In Our Time - The Franco-American Alliance 1778

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the treaties France entered into with the United States of America in 1778, to give open support to the USA in its revolutionary war against Britain and to promote French trade across the Atlantic. This alliance had profound consequences for all three. The French navy, in particular, played a decisive role in the Americans’ victory in their revolution, but the great cost of supporting this overseas war fell on French taxpayers, highlighting the need for reforms which in turn led to the French Revolution. Then, when France looked to its American ally for support in the new French revolutionary wars with Britain, Americans had to choose where their longer term interests lay, and they turned back from the France that had supported them to the Britain they had just been fighting, and France and the USA fell into undeclared war at sea.The image above is a detail of Bataille de Yorktown by Auguste Couder, with Rochambeau commanding the French expeditionary force in 1781With Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of EdinburghKathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College LondonAndMichael Rapport Reader in Modern European History at the University of GlasgowProducer: Simon Tillotson

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. There's a reading list to go with it on our website, and you can get news about our programs if you follow us on Twitter at BBC In Our Time. I hope you enjoyed the programs. Hello, in 1778, France entered into an alliance with the United States of America who revolted against Britain two years earlier, with profound consequences for all three.

The French Navy played a decisive role in the Americans' victory in their revolution, but French taxpayers found the cost of that unsustainable, and soon they too revolted. And when France looked to its American ally for support in the French Revolutionary Wars with Britain a few years later, Americans had to choose where their long-term interests lay, and they turned from their supposed friend to their former foe, which was the start of a special relationship. With me to discuss the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, are Frank Cogliano, Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh,

Michael Report, reader in modern European history at the University of Glasgow, and Kathleen Burke, Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London. Cathy Burke, let's start with the previous decade and the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Why was that important? Well, it was important because it changed the entire world for the British and, to lesser extent, the Americans, because Britain had fought four wars against France. But the 1756, 63, seven years war in Europe and French and Indian in America, was the first one that was actually centered on the American colonies. Britain had decided that it wanted essentially take over the North American continent.

They wanted to push France out of Quebec and push the Spaniards out of eastern West Florida. And this, in fact, is what happened. So at the end of the war, Britain was now an international global power. And this changed her view of colonial matters. We're still talking about 1763. 1763. And her focus was on the American colonies now, not Europe, but the American colonies. First of all, they wanted to organize, reorganize the empire so that the first thing that happened was the proclamation line. This started from the St. Lawrence River to the Floridon border.

They wanted to funnel Americans up to the French areas and down to the Spanish areas, American Protestants to be able to make a balance against all the Catholics. But essentially, to organize it, they decided the Americans had to help pay the expenses, both of defending them and maintaining the empire, and therefore they imposed a whole tax regime that turned the relationship upside down. One of the grievances that came out of that was the American grievance about paying taxes for the British forces defending them. Yes, but the problem was, is that the Americans in their charters said they had their own legislatures, and they could essentially tax themselves. And the British wanted to move this to the imperial parliament to take care of it.

And that made the Americans think no taxation without representation. the British said, but you're virtually represented. Someone here in the UK represents you, depending on what you are. And the American said, this is ridiculous. And from there, went all the developments up to the revolution. Frank, thank you. Frank Leanne, what was the link between that peace and the American Revolution? Well, as Kathy suggested, there is a direct link, I think, Melvin, between the peace of Paris of 1763 and the outbreak of the American War of Independence in 17, In the first place, Britain now had this much more expanded land area in North America that it asserted control over, whether it actually exercised that control as debatable.

And secondly, it had a massive budget problem, which I'll get to in a second. But that land area is important in the first instance because, of course, there were large numbers of indigenous peoples, Native Americans, who occupied that territory and had no part of the peace of 1763. and after Britain attempted to assert control over the territory it had claimed from the French, those native peoples came into conflict with the British Army in 1763. So the war didn't really end in 1763, but there was a prolonged kind of conflict afterwards. In a sense in America, the French and the British are fighting a proxy war. They're just fighting each other except on another continent. That's right. That's right. That's right, exactly.

But as a result of this, the colonists are going to feel aggrieved because Britain, as, as Kathy said, institutes this. proclamation line saying that British settlers have to stay to the east of the line, basically to the east of the Appalachian Mountains, and the area to the west will be reserved for native peoples. That becomes a grievance. But perhaps more immediately, Britain has a hundred and thirty-seven million-pound budget deficit at the end of the seven years war. At a time when its annual total revenue was eight million pounds per year, the debt service alone, the interest on that debt was five million pounds a year. And the British government, but particularly Parliament,

look to the colonies and said, not unreasonably, in my view, you ought to pay a little bit more to, or you ought to pay something to help us address this deficit, to give you just an important fact. The average resident of Massachusetts

paid one shilling per year in taxes. The average resident in England paid 26 shillings a year. And so Parliament not unreasonably looked to the colonies to pay. However, for the reasons Kathy alluded to, It represents a fundamental challenge and change to the relationship between the colonies and Britain. And as a consequence of that, that sets in these tax policies set and train a chain of events

that will result in the War of Independence breaking out in 1775. The Declaration of Independence, which is a magnificent document, tends to remember for the magnificence of its language and its celebration of liberty, the pursuit of happiness and so on. But what signals that it send to the world about trade? We all remember that the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence is the one that gets all the love and the attention. That's the one that asserts universal equality, at least for men. It's also the one where we get life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There's a very brief preamble to the Declaration that in which the colonies assert they're going to assume their place among the powers of the earth.

And it speaks of a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. And so this is meant to be an international document. It's meant to be a diplomatic document as much as anything. else. In the final paragraph, after the long Bill of Attainter against George III, the list of crimes that he's allegedly responsible for, the final paragraph of the Declaration, talks about the colonies declaring themselves free and independent states with, quote, full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, and establish commerce. So what we see there is commerce is one of those four powers that the colonies come states are claiming. But more importantly,

they're basically saying to the world, we're open for business. We want to engage. We want to engage with you. We would like to contract an alliance with you, crucially, and this is a signal to France. This is a diplomatic document. It's saying to the French, you can count on us. This is not a repeat of the Jacobite rising of 1745. We're not rebels who are going to reconcile with the British state or be forced to reconcile with the British state. We are claiming our place on the international stage. And that's one of the most important aspects of the Declaration of Independence, which is often forgotten today. Was there any sense in which they wanted to have their independence yet somehow stay part of the empire?

That's a position. There's a loyalist or kind of moderate in Pennsylvania and in Joseph Galloway who makes that argument in 1774. That was unacceptable to the British. That was unacceptable to Parliament, which believed its sovereignty could not be challenged. And so it didn't really go anywhere. And as the rebellion picks up,

and frankly, as the war becomes more serious, then at least those Americans who supported the rebel, war effort, it will become unacceptable to them too as the losses begin to mount. Mike Report, what might France, an absolute monarchy, why would you want to help the American Republic in its revolt against another monarchy? Well, yeah, there was a lot of kind of naval gazing about this initially within the French government itself. But the reason they do intervene is because, first of all, there was, as part of a longer-term rivalry, of course, between the British and the French. This is a period, some history.

historians refer to as the second hundred years war, a brutal and very long, drawn-out, protracted conflict between France and Britain for really a global empire and for global commerce. So for the French, helping the Americans get independence for Britain was a way of severely weakening the British empire, or so they hoped. But also, the French had a really big problem in the wake of the Seven Years' War. As Kathy said, they got kicked out of, or largely kicked out of North America, but they also lost heavily in Asia as well, particularly in India, to the British East India Company and its allies. But at the same time, the Seven Years' War had actually stirred up something of a hornet's nest of French patriotism and strong anti-British feeling. And you get a sense here that this is

where public opinion in France becomes politicized. And it began to look at the monarchy and began to think, you know, was the monarchy up to the job of defending French national honor, defending French interests abroad, or defending French commerce? The monarchy itself felt that its prestige and rightly felt that its prestige was severely battered by the defeat in the Seven Years' War. So it was trying to find a way to get back some prestige to win over public opinion. And the reason that this was so important was because the war costs a lot of money.

And one of the perennial problems of the French monarchy was that it was struggling to claw back, claw its way out of debt, and the deficit had grown exponentially in the seven years' war. And so to do that, it needed to reform. And to do that, it felt that it needed to recruit public opinions. So the intervention in the American War of Independence was a way of galvanizing public support for the monarchy and its programs of financial and administration. reform. The other reason was commerce. The French hoped that they would supplant the British as the main trading partner of the American colonies in the long run, and that ultimately would also

help the state prosper. How was France? France was already helping America behind the scenes, wasn't it, before any formalities? Yes, it was. And this is in some respects quite swashbuckling. One of the figures involved here was the French playwright, Caron de Beaumarche, who set up a front company to help to send munitions and gunpowder and so on to the Americans. But the French were using all sorts of means to get, first of all kinds of all gunpowder, then muskets, and ultimately artillery pieces to the Continental Army under General Washington. And it said that actually I think that the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, which is the first really big decisive victory of the Americans against the British.

It's one of the things that actually convinces the French that they can intervene on the side, because the Americans are viable, that they can resist the British successfully, was that the Americans are armed largely by French muskets, and I'm sure Frank can correct me on that. The Americans also secured a secret loan from the French, so the French also sent over money. But the French also sent over army officers to help, even before they actually formally entered the war against the British.

This was a bit of a diplomatic problem, So at times, at one stage, the French king actually, King Louis XVI, actually banned French officers from going over. But they didn't really enforce it. One of the people went over, of course, was Lafayette in 1777. So the French were kind of, again, doing this war by proxy against the British. Cathy Burke, which individuals negotiated the alliance, and why does that matter? One was Silas Dean, who was essentially a failed politician who became a diplomat.

This is not unusual, sadly, in American history. Second was Arthur Lee, who had been a, who was a colonial agent in London, and he went over. He was younger. He was upright. He was intelligent. He was fiercely patriotic. Benjamin Franklin, of course, is the one that most people pay most attention to. And Franklin was different.

First of all, the French knew him. He was a well-known writer and scientist. He'd been in London most of the previous 15 years, and of course there was a lot of intercourse between London and Paris during that period. He was convivial. He made himself so likable that he disarmed a lot of the French aristocrats and, indeed, opinion makers. What was their purpose?

What were they after, these negotiators? What did they want? They wanted an alliance. They wanted, what they wanted was to get the British and indeed the French to agree that it was independence and nothing less than that. And they needed France to help them with it. The alliance took a long time to come to terms with. Franklin's House had two British spies in it and it had a French spy. And yes, Saratoga was important.

But the French had been planning, as was said before, certainly from 17. But also from the spring of 77 when it was decided, they could not fight a war because their navy wasn't up to British yet. And it would be by the spring of 78. So Saratoga was important, but not necessarily defining. In 1778, France and America entered into a formal alliance. How did the British Frank respond to the alliance? What did the British do? They actually sent out a diplomatic team of their own. They sent a peace mission. called the Carlisle Commission to North America to attempt to open negotiations

with the Continental Congress, which was the government of the colonies or the come states at this point. And the Carlisle Commission went with a plan sanctioned by Lord North's government, which was essentially Galloway's plan for union, which I mentioned a few minutes ago. It said that the Congress could act

as the parliament for the North American colonies. It said the colonies could tax themselves and they merely had to recognize the authority of George III. If Britain had been willing to make this offer in 1775, there may well have been no war, but by 1778 it was too late. So there's a diplomatic side to this, but they also have to shift gears militarily. So there's a two-part treaty that the Americans and the French signed. The first is a treaty of Amity and Commerce, so it's friendship and trade. And so this goes to one of the points that Mike made a minute ago about the desire of the Franks to trade with the

Americans, and the second part was the military alliance. And in response to that military alliance, Britain had to realign its war effort. And so just to illustrate this point, in 1778, 65% of the British Army was in North America. By 1780, it's only 29%. In 1778, 41% of the British Navy was in American waters, and by 1780, it's only down to 13%. So what the British have to do now, is they have to wage war in a much grander scale. Kathy talked about the global nature of the British Empire after 1763, and that was certainly true, but they have a huge amount of territory and colonies to defend,

including Britain itself. There's a fear in 1779 that the, and not unreasonable fear, that the French and Spanish, the Spanish entered the war as allies of the French, might invade Britain. The Americans invaded parts of Britain, including Cumberland for a few days, They did. John Paul Jones did that.

That's it. Whitehaven, yes. Dumfries and Galloway as well. That's right. Dunfries and Galloway. Sorry, Kathy, you wanted to come in. Well, I just wanted to make a couple of points. First of all, yes, there is two-part treaty, entirely so. Amity and Commerce and then essentially a defensive alliance,

or an alliance of a military alliance. But that wasn't what Benjamin Franklin and the Americans wanted. They thought that just controlling trade, so the British wouldn't have the trade, that the French would go to war just so they would have a trade agreement with the Americans. And this to me shows just how naive and unused international affairs the negotiators in Paris were. Also, just one thing that most people don't pay much attention to, in the military alliance, it says that they guarantee each other's Caribbean possessions. This becomes extremely important in 93 because the French expect the American

to carry this out. And of course, it doesn't happen. Mike, report, how engaged were the French people with the American Revolution and its ideas? Were they taken up with it? In one word, yes, very much so. There was some concern, of course, within the French government, as you started out by saying, Melvin, that, you know, should we really be supporting a bunch of rebellious Republicans against the legitimate monarchy in Europe? And we have a memoranda in the French foreign ministry archives from Jean-Louis Favier, who, who, you know, was the under-secretary of state, under Valjean, who was the French board minister,

who charged him with writing the French Declaration of War. And, of course, Declaration of War has to justify where you're going to war. And Fabia gets righteous block. And he's writing, he writes to Valjean and says, I can't do this. I can't justify this. But most French public opinion is very much engaged with the American Revolution. First of all, for many French, much French opinion, enlightened opinion, this was the Americans trying to create a political order based on the ideas of the Enlightenment in the new world. So that's very, very exciting. And as Kathy's already said, one of the people who seem to embody this was Benjamin Franklin, you know, a scientist who dressed simply with a new world style

as opposed to the kind of the fripperies of the old regime in France. And so he's very, very popular, was very popular in France. And it could, it was a cause that could appeal to a wide spectrum of French public opinion. For progressives, it was, you know, good cause, people like Lafayette, for example. For conservatives, it was fighting the British, which is always a good thing. The British were Protestant, the British had a constitutional monarchy. So this was a really good way of getting French revenge against the British. There was a cultural flourish as well. Their famous hairstylese, sported by fashionable ladies in Paris, allegedly, apparently also by Queen Marie Antoinette herself with American symbols and military symbols in these towering, teetering hairstyles.

But more broadly as well, there's a great deal of public engagement with the ideas of the American Revolution. The Declaration of Independence was translated into French and widely circulated. So too was the Constitution when it was ratified in 1787 in some of the arguments around that in Philadelphia. So there was a great deal of engagement with the ideas. So much so that later on, when nobles who survived the French Revolution wrote their memoirs, many of them kind of commit the idea to papers of what were we doing? What were we thinking? We had no idea that we were going to unleash the whirlwind on ourselves by encouraging, by flirting with these ideas. So, of course, a great deal of excitement in France.

Cathy, what difference did the alliance make to the Americans in their revolution? They got the French on side. They were recognized by a major world power. The French provided the Americans with uniforms and French soldiers, 4,000 of them in the first instance, a lot of money over the whole period. But I think the more important thing they did was essentially to bring Spain into the war. Because once the treaty with the Americans was known in Britain, they broke off relations and essentially one could say they were at war.

And when the Americans also had something of an agreement with Spain, but Spain had an agreement with France. And what this meant was that the British pulled back most of their ships, as Frank has already pointed out, to save the home aisles. And therefore, when the time came at the Battle of Yorktown, the crucial one, the British fleet came down from New York. The French barricaded them, and they had to turn around and go back. They couldn't bring up any ships from the West Indies.

And so essentially what the French did, yes, their navy was important, but the fact is they scared the living daylights out of the British who had to fight the largest navies in the world. Thank you, Frank. When the USA and Britain made peace in 1983, where did that leave France, the victorious ally? Got very little, actually. As you say, France was the victorious ally of the New York.

independent United States, but it got little else for that except for a massive budget deficit, as Mike alluded to. And as Mike said earlier, defeating Britain was a key aspect of French foreign policy in the 18th century. It was a key policy objective, so they got that,

but they got little besides that. France did not revive its empire in mainland North America as a result of the war. One of the things that French diplomats were very keen to do was to pressure the Americans so that they wouldn't make a separate peace with Britain. They feared that the Americans and the British would patch things up at the expense of the French.

And after the American victory at Yorktown, which Kathy just spoke about, that's essentially what happened. Britain gave the Americans very, very generous terms at the peace of Paris of 1783. It granted the borders of the New United States would be the, the western border would be the Mississippi River and the northern border would essentially be the Great Lakes. and so, Britain would retain modern Quebec in what would become Upper Canada or Ontario, but Britain gave the colonies very, very,

or the former colonies, very, very generous borders at the expense of the French. So the French got very, in answer to your question, Melvin, very, very little in return for this. It's a kind of paradox. Britain was victorious in 1763, but the way things unfolded, that piece was very, very bad for Britain.

They were defeated in 1783, but the peace of 1783 was better for Britain. and certainly for the Americans than it was for the French. Would the Americans have succeeded in their revolution without the French? No, I don't believe so. I think that the French intervention, French support in the war, is absolutely essential to the American victory. No, they wouldn't have succeeded without the French.

I think that's pretty obvious. The Americans could not have won the American War of Independence without French help. One of the consequences for France, though, was it was left with an enormous, enormous deficit. and had to tax, and that began the creeping encroachment of the French Revolution. Mike Report, do you want to answer that? Yes, it most certainly did. The cost of the wars, as Kathy's alluded to, you've alluded to Belvin and also Frank have talked about, it brought Franks to the brink of bankruptcy.

Now, this wasn't clear at the point, you know, immediately in 1783 because the French accounting system in the state government wasn't actually terribly efficient. But eventually, it became very clear by 1786. And what this did was this persuaded French government ministers that they really had to take decisive action to push on ahead with administrative reforms, with fiscal reforms, attack the privileges of the nobility, and therefore get them to pay more into the French treasury. And it was this confrontation with the nobles, which then also brought in public opinion, which didn't really quite trust the French monarchy because they thought it was making a power. grab, to become more despotic, it provoked the kind of political crisis that led to the French revolution. And in this crisis in the late 1780s, the ideological impact of the American Revolution works itself in often quite small but quite important ways. A lot of people alluded to the

American debates on the Constitution. A lot of the kind of opponents of royal power almost modeled themselves on American revolutionaries, or it was said that they did. And once the revolution was underway, the French revolutionaries themselves didn't try to imitate or didn't try to do a carbon copy of the French, of the American Constitution, obviously, because, you know, the Americans were creating a federal system. But the French used it as a kind of the American Constitution and the experience of the American Revolution as a sounding board, as kind of what might be achievable, might be feasible, and what the French perhaps shouldn't do, given the political context was rather different.

So they saw the Americans as trailblazers on the path to liberty, if you like. And some French radicals argue that the French Revolution would create the perfection of liberty back in the old world. But one of the most important direct influences was the role of Thomas Jefferson in the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789, which he did in collaboration with Lafayette. It's Lafayette, his old friend, who was a deputy to the national. National Assembly who presented this draft on the 11th of July 789, and it was the one that was eventually adopted and enshrined in the French Constitution of 1791. So there's a direct, in a sense, transatlantic cooperation which sprang directly from the relationships forged during the American Revolution. Cathy, soon the British and French were at each other's throats again. Now, France

looked to America for support. It had supported America. It looked for the favour to be returned. or even the agreement to be honored. How did America respond? How did Washington respond? Well, it was difficult for the Americans. Yet again, as it as was the case for the next 15 or 20 years, they were caught between two major powers. Now, the French, as you say, wanted the Americans to support them. They were certainly at the outbreak of the war between France and Britain.

They were at odds with Britain because of, neutral rights, the British Hep saying that the various goods were contraband and the Americans said no. But the difficulty is that in 1793 they then heard the news of the decapitation of Louis the 16th. And what this did is it encouraged the Americans to declare neutrality, which went absolutely against their treaty with France. Essentially, they didn't support France. And they didn't support France. And And what they began to do was that Britain and the United States in various ways tacitly supported each other, particularly in the Caribbean. France essentially gained nothing, which meant that they started then going after American ships

and privateers. And so within not very long time, you had a poor United States spinning between Britain and France being attacked in many respects by both of them and allied with neither because they denounced the treaty and the French denounced the treaty. Did America think, Frank, did America think it had made the wrong choice? When Washington was a declaration of neutrality, wasn't it, he called it? Did you think it'd done the right thing? Washington issued the Declaration of Neutrality in April of 1793 after consulting his cabinet.

And the United States was in a difficult position, as Kathy said, because one thing that we have to bear in mind is it's a weak country at this point. It's just come out of its own revolution. Its political system, it's gone through now two constitutions at this point. It's got a new constitution as of 1789, but its system was fragile. It had a great deal of debt itself to deal with, and it had no military force to speak up. And so the United States is in a very weak position. It, like the British before them, is confronting unrest among indigenous peoples on its border.

And it's got Britain sitting on its doorstep as well in the north. and Spain in the south and west. So the United States is in a weak position. It feels that it can't really get involved. It doesn't want to get involved in this war at all if it can avoid it. Although, as Kathy suggests, there's neutrality and there's neutrality. So there are two main political factions forming in the United States. There's the governing federalist party who are kind of their pro-British orientation.

And then the opposition party led by Thomas Jefferson, who Mike's just mentioned, is the Republicans, are more pro-Franx. So there are divisions within the United States on this question, but everyone agrees that if at all possible, the United States should remain neutral. But this causes a debate about the 1778 treaty. And the federalists, the governing party's position, Washington's position is, when Louis XVIth was executed, that treaty died because it was a treaty with Louis XVIth and his regime. Whereas the Jeffersonian position, as Michael Luton, Jefferson was pro, was strongly in favor of the French Revolution. The Jeffersonian position was,

no, no, we made a treaty with the nation of France, not with the person of the king, and therefore it's still binding. But Washington's view prevailed. Mike, Mike report, how bad did relations get between France and America within a very short time? Well, from 1793, they were bumpy, and then they became very, very bad, very hostile. I mean, initially, the French tried to kind of maneuver the Americans into the war, or on their side, by sending those a diplomatic representative called Edmond-Junet, who toured toward the eastern seaboard of the United States by trying to stir up American public opinion,

arming French privateers to attack British shipping. And they did something similar in 1796 with another diplomatic representative called Piao Guise Adé, who in the middle of a presidential election campaign try to stir up American public opinion. So that was bad enough. But then, of course, as Kathy talked about, and I think as Frank alluded to as well,

the J treaty with the British felt like the ultimate betrayal to the French. And that's when in 1796, they started launching privateering attacks on U.S. shipping in the Atlantic, but particularly in the Caribbean. And so really the two countries were coming close to sliding into war.

And finally, what happened, was in 1797, the American sent a delegation to Paris to try to bring about a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Unfortunately, the American delegation arrived in October 1797, a month after a coup d'état had happened in Paris, which put into power a much more hard-line French Republican government, which was committed to prosecuting the Revolutionary Wars, really to the utmost, particularly against the British, but against anybody who felt like the French felt were their enemies. And so they meet up with some of these French diplomats. And the French foreign minister at the time was Talihon, who was a bit corrupt, to say the least,

and tried to extract a bribe from the American delegation. And he did so through these intermediaries who, in the official papers, American papers, when they're published, were designated by three letters, X, Y, and Z. When X, Y, and Z papers were published, it caused outrage in the US, and this is what led to the rather long-drawn-out, privateering war. The French called La Galle de Kourse, or the Americas, I think called it the quasi-war between France and the United States, which wasn't resolved until Napoleon came to power in 1800. Sorry, in 1799, Napoleon came to power in 79, but Napoleon finally negotiated a convention. He didn't call it an alliance or a treaty or anything like that. It was a a convention with the Americans, which ended the conflict, but also officially brought the Franco-American Alliance of 1778 to an end. Maybe this is a digression, but let's air it anyway and see how far. There's two elements in the room for me.

One is the British Navy, which was in fantastic form at that time and the biggest in the world, and so on. And the other was the indigenous population beyond the Appalachians. Sure. I mean, one factor which we probably should have mentioned is, as a result of the peace of 1783, Britain, or after the peace of 1783, Britain still occupied forts on what was now U.S. territory in the modern state of Ohio. And Britain occupied these forts because it claimed that there were still outstanding debts owed to loyalists who'd gone into exile and so on. So as a result of this, Britain is still, British forces remain on American territory, and they are actually.

encouraging Native Americans in their resistance against the new United States. So that's one factor. And then as you say, the dominance of the Royal Navy means that the United States has very, very little latitude when it comes to trying to get involved in militarily. It would be very difficult for the United States to assist France in any meaningful way militarily because of the power of the British Navy. Can I add something there, Melvin, which is that 1794 J treaty between the United States and Britain. And one of the points of that was to get those forts out of the area essentially in the Northwest Territories between what is now Canada and the United States. And that is that particular agreement, James Monroe, one of the founding fathers, had assured the French that the Americans would never sign. such a treaty and it was when this was signed in 1794 that France lost all faith and really

went after the Americans. So Pavidius Arbion became perfidious America? Absolutely. Never happened since, of course. Of course not. Frank, is there a sense that France forced America back into Britain's arms, not as a colony but as a British ship, but as a partner? To some extent. And you know, Kathy just did a good job of summarizing the situation. After the J treaty, effectively, the United States has entered into, has reentered the British Empire, at least economically, and it benefited greatly from so doing. But France, therefore, basically was out of patience with the United States and adopted this much more belligerent policy, which in turn drove the United States and Britain closer together, at least for a short period of time. On the other hand, given the circumstances we've talked about, the, the kind of weakness of the United States, the preponderance of British military and economic power and the ability of the British to use that power against the United States, as well as those imponderables of culture,

language, shared history, religion, etc., etc., it's kind of hard to see how this would have gone differently. A colleague of mine once said, universities are incredibly unsentimental institutions. International alliances are as well. I think the United States pursued itself interest and abandoned France, but it's hard to see that it could have done anything differently. And so I'm not so sure that the French alienating the United States caused it as much as it was a consequence of those circumstances.

Now, I'd like to ask all of you, as we're coming towards the end now, about the longer-term consequences of this alliance, of Franco-American Alliance, and what followed, and the American Revolution. It was a time when you could use the phrase, the world changed and not blush, really. It's there to be used. What do you think the legacy was? Starting with you, Mike. Well, first of all, there's a cultural one.

Something I was struck by, was in 1886, the French people gave a gift to the American people, which was the Statue of Liberty. And this was partly because the French themselves wanted a bit of a publicity splash, as their Republic, the Third Republic, as it was at the time, in 1886. was actually struggling to find its feet.

And it was trying to make these links with the American to try to recall the American Alliance of 1778 to say, look, this is the cause of freedom, this is the cause of republicanism. So it was a way of kind of stirring up French public opinion about republicanism itself. And so I think that's one important element. The other important element is the symbolic nature

of when the Americans actually intervened in the First World War. and they actually joined on the side of the Entente powers, declaring war on Germany in 1917, the Americans when they first arrived. One of their military commanders, a guy called Charles Stanton, who was General Pershing's, one of his staff, visited Lafayette's tomb in the Cemetery in Paris,

I gave a speech in which he said, Lafayette, we are here. So it was a sense that the Americans were at last repaying that alliance, didn't repay back in the 1790s. But a lot of Americans actually had already volunteered to fight for the French, even before the Americans formally joined the war. A lot of American aviators joined the French Air Force. At one point, they actually formed the Escadry of Lafayette, the French, the Lafayette Squadron, so named after Lafayette, again, recalling that, that commitment

that the French had made to the United States. and occasionally it gets evoked by politicians, French politicians, when they want to appeal to the Americans, where they want to stress that they have common values and a common foundation in the age of revolution. Catherine, what would you say? Well, what I would say is that's all of that symbol, but it's not a lot of substance to it. Fundamentally, the Americans and the French didn't get long. Yes, there was 1886, but that's a long time. from 1796 and the Americans all of the anglophobia was dominant in the 19th century. Nevertheless,

they tended to like the British better than the French. They understood the British, they had you know various laws and customs and so forth in common. And what's striking to me is that most Americans don't remember. I remember arguing that there would not have been a successful American Revolution without the French. And it's amazing to me how very few Americans remember or realize this. So over the long term, not an awful lot. What about you, Frank? In his autobiography, which he wrote in 1821, Thomas Jefferson, who at that point was in his early 80s and was reflecting back on his life. And the struggles of the 1770s and 80s and 90s had faded into history or were fading into history. He wrote about the ball of liberty rolling around the earth. And he made a direct connection

between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. He basically was arguing even then, late in his life, and despite the kind of frictions we've discussed today, that these were all part of the same global movement for republicanism and that these were common values that bound these countries together. Whether that's true or not as debatable, as Kathy suggested, Jefferson's an outlier in American political culture. regards, because he's such a francophile, but I think there's some merit to that in this kind of sister republics argument that that persists for a while. And when Emmanuel Macron made a state visit to the United States several years ago, he visited Mount Vernon with President Trump. Mount Vernon is

the home of George Washington, outside of Washington, D.C. And President Trump brought the French president there so he could show him the key to the Bastille, which Lafayette had sent to Washington, so emphasizing these connections. How important they are, it remains to be said, remains to be seen. As I suggested a few minutes ago, countries tend to act in their own self-interest. But I think this common Republican heritage is a significant thread that links them and ties them together and sets them at odds, sets them both against Britain. Well, thanks very much. Thanks, Cathy Burke, Mike Report and Frank Cagliano and our studio engineer, Jackie Marjoram. Next week, it's Ovid. influential poet of Rome's Augustan Age, whom the Emperor Augustus exiled. Thanks for listening.

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. What do you think we're left out that should have been in? It's striking, isn't it? Just how dependent the American colonies were. If you look at how it looks from the American side and how we were taught, as it were, you've got these Americans with a little bit of help from the French, which they acknowledge, and Spain is never mentioned. But it's amazing what a foundation myth can direct in terms of historical memory. If I could just say one further thing about Benjamin Franklin, because some thought he was, I mean, he stayed all the way up till 9 o'clock at night and didn't get up until eight o'clock in the morning. And this was, uh, uh, John Adams thought he was being cyberitic. But what he combined and what made him important was that, yes, he was very

emoluent. People trusted him, but also he was firm. He never, he was the one who never, he wasn't, he didn't try to attack. He didn't, he wasn't, uh, you know, ferocious. But he said, no, no, no, uh, nothing is going to be agreed until it's agreed that there's going to be. to be no stopping of a war without American independence. Speaking about Franklin, one of the things he unleashed in France was a fashion for lightning conductors because he had one on his house in Passy. And there's a bit of a debate about it in France about, is it safe to have a lightning conductor? And what are the people who actually defended a legal case in support of somebody who actually

had a lightning conductor and got sued for having one on the grounds that these things were unsafe? was a young lawyer called Maximilian Robespierre, who ended up, of course, being one of the leaders of Revolutionary France during the so-called terror of 1793, 1794. He sent his legal brief to Franklin to try to gain some respect and attention from him. But, sorry, one thing I'd like to talk about, actually, is the issue of slavery. And one of the, I'm not saying that the French involvement in American Revolution

unfounded the French abolitionist movement, but it's perhaps no coincidence that when the French debated and discussed the American Constitution, one of the things that was noted, of course, was that the American Revolution hadn't abolished slavery. And it's perhaps no coincidence that in 1787, just as the Americans are kind of putting together the last bits of ratification to their constitution, the French, a bunch of French progressives, such, including Lafayette, found the Societides de Noir, the Society of the Friends or the Black. So there's a strong sense that, you know, the French start to debate slavery

just as, you know, the Americans are kind of coming out with their constitution, which at least for then, kept it. And I think if I can follow on with that, Mike, that one of the things we didn't mention that where slavery is a key theme is, is San Damang or Haiti, and the Haitian Revolution,

which is a crucial context for the estrangement between the United States in France in the 1790s and the fear in the United States of slave rebellions spreading, you know, it's one reason why the United States kind of rushes into the arms of the British as well. That's a crucial part of the context, I think, and a key reason why France was unable to reestablish its empire in mainland North America, which of course will eventually result in the Louisiana purchase, but that's a story for another episode, I think. I mean, both the Spanish and the French, it was thought that they wouldn't help the America,

For one small thing was that if the Americans had a successful revolution, what was going to stop their colonies from revolting? So they took a chance in some respects that isn't always recognized. And in a sense, the long-term impact of the French Revolutionary Wars which then lead into the Napoleonic Wars, one of the long-term impacts of that is Latin American independence. But one of the reasons the Latin Americans, especially for an Argentina, Colombia and elsewhere, rise up is because they lose the connection with Spain, with Spanish defeat at the hands of the British in the Napoleonic Wars. It's a fascinating story.

In his autobiography, Jefferson makes that connection. When he talks about this ball of liberty, he makes the connection between the American and French revolutions and Latin American decolonization. He talks about the tyrants of the North are on the run, and all they can do is spread misery, but they're going to lose. in the long run. And of course it happens on Ha'ihe, isn't, in 1798, that there is a successful rising by the black slaves against the French.

Toussaint-Nove, the uprising began in 1791, turns into full, turn into full-blown revolutions, as Frank alluded to. Actually, about the Haitians, the Haitian politics, Tucson Louvertille is in charge for much of this period, as you say, Melvin. and they support the French because the French actually abolished slavery

or I would say forced to finally abolish slavery on the 4th of February 1794 in the French Empire partly because they saw no other way of holding on to Haiti at least as a colony if not no longer as one which is peopleed by enslaved people toiling on the plantations and Tucson for a while becomes allied to the French and what are the things Toussaint allowed or at least Haitians did, was to launch attacks on U.S. shipping during the Quasi War in support of the French.

So it's one of those extra pieces of triangulation, which I find fascinating. That's interesting because I had always thought of it in a different direction, but your argument is quite compelling, I think. So I will withdraw my Haiti as an example. Oh, no, I think Haiti is a great example of just the complexity of it all. Oh, yeah. One thing I'd like to say is one of the things about the consequences, that last question about the long-term impact. As Kathy said, you know, yes, I was harping on about the symbolism,

as Kathy said, well, there wasn't much substance to it. I mean, one of the things when I was thinking about beforehand was goal-less foreign policy. I mean, De Gaulle was deeply suspicious of the Americans, deeply suspicious of the Soviet Union as well and indeed of the British. And a quarterstone of kind of French foreign policy in the 20th century, particularly after the Second World War, was to try to steer clear of getting too close to the United States while also steering clear of entanglement of, while also remaining secure from the Soviet Union. So it was always a very difficult middle ground to kind of navigate. And I think this is where, as you say, Kathy, the kind of the substance doesn't necessarily come up with the, meet up with the, with the symbolism.

I mean, if you remember, the French, the Americans did not join in support of France. in the First World War until they came in because of the British and in other words that the Americans weren't going to join the war if the Germans hadn't had the unrestricted submarine warfare I'm convinced that France ties or no French ties the Americans would not have joined the war and so therefore this sort of Lafayette we are here that was very good public relations but as for the United States, I don't think so. I just think, yes, symbolism is important. I don't deny that. But if we want to actually look at what substantive difference it made, I go back to saying

not an awful lot. Well, thank you very much. That was terrific. In Our Time with Melvin Bragg is produced by Simon Tillotson. And if you'd like to hear the In Our Time on the War of 1812, you can search for it on BBC Sounds. Hello, it's Greg Jenner here, the host of Radio 4's Funny History Podcast, You're Dead to Me. We are rounding off this current third series by going stateside and focusing on five great stories from American history. We'll be hearing from some of the best historians and comedians from across the pond as we get Jazzy with the Harlem Renaissance, enjoy some dry wit in a prohibition-era speakeasy, discover if the greatest showman, Pity Barnum really was quite so great, go exploring with a Native American heraldsion.

in Sacojoa and discover how early America turned itself into a new country and what that even meant. So if you want to learn some new stuff about the history of the new world and laugh while you learn, then check out your dead to me on the BBC Sounds app.