What if the Americans Lost the Revolutionary War?

The American Revolution Created the first successful modern liberal republic. So what if it had failed?

This January, I am extremely excited to be traveling to the United Kingdom for a college trip. I will be spending a week at my school’s British satellite campus, all while touring major cities such as London, Bath and Oxford. To celebrate, I feel it is appropriate to do a British themed scenario, and answer the question of what would happen if the United States lost the Revolutionary War to the best of my ability.

As you all likely already know, on July 4th 1776, the second Continental Congress unanimously signed the Declaration of Independence, announcing their political separation from the British Empire.

Inspired by ideals of the Enlightenment such as liberty and equality, and listing a number of grievances that colonists at the time had with the British Crown, the Founding Fathers rejected monarchism in favor of establishing the first modern liberal republic in human history.

But simply signing the declaration did not completely cast off the chains of British Imperial rule. The American Revolutionaries still had to actually win their War of Independence against the British Empire. With the help of their allies in the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain, they were able to do so by 1783.

But what if they hadn’t succeeded at this? After all, they were fighting the most powerful empire on Earth, which had previously defeated their main allies in France and Spain in the previously fought 7 Years War. So what if the Americans lost the Revolution? What would change? How could have history gone differently?

A British Victory

Our point of divergence begins at the Battle of Saratoga, fought in September and October of 1777. This was arguably the most decisive battle in the Revolutionary War, with the Americans losing the first part of the battle at Freeman’s Farm, but then gaining the upper hand and thoroughly defeating the British in the second part of the battle at Bemis Heights.

In this timeline, the British defeat the Americans both at Freeman’s Farm and Bemis Heights. The Continental Army and American morale is severely weakened, while British confidence in being able to hold onto the colonies is greatly boosted.

The Battle of Saratoga was also the battle that convinced France (and by proxy later Spain) to join the Revolutionary War on the side of the Americans. Without an American victory, French and Spanish aid to the Americans is either far more reduced at best or completely nonexistent at worst.

Eventually, through more reinforcements from an even greater influx of British soldiers, in tandem with loyalist and indigenous allies on the North American continent, the British are eventually able to pacify the colonists by the early 1780s, who by this point would find themselves completely diplomatically isolated and losing hope in a victory. A British victory would be declared.

With America losing, the Founding Fathers of our timeline would be tried and likely executed for treason, to be made an example out of for any other colonists that would aspire for independence from the British Empire. Britain’s control over the colonies, not just the 13 colonies, but its other North American holdings as well, would become much tighter, with likely heavy censorship, an increased British military presence, and a drastic reduction in the local autonomy of the colonists.

Many liberals in British parliament, who sympathized with the Revolution and its Enlightenment ideals, would wish for a less harsh peace agreement against the Americans, but the Tories, greatly vindicated by their victory over the colonists, would come out on top in favoring a harsher punishment.

As for the Americans themselves, though still technically defeated, would resent this authoritarian crackdown, and more subtle forms of resistance as well as small scale armed revolts here and there would continue on.

This would especially be the case in Appalachia, where anti-British sentiment amongst the predominantly Scots speaking Irish Protestant settlers living there there was extremely high. These Scots-Irish settlers wished to expand further West into North America, but as their expansion would drive them directly into conflict with indigenous allies to the British, the British made it illegal for them to move westward. This was actually a huge reason why the American Revolution occurred in our timeline.

While this region, with its rugged terrain and remoteness, would be harder for the British to exercise power over, the British could still stem the stream of settlers moving West far more effectively than in our world, where the nascent United States largely supported their expansion westward, and the subsequent conquest and genocide of the indigenous peoples already living there.

However, even with the British being considerably more vigilant in their North American colonies, we would still see Britain, over the course of the 1780s and 1790s, gradually drift its attention away from America and towards more profitable colonies such as India. Though with its American holdings still being a great place to use as penal colonies, we may see a later British colonization of Australia and New Zealand.

How An Alternate Napoleonic Era Could Spark A Second American Revolution

The failure of the American Revolution would not stop the French Revolution from occurring. Even though the success of the American Revolution did play a huge part in motivating the French Revolution, and that would not be the case in this timeline, the key factors that led to the French Revolution would still exist.

The Kingdom of France was still in massive debt even before having aided the Americans in our timeline. While them sending less or no money to the Americans might by France a little bit of time, the fundamental contradictions of the French monarchy would still remain, and sooner or later France would still erupt into a revolution.

It is hard to guess whether or not this timeline’s French Revolution would be similar to that of our own due to the butterfly effect. But for the sake of simplicity, we will assume that this alternate French Revolution goes at least somewhat along the lines to the one of our world, and we will also assume that Napoleon is still able to finesse his way to the top and make himself Consul, and eventually Emperor, of France.

The alternate Napoleonic Wars of this timeline that would subsequently follow would be the perfect opportunity that the Americans could use to wage a second Revolution against the British Crown. Napoleon could ally himself with the Americans against the British, who would, as already mentioned, likely already be resisting the Empire in a variety of more subtle ways up until this point.

This would not necessarily be an alternate War of 1812. The War of 1812 of our timeline was not fought over independence, it was primarily fought over hegemony over the North American continent between Britain and America. Though some of the key factors that led to the War of 1812, such as impressment and a restriction of trade, would also be the case in this timeline, this alternate war should better be thought of as a second American Revolution, or analogous to the Latin American Wars for Independence that would be occurring at around the same time as, and shortly after, this war.

Though Napoleon would still lose, the Americans would at last gain their independence from the British, likely around the early to mid 1810s. With America likely gaining its independence at around this time, the course of American history thereafter in this timeline is radically changed. The original Founding fathers have mostly all been executed, so this world’s newly independent America could take on a much less liberal and perhaps even a monarchist character. It isn’t completely out of the question that America could crown their own King or Emperor, with their ally Napoleon’s regime serving as a template. It is also worth mentioning that in our timeline, some Latin American countries such as Mexico in our timeline flirted with monarchism as well.

If Britain’s postwar crackdown was especially harsh, we would see other parts of British North America potentially join the Americans that didn’t in our timeline. The Canadian Maritime provinces, with their cultural linkage to the New England region, which was in our timeline a hotbed of revolutionary activity, would be the most likely candidates to secede alongside the Americans from Great Britain. Other colonies, especially island colonies such as Bermuda, Newfoundland and Jamaica, would remain firmly in the hands of the Empire due to British naval superiority. Meanwhile, Quebec may attempt to secede as a separate sovereign nation entirely.

America would expand westward much later in this timeline. This gives indigenous peoples that in our timeline conquered and exterminated quite rapidly by American settlers far more time to prepare, and Americans pushing west would face much fiercer resistance from indigenous groups, with perhaps some of them managing to maintain some form of autonomy.

Mexico would also have more time to settle its northernmost lands, meaning that if an alternate Mexican-American war were to break out in this timeline and America were to still win, Mexico would likely lose less land as more of it would be already thoroughly populated by Mexicans rather than by Americans.

So, that is my scenario for what I believe could have happened if the United States lost the Revolutionary War. Do you see this as a realistic scenario? What would you theorize could have happened? Let me know in the comments below.