'Rebels and Redcoats' has a revolutionary take on American independence

The American Revolution is how our country came into being, but it has also become our great national heroic saga. As children, we learn it as a mythic tale of ragged but virtuous citizen-soldiers triumphing over Great Britain, then the mightiest military power on earth. It is America's David-and-Goliath story.

So how did Goliath see it? How did the British Empire view the long struggle that began in the Massachusetts villages of Lexington and Concord in 1775 and ended with His Majesty's 13 American colonies gaining their independence in 1783?

That is the side of the story British military historian Richard Holmes tells in the four-hour documentary "Rebels and Redcoats," which airs in two parts June 23 and 30 on WGBH (Channel 2). (It was jointly produced by WGBH and Granada Television, in association with BBC Wales.) Holmes is a grand storyteller with a rare gift for appearing to be discovering things right along with us, and he brings this ancient war to colorful, provocative life.

Modern documentarians wrestle with how to present eras such as the 18th century, before the advent of photography. Today's TV audiences can't be expected to stare at old paintings all night, but historical re-creations often seem phony. Producer Zvi Dor-Ner and director Harvey Lilley surmount these obstacles with a delightfully elegant and effective solution: a simple lack of pretense. The program darts unselfconsciously between historical re-creations and modern shots of Holmes talking to the camera. It works because it never tries to put us anywhere except in front of our televisions. The effect is aided greatly by the lean, evocative score by Nigel Beaham-Powell and Bella Russell, which sounds equally at home beneath Colonial and modern images.

Obscure actors recite the real words of historical characters, striking false notes only when they are placed in the thick of the action. These words were not originally spoken; they were written in letters and journals, using the formal prose of the day. When General Washington simply looks up from his writing desk, as if reading aloud, it is gripping. When a surgeon pauses in mid-scalpel-stroke to bloviate on his fort's plight, it is almost laughable. (One waits for the bleeding casualty on the operating table to shout, "Oh, shut up and get back to work!")

Viewed from Holmes's British perspective, the colonists' objections to British rule seem petty and peevish. He tells us how well off Boston rebels really were, with a higher standard of living and much lower taxes than their English contemporaries.

His attempts to level the moral playing field, however, are often unconvincing. He never seems to grasp that in the famous cry against "taxation without representation," it was the final word which resonated with Colonists -- self-rule, not lower taxes, was the cause for which they fought.

He says that George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental armies, "cared more about winning the war than social revolution." In fact, revolutionaries such as John Adams supported the Virginia planter's appointment much more for his devotion to the cause of an independent, democratic republic than for his checkered military credentials.

When the story focuses on how the war was fought, however, Washington's stock rises enormously. Holmes stresses that even when he could not outfight the British, he consistently outthought them. From the beginning, Washington understood this would be a new kind of war, creating the strategic template upon which nearly all subsequent insurgent wars have been fought.

He brilliantly used retreat as a positive military tactic, not merely to protect his army, but to shift and control the theater of operations, so that, as Holmes says, he could "accept battle only on his own terms."

The superior British army won victory after victory, only to lose entire campaigns with a single defeat. Washington lost battle after battle, but even his smallest triumphs brought great rewards. His 1777 victory at Trenton, N.J., gained his army precious supplies, time to rest and train, and the beginning of military shipments from France.

Washington understood that he did not need to win, he merely needed to not lose. Nathanael Greene, perhaps his ablest general, says, "We never have to win a battle to win the war. The side that ultimately gets the support of the people will prevail."

Holmes draws telling parallels between Britain's dilemma and America's war in Vietnam -- but many apply equally to our current situation in Iraq. Even when the British won tactically, they often lost strategically. Their harsh occupations turned allies into enemies, and the longer the war continued, the more disenchanted Britain's citizens became.

The vastness of America was always Britain's foe. "This is a land that exhausts individual soldiers and wears down armies," Holmes says, tootling between battlefields in a red Mustang.

After years of cat-and-mouse maneuvering, Washington finally received the long-promised support of a French fleet, and he flew into action with breathtaking decisiveness. He feigned an attack on the British army in New York so convincingly that the British fleet raced past the French ships to reinforce it.

But Washington was really after a prize 400 miles to the south, where the French ships blockaded Chesapeake Bay and the Continental Army trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va. Only a British historian could refer to this battle as merely "the turning point of the war" -- it's a bit like describing Waterloo as a setback for Napoleon. Cornwallis's surrender ended the war with complete victory -- and independence -- for the Americans.

Holmes strangely downplays the war's impact, even going so far as to call the 1787 Constitutional Convention a "coup" that betrayed the Revolution's core values. He rightly reminds us that most blacks, Indians, and women did not have a share in America's new vision of equality. But neither would they have in any 18th-century European society -- and his story wrenchingly shows that blacks and Indians were also treated shamefully by the British.

Holmes's view of the Revolution as a "bloody civil war" offers important insight into a story we too often sentimentalize. After the war, 100,000 Americans still loyal to their old king were forced to flee their native country.

But his attempts to minimize the epochal significance of establishing the first successful democratic republic, in a world dominated by autocracies, weakens what is otherwise a keenly observed reexamination of our nation's defining moment.