In the American Revolutionary War (1775--1783), France fought alongside the United States, against Britain, from 1778. French money, munitions, soldiers and naval forces proved essential to America's victory over the Crown, but France gained little except large debts. Benjamin Franklin served as the American ambassador to France from 1776 to 1783. He met with many leading diplomats, aristocrats, intellectuals, scientists and financiers. Franklin's image and writings caught the French imagination -- there were many images of him sold on the market -- and he became the image of the archetypal new American and even a hero for aspirations for a new order inside France. The French goal was to weaken Britain, both to keep it from getting too powerful and to exact revenge for the defeat in the Seven Years' War. After the American capture of the British invasion army at Saratoga in 1777, and after the French navy had been built up, France was ready. In 1778 France recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation, signed a military alliance, went to war with Britain, built coalitions with the Netherlands and Spain that kept Britain without a significant ally of its own, provided the Americans with grants, arms and loans, sent a combat army to serve under George Washington, and sent a navy that prevented the second British army from escaping from Yorktown in 1781. In all, the French spent about 1.3 billion livres (in modern currency, approximately thirteen billion U.S. dollars) to support the Americans directly, not including the money it spent fighting Britain on land and sea outside the U.S.[1] French aid proved vital in the victory of the Americans seeking independence from Britain. The U.S. gained much territory at the 1783 Treaty of Paris, but France -- after losing some naval battles -- fared poorly there. It did get its revenge and made a new ally and trading partner. However the high debt France accumulated was a major cause of the French Revolution in 1789. Starting with the Siege of Yorktown, Benjamin Franklin never informed France of the secret negotiations that took place directly between Britain and the United States. Britain acknowledged that the United States owned all the land south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River, except for Florida (which went to Spain). However, since France was not included in the American-British peace discussions, the alliance between France and the U.S. was weakened. Thus the influence of France and Spain in future negotiations was limited. The war formally ended in September 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. France gained (or regained) territories in America, Africa, and India. Losses in the 1763 Treaty of Paris and in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) were in part regained: Tobago, Saint Lucia, the Senegal River area, as well as increased fishing rights in Terra Nova. Spain regained Florida and Minorca, but Gibraltar remained in the hands of the British. Because the French involvement in the war was distant and naval in nature, over a billion livres tournois were spent by the French government to support the war effort, raising its overall debt to about 3.315 billion. The finances of the French state were in disastrous shape and were made worse by Jacques Necker, who, rather than raise taxes, used loans to pay off debts. State secretary in Finances Charles Alexandre de Calonne attempted to fix the deficit problem by asking for the taxation of the property of nobles and clergy but was dismissed and exiled for his ideas. The French instability further weakened the reforms that were essential in the re-establishment of stable French finances. Trade also severely declined during the war, but was revived by 1783. The war was especially important for the prestige and pride of France, who was reinstated in the role of European arbiter. However, Britain, not France, became by far the leading trading partner of the U.S. The French took pride in their cultural influence on America through the enlightenment, as attested by Franklin and Jefferson, and as embodied in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the United States Constitution in 1787. In turn the Revolution influenced France.[7] Liberal elites were satisfied by the victory but there were also some major consequences. European conservative Royalists and nobility had become nervous, and began to take measures in order to secure their positions. On May 22, 1781, the Decree of Ségur closed the military post offices of the upper rank to the common persons and reserved those ranks exclusively for the nobility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_American_Revolutionary_War

• published: 04 Mar 2014
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