significant was the French contribution?
Titus_Pullo

French stay out of ARW, what happens to France? (Multi-page thread 1 2)
IchBinDieKaiser

French don't enter the ARW
EvolvedSaurian

Could the Americans have won the ARW without French and Spanish support? (Multi-page thread 1 2 3 4)
dreadnought jenkins

--

It's a pain searching for these threads, because of the number of synonyms that are used. So, I'm not surprised you mightn't have found any.
 
I've read most, if not all of those threads mentioned, and while some of them have great info, questions like this thread starter are typically met with bland responses of "The revolution is crushed" or "the revolutionaries win anyway" or "the french revolution happens anyway".

In my view, sans French (and Spain, who many forget) outright assistance, the revolution goes massively different. As stated above, the French/Spanish navies absolutely hamstrung the British. They threatened to invade the British Isles, which forced a large part of the British fleet to stay home, as well as troops for home protection. Some of the fleet had to attend to Gibraltar. British resources were diverted to the caribbean. One concrete bit of evidence is Yorktown. without Spanish naval help protecting French Caribbean islands, freeing up the French to prevent British ability to save Cornwallis, that battle ends completely different. and, too, French entry into the war and threatening NY caused the British to abandon Philadelphia in order to shore up NY defenses. French/Spanish fleets completely changed British prosecution of the uprising.

Without French money and supplies, (lots and lots of both, which isn't going to happen under the limited assistance program), American conventional warfare breaks down (my guess is 1779ish) and American hopes reside with limited militia action and guerilla action. That's all limited assistance (smuggled arms/money) can afford. IF the revolutionaries have the stomach and staying power, they'll eventually force a compromise. OTL, the americans never really considered compromising, because first they knew they had a major alliance with France in the making, and later, because they were winning. Outright victory in a limited assistance scenario depends on Patriots being able to outlast British willingness to put up with the expenditure/loss of life (the exact opposite of today's american wars, where forces unable to defeat the US conventionally, hang on and annoy them long enough for the American public to say 'enuf of this crap'). With the Patriots being limited in action, the loyalists may come out in force and give the Brits more aid than they did OTL.
 
I've read most, if not all of those threads mentioned, and while some of them have great info, questions like this thread starter are typically met with bland responses of "The revolution is crushed" or "the revolutionaries win anyway" or "the french revolution happens anyway".

In my view, sans French (and Spain, who many forget) outright assistance, the revolution goes massively different. As stated above, the French/Spanish navies absolutely hamstrung the British. They threatened to invade the British Isles, which forced a large part of the British fleet to stay home, as well as troops for home protection. Some of the fleet had to attend to Gibraltar. British resources were diverted to the caribbean. One concrete bit of evidence is Yorktown. without Spanish naval help protecting French Caribbean islands, freeing up the French to prevent British ability to save Cornwallis, that battle ends completely different. and, too, French entry into the war and threatening NY caused the British to abandon Philadelphia in order to shore up NY defenses. French/Spanish fleets completely changed British prosecution of the uprising.

Without French money and supplies, (lots and lots of both, which isn't going to happen under the limited assistance program), American conventional warfare breaks down (my guess is 1779ish) and American hopes reside with limited militia action and guerilla action. That's all limited assistance (smuggled arms/money) can afford. IF the revolutionaries have the stomach and staying power, they'll eventually force a compromise. OTL, the americans never really considered compromising, because first they knew they had a major alliance with France in the making, and later, because they were winning. Outright victory in a limited assistance scenario depends on Patriots being able to outlast British willingness to put up with the expenditure/loss of life (the exact opposite of today's american wars, where forces unable to defeat the US conventionally, hang on and annoy them long enough for the American public to say 'enuf of this crap'). With the Patriots being limited in action, the loyalists may come out in force and give the Brits more aid than they did OTL.

That's a pretty spot-on strategic analysis of the whole affair I would say. Most tend to forget the whole minor world war Britain was waging at the same time. Without that her ability to prosecute the war in North America is significantly improved as her resources are not nearly so stretched and can be applied almost exclusively to the conflict there.

Without overt French assistance many otherwise apathetic Colonists will just sit the war out and keep their heads down, significantly reducing the Rebels ability to keep themselves going. The Loyalists (and some who might not have been loyalist OTL) will be more active and much more capable of aiding the British/receiving British support. If the war never gets too serious outside of New England then you probably don't see the South rising in favor of the rebels.

Lack of supplies force guerrilla warfare, and hit and run tactics on the British. In the end though a slight (but incredibly unfair to the Colonists) compromise is reached and the 13 Colonies stay in the Empire for a little while longer.

However, the next round of fighting in Europe would probably kick off another Colonial revolt, which whoever Britain's enemies are they probably help out with. That would probably lead to Britain being too distracted to fight both wars and lead to Colonial independence.
 
this would also probably butterfly the French Revolution, as a major factor to its origins was debts incurred by supporting the Americans, iirc
 
regarding France, man did they get rooked. Spain had some concrete aims in the war - gaining territory, including their main goal of Gibraltar. They didn't get that one, but they made out pretty well. France's main goal was diminishing Britain. France completely misread the situation. They thought it was going to be a short war, that they were going to get a major ally and trading partner afterwards. They got neither. They were played by the Americans, who took their money and blood, and then stabbed them in the back at the peace talks. No sooner had the smoke cleared before the Americans were pondering how to get out of their alliance, and dumped France like a hot potato at the first opportunity.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it should have been easily seen that they could have achieved most of the same things by limited assistance, and this was widely advocated at the time. It would have taken a lot of prescience to imagine that they would achieve none of their goals (Britain was only diminished temporarily), but a lot of calm heads foresaw that any likely goals would come at immense cost, and probably wouldn't be worth it.

People like to say that regardless of the AR involvement, French finances couldn't hold out, that the drought/food shortages would happen anyway. Prior to opening their wallets and throwing money around like drunken sailors, France was slowly, gradually, paying down their debt. Sure, it was a flawed model and would ultimately need revision, but OTL the stuff hit the fan at the same time as the food shortages, creating a perfect storm of disaster for Louis XVI. Ease up the financial pressures, and Louis may be able to ride out the environmental pressures.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
A few things to keep in mind:

Even without a French alliance, the British cannot strip the Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean, or points east of the RN or troops - obviously, any weakness is an open door.

Beyond that, the concept the French would not do everything they could up to the absolute edge of hostilities, is debatable - 1775 is bang in the middle of the Anglo-French rivalry over Western Europe and no player in the era of power politics is going to miss a chance, main or otherwise, and this is all of a dozen years after the last go-round.

And of course, the reality is before the French went to war historically, the Americans had destroyed one British army in the field and liberated Boston with nary a French soldier to be had. The British, in turn, had occupied New York, but they did not have any spare armies to take a shot at New England again, or to go for Philadelphia for keeps... They just did not have the resources.

Given the truly abysmal track record of European powers trying to maintain control of territories in the Western Hemisphere against the wishes of those who lived there in the (roughly) century between Lexington and Concord in the 1770s and the French departure from Mexico in the 1860s, one would think the historical record should be placed on the scales.

Best,
 
Probably the rebels themselves can hold out quite a long time, this was not actually the first fluttering of rebellion in the colonies and their very size made it difficult to stamp out all the embers entirely.

However once the British mobilise then advantages in manpower, capital and transport would rapidly erode the chance of the rebels scoring an outright victory.

Given that they represented only a sectional set of interests within the colonies their long term ability to attrite the Central Government's will to fight would also have been limited.

However you may have gotten a result similar to the American Philippine War in which formal victory could be declared within three years and large scale deployments run down but outbreaks of guerilla resistance persisted one or even two decades later.

A lot of the future would then depend on whether the London view of the the world at the time was clear enough to offer a satisfactory political compromise from a position of strength.

Most of this has already been stated above and it is worth recognising that Continental Congress forces had inflicted embarrassing defeats on the Government. However they lacked the capacity to eject the British prior to their mobilising more resources.

Now with French and Spanish involvement a lot of these extra resources were bled off to other theatres but even so the Congress still needed an actual French army in the field and above all a French fleet in order to really put the pressure on the British.

One fly in the ointment though is that the British political classes were profoundly divided over the war. Without overt foreign assistance this division might well have been greater. Without the French the best hope of the rebels might well lie in the voting habits of British rate payers.
 
Socrates,
One of the dead threads on the topic had some figures and a link to a source. I don't recall which one it was. one caveat: Reading about Louis XV, it seems that toward the end of his life, he (more accurately, his financial ministers) took some mild steps to put things in the right direction. Louis XVI was a young idiot who quickly went about dismantling his father's gov't and installing his own, so the trend may not have continued. Still, without massive spending on the AR, the financial situation has to be in better shape.

a second caveat is that without a massive commitment in the AR, the young idiot XVI may have wanted to go gallivanting in the Bavarian sector to rejuvenate French prestige. On paper it sounds like a better deal - throw a little weight around and force Prussia to back down, get a little slice of the Netherlands in return (more than they got out of the AR) - but you never know when one of the players decides not to back down and it becomes a sticky, costly mess.
 
One thing I've read about French assistance is that French money played a big part in paying the wages of the continental army. without a regular paycheck coming in, do the patriots remain as patriotic, or do they pack up and go home? French assistance went a long way to avoiding a repeat of the winter of Valley Forge. Without the massive assistance, how long do the regular troops endure horrendous conditions, no pay, and without the psychological lift of knowing a major European power is fighting on your side?

I don't think you can extrapolate Saratoga and assume the patriots will continue conventional existence, let alone success.
 
Hindsight is 20/20, but it should have been easily seen that they could have achieved most of the same things by limited assistance, and this was widely advocated at the time. It would have taken a lot of prescience to imagine that they would achieve none of their goals (Britain was only diminished temporarily), but a lot of calm heads foresaw that any likely goals would come at immense cost, and probably wouldn't be worth it.

According to the French, continuing limited assistance wouldn't be enough to guarantee US independence. They feared that the Rebels were going to throw in the towel and accept the latest British terms. They realized that Saratoga was a fluke Rebel victory more due to British incompetence and not likely to be repeated. Basically, they overestimated Rebel resolve to win independence and overestimated British weakness. This constant fear that the Rebels were on the verge of giving up led the French to pour money after money to the Rebels to convince them to carry on the struggle, and to land an army that led to the victory at Yorktown.

The French original plan was sound: just use the British distraction in America to kick out the British from the Caribbean and increase French presence in India. Britain was to keep America. However, the Spanish insistence that they focus on an invasion of Britain and Gibraltar: both risky endeavors that ended in failure and the insistence of the recently-appointed French foreign minister, Vergennes, that America be independent wrecked the original plan. Not to mention that they overestimated the desire of the 13 Colonies to be independent.
 
Basically, they overestimated Rebel resolve to win independence and overestimated British weakness. This constant fear that the Rebels were on the verge of giving up led the French to pour money after money to the Rebels to convince them to carry on the struggle, and to land an army that led to the victory at Yorktown.

However, the Spanish insistence that they focus on an invasion of Britain and Gibraltar: both risky endeavors that ended in failure and the insistence of the recently-appointed French foreign minister, Vergennes, that America be independent wrecked the original plan. Not to mention that they overestimated the desire of the 13 Colonies to be independent.

Where did you hear this from? Are you just talking about the "one-third Patriot, one-third Loyalist, one-third neutral" quotation? That only referred to the state of affairs in 1775. After July 1776 there was no turning back.
 
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Mike,
I believe it was France's idea to invade Britain.

When France switched from limited assistance to full blown support, they recognized US independence and signed an alliance treaty guaranteeing full support. Their land grabs were not independent of the support of the US. From the moment they agreed to full support, they were in it to the max. they were not sucked into additional unending support to keep the americans from dropping out. the patriots were given several chances to drop out, but said 'hell no, we've got France on our side, it's independence or bust '.

you paint a portrait of France envisioning the 13 colonies as a side show, while they carved up the British empire. They certainly thought they were going to get some empire spoils, but they had the colonies as one of the main theatres, and committed troops/supplies/money from the beginning. They misjudged the depth of the pool, but France jumped in with gusto into the deep end.

Spain, on the other hand, refused to enter into direct alliance with the rebels, and used the opportunity to grab land and back up France with it's navy. Gibraltar was, correctly, seen as a prime objective. It wasn't a misbegotten adventure. It just didn't go according to plan, and it was a very tough nut to crack (which is a huge part of the reason it's such a valuable piece of real estate).
 
One thing I've read about French assistance is that French money played a big part in paying the wages of the continental army. without a regular paycheck coming in, do the patriots remain as patriotic, or do they pack up and go home? French assistance went a long way to avoiding a repeat of the winter of Valley Forge. Without the massive assistance, how long do the regular troops endure horrendous conditions, no pay, and without the psychological lift of knowing a major European power is fighting on your side?

I don't think you can extrapolate Saratoga and assume the patriots will continue conventional existence, let alone success.
Well, not only was the army not paid 'regularly', they were often half-starved and ill-clothed. If French money went to pay the army, then the States were even more criminally negligent towards their troops than I thought.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Actually, the Continentals were paid in continentals

The Continentals were paid in continentals, land and promises of land, and a limited amount of specie (Continental and continental, mostly via loans and some direct aid).

It is worth noting the armies that drove the British out of Boston, occupied Lower Canada as far north as Quebec (for a time, at least;)), destroyed Burgoyne at Saratoga and various and sundry at Bennington and Oriskany, and, for the most part, kept the British running hither and yon in the South before Yorktown were - essentially - locally raised and for the most part,locally sustained. Congress was only in a position to provide limited support to the armies of the north and south before Washington went south for the Yorktown campaign in 1781.

Again, the British could not let their guard down in Europe and the Med, even absent active hostilities with the French, Spanish, or Dutch, for obvious reasons; there was no way a European power fighting without the assistance of significant local allies was going to have much luck imposing their will on a "Western" society in the Americas from (roughly) 1750 onwards, as the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese all learned over the next century or so - on multiple occasions.

Best,
 
Again, the British could not let their guard down in Europe and the Med, even absent active hostilities with the French, Spanish, or Dutch, for obvious reasons; there was no way a European power fighting without the assistance of significant local allies was going to have much luck imposing their will on a "Western" society in the Americas from (roughly) 1750 onwards, as the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese all learned over the next century or so - on multiple occasions.

Best,


They never needed to, they simply expanded the size of their existing forces (and recruited controversially from German allies) rather than transferred them around the Empire. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War both the Army and the Navy were considerably smaller.

It turns out that the garrisons elsewhere in the Empire were sufficient to hold out until reinforced. You have yet to offer evidence that it would be different in this scenario in which France at the very least is missing from the attack.
 
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