From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (5 page)

Not surprisingly, the French were also nervous about close connections. The architect of French policy toward the American Revolution was the secretary of state for foreign affairs, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes. An aristocrat and career diplomat, Vergennes had spent so much time abroad—more than thirty years in posts across Europe—that a colleague dismissed him as a "foreigner become Minister."
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He was well versed in
international politics, cautious by nature, and hardworking. Jefferson said of him that "it is impossible to have a clearer, better argued head." Vergennes's chief concern was to regain French preeminence in Europe.
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He saw obvious advantages in helping the Americans. But he also saw dangers. France could not be certain of their commitment to achieve independence or their ability to do so. He worried they might reconcile with Britain and join forces to attack the French West Indies. He recognized that overt aid to the Americans would give Britain cause for a war France was not prepared to fight. French policy therefore was to keep the rebels fighting by "feeding their courage" and offering "hope of efficacious assistance" while avoiding steps that might provoke war with Britain. The French government through what would now be called a covert operation provided limited, clandestine aid to the rebels. It set up a fictitious trading company headed by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a colorful aristocrat and playwright whose comedies like
The Barber of Seville
poked fun at his own class, and loaned it funds to purchase military supplies from government warehouses to sell the Americans on credit.

Ninety percent of the gunpowder used by the colonists during the first years of the war came from Europe, and foreign aid was thus indispensable from the outset. By the end of 1776, however, it was increasingly apparent that secret, limited aid might not be enough. Early military operations were disappointing, even calamitous. From the outset, Americans believed that other peoples shared their aspirations. Naively assuming that the residents of Canada, many of them French Catholics, would rally to the cause, they invaded Britain's northernmost province in September 1775. Expecting Canada to fall like "easy prey," in George Washington's words, they also grossly underestimated what was required for the task. Nine months later, on the eve of the Declaration of Independence, the disheartened and defeated invaders limped home in disgrace.
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In the meantime, Washington had abandoned New York. His army was demoralized, depleted in numbers, short of food, clothing, and arms, and suffering from desertion and disease. Early military reverses hurt American credit in Europe. Designed to attract foreign support, the Declaration of Independence drew little notice in Europe.
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From the time he landed in Paris, the energetic but often indiscreet Deane compromised his own mission. He cut deals that benefited the rebel cause—and from which he profited handsomely, provoking later charges of malfeasance and a nasty spat in Congress. He was surrounded by spies, and his employment of the notorious British agent Edward Bancroft produced an intelligence windfall for London.
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He recruited French officers to serve in the Continental Army and even plotted to replace Washington as commander. He endorsed sabotage operations against British ports, provoking angry protests to France. Even more dangerously, he and his irascible colleague Arthur Lee made the French increasingly uneasy about supporting the Americans. When Franklin landed in France in December 1776, the Revolution was teetering at home; America's first diplomatic mission was doing as much harm as good.

Franklin's mission to Paris is one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of American diplomacy, important, if not indeed decisive, to the outcome of the Revolution. The eminent scientist, journalist, politician, and homespun philosopher was already an international celebrity when he landed in France. Establishing himself in a comfortable house with a well-stocked wine cellar in a suburb of Paris, he made himself the toast of the city. A steady flow of visitors requested audiences and favors such as commissions in the American army. Through clever packaging, he presented himself to French society as the very embodiment of America's revolution, a model of republican simplicity and virtue. He wore a tattered coat and sometimes a fur hat that he despised. He refused to powder his hair. His countenance appeared on snuffboxes, rings, medals, and bracelets, even (it was said) on an envious King Louis XVI's chamber pot. His face was as familiar to the French, he told his daughter, as "that of the moon."
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He was compared to Plato and Aristotle. No social gathering was complete without him. To his special delight, women of all ages fawned over "
mon cher papa,
" as one of his favorites called him. A master showman, publicist, and propagandist, Franklin played his role to the hilt. He shrewdly perceived how the French viewed him and used it to further America's cause.
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With independence hanging in the balance, Franklin's mission was as daunting as that undertaken by any U.S. diplomat at any time. Seventy years old when he landed, he suffered the agony of gout. In addition to
his diplomatic responsibilities, he bore the laborious and time-consuming responsibilities of a consul. The British were enraged with the mere presence in Paris of that "old veteran in mischief," and repeatedly complained to the comte de Vergennes about his machinations.
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His first goal was to get additional money from the French, a task this apostle of self-reliance must have found unsavory at best. He was also to draw France into a war for which it was not yet ready and for which he had little to offer in return. He went months without word from Philadelphia. Most war news came from British sources or American visitors. He was burdened with the presence in Paris of a flock of rival U.S. diplomats including the near paranoid Lee and the imperious and prickly Adams, both of whom constantly fretted about his indolence and Francophilia. The French capital was a veritable den of espionage and intrigue.

With all this, he succeeded brilliantly. The most cosmopolitan of the founders, he had an instinctive feel for what motivated other nations. He patiently endured French caution about entering the war. A master of what a later age would call "spin," he managed to put the worst of American defeats in a positive light. By displaying his affection for things French and not appearing too radical, he made the American Revolution seem less threatening, more palatable, and even fashionable to the court. He won such trust from his French hosts that they insisted he remain when his rivals and would-be replacements sought to have him recalled. He secured loan after loan from Vergennes, sometimes through tactics that verged on extortion. He repeatedly reminded the French that some Americans sought reconciliation with Britain. In January 1778, he conspicuously met with a British emissary to nudge France toward intervention.

That step came on February 6, 1778, when France and the United States agreed to a "perpetual" alliance. By this time, France was better prepared for war and a bellicose spirit was rising in the country. British, French, and Spanish naval mobilization in the Caribbean raised the possibility that war might engulf the West Indies. A major U.S. victory at Saratoga in upstate New York in October 1777 clinched the decision to intervene. British general John Burgoyne's drive down the Hudson Valley was designed to cut off the northeastern colonies, thereby ending the rebellion. The capture of Burgoyne's entire army at Saratoga destroyed such dreams, bolstered sagging American spirits, and spurred peace sentiments
in Britain. It was celebrated in France as a victory for French arms. Beaumarchais was so eager to spread the news that his speeding carriage overturned in the streets of Paris. Franklin's friend Madame Brillon composed a march to "cheer up General Burgoyne and his men, as they head off to captivity."
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Above all, Saratoga provided a convincing and long-sought indication that the Americans could succeed with external assistance, thus easing a French commitment to war.
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Negotiations for the treaty proceeded quickly and without major problems. For the Americans, desperation led pragmatism to win out over ideals. They had long since abandoned their scruples about political connections and their naive belief that trade alone would gain French support. The two nations readily agreed not to conclude a separate peace without each other's consent. Each guaranteed the possessions of the other in North America for the present and forever, a unique requirement for a wartime alliance. For the Americans, the indispensable feature of the agreement was a French promise to fight until their independence had been achieved. The United States gave France a free hand in taking British possessions in the West Indies. The two nations also concluded a commercial agreement, which, while not as liberal as the Model Treaty, did put trade on a most-favored-nation basis, a considerable advance beyond the mercantilist principles that governed most such pacts. Americans wildly celebrated their good fortune. Franklin outdid himself in his enthusiasm for his adopted country. Even the normally suspicious Adams declared the alliance a "rock upon which we may safely build."
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Like all alliances, the arrangement with France was a marriage of expedience, and the two sides brought to their new relationship longstanding prejudices and sharply different perspectives. French diplomats and military officers were not generally sympathetic to the idea of revolution. They saw the United States, like the small nations of Europe, as an object to be manipulated to their own ends. In the best tradition of European statecraft, French diplomats used bribery and other forms of pressure to ensure that the Continental Congress served their nation's interests. French officers in the United States protested that upon their arrival the Americans stopped fighting.
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For their part, Americans complained that French aid was inadequate and French troops did not fight
aggressively. They worried that France did not support their war aims. Among Americans, moreover, until 1763 at least, France had been the mortal enemy. As an absolute monarchy and Catholic to boot, in the eyes of many it was the epitome of evil. Americans inherited from the British deep-seated prejudices, viewing their new allies as small and effeminate, "pale, ugly specimens who lived exclusively on frogs and snails." Some expressed surprise to find French soldiers and sailors "as large & as likely men as can be produced by any other nation." Riots broke out in Boston between French and American sailors. In New York, French troops engaged in looting. To avoid such conflict, French officers often isolated their forces from American civilians, sometimes keeping them on board ships for weeks.
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Whatever the problems, the significance of the alliance for the outcome of the Revolution cannot be overstated.
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The timing was perfect. The news arrived in the United States just after the landing of a British peace commission prepared to concede everything but the word
independence.
The alliance killed a compromise peace by ensuring major external assistance in a war for unqualified independence. Congress celebrated by feting the newly arrived French minister, Conrad Alexandre Gerard, the first diplomat formally accredited to the United States, with food and drink sent by the British commissioners to lubricate the wheels of diplomacy. The French alliance ensured additional money and supplies not only from France but also from other European nations. In all, the United States secured $9 million in foreign military aid without which it would have been difficult to sustain the Revolution. Americans carried French weapons and were paid with money that came from France.
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The French fleet and French troops played a vital role in the decisive battle of Yorktown.

For a steep price—the promise of assistance in the recapture of Gibraltar—France persuaded Spain to enter the conflict. Spain also provided economic and military aid to the United States and drove the British from the Gulf Coast region of North America. A threatened Franco-Spanish invasion of England in 1779 caused panic, making it difficult for the British government to reinforce its navy and troops in North America. The Dutch would also eventually join the allied coalition. An
ill-fated British campaign against Dutch colonial outposts in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean diverted attention and precious resources from the American theater. In 1780, Russia's Catherine the Great formed an armed neutrality, a group of nations including Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, and the Kingdom of Naples, who joined together to protect by force, if necessary, neutral shipping from British depredations, helping ensure a flow of supplies to the United States. The Americans were so enthused about the principles of Catherine's program that as a present belligerent but possibly future neutral they tried to join. The French alliance transformed a localized rebellion in North America into a global war that strained even Britain's vast resources and greatly benefited the Americans.
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Even with such support, the war went badly. A French ploy to end the conflict quickly by blockading New York and forcing the surrender of the British army failed miserably. Seeking to exploit widespread Loyalist sentiment, Britain in 1779 shifted to a southern strategy, taking Savannah and later Charleston. British success in the South forced Congress to abandon its scruples against foreign troops, evoking urgent pleas that France send military forces along with its navy. It would be the summer of 1780 before they arrived, however, and in the meantime the U.S. war effort hit a low point. Troops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania revolted. The army was in "extreme distress," in Vergennes's words, and he warned French naval commanders not to land forces if the American war effort seemed about to collapse.
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Chronic money problems required another huge infusion of French funds. By this time, France was also in dire straits militarily. French policymakers briefly contemplated a truce that would have left Britain in control of the southern states.