WI loyalist Admiral George Washington had lost the AmRev for Great Britain?

[ae597]

POD: fourteen year old George Washington ignored his mother's
pleadings and joined the Royal Navy

On 14th June, 1801 the two decades of brutal military government
euphemistically known as "the interregnum" finally ended with the
death of the American tyrant, Benedict Arnold. Empowered with supreme
authority by the Second Continental Congress he defeated the British
Empire but then refused to disband the Continental Army which he used
to rule the thirteen colonies with a rod of iron for twenty long
years...

The article continues on the Today in Alternate History web site
http://www.todayinah.co.uk/index.php?story=39613-S

[Arthur Pennant]

Is anybody else annoyed by these threads? Basically seems to me like
spamming for an external site, and by not including the whole text it
makes it harder to discuss, and I'm not sure the poster actually
intends for them to be discussed. Certainly it seems like nobody ever
bothers, I assume for the same reason I don't. Admittedly most of
these TLs are silly, but that's rarely stopped discussion of non-
spammy TLs.

Regards,
AP

[ae597]

No intention to annoy sir because its a living blog article that I
dynamically adjust as the result of readers feedback. Thats not so
easily achieved in a threaded discussion. Notice that my blog includes
a link back to this thread on the discussion group as evidence. In a
sense I am merging concept and comment into a unified whole. This
particular article was written as a result of no less than seven
readers contributing their thoughts and ideas, so its a truly
collaborative piece of work written from several perspectives. By
posting it here, I welcome further feedback to make further
adjustments. But each to his own taste I understand.

[Pete Barrett]

Yes, but this newsgroup is so slow comared to what it was 10 years aor
so ago that I don't think it's a major problem. I'd prefer it if they
weren't so silly, though.

Pete Barrett

[Richard R. Hershberger]

Taking this at face value, your problem is that your POD doesn't lead
to your scenario. George Washington of the Royal Navy is a
legitimate--even excellent!--point of departure. Leaping from there
to the Tyrant Benedict Arnold requires more frantic hand waving than
most people can muster.

Richard R. Hershberger

[mike]

On Jul 6, 1:03 pm, "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhe...@acme.com> wrote:

>
> Taking this at face value, your problem is that your POD doesn't lead
> to your scenario.  George Washington of the Royal Navy is a
> legitimate--even excellent!--point of departure.  Leaping from there
> to the Tyrant Benedict Arnold requires more frantic hand waving than
> most people can muster.

Could even Butterfly that the course of the war stays on track,
till the *Battle of the Capes where Post-Captain Washington's
Squadron smashes de Grasse's Fleet while Graves dithered
with ordering the Van about for position.

The War ground on, resulting in the toppling of King Louis
after the convocation of the Estates-General in 1786

Promoted to Rear-Admiral, continues in defeating the French
in actions thruout the French Regency War period, with the
Royal Navy ending the French overlordships in the West Indies
Indo-China and India


Due to internal rebellions, Great Britain was able to regain
the long lost Pale of Calais. George Washington became well
known outside Naval circles this way, with his amphibious
operations, esp for his "Jean Guitton, you are avenged" speech
at the capturing of La Rochelle in 1789

**
mike
**

[Richard R. Hershberger]

On Jul 7, 3:31 pm, mike <marat...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Jul 6, 1:03 pm, "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhe...@acme.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Taking this at face value, your problem is that your POD doesn't lead
> > to your scenario.  George Washington of the Royal Navy is a
> > legitimate--even excellent!--point of departure.  Leaping from there
> > to the Tyrant Benedict Arnold requires more frantic hand waving than
> > most people can muster.
>
> Could even Butterfly that the course of the war stays on track,
> till the *Battle of the Capes where Post-Captain Washington's
> Squadron smashes de Grasse's Fleet while Graves dithered
> with ordering the Van about for position.

Are people using "Butterfly" this way? The point of the Butterfly
Effect is that small, even trivial, changes can have large and
unpredictable effects: George Washington gets out of bed on the left
side one morning instead of the right side, and all of history is
changed. It isn't a way of taking some major change, like Washington
not being available to the Continental Congress, and hand-waving
events into happening the same way as in OTL.

For what it is worth, I am not usually a fan of the Great Man theory
of history, but there are a few exceptions, and George Washington is
one of them. It is hard to come up with a plausible account of the
Americans winning the War of Independence without him. Indeed, a far
more likely outcome is that the New England rebellion is a negotiating
tool to wrest some concessions from London, after which the American
colonies settle back into being mostly loyal to the crown. Lather,
rinse, repeat.

Richard R. Hershberger

[mist...@gmail.com]

It's refreshing to see George Washington going into the British Navy for once doesn't lead to a British victory in the rebellion. But the big hand wave is still problematic. The notion that Washington would have stayed in the navy and risen to the rank of Admiral is counterfactual both to British Navy personnel management and to George Washington's personal goals in aspiring to join the navy. What he wanted to do was emulate his brother Lawrence's career--a quick shot of glamor in His Madge's service, followed by a return to the Virginia Piedmont for a long career as a landholder and squire in the colonies. As a leader of men, Washington's career showed far too great a concern for the wellbeing of the men under him to do his career any great favors in the naval service.