King George wanted

   to win the war…

      the other guys,

         not so much…

Book review:

Iron Tears:

   America’s Battle for Freedom,

     Britain’s Quagmire: 1775:1783

Stanley Weintraub (b.1929)

New York: Free Press, 2005

375 pages

For some time I have indulged my suspicion that the British never really tried very hard to win the Revolutionary War.

Stanley Weintraub’s Iron Tears isn’t the first book that has reinforced my understanding of this most iconic event in American history. If you’re interested, try Nick Bunker’s An Empire on the Edge or Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy’s An Empire Divided.

Weintraub offers a solidly researched and richly anecdotal account of the military details and the political wrangling that prolonged the war for several years until the British ministers and politicians finally admitted to themselves that they really couldn’t win the war.

King George III was fatuously optimistic and persistently unrealistic—to the bitter end—about the prospects for winning a war that he desperately identified with his own persona and his royal stature. (Remind you of any U. S. president?…)

Weintraub makes it irrefutably clear in Iron Tears that at no time throughout the Revolutionary War did the British send enough men and ships to win in North America, that is, to put down the rebellion and re-establish full constitutional Parliamentary control of the 13 colonies. Hint: the British “sugar island” colonies in the Caribbean were more important, and the British never stopped looking over their shoulders at prospective and real war with France, Spain, and other countries.

On October 18, 1781, General Washington accepted the capitulation of the army of General Cornwallis at Yorktown. On November 25, an official dispatch with the bad news finally reached Lord North, the British prime minister, at Downing Street. It is reported that he exclaimed “Oh God! It is all over!”

Quite possibly he was overcome with grief and relief.

No word about King George’s reaction, but most likely he wasn’t happy.

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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2017 All rights reserved.

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