Complacency During The Revolutionary War
Complacency was a culprit in Great Britain’s inability to ultimately be victorious during the Revolutionary War as they allowed their presuppositions of loyalty in America and disputation in the command structure to cloud their ability to clearly view the tides turning on the conflict. During the War for American Independence, Great Britain was the naval and militaristic superpower, yet was unable to translate its naval strength into decisive strategic effects because of their lack of focused objectives, a disjointed and contentious command, poor intelligence gathering, and failing to gain and maintain the command of the sea. Britain’s miscalculations concerning the center of gravity of America and lack of unity in command created friction
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It was the “hearts and minds” both countries were vying for, and the oppressor inherently had a more difficult time winning that battle. While unclear objectives and command contention did not aid the British in their utilization of the Royal Navy to its greatest capacity, their inability to establish command of the sea as a building block to victory was the largest misstep of all. There are a plethora of reasons for the Royal Navy’s inability to establish a commanding sea presence during the Revolutionary War. They “had been allowed to deteriorate from [their] strength in the Seven Years’ War to a dangerously low level of preparedness by 1775”, joint operations were lethargic and muddled, “given the tight operational control over ships and movements, Navy cooperation proved problematic,” of the Navy that remained intact, “most of the available naval strength still in the Caribbean under Rodney.Graves had only six ships-of-the-line with which to confront De Grasse’s twenty-eight”, and the Navy was fighting in North America, However, especially during the early stages, Britain had opportunity to gain and maintain the command of the sea as the American “poverty and their lack of military sea power, with the exception of a few cruisers that preyed upon the enemy’s commerce, necessarily confined their efforts to land warfare, which constituted indeed a powerful diversion in favor of the allies and an exhausting drain upon the resources of Great
It was the “hearts and minds” both countries were vying for, and the oppressor inherently had a more difficult time winning that battle. While unclear objectives and command contention did not aid the British in their utilization of the Royal Navy to its greatest capacity, their inability to establish command of the sea as a building block to victory was the largest misstep of all. There are a plethora of reasons for the Royal Navy’s inability to establish a commanding sea presence during the Revolutionary War. They “had been allowed to deteriorate from [their] strength in the Seven Years’ War to a dangerously low level of preparedness by 1775”, joint operations were lethargic and muddled, “given the tight operational control over ships and movements, Navy cooperation proved problematic,” of the Navy that remained intact, “most of the available naval strength still in the Caribbean under Rodney.Graves had only six ships-of-the-line with which to confront De Grasse’s twenty-eight”, and the Navy was fighting in North America, However, especially during the early stages, Britain had opportunity to gain and maintain the command of the sea as the American “poverty and their lack of military sea power, with the exception of a few cruisers that preyed upon the enemy’s commerce, necessarily confined their efforts to land warfare, which constituted indeed a powerful diversion in favor of the allies and an exhausting drain upon the resources of Great