Without the support of France, the REVOLUTIONARY War (1775-83) would have been difficult, if not impossible, to win for the United States. The French provided aid in the form of munitions and equipment before a formal treaty of alliance (February 6, 1778). After that agreement, the French supplied troops and a navy that played a crucial role in the conflict, especially in the YORKTOWN campaign that led to the surrender of CHARLES, Lord Cornwallis (October 19, 1781).
Almost as soon as hostilities broke out at the BATTLEs OF Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775), some revolutionary Americans began to look toward France for help. The French, for their part, had long seen the British crisis in the colonies as an opportunity, hoping that it might lead to armed conflict and the chance to weaken its traditional enemy, Great Britain. But there were several factors impeding the relationship. Colonial Americans had fought for most of a century against the French when France had controlled Canada. Such animosities did not easily disappear. Moreover, the vast majority of colonial Americans were anti-CATHOLiC and viewed the French as agents of the pope. Finally, even after the first guns were fired, many
Americans hoped for reconciliation with King George III. The French also hesitated. They, too, remembered that their wars against Great Britain had included the colonies. They feared moving too quickly and forcing the revolutionaries and Britons back together. The lack of a clear goal in the rebellion in 1775 and early 1776 was also cause for concern. The objectives of the SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS became clarified after the DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (July 4, 1776). But the war went badly that summer, with one defeat after another for George Washington and his CONTINENTAL ARMY.
Regardless of these problems, the French provided 1 million livres for munitions for the colonies as early as May 2, 1776. Negotiations for a more formal relationship began in earnest after the arrival in France of Benjamin Franklin in December 1776. But not even his widespread fame as an American genius and simple philosopher could overcome all of the difficulties. News of the victory at SARATOGA (October 17, 1777) dramatically altered the situation. France became fearful that the loss of an entire army would convince the British to reconcile with the revolutionaries. By December 17, 1777, the French foreign minister, CHARLES Gravier, COMTE DE Vergennes, had agreed to recognize the United States and sign a formal alliance.
There were two treaties between the United States and France. First, a commercial treaty was negotiated that opened up TRADE between France and the United States and gave France most-favored-nation trading status. Second, a formal alliance was approved. Although the alliance was contingent on a declaration of war between France and Great Britain, all parties recognized that the agreements made such a war unstoppable. Once that war occurred, the French promised to fight until U. S. independence was guaranteed. They also renounced all territorial claims in the contested areas of North America. Both sides agreed to make peace only with the consent of the other.
As important as the French alliance was to the independence movement of the United States, it took over three years for the alliance to pay off in any real military sense. Although France and its Caribbean possessions provided a safe haven for U. S. privateers (see also PRIVATEERING) and warships, from 1778 until the summer of 1781 the French remained preoccupied more with a possible invasion of Great Britain and with the conflict in the WEST Indies than with the revolutionaries in North America.
Looked at from this Atlantic context, the North American war took second place to the larger conflict. The intermittent French efforts to help the cause of the United States directly came to naught and often caused ill will. In the summer of 1778 French naval and land forces under the command of Admiral COMTE D’ESTAING made several mistakes by not trapping a British fleet in the Chesapeake, by not attacking a weaker British fleet in New York Harbor, and by failing to coordinate with revolutionary troops in the Battle of Rhode Island (August 29, 1778). This last misstep left hard feelings on both sides. After a hurricane dispersed both the French and the British navies off Newport, the French sailed to Boston to regroup. General John Sullivan, who had commanded the revolutionary forces in Rhode Island, was so disgusted that he lambasted the French in print, and thousands of militia, equally disenchanted with the French, simply went home. In Boston, French sailors fought in the streets with civilians, creating ill will on both sides. It took a great deal of work by both French and revolutionary officials to patch up these difficulties. After capturing Grenada and St. Vincent in the West Indies, d’Estaing returned to North America off the coast of Georgia in September 1779. A combined Franco-American attack on Savannah, however, failed (see also siege of Savannah). After some delays, the French insisted on a costly and unsuccessful direct assault— it was hurricane season and the ships were vulnerable to the forces of nature—rather than a drawn out siege. Not until July 1780 did the French land a major expeditionary force in the United States for any length of time, and then that army remained at Newport, Rhode Island, which the British had evacuated in the fall of 1779, for the better part of a year. Finally, in August 1781, Admiral comte de Grasse and a sizeable fleet left the West Indies to appear off the Chesapeake to coordinate operations with the land forces. By that time, the French army under General comte DE Rochambeau had joined George Washington outside of New York. The combined Continental and French armies marched to Virginia, trapping the British at York-town in the final major campaign of the war. Despite the repeated miscues, without the French navy and army, there would have been no British surrender at Yorktown, and independence may never have been achieved.
Not only did the French treaty of alliance have a tremendous impact on the course of the Revolutionary War, but it also affected the politics of the new nation. During the French Revolution (1789-99), many on both sides of the Atlantic believed that the United States should join the French in their struggles against the powers of reaction. When Great Britain went to war against France in 1793, Edmond Genet came to the United States to convince the Washington administration to help the French. His failure and the granting of most-favored-trading status to Great Britain in Jay’s Treaty (1794) led to a crisis with France and the Quasi-War (1798-1800).
See also foreign affairs.
Further reading: Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987); Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Diplomacy and the Revolution: The Franco-American Alliance of 1778 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981).
World History
