the revolutionary war from the brits point of view

[legoalex2000]

I've always pondered, we learn in school about how we gained our independence and war, yadda yadda yadda.

what i wonder is how do the teachers explain the war in england?

or in france?

just askin.

ramos

[Katahu]

Hmm... I wonder what the Red Coats Brits are teaching their kids right now.

British Teacher: When the American Revolution began, we never did lose the bloody war with the Yanks. We simply fell back.

Us Crazy Yanks: We kicked their butts in the Revolution alright.

[BFMF]

Maybe they just realized we were too much of a pain in the arse to try to control, and the hassle just wasn't worth it in the long run

[H]

Their point of view? Face down or from the ground up?
I see you haven't gotten a response; maybe they're maintaining their deception (we'll speak for them):
"What war? Independence? We got your supplies and had you fighting for us in WW1 and WW2, didn't we?"
(however, we got a nice little gift from France: the policing action in Vietnam.).
It was a long time ago; Britain and Germany were on much better mutual terms than Braitain and France or France and Germany. Countries and colonies have come and gone. It was certainly the "winds" of change and not a breeze.

[MattNW]

Maybe they just realized we were too much of a pain in the arse to try to control, and the hassle just wasn't worth it in the long run

That's not far from what the historians say.  ;D

[beefhole]

Maybe they just realized we were too much of a pain in the arse to try to control, and the hassle just wasn't worth it in the long run

That's not far from what the historians say.  

Aye, eventually it was the British taxpaying citizens who ended the war.  Britain was fighting in Africa, India, South America and North America, and the people of Britain were being forced to pay staggering taxes.  It was them who demanded of parliment to end the war.

Had it not been for the defeat of British General Cornwallis however, the war may have continued on anyway

[ozzy72]

I was taught that the loss of America was because supporting our troops there was a logistical nightmare. And that is basically what it was. By the time messages had arrived in Britain and then responses were sent back to America everything had changed completely. Shipping troops out took weeks not hours. It was a war we could never win, however I do feel that the Americans were quite right on "No taxation without representation".

[Hagar]

Their point of view? Face down or from the ground up?
I see you haven't gotten a response; maybe they're maintaining their deception (we'll speak for them):

You haven't got a response (yet) because this question was craftily posted while we were all tucked up in our beds asleep.

Ah yes, the American War of Independence. That was when those ungrateful colonists got too big for their boots & decided they would be better off without us.

Quite honestly I don't remember being taught anything on this at school. History was not my favourite subject in those days & I don't remember taking it after the first year in secondary school. It's quite possible I took another subject instead but I really don't remember the details. The only thing that springs to mind is the curiously named South Sea Bubble.

Knowing what the education system is like now I doubt that anything from that long ago is even covered in the syllabus. From what I can make out, WWII is considered Ancient History & I'm not joking. America is a long way away & I doubt that many people would even know what Thanksgiving is all about.

[C]

History - are we still allowed to teach that in school or have we got to the point where we might upset someone if we talk about any conflict.

Really towards the end of my school time we learnt about mediaeval British history, WWI, and the Holocaust, which seems to have preference over anything else that happened between 1939 -1945 (which I don't have a problem with - I just have a problem with people knowing nothing else about the last great conflict in world history and the apparent total denia of WWII ever happening in the curriculum)

[H]

You haven't got a response (yet) because this question was craftily posted while we were all tucked up in our beds asleep.

Much like during our little revolution?

That was when those ungrateful colonists got too big for their boots & decided they would be better off without us.

The Continental Army wound up virtually barefoot and the rest of their uniforms were in dire need. Maybe that's where the term "Too big for their britches" comes from.

Quite honestly I don't remember being taught anything on this at school.

Hmmn... True or not, I think you can guess our interpretive reason for that.

[Hagar]

Hmmn... True or not, I think you can guess our interpretive reason for that.

Much of the history I was taught at school was based on wartime propaganda (this was not many years after the end of WWII), jingoistic nationalism (we still had the remains of a once-great British Empire) or simply not true. I was always fascinated by ancient history but I learned a very valuable lesson when the world-famous Piltdown Man was exposed as a hoax while I was still at school. They consequently had to rewrite the text books & after that I took everything I was told with a very large pinch of salt. This gave me the cynical attitude I still have today.

Piltdown is not far from where I was brought up & still live. Read all about it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/03/piltdown_man/html/default.stm

PS. This would have been a better screen name for me than Hagar.

[FLYING_TRUCKER]

History is a precious teacher and all to often American Hollywood tries to turn it about.

The American Revolution was actually a British Civil War.  You were all British before the term American was used.  Your Blue Coats or army was called the "Continental Army" and your congress the "Continental Congress".  

America was referred to as a land mass, North and South America and according to many there still is no Central America.  That was in one of the magazines just the other day.

Your heroes like John Paul Jones and George Washington were British along with most troops in your Continental Army.

With the defeat of the French, Britain could quite easily have taken the 13 Colonies back by force but British public opinion was dead set against that.  The British public being over taxed at home could see why the colonists (their son's and daughters, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends) wanted no part of British rule.

When the United States invaded Canada (which they did twice) they were repulsed and many of your original 13 colonies were dead set against the American invasion.  

The Americans were repulsed in Canada by the very people who left the 13 colonies the "United Empire Loyalists, some British troops and the great Native Peoples of this country."

During the past (50) years of flying, yes fifty years and some 24,000 hours in the left seat I have met a lot of people, many are Americans, we visit back and forth, AND I am VERY PROUD to call them all my FRIENDS.

Cheers...Happy Landings...Doug

[Craig.]

[quote]History is a precious teacher and all to often American Hollywood tries to turn it about.

The American Revolution was actually a British Civil War.

[Hagar]

Thank you thank you thank you. For being the first to point that out properly.

Indeed. I have to admit that my knowledge of this is somewhat limited as I was never particularly interested in it. There's a good article on the subject here that confirms what Doug posted earlier. I suspect that it might be different from what most Americans are taught at school. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/empire/rebels_redcoats_01.shtml

Introduction

The War of Independence plays such an important part in American popular ideology that references to it are especially prone to exaggeration and oversimplification. And two uncomfortable truths about it - the fact that it was a civil war (perhaps 100,000 loyalists fled abroad at its end), and that it was also a world war (the Americans could scarcely have won without French help) - are often forgotten.

Here, however, I have done my best to describe this long and complex war in terms that people will find readily comprehensible, but that avoid some of the Hollywood-style simplifications and inaccuracies that have gained so much currency over the years.

Professor Richard Holmes' credentials. http://www.celebrityproductions.info/displayer_celebrities.php/103/Professor_Richard_Holmes
He was educated at Cambridge, Northern Illinois and Reading Universities.

[beaky]

It's totally romanticized here, and although it's an interesting and important history, most of us are a little too smug about the whole "birthplace of democracy" thing (which is not really true). And  very few Americans seem to understand that most of our "Revolutionary War Heroes" were in fact British- many of them did not want to sever ties completely with the Empire (Benjamin  Franklin is a good example), despite being ready to fight for what they wanted from the government.
To me, having bothered to supplement the cartoon version fed to me as a youngster with other sources of info,I think the most significant and worthwhile thing about that war was that it allowed this continent to provide fertile ground for the latest ideas in democracy that were struggling to take root in Europe at that time. That form of government hasn't exactly reached perfection here (and most likely never will), but it gathered strength here, rippled back outward and changed the world- mostly for the better, IMHO.
But I'm no expert; old Thomas Paine could explain it better.