The French War Against America

Harlow Giles Unger

Description

Acclaim for The French War Against America

"A very readable and provocative tale of early Franco-American relations that will please some and infuriate others."—John Buchanan, author of The Road to Valley Forge: How Washington Built the Army That Won the Revolution
"Harlow Unger has written an amazing tour de force revealing France's two-faced role in the American Revolution and the early Republic. The book also has enormous relevance for contemporary politics. Don't miss it."—Thomas Fleming, author of Liberty!: The American Revolution

Sujets

• Revolutionary Periode
• Histoire
• France ? United States relations
• History of France
• United States
• History
• Lafayette

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781620459607
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The French War Against America
The French War Against America
How a Trusted Ally Betrayed Washington and the Founding Fathers

H ARLOW G ILES U NGER

John Wiley Sons, Inc.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2005 by Harlow Giles Unger. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Photo credits: pages 9, 29, 36, 45, 47, 54, 69, 79, 100, 102, 111, 113, 136, 173, 198, and 223, R union des Mus es Nationaux; pages 51, 88, 94, 119, 139, 155, and 239, Library of Congress.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Unger, Harlow G., date.
The French war against America: how a trusted ally betrayed Washington and the founding fathers / Harlow Giles Unger.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-65113-3 (Cloth)
1. United States-Foreign relations-France.2. France-Foreign relations-United States.3. United States-Foreign relations-To 1865. I. Title.
E183.8.F8U48 2005
327.44073 09-dc22 2004017100
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To my dear friends Gene and Lorraine Zaborowski and To my son, Richard C. Unger
Contents

Maps and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Seeds of Treachery
1 The War in the Wilderness
2 Shattered Glory
3 The Treacherous Alliance
4 So Many Spies in Our Midst
5 The French Invasion
6 Winners and Losers
7 The Appetite of Despotism
8 Down with Washington!
9 Toasts to Sedition
10 The War with France
11 I Renounce Louisiana
12 The American Menace
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Maps and Illustrations

Maps
New France, 1664-1689
North America, 1713-1754
North America, 1763-1775
North America, 1783
Territorial growth of the United States from 1803
Illustrations
Louis XV
Duc de Choiseul
Baron Johann de Kalb
Louis XVI
Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes
George Washington
Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
Comte de Broglie
Marquis de Lafayette
John Adams
John Hancock
Admirai Comte d Estaing
Comte de Rochambeau
Admirai Comte de Grasse
Surrender at Yorktown
Benjamin Franklin
Execution of King Louis XVI
Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton
Edmond Charles Gen t
Thomas Jefferson
Maximilien Robespierre
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand P rigord
Napol on I
James Monroe
Acknowledgments

First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Andr and Eva Mandel, my friends of nearly fifty years, for their ever-present support, enthusiasm, patience, and love. Andr s scholarly assistance proved invaluable in finding and translating French archival materials cited in this book-much of it in old, often archaic French. Always ready to help me in so many ways, he willingly undertook research chores, which made gathering background materials for this book quicker and more efficient.
Others who helped me compile the materials for this book include Peter Jaffe, of the rare books department of Argosy Book Store, New York; Louise Jones, librarian at the Yale Club of New York City; economist Jonathan Falk; and the librarians and research aides at the Biblioth que Historique de la Ville de Paris and Biblioth que Nationale de France in Paris. I am also most grateful to production editor Kimberly Monroe-Hill and copy editor Shelly Perron, who, despite growling authors like me, too often toil and suffer anonymously to ensure accuracy in books such as this and add much luster to their contents. Thank you.
And finally, my deepest thanks, as always, for the support and guidance of my friends, Edward Knappman, my literary agent, and Hana Lane, my editor, who together helped me travel roads I would never have discovered.
Introduction: The Seeds of Treachery

No allied nation infuriates Americans more these days than France and its relentless, often irrational campaign to deprecate almost everything American-American people, American culture, American politics, history, economy, business, and, above all, American foreign policy. The French government permeates almost every area of French life-schoolrooms, churches, books, newspapers, radio and television, theater, film, even museum exhibits and cultural events, and, of course, foreign affairs-with anti-American vitriol. In addition, the French disseminate propaganda far beyond French borders via the globe-engirdling Agence France Presse news network, which feeds media in the vast French-speaking world of the former French empire in West Africa, the Middle East, Indochina, Polynesia, and the Caribbean.
To many Americans, the incessant French assault seems particularly odious coming only decades after the United States sacrificed so many innocent lives and invested so much national treasure in the gallant rescues of France in two world wars-wars that France helped start and the United States sought to avoid.
Although obsessive French anti-Americanism has dismayed and dumbfounded a succession of American presidents, it would not have surprised our Founding Fathers: They are not a moral people, John Adams warned Congress in 1782, knowing then that far from being our ally, France was, in fact, our enemy. 1 It is not in their interest, declared Chief Justice John Jay, that we should become a great and formidable people, and therefore they will not help us to become so. 2
Contrary to what many Americans believe-indeed, contrary to what most of us learned in school-the French did not support the American Revolution to help create a free and independent new nation, but to try to restore French sovereignty over North America. As Adams and Jay pointed out, the French intended their financial and military aid to prolong the revolution and weaken both the English and Americans enough to permit French reconquest of Canada and territories lost fifteen years earlier in the French and Indian War. Although Adams and Jay foiled the scheme, French rulers would continue plotting for the next century to recapture North America-only to be frustrated and often humiliated by the upstart new nation they helped create. The fifty-year-old campaign of anti-Americanism since World War II is the residue of those frustrations.
Until the creation of the United States, the French had dominated the Western World for the better part of ten centuries-by God s will! Or so the French believed and, in many cases, still believe.
For centuries, French priests, parents, and teachers indoctrinated generations of French children that God chose France as the birthplace of nations when He designated Clovis, king of the Franks, to create the kingdom of France from disparate tribes. Clovis thanked God by converting to Catholicism in A.D . 696 and declaring the nation Catholic. Pope Athanasius II accordingly proclaimed France the elder daughter of the church, and ordered the French clergy to serve the king in governing the nation. Thereafter church and crown remained inextricably linked, with Pope Stephan coming from Rome to the basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris to crown P pin the Short in 751. He anointed him with holy oil, as the prophets had anointed the biblical kings of Israel, and he declared the French the People of God.
French history texts for pr adolescents write that God appointed P pin s son Charlemagne the great civilizer to embrace all Europe within the French empire. Charlemagne s armies swept across the face of the Continent-Germany, Austria, Italy, Corsica, Sardinia, northern Spain, Denmark, and eastern Europe. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne in Saint Peter s in Rome and declared him Carolus Augustus, crowned by God, great and pacifying emperor, governor of the Holy Roman Empire and, by the grace of God, king of the Franks and Lombards. 3 The kings of Spain ( His Most Catholic Majesty ) and Britain ( His Most Britannic Majesty ) paid homage to Charlemagne as His Most Christian Majesty, king of all Christendom and protector of Christian sanctuaries in Jerusalem.
In the centuries that followed, the links between church and state grew stronger and molded the French into the most warlike people the world had ever seen. The ravages of the Huns had lasted little more than a century; the Mongols less than two centuries; the Mohammedans