Community Chat

[GoneButNotForgotten]

...France gave its support to the American revolutionaries by signing a Treaty of Alliance in  Paris.

I saw this in the news today and it got me thinking...would the Americans have defeated the British in the Revolution if not for the aid we received from the French? I'm no history expert but I think we couldn't have succeeded without France's help. They gave us money, ships, troops, war materiel, etc.

The ironic part of it--I think--is that all the aid France gave the United States is part of what brought on the French Revolution.

[Love my grandkids]

I've always been a big fan of the Marquis de Lafayette.

[just bee]

On the same day, Benjamin Franklin also signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce which promoted trade between France and America. 

Follow the money.  Not only was the relationship good for the countries' economies, it was a way to remind the British that the French still didn't care for them much.

[GoneButNotForgotten]

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@Love my grandkids wrote:

I've always been a big fan of the Marquis de Lafayette.

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Did you know that he gave to George Washington the key to the Bastile? I believe it's on display either in some museum or possibly in GW's home at Mt. Vernon. And Washington felt that Lafayette was like a son to him and the Marquis returned the feeling?

[Foxxee]

German states, too, fought on both sides, but it was Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a German-Prussian army officer who served as inspector general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. 

His extensive training in the British and French armies would eventually bring to the American soldiers the technical knowledge necessary to create an army.