The Franco-American Alliance 1778

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2021

⏱️ 51 minutes

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Summary

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 1781 With Frank Cogliano Professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh Kathleen Burk Professor Emerita of Modern and Contemporary History at University College London And Michael Rapport Reader in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow Producer: Simon Tillotson

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:30.0	The French taxpayer found the cost of that unsustainable and soon they too revolted.
0:37.0	When France looked to its American ally for support in the French Revolutionary Wars
0:41.2	with Britain a few years later, Americans had to choose where their long-term interests
0:45.6	lay and they turned from their supposed friend to their former foe, which was the start
0:50.8	of a special relationship.
0:52.7	With me to discuss the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, our Frank O'Liano, Professor
0:57.5	of American History at the University of Edinburgh, Michael Report, Reader in Modern European
1:02.1	History at the University of Glasgow and Kathleen Burke, Professor Emeritus at Modern and Contemporary
1:07.1	History at University College London.
1:09.1	Let's start with the previous decade and the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
1:13.8	Why was that important?
1:15.8	Well it was important because it changed the entire world for the British and to less
1:20.4	extent the Americans because Britain had fought four wars against France.
1:26.1	But the 1756-63, seven years war in Europe and French and Indian in America, was the
1:33.2	first one that was actually centered on the American colonies.
1:36.8	Britain had decided that it wanted, essentially, take over the North American continent.
1:41.1	They wanted to push France out of Quebec and push the Spaniards out of East and West
1:46.4	Florida.
1:47.7	And this in fact is what happened.
1:50.3	So at the end of the war, Britain was now an international global power and this changed
1:56.6	her view of colonial matters.
	...

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