The last minute in history: a note (from an old post)

[fpb]

It is a curious phenomenon how certain important historical developments have tended to take place at the very last minute in which they were possible. When the Colonies revolted against Britain, Britain’s power was growing, but still limited: the country had barely ten million inhabitants, as against three million Americans, and the effort of a long and major operation beyond the seas was simply beyond it. Twenty years later, Britain had more than fifteen million inhabitants, was able to fight major and very lengthy wars in Europe and India at the same time, settle Australia, and build up a naval presence in the Mediterranean so strong that Napoleon was never able to dislodge them from Sicily, Sardinia, Corfu or Malta. An American insurrection in 1800 would certainly have failed. By the same token, Italy won independence and unity in 1859-60 after decades of unrest and occasional insurrections and war, mainly through Garibaldi’s genius for insurgent warfare; but the 1860s were also the decade in which the new technology of repetition and machine guns and heavier artillery became widespread. From 1789 to 1848, rulers and governments had had no answer to revolted cities and insurgent warfare, but by 1871 they definitely did, and the fate of the Commune of Paris served notice on the world that barricades and revolts in capital cities would no longer be an effective way to regime change. If Italy had not been united in 1860, it never would have been. More such examples could be made.

Comments

New Orleans happened too late

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

As I was taught, the war was over before that battle was fought. But now I feel a little insulted - we weren't even worth re-colonizing.

Re: New Orleans happened too late

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yes, it did - the point is that it was good for American self-respect. Without it, a number of things might have been different - there was talk of secession in the New England states at one point. But as far as the British were concerned, I imagine there was a profit-loss calculation. The UK was doing very well trading with the US in peacetime, and it had two huge wars on its hands as things were. Giving upstart Americans a smacking was one thing, but trying to conquer a country that had doubled in size and more than doubled in population since independence would have been expensive, and even at best might have wrecked the very trade that Britain relied on. Plus, I know that their best general, Wellington, absolutely refused to be sent to America, though I don't remember his reasons. And there is the issue of intellectual contagion. The British leadership at the time of the Napoleonic wars was an horrendous crew, as reactionary as it was corrupt, and they might have looked askance at forcing millions of people imbued with republican and egalitarian ideas back into the Empire. Who knows - better out than in?