Millita in the AWI sucked ass. They achieved two majors victories in the AWI: One against a retreating British column unprepared for combat, and one against an equally sized force of millita. But the way people talk, you'd think they had won the war by themselves.
by HistoryMarshal76
16 Comments
But have you considered that ‘Minutemen’ is a kickass name?
You mean volunteers who are under equipped, under trained, and under disciplined don’t stick around if things are going poorly? Shocker.
yeah people seriously do tend to get off on the concept but in general it was kind of wholely ineffectual
I mean there were successful guerrilla campaigns but generally speaking what mostly broke the British as far as I remember was the US just… winning important major battles around power centers and getting better at war
maybe im like misrepresenting something correct me if I’m wrong
I like that you have “call Washington to bail them out” as if Washington wasn’t their leader
You don’t necessarily expect your militia to win the war. What they did was prevent the British from holding on to the territory and declaring victory until America could train up (and the French could land) real armies to win major field victories.
You forgot, “when it all goes wrong, blame Benedict Arnold.”
I mean i have to imagine that a decentralized army causing constant problems, diverting manpower, and perhaps raiding supplies probably helped win the war.
This would be like saying the the Viet Cong wasn’t an important part of the Vietnam War since the NVA was involved.
They did sorta revolutionize warfare, just, not in America: the whole reason we have the word “*guerrilla”* is because Spanish militias were a vital part of why regular armies (namely Wellington’s) could operate so effectively, as the French could never concentrate forces for long with the guerrillas harassing them constantly. Spain paid a horrible price for that in the end, particularly since it was a foreign army that had to act as the ‘spine’ of the force (and thus, centralized Spanish authority pretty much collapsed,) but there’s a reason modern militaries have dedicated units like the Green Berets to copy some of those ideas.
The American militias were less brutal, and less brutalized in return, but no less important to US victory.
And yet there’s still a second amendment aimed at making sure the militia would turn out with proper muskets.
Ok so militias and minutemen are two different things. about 1/4 of every militias was set off to form a minute men company.
it was a combination of minutemen and militias that defeated the British during the return from Boston. the British weren’t retreating but were heading back to Boston. You could argue that the first group wasn’t prepared for combat, but the reinforcements they received at Lexington were and they had cannons. and the battle of Arlington was also not a stellar victory for the British, they were able to punch through but they couldn’t exactly stop and catch their breath.
Guerilla fighters don’t win battles, they tie down conventional forces and wear them down through attrition. There’s a reason successful insurgences only end when the bigger army decides to just leave
I think Morgan at Cowpens pegged the ability of the militia. He had them fire two volleys and then run away, leading Tarleton into a trap.
The myths around the Colonial soldiers (militias and Continental Army) rely on erasing the considerable efforts of a large number of foreign fighters and the support from France and Spain (because “Fuck the British” basically)
Friedrich von Steuben, Casimir Pulaski and Michael Kovats contributions go entirely unmentioned in most history classes below university levels. And while they don’t tend to be erased entirely, Marie-Joseph La Fayette’s efforts are also downplayed.
Both Spain and France declared war on Britain. There were more French troops than Colonial troops at Yorktown. And the blockade was carried out by French Navy. Spain engaged the British on land and at sea. Taking Baton Rouge, Mobile, and Pennsacola from them.
Without major military and financial foreign aid, the Colonies would have lost
There was very much a post war myth that citizen militia had won the war, and this in effect was the justification for the 2nd Amendment and its mention of a “well-regulated militia”. When in reality Washington (and others) were very much aware it was the hard core of long-term Continentals (who were largely working class, landless, and disproportionately black) that had kept the army going and allowed them to go toe to toe with British Regulars, if often unsuccessfully. The ruling classes were very uncomfortable that the lower classes, which they saw as essentially the dregs of society, had played such a big role while the militia (in which many of the upper class had outsized roles) were largely failures.
Washington’s disdain for militias wasn’t that they were ineffective in combat. We had organized units that practiced guerrilla tactics with great effect. Washington’s problem was that they weren’t ‘proper’ or whatever the fuck the British cooked up for pro war propaganda. Because he was originally trained by the British army.
But memes are more difficult to make funny when you start to bring up shit like nuance.
Make the same post but about the Viet Cong and people will flip a table. Guerilla fighting isn’t about winning battles, its about winning wars.