13 Colonies treated like Ireland

Georgie Porgie

The British always over reacted to Irish revolts and rebellions, killing civilians and rebels alike.

Yet they did nothing similar (as far as I am aware) in the ARW.

How would things have changed if the Brits used their anti-Irish rebellion tactics in the ARW?
 

Saya Aensland

It all comes down to logistics, I think. It takes months to sail over the Atlantic. It takes a day, tops, to carry an army or two to Ireland.
 

Corder

Ironically most of the legislation that handicapped the Irish economy and entrenched the Catholic sense of disenfranchisement in their only country was passed by the Irish Parliament not the British one. The systemic problem for Ireland prior to the Act of Union was the Anglo-Irish Protestant elite which dominated its own Parliament desperately trying to create an environment in Ireland where their power would not be challenged.

I think references to 'Brits' gives away a certain influence of the post 1960s/70s situation and the propanganda circulated by both sides.

For the war/rebellion closest to the ARW in time look at the 1798 rising. During that rebellion the worst offenders on the Establishment side were the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in government. I am not sure what similar class or group one could identify in the 13 colonies.
 

deathscompanion1

Banned
The awnser is Iberia.

If the Catholic Ireland sucessfully revolted the Spanish and Portugese would gain ports well suited to raid britains trade and in a worst case scenario launch an invasion of Britain.

ireland could not be allowed to fall under any circumstances.
 

deathscompanion1

Banned
Corder said:
Ironically most of the legislation that handicapped the Irish economy and entrenched the Catholic sense of disenfranchisement in their only country was passed by the Irish Parliament not the British one. The systemic problem for Ireland prior to the Act of Union was the Anglo-Irish Protestant elite which dominated its own Parliament desperately trying to create an environment in Ireland where their power would not be challenged.

I think references to 'Brits' gives away a certain influence of the post 1960s/70s situation and the propanganda circulated by both sides.

For the war/rebellion closest to the ARW in time look at the 1798 rising. During that rebellion the worst offenders on the Establishment side were the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in government. I am not sure what similar class or group one could identify in the 13 colonies.
Click to expand...

The Irish parliment was rigged so that tiny protestants villages could gain seats so as to always have a protestant majority so the anglo irish parliment had less and less power as time went on.
 

Tyr

Which anti-Irish rebellion tactics?
Ireland hasn't been the most peaceful of places throughout its history, wars rarely followed the same format. I'm unfamiliar with any standard tactics that lasted the centuries.
 

Chris S

deathscompanion1 said:
The Irish parliment was rigged so that tiny protestants villages could gain seats so as to always have a protestant majority so the anglo irish parliment had less and less power as time went on.
Click to expand...

But the people in those protestant villages were protestant Irish weren't they? I think that was Corder's point.
 

Minchandre

deathscompanion1 said:
The awnser is Iberia.

If the Catholic Ireland sucessfully revolted the Spanish and Portugese would gain ports well suited to raid britains trade and in a worst case scenario launch an invasion of Britain.

ireland could not be allowed to fall under any circumstances.
Click to expand...

While your point maybe holds with Spain, do recall that Britain has had a mostly functional alliance with Portugal since the 14th Century
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Its not even 'protestants' who ruled ireland in its parliament, but anglicans. The presbyterians, who we now think of as the protestants, were also disenfranchised, and were on the SAME SIDE AS THE CATHOLICS.

How modern history leads us astray.
 

Rich Rostrom

Georgie Porgie said:
The British always over reacted to Irish revolts and rebellions, killing civilians and rebels alike.

Yet they did nothing similar (as far as I am aware) in the ARW.

How would things have changed if the Brits used their anti-Irish rebellion tactics in the ARW?
Click to expand...

You haven't studied the ARW enough. British tactics in the ARW were comparably harsh to British methods against Irish rebellion.

For instance, British forces burned many coastal towns:

"He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People."

Many civilians were killed, if not by British regulars, then by their Indian auxiliaries:

"He has ... has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions."

The only reason the British did not subdue America by the means they employed in Ireland is that American resistance stopped them.
 

Elfwine

Rich Rostrom said:
You haven't studied the ARW enough. British tactics in the ARW were comparably harsh to British methods against Irish rebellion.

For instance, British forces burned many coastal towns:

"He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People."

Many civilians were killed, if not by British regulars, then by their Indian auxiliaries:

"He has ... has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions."

The only reason the British did not subdue America by the means they employed in Ireland is that American resistance stopped them.
Click to expand...

Do you have an objective source actually describing 'many" coastal towns being burned, or "many' civilians being killed?

The Declaration of Independence is about as partisan a document as we can get.

I'm not saying it never ever happened, but there's a wide gap between incidents here and there and official policy.

Not to mention that the pot is calling the kettle black - at best - when it comes to characterizing native warfare as "an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions".
 

Badshah

Well, you have to remember, many of the troops in the ARW were the colonists themselves....so Irish tactics wouldn't really work.
 

Elfwine

trollhole said:
Well, you have to remember, many of the troops in the ARW were the colonists themselves....so Irish tactics wouldn't really work.
Click to expand...

Someone posted something around 9-10,000 loyalists - forget if that was total or the most at any one time - in arms.

The force (as the largest British force in any American expedition) Howe had at New York was thirty thousand (total).

He took about half that to Philadelphia, Burgoyne for instance had seven thousand-ish, and Cornwallis in the South had (I'm guessing) five or six.

Just to put some figures in perspective.
 

Badshah

Elfwine said:
Someone posted something around 9-10,000 loyalists - forget if that was total or the most at any one time - in arms.

The force (as the largest British force in any American expedition) Howe had at New York was thirty thousand (total).

He took about half that to Philadelphia, Burgoyne for instance had seven thousand-ish, and Cornwallis in the South had (I'm guessing) five or six.

Just to put some figures in perspective.
Click to expand...
Really? Wow. So the Brits actually shipped in their troops?

I was under the impression that the majority of the British forces in the US were loyalists.
 

BigWillyG

trollhole said:
Really? Wow. So the Brits actually shipped in their troops?

I was under the impression that the majority of the British forces in the US were loyalists.
Click to expand...

Loyalists in organized units were a relatively small number. Redcoats and Hessian's did most of the fighting outside the frontier.
 

BigWillyG

Georgie Porgie said:
The British always over reacted to Irish revolts and rebellions, killing civilians and rebels alike.

Yet they did nothing similar (as far as I am aware) in the ARW.

How would things have changed if the Brits used their anti-Irish rebellion tactics in the ARW?
Click to expand...

Have more Loyalists involved in the putting down of the ARW. IOTL Loyalist units like Butler's Rangers and Tarleton's Legion committed many of the war crimes, especially as the war dragged on.
 

Elfwine

trollhole said:
And they were all shipped over from Britain? Wow.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. There were a few regiments in North America, but most were imported, as it were.

Not very many loyalists were enthusiastic about taking up arms, compared to expectations.

So there wasn't much choice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top