[Faceman]

Originally posted by Grojlach: quote: Originally posted by Firestormalpha: (Some may think we won that war by pure luck, I say it's cuz Britains commanders didn't take us seriously in time.)

...Or perhaps because waging a war at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean was costly and impractical, especially in those days. In fact, the British *did* win most of the battles, but to subdue an entire continent from such a huge distance from its own shores was "as wild an idea as ever controverted common sense", to quote the Adjutant-General in that period. They probably could have held the American colonies under their control for a few years longer, but realized it wasn't worth the effort, due to the costs and the not too encouraging prospects of most likely having to keep it under strict military control for decades to come, while rebel sentiments among the American colonists were still on the rise.

Besides, Britain had other problems to deal with, like massive, bloody anti-Catholic riots in London which had costed at least 700 (!) people their lives, or the continuously bad relationships with France in those days, already having waged war against the French twice within the last 80 years and with another one yet to come. [/QUOTE]Gandhi once wrote: "One lakh of Englishmen cannot keep under subjection thirty crores of human beings merely by brute force."

* 1 lakh = 100 000
** 1 crore = 10 million

This was the reason why the British had to leave India and it also applies to the US more than 150 years earlier.

[ 11-17-2003, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: Faceman ]