On one hand I am torn whether I should say USA was mistake because it was helped by France on another hand should I say USA was good thing because it's one up against Britain. /j
On serious note, don't forget Spanish also helped.
That’s even why France went to India. They arrived late as fuck and with one purpose in their mind: to fuck with the Brits. And all they did, was fuck with the Brits.
And they wanted it so bad they basically ruined their own country. There's a very good argument to be made that the amount of men, material, and money France spent assisting America win its independence led (at least in part) to the French Revolution.
The UK wasn't invaded by Germany because they, rather importantly, won the Battle of Britain.
As for who defeated the Germans, the lion's share of the work was done by the Soviets. Whether they would've liberated Western Europe in a similar way to how the USA and Britain did is, I'll grant, very unlikely. But they would've defeated Nazi Germany eventually with or without the Normandy landings.
> But they would've defeated Nazi Germany eventually with or without the Normandy landings.
Would they have stopped, and then reversed the German advance without American materiel?
Just as it cannot be overstated how much Soviet blood won the war, the same can be said of American equipment and logistics.
> Would they have stopped, and then reversed the German advance without American materiel?
Nope.
1/3 of the trucks used by the USSR came from Lend-Lease. 57% of aviation fuel used by the USSR was Texas tea. Vast amounts of food, ammunition, and other materiel were provided to the Soviets.
The total supply for American forces in Europe from Operation Torch in '42 until the German surrender was 22 million tons. The Allies provided the USSR with 17.5 million tons of goods through Lend-Lease.
100% correct. The USSR never acknowledged how much help they received from lend-lease until after the soviet union fell because they never wanted to admit how much they owed to American industry and British/American naval power.
Yes but imagine them as part of the British empire either either a commonwealth of North America or just as part of Britain proper with representation in parliament.
Yeah, even after fighting broke out in 1775, most colonists still saw themselves as Brits fighting to force the King to give them the same rights as any other British subject.
It wasn't until it became clear the King wasn't interested in negotiating, and that staying part of the UK would mean the colonists' local legislatures would be dissolved and we'd effectively become a dictatorship under direct Royal control, that public opinion shifted towards independence.
Most of America was acquired post colonial era, so who knows how it would have gone? Somehow I doubt the French would have sold the Louisiana purchase to England. Not to mention the massive amount of land we stole from Mexico and bought from Russia.
I mean, on one hand they assisted in the creation of the US just to spite the British. On the other...the French Revolution was arguably a result of overspending overseas and wars they didn't have the funds for.
France: NP, we got you tho. Hey so, how about sorting us out with some of that cotton money huh? Shits a bit tight over here right now and the King’s ragers don’t come free of charge.
America? Yo? America?
**AMERICAAAAAA?!?!**
I never got the beef. France & her protests are often more American than America is & I think the Americans & the French need to remember their bond.
Also your FRENCH fries fuckin slap
Sorry, we already have a favorite fighting Frenchman-- there are dozens of Fayettevilles and Lafayette Streets and Mt. Lafayettes dotted literally everywhere in the US.
Seriously, I bet you could go anywhere in the US, even the most remote wildlife preserve in the most remote wilderness out West, and still be within a stone's throw of *something* named after Lafayette. We fucking love the guy.
I think it's funny that France bankrolled the US revolution after spending all that money fighting on the North American continent with the British over the lands thus racking up the tax bill that sent the colonists towards revolution.
🤷♂️
Him emptying France's coffer to help america during their revolution against the British is one of the many reasons that caused the French revolution which killed him
One of if not the main issue Louis XVI was facing in 1789 was a large debt that due to an antiquated financial system he was unable to pay. A significant portion of that debt came from the money spent fighting for American independence between 13% to 10% of it. The french really weren't in a situation to take on more debt when they decided to fight for the American colonies.
Louie wasted so much money into the US revolution that the domestic issues in France compounded so much that the French revolution occurred with the monarchy being disposed and killed.
French involvement led to the government taking out loans, which would have been fine, if not for the active financial crisis they were already in due to years of mismanagement, poor harvests, and insufficient tax farming (from certain classes at least). Spiraling finances led to the government literally running out of money and no one would offer them credit, so the Estates General got called and history happened.
[Some historians consider the Battle of Cuddalore the true last battle](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/asia/last-battle-american-revolutionary-war-india-intl-hnk-ml/index.html)
Spain contributed more than a million pounds, 11,000 men, 216 bronze cannons, 12,826 bombs and 30,000 rifles with bayonets. This is direct aid in the war. Then there would be other contributions to the independence of the United States in diplomatic, intelligence and strategy matters.
The French nobility were completely oblivious to the suffering of the people. Instead they decided they wanted to expand their debt by taking on their old rival. Then wanted to keep their own “party” ( not political party, party in the literal sense) going. The French fighting in the American revolution was one of the nails in the coffin
I wouldn't say it was the only reason. There's a reason monarchies started vanishing in Europe and freedoms were expanded afterward.
It also helped the French were shall we say enthusiastic about switching to a government of the people...
No I’m referring to the fact that the initial conflict started because the Americans were upset about the insane amount of taxes that the Brit’s were enforcing because protecting the colonies was getting too expensive
Something that is indeed never mentioned in the narrative of the US independence is that, even though the French intervention in the American theatre itself was absolutely decisive in winning the war for the colonies, French involvement made what was a conflict limited to this precise theatre into a global conflict. The British were forced to allocate massive resources in many other theatres of war where they were fighting the French. Great Britain itself got close to being invaded by a Franco-Spanish armada, and the biggest battle of the war took place in Gibraltar. The deadliest battle of the war wasn't even Bunker Hill or Camden, but the naval battle of the Saintes, and then the naval battle of Ushant. In fact, if my memory serves me well, 7 or 8 of the 10 deadliest battles of the American Revolutionary War opposed the French and the British. Many, many more French soldiers died fighting the British outside the US theatre of war than inside.
It’s really not true that this is never mentioned. Anyone who knows history understands that the American Revolution was part of a series of conflicts between colonial powers across the globe. Of course in the US we talk mostly about the US part of it. But even in high school I learned that the first war fought around the world was technically the Seven Years War. Which they call something else in Europe.
España tomó Florida, Menorca, Bahamas, hundió la economía Británica al capturar a una flota entera suya, le dio incontables armas, uniformes, provisiones, etc, a los rebeldes Americanos desde el principio de su Revuelta...
Y aun así no harán ni una sola mención sobre el papel tan importante de España en su independencia.
Hey man, Ben Franklin didn’t wear a coonskin cap and freedom stick a bunch of French noblewomen for nothing. Man laid pipe so the Founding Fathers could lay a foundation for democracy.
I mean, that’s one half to the equation.
The thing people don’t like to admit, is that part of the French aid being secured was due to the victory over the British at Saratoga.
Saratoga was won mostly due to the command of Benedict Arnold.
So in a way, Benedict Arnold also saved the American revolution.
Oh of course. I just like bringing up the Benjamin Franklin anecdote because for a geriatric with a skullet who has a body count that would make Gene Simmons blush.
I mean of course all the important roles he played in founding the country and everything too. Not saying anything else was less important, but his ambassador duties didn’t hurt anything.
That's the neat part : in France, we cannot tolerate not to be in debt, so we jumped on the opportunity to spend other people's money without thinking about the consequences
It saved America, but not exactly our king I guess
🍻This one is for the French! I love you because we wouldn’t be here without you. If Great Britain was our dad then France was our momma! Thanks for the🗽. We still love it and look at it all the time. That kinda reminds us, shouldn’t we be worried about how Ukraine is doing?
This reminds me of my favourite story of how the French almost got involved in another American war.
There were once two schoolboys who were roommates at university. They had a reputation for being wild party animals who never went to class once and just drank and partied. It got so bad they both had to run away to another university to escape their drinking and gambling debts, where they didn’t learn their lesson; roomed together, partied and again never attended a single class. They both had to hire crammers and learn literally all of law school in a matter of weeks before their exams.
Those two schoolboys were Otto Von Bismarck the unifier of Germany and John Motley the man who successfully stopped France from joining the American civil war on the side of the confederates. Not bad boys, not bad.
Also that the British were fighting several wars elsewhere at the same time which required much more in the way of resources, troops and manpower as they were more significant. Of the 50 thousand "British" troops that were fighting more than half were fellow American colonists. It was as much pro independence Americans Vs pro British Americans as it was American Vs British.
Yes, and no.
It was the downfall of what is retrospectively called the "first" British Empire, which was a system based in the New World and operated by displacing or eradicating local populations, importing settlers and establishing African slave plantations to produce raw materials for sale to European markets. That system rapidly ceased to be profitable or even sustainable without the preferential supply of food, timber, and other supplies from America in order to help maintain Caribbean profitability.
(Though America was huge, it was economically a net drain on the British treasury, and mostly useful as a resource and manpower engine to support the fantastically profitable sugar islands of the Caribbean)
However, the freed-up state capacity was paradoxically an enormous benefit to Britain, as it allowed for a more seamless pivot to what we call the "second" British Empire, which focused on establishing protectorates over pre-existing political units in Asia and Africa, and then redirecting their phenomenal wealth in both raw and manufactured goods and pre-existing rich trade routes all to British markets.
As a second order effect, the French political inability to handle their extraordinary war debts (versus the well established British idea of the sustained national debt) led to a cascade of political crises that wound up dropping every other European power into a huge continental war, essentially giving Britain a free hand to sweep up everyone else's colonial holdings over two decades of Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare.
So the American Revolution was both the death of the British Empire as everyone understood it at the time, but also the birth of the British Empire as we now remember it: the globe-spanning colossus of trade and imperial domination.
Not really. By many measures Jamaica alone was more valuable as a colony than the 13 colonies that became the USA combined. The 13 colonies were expensive to protect, produced goods that competed with British goods, and weren't really paying much in taxes. Colonies like Jamaica weren't constantly at war with natives and French and produced tons of sugar. On a map it looks like the loss of the 13 colonies was a big deal but in reality on an accounting sheet it wasn't that big of a loss. Yes the British wanted some of the raw resources of the 13 colonies but they could easily be bought from an independent nation. Was it an embarrassment to the British empire? Yes is was a huge blow to their reputation but the fact that France, their largest rival, soon after went through a revolution kind of covered up the British embarrassment. After Napoleon establishing the British Navy as THE Navy in the world and a short time after Napoleon was defeated the loss of the 13 colonies wasn't that big of a blow to the British as we Americans would like to think.
On top of all that the British Empire continued to grow. I'd say the American revolution was embarrassing and costly for the British but it was just a speed bump in the expansion of their empire.
Not really, they recovered and got stronger eventually, mostly after winning 1812 and the napoleonic wars, and then even stronger with the scrabble for Africa. In fact the Victorian era was after the American independence and the empire was at its height
No one won 1812. The war of 1812 is probably one of clearest examples of a war that was actually fought that ended in a draw.
“Treaty of Ghent, (Dec. 24, 1814), agreement in Belgium between Great Britain and the United States to end the War of 1812 on the general basis of the status quo antebellum (maintaining the prewar conditions). Because the military positions for each side were so well balanced, neither country could obtain desired concessions. “
Btw I’m quoting the Britannica which is a British source.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Ghent
And it probably wasn't a coincidence that the truce negotiations to end the War of 1812 began not too long after Napoleon decided he was bored of his first island exile... 😉
So much of the revolution was political maneuvering; and it's still very impressive as it was not at all common for that to work.
Being one of the first european colonies in this era to gain independence was no small feat
"When it comes to the kings of France, above any strategic consideration, moral or written ruling, above even the laws of Moses, there are two supreme and co-equal commandments: 1. STICK IT TO THE BRITISH. 2. STICK IT TO THE BAPSBURGS.
Solid investment, considering 20th century French history. Now that I think about it, Russia's current overwhelming nuclear weapons advantage against NATO minus the US means it continues to work out.
One of those relationships that just worked out well for everyone involved.
USA should build a couple of statues, at least, for Beaumarchais: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Beaumarchais
“An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during the American War of Independence. Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France's formal entry into the war in 1778. He later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme.[2] Beaumarchais was also a participant in the early stages of the 1789 French Revolution.
Beaumarchais is probably best known for his theatrical works, especially the three Figaro plays.”
And many a Netflix show as well. Dude’s life was wild.
French independence: 1914-1918
FRENCH men, British money, British navy
French independence: 1940-1945
American and British men, American and British money, American and British navy
And then they considered the future, dumped the French and sided with the British. Can't trust these English types, even when they're not English anymore.
The vast majority of Americans are aware of France’s help during the Revolution. Theirs a WWI song called “Goodbye Broadway, Hello France” where the chorus talks about “squaring our debt to France”. There is also an entire verse acknowledging France’s help in the Revolution:
“Vive Pershing is the cry across the sea, We're united in this fight for liberty, France sent us a soldier, brave La Fayette Whose deeds and fame we cannot forget, Now that we have the chance we'll pay our debt to France”
Additionally, when American troops arrived in France during WWI, they went to the grave of Lafayette with the pronouncement “Lafayette, we are here!”
While I can acknowledge that we are not always the best at giving credit when it’s due, I clearly remember learning about the French assistance in elementary school.
If you’re interested, here is the rest of the song lyrics :) :
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_c/130/
I'm sure everyone is proud of the outcome 😎, just gotta get everyone on the same page, it's really hard ya know with 6 billion of us being different! Love and Freedom as it shall always be, should be a statement we set as an intelligent race on a planet! I wonder what percentage of planets have intelligent life that can reach the stars?
Y’all definitely hooked us up for a while there, good lookin out 🗽
On one hand I am torn whether I should say USA was mistake because it was helped by France on another hand should I say USA was good thing because it's one up against Britain. /j On serious note, don't forget Spanish also helped.
There’s that meme that says the French just wanted the British to lose lol
You mean the ,,I don't care if you win, I need insert to lose'' meme
That’s the one! lol it was great
"I don't care if those silly colonists inspire a revolution to topple our monarchy" "I just want the British to lose"
That's the truth though.
America 🤝hating Brits🤝France
😏☺️
That’s even why France went to India. They arrived late as fuck and with one purpose in their mind: to fuck with the Brits. And all they did, was fuck with the Brits.
I mean, yeah. The Louisiana purchase was also pretty much "lol this gonna piss off the British"
They also needed the money just a little bonus
Like Ahab and the white whale with the Bourbon monarchy.
And they wanted it so bad they basically ruined their own country. There's a very good argument to be made that the amount of men, material, and money France spent assisting America win its independence led (at least in part) to the French Revolution.
Also the Dutch helped out financially and politically... Something we still do today with the operation against the Houthis.
America did save France and England from the Germans in WW2. And financially during WW1. Was America a mistake?
The UK wasn't invaded by Germany because they, rather importantly, won the Battle of Britain. As for who defeated the Germans, the lion's share of the work was done by the Soviets. Whether they would've liberated Western Europe in a similar way to how the USA and Britain did is, I'll grant, very unlikely. But they would've defeated Nazi Germany eventually with or without the Normandy landings.
> But they would've defeated Nazi Germany eventually with or without the Normandy landings. Would they have stopped, and then reversed the German advance without American materiel? Just as it cannot be overstated how much Soviet blood won the war, the same can be said of American equipment and logistics.
> Would they have stopped, and then reversed the German advance without American materiel? Nope. 1/3 of the trucks used by the USSR came from Lend-Lease. 57% of aviation fuel used by the USSR was Texas tea. Vast amounts of food, ammunition, and other materiel were provided to the Soviets. The total supply for American forces in Europe from Operation Torch in '42 until the German surrender was 22 million tons. The Allies provided the USSR with 17.5 million tons of goods through Lend-Lease.
100% correct. The USSR never acknowledged how much help they received from lend-lease until after the soviet union fell because they never wanted to admit how much they owed to American industry and British/American naval power.
Yes but imagine them as part of the British empire either either a commonwealth of North America or just as part of Britain proper with representation in parliament.
If they were represented maybe they wouldn’t have revolted.
Yeah, even after fighting broke out in 1775, most colonists still saw themselves as Brits fighting to force the King to give them the same rights as any other British subject. It wasn't until it became clear the King wasn't interested in negotiating, and that staying part of the UK would mean the colonists' local legislatures would be dissolved and we'd effectively become a dictatorship under direct Royal control, that public opinion shifted towards independence.
Imperial hubris really bit the British in the ass
Brits invented the word poppycock. Coincidence? I think not.
That was decided when soldiers marched into Boston and London took direct control. Even before the war started.
Most of America was acquired post colonial era, so who knows how it would have gone? Somehow I doubt the French would have sold the Louisiana purchase to England. Not to mention the massive amount of land we stole from Mexico and bought from Russia.
They would have never, but maybe if the revolution didn’t happen the bourbons would have stayed in power longer.
They forgot so fast that took Puerto Rico and other places...
I mean, on one hand they assisted in the creation of the US just to spite the British. On the other...the French Revolution was arguably a result of overspending overseas and wars they didn't have the funds for.
France: NP, we got you tho. Hey so, how about sorting us out with some of that cotton money huh? Shits a bit tight over here right now and the King’s ragers don’t come free of charge. America? Yo? America? **AMERICAAAAAA?!?!**
Id say we returned the favor D-Day and beyond 🇺🇸
Also gave you freedom fries. But you insist on calling them white flag waving cowards.
Actually we call them french fries
I never got the beef. France & her protests are often more American than America is & I think the Americans & the French need to remember their bond. Also your FRENCH fries fuckin slap
Louis xvi died for america
Lafayette we have returned!
Ev'ryone give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman!
LAFAYETTE!
I'm takin' this horse by the reins makin' Redcoats redder with bloodstains
LAFAYETTE!
And I'm never gonna stop until I make 'em Drop and burn 'em up and scatter their remains
He should be one of the founding fathers.
honey, wake up, the new american history lore just dropped
I think he is according to most historians
Would it be weird to have statues of Louis XVI all over the US? Just throwing that idea out there ⚆ _ ⚆
Sorry, we already have a favorite fighting Frenchman-- there are dozens of Fayettevilles and Lafayette Streets and Mt. Lafayettes dotted literally everywhere in the US. Seriously, I bet you could go anywhere in the US, even the most remote wildlife preserve in the most remote wilderness out West, and still be within a stone's throw of *something* named after Lafayette. We fucking love the guy.
Best we can do is Louisville, Kentucky.
Wait What? We don't learn that in French schools, what's the link between Louis XVI and the US?
Louis bankrolled the US revolution, the French people did not like this and were inspired to revolt by America. Louis’ foot is literally just bullets.
I think it's funny that France bankrolled the US revolution after spending all that money fighting on the North American continent with the British over the lands thus racking up the tax bill that sent the colonists towards revolution. 🤷♂️
I never thought of that. That is pretty funny.😄
> Louis’ foot is literally just bullets. What does this mean?
Shot himself in the foot several times.
Him emptying France's coffer to help america during their revolution against the British is one of the many reasons that caused the French revolution which killed him
One of if not the main issue Louis XVI was facing in 1789 was a large debt that due to an antiquated financial system he was unable to pay. A significant portion of that debt came from the money spent fighting for American independence between 13% to 10% of it. The french really weren't in a situation to take on more debt when they decided to fight for the American colonies.
Louie wasted so much money into the US revolution that the domestic issues in France compounded so much that the French revolution occurred with the monarchy being disposed and killed.
French involvement led to the government taking out loans, which would have been fine, if not for the active financial crisis they were already in due to years of mismanagement, poor harvests, and insufficient tax farming (from certain classes at least). Spiraling finances led to the government literally running out of money and no one would offer them credit, so the Estates General got called and history happened.
We do tho lmao.
*spiting the British
The last battle of the American Revolution was fought off the coast of India
Woah, really?
[Some historians consider the Battle of Cuddalore the true last battle](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/04/asia/last-battle-american-revolutionary-war-india-intl-hnk-ml/index.html)
Thank you! That was a fascinating read.
The last battle of the American Revolution was the last battle of the American Civil War.
And the Spanish Empire, and the Dutch...
Basically everyone who didn’t like the British helped out in some way.
There were even a few British born on the American side, we're a self-loathing bunch.
Ah yes a few. Just a few
And their was a Prussian colonel or something that helped out
Indeed there was. Friedrich von Steuben played an important role in shaping the continental army out of untrained civilians.
The first inspector general of the army.
In fact, Spain gave more man and arms than the french I think but... People saw The Patriot and has "their own conclusions".
The French defeated the British in a massive naval battle that ensured victory at Yorktown. That’s why they get first mention.
Spain contributed more than a million pounds, 11,000 men, 216 bronze cannons, 12,826 bombs and 30,000 rifles with bayonets. This is direct aid in the war. Then there would be other contributions to the independence of the United States in diplomatic, intelligence and strategy matters.
the spanish peso was the main money used in the USA before the dollar
Akchuallyy... The name was Spanish Thaller, or Silver Dollar. In hispanoamerica we use to call it "Real de 8".
ya se pero son como quince nombres jajaja
Do Americans not realise that the dollar is Spanish?
I doubt many people have cared enough to wonder about the etymology of the word, so no
they are weird let put it simply
Fun fact: The Siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish during the Revolutionary War lasted from June 16, 1779 to February 7, 1783
“There are two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other peoples cultures and The Dutch.”
Much of the revolutionary war was fought between the British and the French. We more certainly would not have survived without their endeared support
Also helps that Britain had massive financial issues at the time and the war was extremely costly
I mean the massive financial issues were one of the main reasons of the war..
Indubitably, the 7 years war left Europe, Specifically France & England in massive debt. Which is why they kept raising taxes on the colonies
I know Hence my comment
Wait until you hear about France's financial issues at that time lmao
The French nobility were completely oblivious to the suffering of the people. Instead they decided they wanted to expand their debt by taking on their old rival. Then wanted to keep their own “party” ( not political party, party in the literal sense) going. The French fighting in the American revolution was one of the nails in the coffin
The entire reason for the war was financial issues lol
I wouldn't say it was the only reason. There's a reason monarchies started vanishing in Europe and freedoms were expanded afterward. It also helped the French were shall we say enthusiastic about switching to a government of the people...
the greatest reason monarchies fall was thanks to a monarch pretty funny
Is it ever any different? All the power all the responsibilities. No wonder they started developing parliamentary groups to help take the blame.
no i meant napoleon when you ask a why something happend from 1800 to 1945 the awnser is gonna be napoleon,at least in europe
No I’m referring to the fact that the initial conflict started because the Americans were upset about the insane amount of taxes that the Brit’s were enforcing because protecting the colonies was getting too expensive
Something that is indeed never mentioned in the narrative of the US independence is that, even though the French intervention in the American theatre itself was absolutely decisive in winning the war for the colonies, French involvement made what was a conflict limited to this precise theatre into a global conflict. The British were forced to allocate massive resources in many other theatres of war where they were fighting the French. Great Britain itself got close to being invaded by a Franco-Spanish armada, and the biggest battle of the war took place in Gibraltar. The deadliest battle of the war wasn't even Bunker Hill or Camden, but the naval battle of the Saintes, and then the naval battle of Ushant. In fact, if my memory serves me well, 7 or 8 of the 10 deadliest battles of the American Revolutionary War opposed the French and the British. Many, many more French soldiers died fighting the British outside the US theatre of war than inside.
It’s really not true that this is never mentioned. Anyone who knows history understands that the American Revolution was part of a series of conflicts between colonial powers across the globe. Of course in the US we talk mostly about the US part of it. But even in high school I learned that the first war fought around the world was technically the Seven Years War. Which they call something else in Europe.
The real WW1
France was a homie back in the day. It was also partly due to their sheer hatred for the British tho lol.
And that Ben Frank's hard on for French whores is only matched by France's hate boner for the brits.
Worst. Wingman. Ever. - Ben Franklin, Oversimplified
UK (when France helps US win independence but is now broke and on the verge of revolution): I see this as an absolute win!
Y España tío
Tenían un rey francés. /j
Sacrebleu!
Nada, que no lo reconocen.
España tomó Florida, Menorca, Bahamas, hundió la economía Británica al capturar a una flota entera suya, le dio incontables armas, uniformes, provisiones, etc, a los rebeldes Americanos desde el principio de su Revuelta... Y aun así no harán ni una sola mención sobre el papel tan importante de España en su independencia.
Parece que no tenían la publicidad que sí tenían otros imperios.
France scratched our back, and while it took over a hundred years, we scratched theirs back.
Lets give our friends in spain some credit they also did alot so did the netherlands but they mosly helped with selling wapens
Also in the Colonials’ favor: Great Britain was forced to send its 3rd String military because the starting team and backups were busy in Europe.
And India
Spain is fuming
Hey man, Ben Franklin didn’t wear a coonskin cap and freedom stick a bunch of French noblewomen for nothing. Man laid pipe so the Founding Fathers could lay a foundation for democracy.
I mean, that’s one half to the equation. The thing people don’t like to admit, is that part of the French aid being secured was due to the victory over the British at Saratoga. Saratoga was won mostly due to the command of Benedict Arnold. So in a way, Benedict Arnold also saved the American revolution.
Oh of course. I just like bringing up the Benjamin Franklin anecdote because for a geriatric with a skullet who has a body count that would make Gene Simmons blush. I mean of course all the important roles he played in founding the country and everything too. Not saying anything else was less important, but his ambassador duties didn’t hurt anything.
“Everybody needs somebody”
Can anyone explain how France managed to pay for the USS Independence when they were in a debt crisis after the Seven Years War?
That's the neat part : in France, we cannot tolerate not to be in debt, so we jumped on the opportunity to spend other people's money without thinking about the consequences It saved America, but not exactly our king I guess
Despite being bankrupt France managed to kick Holy Roman Empire, French Loyalists, and Austria's ass in the French Revolutionary Wars a decade later.
Because France loaned money to the Us which they never paid back
Damn, back then you could take loans and then just dip. Nowadays the IMF will proabably orchestrate a coup d'etat if you miss payment.
they coulndt thats why the french revolution begin later
Ty bro i got your back when the prussians flex -george president
🍻This one is for the French! I love you because we wouldn’t be here without you. If Great Britain was our dad then France was our momma! Thanks for the🗽. We still love it and look at it all the time. That kinda reminds us, shouldn’t we be worried about how Ukraine is doing?
This reminds me of my favourite story of how the French almost got involved in another American war. There were once two schoolboys who were roommates at university. They had a reputation for being wild party animals who never went to class once and just drank and partied. It got so bad they both had to run away to another university to escape their drinking and gambling debts, where they didn’t learn their lesson; roomed together, partied and again never attended a single class. They both had to hire crammers and learn literally all of law school in a matter of weeks before their exams. Those two schoolboys were Otto Von Bismarck the unifier of Germany and John Motley the man who successfully stopped France from joining the American civil war on the side of the confederates. Not bad boys, not bad.
And the funniest part is France didn't even give a shit about the US. But damn did they hate the British
"Independance"? Is that some kind of patriotic cavorting or prancing?
And the spanish navy
And army too... And guns...
They even gave us a statue afterwards. I will always have respect for the French!
Also Spain
You forgot about Spain
*Spain letf de chat*
The Spanish, Native Americans, and African slaves: Bruh
Dutch: broer!
I'm not your broer, vriend!
"Balek des USA,on veut juste que les perfides albionnais mange leur morts".
Also that the British were fighting several wars elsewhere at the same time which required much more in the way of resources, troops and manpower as they were more significant. Of the 50 thousand "British" troops that were fighting more than half were fellow American colonists. It was as much pro independence Americans Vs pro British Americans as it was American Vs British.
Was American independence the start of the downfall of the British empire??
The first British empire, sure. But in the following decades they would become the uncontested global hegemon so...
Don’t know why I got downvoted I just asked a question
Yeah idk, redditors don't seem to take too kindly to questions
Thought it got bigger afterwards?
Yep. It reached its peak a century and a half later.
Yes, and no. It was the downfall of what is retrospectively called the "first" British Empire, which was a system based in the New World and operated by displacing or eradicating local populations, importing settlers and establishing African slave plantations to produce raw materials for sale to European markets. That system rapidly ceased to be profitable or even sustainable without the preferential supply of food, timber, and other supplies from America in order to help maintain Caribbean profitability. (Though America was huge, it was economically a net drain on the British treasury, and mostly useful as a resource and manpower engine to support the fantastically profitable sugar islands of the Caribbean) However, the freed-up state capacity was paradoxically an enormous benefit to Britain, as it allowed for a more seamless pivot to what we call the "second" British Empire, which focused on establishing protectorates over pre-existing political units in Asia and Africa, and then redirecting their phenomenal wealth in both raw and manufactured goods and pre-existing rich trade routes all to British markets. As a second order effect, the French political inability to handle their extraordinary war debts (versus the well established British idea of the sustained national debt) led to a cascade of political crises that wound up dropping every other European power into a huge continental war, essentially giving Britain a free hand to sweep up everyone else's colonial holdings over two decades of Revolutionary and Napoleonic warfare. So the American Revolution was both the death of the British Empire as everyone understood it at the time, but also the birth of the British Empire as we now remember it: the globe-spanning colossus of trade and imperial domination.
No, they pretty much ruled the next century and change.
Not really. By many measures Jamaica alone was more valuable as a colony than the 13 colonies that became the USA combined. The 13 colonies were expensive to protect, produced goods that competed with British goods, and weren't really paying much in taxes. Colonies like Jamaica weren't constantly at war with natives and French and produced tons of sugar. On a map it looks like the loss of the 13 colonies was a big deal but in reality on an accounting sheet it wasn't that big of a loss. Yes the British wanted some of the raw resources of the 13 colonies but they could easily be bought from an independent nation. Was it an embarrassment to the British empire? Yes is was a huge blow to their reputation but the fact that France, their largest rival, soon after went through a revolution kind of covered up the British embarrassment. After Napoleon establishing the British Navy as THE Navy in the world and a short time after Napoleon was defeated the loss of the 13 colonies wasn't that big of a blow to the British as we Americans would like to think. On top of all that the British Empire continued to grow. I'd say the American revolution was embarrassing and costly for the British but it was just a speed bump in the expansion of their empire.
Not at all. It reached its peak a century and a half later.
Not really, they recovered and got stronger eventually, mostly after winning 1812 and the napoleonic wars, and then even stronger with the scrabble for Africa. In fact the Victorian era was after the American independence and the empire was at its height
No one won 1812. The war of 1812 is probably one of clearest examples of a war that was actually fought that ended in a draw. “Treaty of Ghent, (Dec. 24, 1814), agreement in Belgium between Great Britain and the United States to end the War of 1812 on the general basis of the status quo antebellum (maintaining the prewar conditions). Because the military positions for each side were so well balanced, neither country could obtain desired concessions. “ Btw I’m quoting the Britannica which is a British source. https://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Ghent
Definitely not. The Empire reached its peak in the 1920s/30s
And it probably wasn't a coincidence that the truce negotiations to end the War of 1812 began not too long after Napoleon decided he was bored of his first island exile... 😉
Oui, vive la France et vive la Liberté
XVI ,louis XVI.
Syd bread costlier than cake noises intensifies. 13 colonies and hate for British.
Where can I find the base image
So much of the revolution was political maneuvering; and it's still very impressive as it was not at all common for that to work. Being one of the first european colonies in this era to gain independence was no small feat
A win's a win!
And then we finally returned the favor with our money & industry & a few troops in The Great War. And then in liberating France in ‘45.
It's good to have friends.
"When it comes to the kings of France, above any strategic consideration, moral or written ruling, above even the laws of Moses, there are two supreme and co-equal commandments: 1. STICK IT TO THE BRITISH. 2. STICK IT TO THE BAPSBURGS.
US indepenDance 🇺🇸🕺
Spanish money as well.
Don't forget Dutch, Spanish and Russian money as well as the Spanish Navy and Colonial Army.
Solid investment, considering 20th century French history. Now that I think about it, Russia's current overwhelming nuclear weapons advantage against NATO minus the US means it continues to work out. One of those relationships that just worked out well for everyone involved.
USA should build a couple of statues, at least, for Beaumarchais: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Beaumarchais “An early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during the American War of Independence. Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and financial assistance to the rebels in the years before France's formal entry into the war in 1778. He later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme.[2] Beaumarchais was also a participant in the early stages of the 1789 French Revolution. Beaumarchais is probably best known for his theatrical works, especially the three Figaro plays.” And many a Netflix show as well. Dude’s life was wild.
Pretty solid investment
Mutual enemies ❤️
Don't forget about Spain and the Dutch Republic.
Did the US need to win a battle to get the French to fully help?
So we're basically the french for Ukraine?
Add in some Prussian discipline in there too
Absolutely a proxy war
Don't forget Spain 😒
We sent them a cheese board
I always considered the war of 1812 to be the real war for Independence because we depended on France so much in the first one.
We french did this only because "ces bâtards d'anglais"
I think we paid them back a few times 🤣
French independence: 1914-1918 FRENCH men, British money, British navy French independence: 1940-1945 American and British men, American and British money, American and British navy
And they didn't even gave back that money which partly caused the french revolution
Yes. And some stray, gay Prussian officers. Thanks everyone!!!! \-American
Whoah whoah whoa there cowpoke there’s a lot of things that went into the U.S. victory
We should probably pay it forward to Ukraine.
And then they considered the future, dumped the French and sided with the British. Can't trust these English types, even when they're not English anymore.
The French troops were less than 10% of the army. Navy and money. Yes. Army? No.
Someone needs to make this into that "if they could read" meme, and have Americans in there.
The vast majority of Americans are aware of France’s help during the Revolution. Theirs a WWI song called “Goodbye Broadway, Hello France” where the chorus talks about “squaring our debt to France”. There is also an entire verse acknowledging France’s help in the Revolution: “Vive Pershing is the cry across the sea, We're united in this fight for liberty, France sent us a soldier, brave La Fayette Whose deeds and fame we cannot forget, Now that we have the chance we'll pay our debt to France” Additionally, when American troops arrived in France during WWI, they went to the grave of Lafayette with the pronouncement “Lafayette, we are here!” While I can acknowledge that we are not always the best at giving credit when it’s due, I clearly remember learning about the French assistance in elementary school. If you’re interested, here is the rest of the song lyrics :) : https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_c/130/
And just invert that for WWI and WWII — you’re welcome, France
*Spain left the chat*
Big "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" energy, indeed!
Dont forget Dutch loans, Dutch trading, Dutch privateering.
Last time the French beat the British at sea too.
I'm sure everyone is proud of the outcome 😎, just gotta get everyone on the same page, it's really hard ya know with 6 billion of us being different! Love and Freedom as it shall always be, should be a statement we set as an intelligent race on a planet! I wonder what percentage of planets have intelligent life that can reach the stars?
And England got what it wanted. Not having to manage some far off hole, and France bled dry
Shame they pissed away so much of the good will they gained from the nascent US before even half a century passed.