George Washington's Westchester Gamble by Richard Borkow

Author:Richard Borkow [Borkow, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, United States, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), State & Local, Middle Atlantic (DC; DE; MD; NJ; NY; PA), Strategy
ISBN: 9781625842138
Google: n752CQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2011-05-31T00:42:07+00:00

AMBASSADOR LUZERNE CAUTIONS CONGRESS: THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE CANNOT BE SUSTAINED INDEFINITELY

The emergency was over, and the worst had been avoided: the immediate threat of the army’s disintegration had been averted. Relieved, Washington and Congress could put the acute crisis behind them and focus once more on their chronic, unremitting troubles.

Time was not on the side of the Americans. The 1781 campaign would almost certainly be the last chance to win independence. A year before, in January 1780, Congress was cautioned by the French ambassador, the Chevalier de Luzerne, that the allied struggle for American independence could not be sustained indefinitely. He told the delegates that the French king wished “to impress upon the minds of Congress that the British cabinet have an almost insuperable reluctance to admit the idea of the independence of these United States and will use every possible endeavor to prevent it.” By itself, this observation could hardly have been surprising, but it was accompanied by another: M. Luzerne stated that “should the enemy be in possession of any part of these United States at the close of the next campaign, it will be extremely difficult to bring Great Britain to acknowledge their independence.”133 In other words, the next campaign would be decisive. If the British could claim control of any state, or portion of any state, following that campaign, it was very likely that those territories would remain British possessions and would not become independent.

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