for 28 years on active duty in command and staff positions in the United States and overseas, including Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom, before retiring as a colonel.
Weddle applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, and reported the following:
The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution is a comprehensive narrative of the most pivotal campaign of the war. Page 99 contains a description of the reaction on both sides of the Atlantic to a proclamation British Lieutenant General John Burgoyne wrote and disseminated to the friendly and hostile American population as he began his invasion of New York from Canada in June 1777. In this proclamation, Burgoyne promised employment to Loyalists and threatened to unleash his merciless Native-American allies on the Patriots, both military and civilian. He had hoped to intimidate the Americans and thus ease his way as he marched south. The proclamation was highly controversial and ignited a firestorm of criticism in both America and Britain. Burgoyne received almost universal condemnation for threatening Americans with his Indian allies from the presses and the politicians on both sides of the American Revolution. Indeed, to most Americans, the proclamation had the exact opposite effect to that Burgoyne intended.Learn more about The Compleat Victory at the Oxford University Press website.
I don’t want to cut and paste the entire page, but I think the following is a key passage.Long after the campaign had ended in disaster, Burgoyne tried to defend his proclamation in the House of Commons. He admitted that the decree had been intended ‘to excite obedience, first by encouragement, and next by the dread . . . to speak daggers, but use none.’ He denied that it had been counterproductive. Burgoyne’s proclamation was emblematic of how little he understood the enemy he was fighting—their culture, their ideals, and the reasons for their rebellion against the Crown. It is hard to imagine [Generals] Howe, Clinton, or Carleton issuing a similar decree. While it is difficult to determine precisely how much it hurt Burgoyne’s campaign—boosting morale and motivating and helping mobilize the militia—what is certain is that it did not yield dividends for Burgoyne and the army.I think the Page 99 Test does work for The Compleat Victory, at least in part. The passage gives a hint of some of General Burgoyne’s shortcomings and errors that would eventually lead to his and his army’s surrender to the Americans on October 17, 1777. These issues revolve around strategy and leadership. Five months before the events described on Page 99, Burgoyne proposed an elaborate plan that called for three converging columns – one army from Canada would seize Fort Ticonderoga and march to Albany, a second, smaller supporting force was to march down the Mohawk River valley to Albany. General Sir William Howe’s army was to move up the Hudson River to Albany. However, Howe, the British commander in chief, wanted to move his army, the primary British army in North America, by sea to seize Philadelphia in the hopes that he could lure General George Washington and the main American army into a decisive battle.
Page 99 touches on two of Burgoyne’s major assumptions when he devised his plan. First, that he would be able to recruit and successfully employ huge numbers of friendly Native-Americans. Second, that the supposedly large population of Loyalists in New York would provide tangible support to his army as it moved south from Canada. Both assumptions never panned out. Burgoyne’s commitment to those faulty assumptions contributed to some of his questionable decisions.
In the book I delve deeply into the leadership of major players on both sides, including Burgoyne. Burgoyne was a capable and popular commander, which was not all that common in late 18th century armies. However, he was also arrogant and could also be pompous, and as he began his invasion of New York from Canada, he was over-confident. His June 1777 proclamation provides hints of all three of these elements that contributed to his overall leadership as the campaign progressed to its ultimate disastrous conclusion.
My book on Saratoga, The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, examines the entire campaign in all its political, strategic, and military complexity and dissects the strategy, decision-making, and leadership of the key players on both sides.
The Saratoga campaign included 10 battles and engagements and numerous challenging maneuvers, and it lasted almost 5 months. The campaign was complex, fluid, and multi-dimensional, shaped by countless interactions and contingencies that played out over hundreds of square miles. The personalities involved in this campaign – and its lead up and aftermath -- were as fascinating as any you will ever encounter. The story of this campaign has all the drama and excitement anyone could want. But more important than all that, of course, this great American victory changed the very character of the American Revolution.
While the book’s scope is comprehensive, the two threads that weave throughout the narrative are strategy and leadership, two of the subjects I teach at the Army War College. This emphasis on the development and execution of military strategy by both the Americans and British and the in-depth examination of the leadership of all the main players, distinguishes this book from the many other excellent studies of the Saratoga campaign.
--Marshal Zeringue
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