Many have been led to believe that the British were dealt a stunning upset in the American Revolution. To the contrary, they were actually a longshot to win from the very start because of numerical inferiority, foreign intervention on behalf of American colonies, poor British leadership, and little Loyalist support. There were several reasons why the British were a longshot to win the war, and the longer the war continued their chances shrank exponentially. Most of the problems fall into four categories: The British Army in North America never gained numerical superiority over American forces, the inevitability of French and Spanish intervention on behalf of the Americans, poor decision making by British Leadership and lack of service support and the inability of the British to fully exploit/gain support of the Loyalists. By 1778, the world’s most powerful Empire had failed, for almost four years, to decisively end an internal rebellion in its North American colonies. This failure resulted in the escalation to a world war and the British submitting to defeat in 1783. What is of interest is not the international community’s impact on the outcome of the American Revolution, rather how the British military continually missed the opportunity to end the rebellion in its nascent phase. …show more content…
A 3:1 force ratio is ideal and they never achieved that. The lack of forces put into North America makes it appear that this war was either underestimated or undervalued by the British. The sheer size of the 13 colonies made the 3:1 ratio even more