How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018) | Hacker News Reader

How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

battlefields.org

138 pointsmooreds107 comments

The American generals of WWI said "Lafayette, we are here" on arrival:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruse...

> The stunning success at Saratoga gave Franklin what he had been pleading for — explicit French support in the war.

Or, in contrast to a story of straightforward military system-y tipping point, perhaps ...

> The Battle of Saratoga was [...] not pivotal in convincing France that the rebels could defeat Britain. [...] French support depended far more upon court intrigue [1]

> “sometimes history happens by accident,” and what more can one say about a revolution whose fate hung upon whether a French chevalier (Beaumont) suspected of being a woman turned over documents incriminating the French king of violating a treaty with Britain? Or that the social climber (Beaumarchais) who negotiated both the return of the evidence and support for the American cause would be best remembered for penning The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville? Or that the fate of American independence would take place in an environment more riddled with spies than a John le Carré novel? [1]

Like ChatGPT, sometimes the stories of history are "we started out saying X, and now are unable to change course...".

[1] https://www.amherst.edu/alumni/learn/bookclub/pastfeatures/2... review of "Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution" https://www.google.com/books/edition/Unlikely_Allies/bERCMoB... (has Preview)

That would make for a very compelling TV series, with not much need for dramatisation beyond historical facts. Beaumarchais in particular is a fascinating character. And the Chevalier d’Éon of course, as an enlightenment cross-dressing James Bond.

As someone who studied American history, this point of view always irks me a little bit. The reality of it is that all of the assumptions that America would have lost without French support is trying to prove a counterfactual. There are a lot of reasons to think that it would not have been so. Every southern campaign that the British had tried to pull off was a disaster. The cost to the British crown of maintaining and continuing the war was ruinous. there were many near disasters that the British just barely avoided. Washington’s position at Monmouth was set up to be decisive and Lee’s disasterous commands there played a huge role in continuing the war. Cowpens and Kings Mountain denied the British their different strategic goals. Knox managed to trap the British under the threat of guns at Boston and it was considered a miracle at the time that the British were able to evacuate to Canada. Their luck ran out at Yorktown.

Furthermore, Washington understood what most of his contemporaries did not. Simply by having an army in the Field, he denied legitimacy to the British. Washington and his generals laid out strategies that would one by one eliminate British armies in the field. To borrow a concept from the navy theoreticians Washington had an army in being. The British could not achieve their goals without the utter destruction of Washington’s army and could not maintain the armies for long periods of time. The British had to win - all Washington had to do is not loose.

At the same time, political will to continue the war would eventually run out for the British. They only had one way to win, and very many ways to loose. The fact that it was Yorktown and not Monmouth has to do with the differences between Lafayette and Charles Lee.

But let’s ignore all of that - I think at some point the colonies would have gone down the same path that the French eventually went down - a levee en masse. I suspect running into a large well armed colonial mass conscription army would have ended things very quickly.

Anyways - the French are important to the story - but it’s like claiming that American won World War I.

If I may, I feel a bit irked that we often see these outcomes as binary. Wouldn’t the absence of French involvement be likely to have caused a considerable change in social, political, and economic landscape, regardless of who ultimately “won”?

I’ve been thinking about how different paces to the Ukraine war’s culmination (eg. we increase support by 10x tomorrow) could have significant impacts on future attitudes and behaviours of all actors, especially Russia.

I am not a professional student of history and I really don’t know this war all that well, but as an audience of the future, isn’t “what were the conditions of victory?” no less important than “who won?”

I might be making no sense…

I’m not sure lack of French support would have made a difference with how we understand America today assuming the Americans had still won, but had the British won, frankly, I think the US would have been better off in many respects.

The US would not have been anywhere near as successful financially and its population size would probably only have been a fraction of what it is today.

Yea maybe. Interesting to think about. Pros/cons.

Would slavery have ended sooner or later if the British had won?

Sooner, and perhaps more importantly, without all the violence.

cf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33931615

(incidentally, I find the timing of the Monroe Doctrine slightly suspicious, coming as it does from a slave-holding President a few years after the Vienna Convention includes an agreement [as moral imperative] to abolish the slave trade)

>>> but had the British won, frankly, I think the US would have been better off in many respects.

Hard disagree here, I am from a former british colony, where the laws etc are still inspired by the british. The American constitution and political and legal system with its checks and balances is outright better than the british system. Of course its not perfect, but its still miles better. So its good that the rebels won and the british lost.

I dunno, American system seems to be in capture by minority party and also has track record of disenfranchising large part of population. Plus, juridical system underperformed in Amrica, due to very little checks or balances on cops and prosecutors. They also imprison impressive amount of population.

Globally, countries with presidential systems are much more likely to devolve into dictatorships than those with british-inspired parliamentary systems.

There's pros and cons to each system of course. The American "checks and balances" results in complete inability to act a lot of the time. See the frequent budget shutdowns, or compare and contrast the ability to legislate for issues like "maniacs are shooting up our schools".

The downside of course is that the great "freedom of action" of a british government can result in self harming or ill considered policies being rail roaded through. See something like brexit: it is doubtful that many countries with "checks and balances" would be able to muster the political will and broad agreement to do it in the first place. But a british government can just go YOLO.

I think a parliamentary system is better despite this because it puts the establishment in control. To become PM, you have to climb to the top of a party first (which requires many years of dedication). Some war hero, billionaire, or other radical can't just waltz into the position from nowhere. And then a PM is at all times beholden to the support of their party, which can be removed at any time if they turn out to be an idiot (see truss - nobody had to put up with her for 4 years).

The danger in britain is the move to more "democracy" in choosing PMs. If it were left to the establishment (ie MPs) things are more boring. But when it is "democratised" to party members that's when the crazies come in - the corbyns and trusses. This is an unfortunate decline of elite control in Britain which hopefully will be rolled back now that everyone has seen the unintended consequences.

Not a chance. You can simply look at Canada and Australia to see how it might have played out... It's a difference in culture and attitude but we (Can & Aus) don't innovate, don't create, don't have the "American Dream" and in Canada we're getting dragged along by the US but still far worse on almost every economic metric.

It's a maxim that guerrilla wars succeed with a lot of external help and supply, if they succeed at all, throughout history. That's fact. The French were financial supporters from before the shooting began; and supplied high tech gunpowder that meant that from the start the colonists' muskets had significantly more range, no small thing. Without France, nothing. The French ended up bankrupting the state due to extreme overspending on the Americans' war, and sliding into revolution themselves. (Although weather wrecking crops after the eruption of an Icelandic volcano was a large factor as well.) The Americans deserve great credit, but they owe tremendous debts of gratitude, too.

Washington had to keep British costs high while not losing, he couldn't just sit.

Mass conscription is difficult if you can't pay or properly feed or clothe the army you have and a big portion of your own population opposed to you.

The American Revolution was not a Guerilla war. It was primarily fought with pitched battles between opposing armies. This was the case from the first shots (at Lexington, and subsequently Concord and Bunker Hill) to the last at Yorktown.

It did not begin as a guerrilla war, true; but the abject failure of that initial effort made it clear to Washington that the war had to continue as an irregular war without set front lines or attempts to directly take back New York or Boston. Guerrilla wars can have large battles, but do not have established, continuing and continuous front lines. Mao's troops now and then held large battles with the Japanese (and KMT), once by choice - but his armies nearly always fought as guerillas and were far more successful in that role.

Perhaps the American revolution isn't as obvious a case because the Brits tended to turtle a lot; not trying to demonstrate that they were in control of nearly the whole place and so providing a plethora of targets (unlike the Japanese, say.)

I think the notion of "established, continuing, and continuous front line" is anachronistic to the Revolutionary War in any case. As late as the American Civil War, an army could freely roam through the enemy countryside with relative impunity until a defending army caught up with them, as happened at Antietam and Gettysburg; there was no "front line" to punch through.

The US is large, true. More a matter of control points, such as Harper's Ferry. That's where Lee had to punch through to get to Antietam, in 1862, for example. https://www.nps.gov/hafe/learn/historyculture/1862-battle-of...

But I haven't asserted that all regular wars have front lines all the time. Just that guerrilla wars don't.

I don’t think this phenomenon is specific to the US, but to the era. I’m just not quite as familiar with e.g. the Napoleonic Wars.

> It's a maxim that guerrilla wars succeed with a lot of external help and supply, if they succeed at all,

Not true. Show me where in "On Guerrilla Warfare" Zedong - an expert on the American and French Revolutions - claims that guerrilla warfare requires external support.

Guerrilla warfare requires the support of the population (pretty much all US IW joint doctrine highlights this).

Economic power facilitates guerrilla warfare, along with the transition to traditional warfare, but it isn't a requirement.

> Washington had to keep British costs high while not losing, he couldn't just sit.

The only thing Washington had to do was survive.

Considering how much suppory the Chinese gave to North Vietnam, I assume he knew how important support from third parties is.

Indeed, he'd had plenty himself from the USSR.

Mao received oodles of support from the USSR, the Long March was the Reds fleeing northward to where they could still get that support, and then being able to punch further East.

The KMT was also a revolutionary force (against foreign domination), and initially preferred by Moscow for practical reasons - the USSR would at that time only support a joint command.

Mao became leader of the Reds because the Chinese Red's intelligence officer who was their contact with the USSR and held the codes for that defected to Mao from the previous leader (who wasn't going to admit to defeat by the KMT.) After that, the money etc could only to go to Mao, since he was the only point of contact the USSR then had with the Reds.

Post WWII Soviet support, esp military material support became very large indeed, allowing the Reds to crush the KMT.

But it wasn't helpful for either side to reveal the connections; better to portray the revolution as a mass movement of the peasants and workers than show all the gears and wheels.

Mao spent plenty of time and effort downplaying everything the USSR had done for him and in massive spats with the USSR, for his own political reasons. Just as Lenin didn't credit the massive support the Germans had given him, to undermine the Czar.

Washington lost most, if not all of the major battles that he fought.

His opponent, General Howe, obviously had sympathy for the American cause, as he stayed the hand of destruction many times.

It was only when General Nathaniel Green was unleashed that victory favored us, ripping Tarlelton and Cornwallis' forces to tatters, giving us Yorktown.

>> if not all

Pardon? He forced the British to vacate Boston, and won decisive victories at Trenton and Yorktown. His worst defeats were delaying actions around NYC, where, in each case, he withdrew in good form.

I would attribute Howe's failures to incompetence rather than treason.

I’ve heard that due to the militia system, an insanely large number of Americans participated in the revolution.

Much higher than the conscript armies of the 20th century - possibly as high as 13%. That’s greater mobilization than in WWII.

> Much higher than the conscript armies of the 20th century - possibly as high as 13%

Considering it was as high as 80% of military aged men for Germany and France, with a few other countries in the 50-70% range, why do you think 13%, even if you mean from the whole population, is higher?

I think they mean conscript armies of the US.

The 13% is of total population. Not just military aged men. That could easily be 50-80% military aged men.

The Revolutionary war reminds me a lot of modern insurgencies in Vietnam and Afghanistan. It wasn't won on the battlefield it was won in secret backroom deals that made sure the supplies and money kept flowing in.

Saying Britain didnt have the money is ignoring that the US was far worse possitioned in terms of money.

The Brittish hammered down basically every other rebellion, without French intervention they would likely have ramped up further. They barely sent any troops to America and gave up really quickly, for example in the Second Boer War they sent 5 times as many soldiers, if they had sent that many to America which they probably would have without French intervention then America would have lost completely, no doubt.

The second boer war takes place with entirely different international domestic political and military context. The UK had a small professional force that it needed to husband not a large force of conscripts that enabled it to send troops to Africa without fear and firearms that let them be useful together with the means to supply them.

No conscription in British army of the Boer War era. I believe conscription for the British army was an innovation that came into being during the First World War.

Modern conscription was an innovation of the First World War, though the militia (restricted to domestic employment, AFAIK) had conscription to fill units in the 18th to early 19th Century.

And in any case, I misread parent comment.

So I don't really know the history but I thought British Army planned on mass call-ups either voluntary and then if needed by conscription long before WWI, as mass mobilization isn't something you can do overnight without prep.

I believe Lord Kitchener campaigned for this in WWI until it became clear to the government at large that sustaining an army appropriate to the struggle they had entered was going to be an order more difficult than envisaged.

You are contrasting the Revolutionary War against a war a century later.

The ability to muster, transport, and support that many troops depends upon modern industrialization.

Maintaining war against the Americans in the late 1700s was brutally expensive for Britain--with minimal ability to recover the costs after they "won". And this isn't even considering the fact that being part of the British army and navy was horrifically terrible--deserting to the American side was almost always an improvement unless you were an officer.

If France and Spain hadn't been present in North America, Britain might have just told the colonies to sod off rather than fight a war.

They landed 32,000 men at New York, the largest British fleet ever assembled up to that point. The idea that they were playing on easy mode is a delusion.

Considering what happened in 1815 I think the British just didn't care all that much. When the US made claims on Canada that changed.

The British also learned from their American experience. The beginnings of something akin to the American revolution were stirring in what are now Ontario and Quebec in the 1830s, culminating in armed rebellion in 1837, with the more radical calling for a republic. The British response was largely conciliatory. The local legislatures would be partially elected, the government responsible to the elected house, and given jurisdiction over issues like taxation, along with a promise that future constitutional changes would only be made with local consultation.

Of course, the USA would have been able and perhaps willing to assist a new Republic of Canada, probably with an eye to absorbing it one day. The British were not in a position to be heavyhanded. It worked though; the King still rules in Canada to this day. One of the great what ifs of history, one of the more plausible ones, I think, is what if the British government had realized they would lose, and had quickly made concessions to the Americans 50 years before?

This is a great BBC podcast about the subject (and how the US abandoned France in return): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v99n

They did not abandon France, they followed their national (and perhaps the individuals in power)'s interests by reconciling with the UK.

As Charles de Gaulle answered to a question regarding franco-american friendship: "people have friends, nations have interests".

Some in the US military didn't forget, at least:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruse...

fascinating read…I never realized the French were so involved. without their help it seems we’d have lost to the British

France and Spanish warships were patrolling off the coast of North America and preventing the English from bringing in reinforcements. Various naval battles happened.

But ever more important was the invasion of British Isles that the French and Spanish were preparing. That literally locked down the British army and navy to Britain and made it impossible for them to supply the colonial armies.

So when the French volunteers, Prussian trainers arrived in North America on top of that, the tide of war has changed.

It wasn't just the Americans, the French also supported the indian rebels against the British. It was the French connection that made popular the tales of indian resistance in America, and how Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan (father and son, rulers of then Mysore state in colonial India) became inspirational heroes for the American revolutionaries. (Why American revolutionaries admired the rebels of Mysore - https://aeon.co/essays/why-american-revolutionaries-admired-... ). Indeed, some speculate that if the French had not weakened, the Mysore rulers might have been successful in chasing away the British from large parts of India too.

But ofcourse, as soon as America got its independence, it chose to follow the British and become an imperialist too. The defeat in America also made the British obsessed about holding on to India, and change their strategy - a few decades later, they took over the direct administration of India.

There is a line in "Don't Be Fools, America" that I had wondered at:

    Екатерина, ты была не права.
    "Catherine, you were wrong"

Apparently George had written Catherine for troops to send to the colonies, and at first she (or her rep) had agreed (what uppity subjects!) but then none were never sent.

So the colonists got support (of omission in this case, not commission) even from an absolutist monarch because they were underdogs, who stood a chance at blackening John Bull's eye?

I think this is a little fanciful, the song is entirely about Alaska which was sold to the US 71 years after Catherine died. The more reasonable explanation is that the line in the song is just wrong for poetic license or other reasons.

> which was sold to the US 71 years after Catherine died.

which is exactly why I believe it was due to her lack of support during the revolution. Why invent poetic reasons when we already have historical?

https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/first-contact/7

https://usrussiarelations.org/2/timeline/first-contact/8

(TIL there was even support of commission; note that Catherine explicitly cites France as part of her rationale)

Why invent poetic reasons when we already have historical?

Because nothing in the text suggests or in any way alludes to these supposed historical reasons? That seems a much bigger leap and invention than a line in a song simply being not all that historically accurate.

Fair enough. Шаганов is still alive (and posted to VK yesterday) so I'll ask.

Hah, look forward to the answer if one comes up!

  Я популярно объясняю для невежд
  Я к болгарам уезжаю, в Будапешт!
  Если темы там возникнут — сразу снять
  Бить не нужно. А не вникнут — разъяснять

re VV, cf https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23940405

(songwriter, athlete, but not Komsomolets)

но пока безуспешно ((

All that and the Statue of Liberty too! We owe the French a lot.

Does anyone remember where the longest siege ever in history was waged?

Hint: It was in the American Revolution.

Second hint: Not Yorktown or Boston.

Answer: Correct! The siege of Gibraltar. Undertaken by France and Spain, the (largely inept) siege lasted more than 3.5 years and delayed the end of the war long past Yorktown.

Only three and half years?

That doesn't even make the top three IIRC.

The Siege of Ceuta, and the Siege of Candia were both 20+ years.

I wonder if the ongoing siege of Gaza counts? Counting 15 years. Or does it not count without any active fight back OR because Gaza is a part of Israel and thus Israel has laid a siege on itself?

Not a siege in any sense. What sieges not only allow the besieged to conduct import/export but actively pay for the besieged’s supplies?

Leave the ideology somewhere else

Which ideology are you referring to here? I don’t see one in their comment.

It's a thinly veiled "every criticism of Israel is antisemitism".

Does it matter if some supplies are let through if the end result of attrition is still achieved?

"Cases of child malnutrition double in Gaza because of blockade" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1172086/

Thanks for the correction. It looks like it was the longest siege ever against the British. Certainly a massive qualifier there I forgot.

Even the Siege of Sarajevo (if you want to talk about a pure land siege excluding naval blockades) is 3 years and 10 months.

France was a key ally to the Americans during the Revolutionary War, and their support was instrumental in helping the young nation gain legitimacy in the eyes of other countries. The French military's intervention at the Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the war, and without their help, the Americans may have been soundly defeated by the British.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com