In 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Companies and is brought to you today by your local cable or satellite provider. Good evening, can everybody hear me okay . My name is elizabeth with smithsonian associates. It is my pleasure to welcome you to brothers at arms. Let me ask you to silence and turn off cell phones or other Electron Electronics you might have with you. We have bright lights in here because our friends at cspan are filming tonights program. I ask when we go to the q and a part of the event we make a line here in the front because of the filming from cspan. To our valued members who make tonight and each night possible, our thanks for a warm welcome. For those who might be joining for the first time an equally warm welcome and i encourage you to check out all of the programming offered by smithsonian associations. We are welcome to introduce Larrie Ferreiro who received his degree from imperil college in london and teaches history and engineering at George Mason University and the Stevens Institute of technology in new jersey. He served for over 35 years in the u. S. Navy, coast guard and department of defense and an ex change engineer in the french navy. He is the author of three books, ships and science, the birth of architecture. Measure of the earth. And this newest book brothers at arms american independence and the men of france and spain who saved it again, thank you for joining us and i would like to welcome larry to the stage. Thank you. Guest thank you. By early 1776, america was fighting britain but without a navy, al artillery or even gunfire. Only britain and france had the military strength to defeat the british. We needed their alliance. As john adams pointed out foreign knowledge couldnt recognize us until we recognized ourselves as an independent nation and jefferson said a declaration of independence would help us. I say it was not just the declaration of independence it was also the declaration that we depend on france and spain, too. Now, the americans knew france and spain wanted a rematch with great britain. They had come out badly in the seven years war which ended in 1763 with britain and france loosing canada and spain loosing florida. France and spain were already closely aligned by both family and military ties. It was called the bourbon family compact with the bourbon family nation and burke nations wanted revenge against britain. Spain wanted to regain jibalter and drive the british from the gulf of mexico. Both nations are predicted that the American Revolution would hap long before the people knew it would work. In 1776, the French Foreign minister said only the future American Revolution will consign england to a state of weakness. They knew this revolt of the american colonies that was certain to happen would weaken britain so they sent spies and observers to see when that would happen. It would not take place for another eight years. When the fighting began in 1775, the british army was supplied by gun factories that turned out hundreds of thousands of arms per year . France and spain provided arms and merchants as fronts to disguise their source from britain and not reveal the arms came from the french and Spanish Government but the british were not fooled. In the end, over 90 of all the arms and the equivalent of 30 billion dollars in aid would come from overseas. May worked with dean who was the american envoy in paris to negotiate a contract for the arms ever n before the news of the declaration of independence reached france. And five ships carried those arms across the atlantic in 1776 and 1777. They arrived just in time to furnish the american troops who were preparing to meet at saratoga. It was the french arms that turned the tide of the campaign. He would have made an easy march to albany so it was these arms from overseas that gave the americans their first major victory against the british. Meanwhile, most of the french and european volunteers who came to the United States did so to fight their longtime enemies the british. But along the way, they also made the american cause their own and washington came to depend upon these immigrants who got the job done as the hamilton musical so aptly puts it. Washington had a new chief of early and planned the sieges and gave needed strategic advice. Washington had a man to create a Training Plan and regime that would turn the band of militia into a professional Continental Army a fighting force to be reckoned with. Lafayette commanded troops and kept corn wallace from coming north and eventually followed him to yorktown. The battle of brandy wine in 1777 was washingtons attempt to prevent the british from occupying philadelphia. It was the trial by fire of these french and european volunteers who had been so mistrusted you can see the quote up there so many spies in our camp is how we regarded him before the battle of brandy wine. But the battle changed that. A calvary charge led the troops and today the army corp of engineers now has the flurry medal for courage and boldness. After the battle, this initial mistrust turned first to acceptance and then to reliance. And green, who had called these men so many spies in our camp just a few weeks earlier, actually came to rely on both of them during the certain campaign. Back in versia. He made almost all of the key decisions that made this alliance. His primary goal as i mentioned was to have the war of american independence significantly weaken britain so that the balance of power was thrown back in frances favor. He had already decided to rely on the americans even before the battle of saratoga on the grounds that without france the americans would lose the war and that a reunited British Empire on the noerth American Continent would threaten the french sugar colonies in the caribbean and that was to great of risk to ent entertain. So this was the pretext he needed to form thought alliance. The treaty brought france into war against britain and brought the french navy to the american shores. That forced the british troops to evacuate philadelphia and consolidate new york city. At the time, spain was aligned with france but they could not risk going to war in early 1778 and the reason was they had a treasure fleet at sea still carrying 50 billion in silver from peru and until that treasure was safely home in spain they could not risk having that attacked by the british. When that fleet safely arrived in 1778, spain was free to go to war with britain. The Spanish Foreign minister had established the spanish goals of the war. Recover jiballter and drive the british from the gulf of mexico. Spain offered mediate. Britain refused to hand over jiballter. Gibalter. France went to war against britain on the side of france. It is no stretch to say that britain sacrificed america for gibralt gibralter. This pile of rocks. Spain would not ally with the americans during the war but did agree the terms of the peace could only happen with britains recognition of the sovereignty of the United States. The entry of spain alongside france fundamentally changed the nature of the war. From a regional clash in north america to a global conflict. The british navy and army were spread every thinner around the world. The ships were along the line and they were overwhelmed. Instead of only attacking the americans in america britain now had to shield england from the threat of invasion, defend against the see of gibralter. This all happened in 17791780 as the war in america was coming to its lowest point. You can see by Alexander Hamiltons comment if we are saved, france and spain must save us. That reflected the fact that americans understood winning the war against britain rested with france and spain. After spain declared war in 1779, the french and spanish navies formed a fleet of 150 ships and 30,000 troops to invade britain. This was larger than the famed armada of 1588. The planned invasion of britain would capture portsmith and southampton, wreck havoc on the economy, and it would potentially bring britain to the peace table. But it was sidelined by a massive dysintry outbreak. The spanish admiral was unable to carry out this mission and the entire invasion scheme fizzled out. Now, as a sidenote, the french navy had assigned a little known american captain, John Paul Jones, to create a diversion for britain by cruising around the British Empire by cruising around with a squad. No british was fool enough to chase after John Paul Jones and this diversion was largely ignored. But his victory over the larger british saps made the headlines in the american newspapers as a david versus goliath conflict that stood for a much larger britain versus american war. Back in new orleans, the governor of spanish louisiana supplied the troops up the western mississippi and what is todays pittsburgh with arms and ammunition. But when war was finally declared by spain against britain in 1779, he lept into action and laufnched a series o attacks at mobile, natch ez, and baton rouge. After a series of setbacks due to hurricanes in 1771 he commanded a joint force that captured pensacola. Britain was out of west florida now. With spain ruling the gulf of mexico and with britain no longer a threat, the french involve commander who had just arrived on scene asked the spanish navy to protect the french sugar colonies while he took the entire fleet up to the chesapeake. Now, washington and rogues learned they were headed to the chesapeake and raced south to new york to meet him and circle con wallace at yorktown. It was said of him, the grass stands 64 on days of paddle. And yes, since you asked, he was an ancestor of the rock star astrophycisist neal degrass. He embraced him when he met him and explained [foreign phrase]. The troops were landed around yorktown when the british footnote fle fleet appeared. It prevented him from resupplying or evacuating corn wa wallace and that sealed the fate of the british at yorktown. The story of yorktown is very well known. After they had led the troops on a quick march from new york to yorktown they surrounded corn wall ace. The siege began on october 9th, 1781. The guns blasted away for five days while the siege line advanc advanced. It was french officers who directed the siege and the gunfire. The french also suffered twice the casualities of the americans during the battle. The situation for corn wallace became unattattaiunattainable. When they came out to offer the surrender, the scene in the painting, they considered the victory to be a french one and offered the surrender to rosham bow who understand this was a french victory. But he also understood that the moment belonged to george washington. Without a word, he gestured ohare to washington. Washington in turn gestured him to his own second in command, benjamin lincoln, who accepted with surrender. After yorktown, there were no more major american battles but that didnt mean the fighting stopped. The fighting was continuing around the world between brit n britain, the Bourbon Alliance and other nations. In fact, by the time of yorktown, britain was fighting five separate nation states. It was simply overwhelmed. For example, the battle of gibralter observed 60,000 spanish troops in a fouryear siege that failed and yes it is a mushroom cloud. The fighting was that fierce. The dutch republic was drawn into the war for allowing supplies to go to france and the battles in the north sea were equally as advances. The last battle of the war, happening in india happened six months after the preliminary peace treaties were signed. The peace treaty ended eight years of war and over 200,000 french and spanish troops and sa sailors fraught fat war xierd to 280,000 americans compared. They were as invested in the war as we were. Americans could never have won the war without france and france would never have fought the war without spain. What i hope all of you take away from this is the following the United States did not achieve independence by itself. It was born as the center piece of working together to defeat a common advirsary. It continues today to define the United States as the in indepensable nation. Thank you. [applause] question number one. Can you Say Something about the debt that france went into . And my second question where is russia in all of this and catherine the great . I do remember reading that she was not a fan of george the iii but if you had any comments about catherines role in what her views were i would be appreciative. Certainly. I do discuss both in the book. The first question is about the debt of france after the war. The short answer was that it was in debt but it had seen that level of debt before. It was not crushing in the way it is sometimes portrayed. Just to give you some background, after the sevenyears war, all the countries, britain and france were heavily in debt but through strict Financial Measures france was able to repay the debt and they both entered the war of american independence relatively free of debt. France abandoned strict financial policies and allowed less than savory ways of collecting money to creep back in and they were not able to get the kind of loan rates that britain was able to get because it had a centralized bank. At the end of the war of american independence, both nations as a percentage of their Gross Domestic Product were equally in debt. Britain had better terms, they could pay it down quicker, france couldnt pay it down and they continued to accumulate debt on top of that. The point is when the french revolution which was to a large point a result of frances fiscal crisis erupted, yes, the American Revolution was one cause but it was not the catalyst or the primary cause. It had abandoned good fiscal policy. That is the first one. Catherine the great was a wonderful, hidden player in all of this. European politics didnt stop while the american war was going on. At the center of bergens juggling was russia. They just recently invaded crimea sound familiar . And also, there was a siege or not siege but partition of poland. Catherine the great was making noises about helping britain and britain was certainly trying to attract russias help by offering them minorca as a prize which catherine the ii wisely refused. She was very concerned about britains continued crediation on mutual shipping. Many nations were helping france. The dutch republic, for example. She authored something known as the league of armed neutrality which was supposed to be a fleet of a dozen ships that would control the oceans and stop britain from attacking neutral ships. That was the intent. Unfortunately, it brought the dutch republic to the war because they thought they would be protected. They were not and britain declared war and it was devastating for them. So, russia never officially got into the war but they were always behind the scenes in everybodys calculation. That help . Yes, thank you. Sir . If internationalism is center to the birth of our independence, why is american isolation such a persistent and if i dare say reoccurring phenomenon . I have thought of this question and unfortunately this question is not for me. This question well, since the beginning we have been a nation that has depended on alliances and that is who we are as a nation. The question is more for the administration. Historically we have actually despite protests from time to time about isolationism, about closing the gates and barring the door, we have generally been quite open. That is who we are as a people. I think the real question that you should all be asking is if that is who we are as a nation, as a people, how does the administration, the congress, the government, live up to that and live up to our core set of beliefs and actions over the past 200 years . That is the question you need to ask more so. The answer is that they made the decision with the full knowledge, by washington that he had done so. To to washingtons disappointment, washington was too good a strategist to reject what he was doing. Here was the issue. You ask washington did want to get new york back. And i mentioned louis, he was washingtons righthand person. And deportation went to lay siege to the city because thats what they did for living in the seven years war for 100 years before that. So he understood the logistics that would be required to lay siege to an overwhelming force inside and they would need a solid naval presence to be able to carry out the siege. They needed both. The problem with new york city is that its hard to invest in attack has a besieging army. But the seaward side is difficult because there is an area sandy hook which is too shallow for large depot vessels to go inches thats thats why almost all the british vessels were small. Unless theyre able to cross that bar by offloading their guns which would be death, they couldnt lay effective naval siege. So they required more troops than washington or had. Now they both understood there was a strategic opportunity from the chesapeake that had just afforded itself. They wrote letters and the it was concorde and a sister ship which was just up a few years ago. Some of the greatest and they were architecture and i have to say that because im a naval architect. Great ships and they they said in the letter it was really up to you, but intense your best opportunity its going to be in the chesapeake. And by the way, they had sent pilots for any port of call. So they sent pilots for all of those locations. Went across read the letter and he was a very skilled mariner who fought alongside the army, he saw the writing and saw what they were saying and said, i can can come up i will come to the chesapeake. Its a two day sale from the chesapeake to new york. Thats where you have to meet me. That same ship took the letter back. At that point there were around new york city. They had to do a quick march and job clintons attention away from where they were. Everyone who studies studies this was the most amazing thing. The two together managed to draw two separate fleets and three armies into one place into a very narrow window. They were only going to be there for a few weeks during the hurricane season. Somehow they managed to pull it off.