REVOLUTION 



4983 REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN AMERICA 



REVOLUTION, rev olu' shun, the name 

 given to a political movement, either military 

 or civil, but nearly always accompanied by 

 warfare, with the object in view the overthrow 

 of existing government or to force reforms. 



A revolution may be external or internal. 

 An external revolution occurs when a part of 

 a state separates itself from the remainder 

 and declares itself an independent state; the 

 American Revolutionary War was of this kind. 

 An internal revolution occurs when a nation 

 as a whole repudiates its existing political or- 

 ganization and changes its form of government ; 

 the republic of France rising from the ruins of 

 the Empire is an instance, as is also the Rus- 

 sian overthrow of its monarchy in 1917. When 

 * an internal revolution simply destroys an ex- 

 isting organization without definite plans for 



a substitute, the action is called anarchical; if 

 the aim is to establish a new form of govern- 

 ment, it is called constitutional; if the avowed 

 intention is to change some governmental 

 measure or to change the personnel of the gov- 

 ernment, it is a governmental revolution. If a 

 revolution succeeds in establishing a new and 

 better government those who participated are 

 recorded in history as patriots; if it fails, the 

 leaders are punished as traitors. Posterity, 

 however, can usually judge to which of these 

 classes revolutionists rightly belong. 



In these volumes, under the countries named, 

 will be found the stories of the world's principal 

 revolutions, namely, American (1775-1783); 

 French (1789-1799); Chinese (1912-1917); 

 Mexican (1910-1916); Russian (1917). The 

 reader is referred to them. 



STORY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR 



EVOLUTIONARY WAR IN AMER- 

 ICA. At the conclusion of peace in 1763, fol- 

 lowing the French and Indian wars, Great Brit- 

 ain was possessed of the greater part of the 

 North American continent. It owned all the 

 territory from the Arctic Ocean to Florida and 

 west to the Mississippi River, while in Canada 

 its wilderness empire stretched to the Pacific 

 Ocean, although a part of the area was claim* <i 

 by Spain. Except along the Atlantic coast it 

 was almost entirely a red man's land, but a 

 of prosperous colonies lined the seaboard, 

 and settlements of hardy pioneers dotted the 

 area west to the great river. 



The English government had no settled 

 policy to apply to its loyal, growing and ambi- 

 tious colonies. In later times and in other 

 severe crises it has, to use a phrase of its states- 

 men, "muddled through"; but in dealing with 



its American colonies it met its one great de- 

 feat. Out of that defeat there developed a 

 viewpoint so sane and an administrative policy 

 so wise that Britain's possessions now encircle 

 the globe, and millions of contented subjects 

 thousands of miles distant from the mother 

 country proclaim unswerving loyalty to the 

 Brin>h flag. The responsible rulers of the Em- 

 pire accepted the lesson of their grave errors 

 and were can ml never to repeat the mistakes 

 that had proved so costly. 



The loss of the colonies in America through 

 the Revolutionary War left a feeling of l>itt< r- 

 ness which survived for generations, but with 

 the spread of democracy in the world thrrc has 

 come a better understanding. In 1917 Foreign 

 Minister Balfour of the British Cabinet laid a 

 wreath on the tomb of George Washington at 

 Mount Vernon and proclaimed him a patriot. 



