Factors in the American victory over England in Revolution.

Q.I want to know what factors helped the Continental Army win the war against a country as powerful as England?

Tiffany, NJ

A. Historians have devoted entire careers to answering that, and posing this question among scholars of the revolution is an excellent way to stimulate a lively debate. While there are different schools of thought regarding the relative importance of the following factors, most would agree that these were some of the most important contributions to the victory by the colonists:

• French Support:   Benjamin Franklin was a very skilled and charismatic diplomat. Arguably the single most important contribution he made to his country was securing French military and financial support for the revolution. Without this powerful ally, the colonists would likely have been defeated by the might of the far more powerful British army
• British Debt:   Ironically, this was one of the factors that instigated the revolution in the first place. The British had spent an enormous amount of money during the French and Indian War (a.k.a. the Seven Year's War). This debt prompted heavy taxation of the colonists through the Stamp Act, which generated far more colonial resentment than it did revenue. The British balance books were already deeply in the red, and the American Revolution piled debt even higher.
• Distance:   At the time of the Revolution, there was no internet, no telephone, not even a telegraph. Delivering a message of any kind from England to North America took several weeks at a minimum. Transporting troops, munitions and supplies entailed considerably more difficulty. The logistics of conducting a war on the other side of the world are enormously challenging even today. In the 18th Century they were much worse.
• Familiarity with the terrain:   Many British soldiers had never set foot in America before they were dispatched to fight a war in it. Colonial soldiers were fighting in their own backyards. Military tactics and techniques that were effective on the open fields of Europe — such as advancing huge columns of soldiers out to meet huge columns of different soldiers — proved disastrous when the Americans adopted tactics more appropriate to the environment.
• Hearts and Minds:   While it's a misconception that colonists were united in their support for the revolution (many remained loyal to the crown), the British people were by no means united in their zeal to maintain control of the colonies either. The American Revolution was inspirational to intellectuals throughout Europe. Many saw it as the culmination of Enlightenment principles.

The defeat of General Cornwallis at Yorktown was the final straw for the British, but it didn't necessarily have to be. Though it was a severe blow, the British army and navy remained powerful. But after eight years of fighting an expensive, increasingly unpopular war on the other side of an ocean, Britain finally decided that it simply wasn't worth it.