To understand the background of the Revolutionary War, it is necessary to understand the history of the preceding twenty years, and especially the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). The Seven Years’ War was fought by the European colonial powers from Canada to the West Indies and from Europe to far-flung colonial empires in India and the Phillippines. In North America, we know the part of the Seven Years' war that was fought here as the French and Indian Wars. The Seven Years' War was largely a disaster for France and her allies. In the aftermath of the war, which resulted in the loss of most French territory in North America and India, the French instituted sweeping reform of the army and navy. The French army that landed in Newport in 1781 was the product of this thorough and fundamental reorganization.
The English victory, however, was dearly bought. The cost of fielding the army that secured the safety of the English colonies was tremendous. This expense, together with the continuing cost of protecting these colonies after the war, led to English demands that the American colonists contribute to the cost of their own protection. As a result, a series of Acts of Parliament imposed a variety of taxes on the colonists during the 1760s and early 1770s. For many colonists, the chains that had linked them to Britain for almost 150 years became the chains of servitude, foreign domination and unjust tyranny. These taxes ultimately fueled the tensions and passions that burst into flames on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775.
From the outbreak of armed rebellion in 1775, many in France sympathized with the colonists. Young, idealistic French officers like the Marquis de Lafayette volunteered their services and in many cases their personal wealth to help equip, train and lead the fledgling Continental army. The French government hoped to redress the balance of power that resulted from the French humiliation in the Seven Years Wars, which gave considerable economic and military advantages to Britain. While maintaining formal neutrality, France assisted in supplying arms, uniforms and other military supplies to the American colonists.
This clandestine assistance became open after the defeat of General Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, which demonstrated the possibility of British defeat in the conflict and led to French recognition of the colonies in February 1778. As a result of the victory of the Continental forces at Saratoga, Benjamin Franklin, who had gone to Paris as ambassador in 1776, was able to negotiate a Treaty of Amity and Commerce and a Treaty of Alliance with France. From this point, French support became increasingly significant. The French extended considerable financial support to the Congressional forces. France also supplied vital military arms and supplies, and loaned money to pay for their purchase.
French military aid was also a decisive factor in the American victory. French land and sea forces fought on the side of the American colonists against the British. At the same time, British and French (and to a lesser extent, Dutch and Spanish) forces fought for colonial wealth and empire around the world. From 1778 through 1783 -- two years after the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown -- French forces fought the British in the West Indies, Africa and India.
From the perspective of the American Revolution, however, the high point of French support is the landing of five battalions of French infantry and artillery in Rhode Island in 1780. In 1781, these French troops under the command of Count Rochambeau marched south to Virginia where they joined Continental forces under Washington and Lafayette. Cornwallis, encamped on the Yorktown peninsula, hoped to be rescued by the British navy. A French fleet under the command of Admiral DeGrasse intercepted and, after a fierce battle lasting several days, defeated the British fleet and forced it to withdraw. This left the French navy to land heavy siege cannon and other supplies and trapped Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula.
At that point, the defeat of Cornwallis was essentially a matter of time. On September 14, 1781, the French and Continental armies completed their 700 mile march and soon thereafter laid siege to the British positions. After a number of weeks and several brief but intense engagements, Cornwallis, besieged on the peninsula by the large and well-equipped French-American army, and stricken by dysentery, determined to surrender his army. On October 19, 1781, the British forces marched out between the silent ranks of the Americans and French, arrayed in parallel lines a mile long, and cast down their arms.
Abbé Robin, who witnessed the surrender, described the victorious American and French forces present at the ceremony. "Among the Americans, the wide variety in age -- 12 to 14-year old children stood side by side with grandfathers -- the absence of uniformity in their bearing and their ragged clothing made the French allies appear more splendid by contrast. The latter, in their immaculate white uniforms and blue braid, gave an impression of martial vigor despite their fatigue. We were all astonished by the excellent condition of the English troops, by their number -- we were expecting scarcely 3,000 and they numbered more than 8,000 -- and by their discipline."
George Woodbridge summed up the Yorktown campaign in the following words: "The strategy of the campaign was Rochambeau’s; the French fleet was there as a result of his arrangements; the tactics of the battle were his; the American army was present because he had lent money to Washington; in total naval and military participants the French outnumbered the Americans between three and four to one. Yorktown was Rochambeau’s victory.
How strange it must have been for these French troops and their new-found colonial allies, some of whom had fought each other as enemies barely fifteen years earlier, to stand shoulder to shoulder in armed conflict with France’s ancient enemy and the colonist’s blood kin! In the end, these French soldiers became the hard anvil upon which the new American nation was forged and the chains of British imperial domination were finally broken.
