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How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

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Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#51

Post by akerl_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
akerl_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty different thing than there being broad support for "freedom fries", or that the freedom fries thing was a relevant factor in affecting how citizens of other countries view the US or Americans. The US population's approval rating of our own elected government officials swings to a similar extent in basically every election cycle, so it's hard for me to imagine a world where that shift applied to a fore…

You may not believe that such a thing has an effect on the broader sentiment of how the population of one country views another but I believe it does and Gallup's own poll seems to at least confirm some correlation, possibly not causation. The trope of the French as 'cowardly cheese eating surrender monkeys' is well known enough to have it's own wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_m…

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french...

I'm not sure the polling data for how favorably the French population views the US aligns with what you're saying.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#52

Post by bsder »

Jensson wrote: post #10
mncharity wrote: post #6

> The stunning success at Saratoga gave Franklin what he had been pleading for — explicit French support in the war. Or, in contrast to a story of straightforward military system-y tipping point, perhaps ... > The Battle of Saratoga was [...] not pivotal in convincing France that the rebels could defeat Britain. [...] French support depended far more upon court intrigue [1] > “sometimes history happens by accident,”…

The Brittish hammered down basically every other rebellion, without French intervention they would likely have ramped up further. They barely sent any troops to America and gave up really quickly, for example in the Second Boer War they sent 5 times as many soldiers, if they had sent that many to America which they probably would have without French intervention then America would have lost completely, no doubt.

You are contrasting the Revolutionary War against a war a century later.

The ability to muster, transport, and support that many troops depends upon modern industrialization.

Maintaining war against the Americans in the late 1700s was brutally expensive for Britain--with minimal ability to recover the costs after they "won". And this isn't even considering the fact that being part of the British army and navy was horrifically terrible--deserting to the American side was almost always an improvement unless you were an officer.

If France and Spain hadn't been present in North America, Britain might have just told the colonies to sod off rather than fight a war.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#53

Post by jacquesm »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #50
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guarantee you that on this side of the pond it wasn't received as a joke. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CheeseEatingSurr... You can downplay it all you want, the fact is that this sort of thing happens and it can't just be shrugged off by 'oh, we were just joking' because of the context in which those things happened. Symbolism is a thing and by having your official governing bodies involved you lose…

The person who said it wasn't joking. They weren't speaking for the rest of us, though, and the rest of us thought what they said was stupid. And see, that kind of thing goes both ways. Every stupid thing anyone says in France against America, we hear that and take it seriously. You've got your hotheads. So do we. As we ignore our own, maybe we should ignore each others' as well.

That's fair.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#54

Post by jacquesm »

akerl_ wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not believe that such a thing has an effect on the broader sentiment of how the population of one country views another but I believe it does and Gallup's own poll seems to at least confirm some correlation, possibly not causation. The trope of the French as 'cowardly cheese eating surrender monkeys' is well known enough to have it's own wikipedia page ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_m…

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french... I'm not sure the polling data for how favorably the French population views the US aligns with what you're saying.

I see absolutely nothing in that article that contradicts my point, what exactly are you seeing that I am missing?

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#55

Post by pyuser583 »

InTheArena wrote: post #8
mncharity wrote: post #6

> The stunning success at Saratoga gave Franklin what he had been pleading for — explicit French support in the war. Or, in contrast to a story of straightforward military system-y tipping point, perhaps ... > The Battle of Saratoga was [...] not pivotal in convincing France that the rebels could defeat Britain. [...] French support depended far more upon court intrigue [1] > “sometimes history happens by accident,”…

As someone who studied American history, this point of view always irks me a little bit. The reality of it is that all of the assumptions that America would have lost without French support is trying to prove a counterfactual. There are a lot of reasons to think that it would not have been so. Every southern campaign that the British had tried to pull off was a disaster. The cost to the British crown of maintaining a…

I’ve heard that due to the militia system, an insanely large number of Americans participated in the revolution.

Much higher than the conscript armies of the 20th century - possibly as high as 13%. That’s greater mobilization than in WWII.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#56

Post by akerl_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #54
akerl_ wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french... I'm not sure the polling data for how favorably the French population views the US aligns with what you're saying.

I see absolutely nothing in that article that contradicts my point, what exactly are you seeing that I am missing?

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french...

French favorable vs unfavorable views of the US flex similarly to US views of France, and are likewise triggered by policy/political decisions in each country.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#57

Post by odd_perfect_num »

Nomentatus wrote: post #46
InTheArena wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who studied American history, this point of view always irks me a little bit. The reality of it is that all of the assumptions that America would have lost without French support is trying to prove a counterfactual. There are a lot of reasons to think that it would not have been so. Every southern campaign that the British had tried to pull off was a disaster. The cost to the British crown of maintaining a…

It's a maxim that guerrilla wars succeed with a lot of external help and supply, if they succeed at all, throughout history. That's fact. The French were financial supporters from before the shooting began; and supplied high tech gunpowder that meant that from the start the colonists' muskets had significantly more range, no small thing. Without France, nothing. The French ended up bankrupting the state due to extrem…

The American Revolution was not a Guerilla war. It was primarily fought with pitched battles between opposing armies. This was the case from the first shots (at Lexington, and subsequently Concord and Bunker Hill) to the last at Yorktown.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#58

Post by jacquesm »

akerl_ wrote: post #56
jacquesm wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see absolutely nothing in that article that contradicts my point, what exactly are you seeing that I am missing?

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french... French favorable vs unfavorable views of the US flex similarly to US views of France, and are likewise triggered by policy/political decisions in each country.

Consider me dense but that is not the sentiment that I get from the article, it lumps all of Europe together, not France in isolation and that's the subject here I thought?

The way I read the article is: Europeans on average are positive about their relationship with the United States, with the French sitting at 84% positive, the reverse is reflected in the views of the United States versus Europe as a whole at 73%. Individual sentiment of the United States versus various European countries is not broken out.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#59

Post by akerl_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #58
akerl_ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/01/19/british-french... French favorable vs unfavorable views of the US flex similarly to US views of France, and are likewise triggered by policy/political decisions in each country.

Consider me dense but that is not the sentiment that I get from the article, it lumps all of Europe together, not France in isolation and that's the subject here I thought? The way I read the article is: Europeans on average are positive about their relationship with the United States, with the French sitting at 84% positive, the reverse is reflected in the views of the United States versus Europe as a whole at 73%.…

The article is about the sweeping change in European favorability of the US in the wake of Biden taking office.

The graph I linked from the article specifically breaks out France from the UK and Germany, and shows that the French population's position on the US has inverted several times in the measured period, with low points during the Trump and Bush presidencies where only around 40% of French respondents viewed the US favorably.

I'm going to stop responding here rather than keep digging the thread deeper.

Re: How France Changed the Tides of the American Revolution (2018)

#60

Post by odd_perfect_num »

chasil wrote: post #47
InTheArena wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who studied American history, this point of view always irks me a little bit. The reality of it is that all of the assumptions that America would have lost without French support is trying to prove a counterfactual. There are a lot of reasons to think that it would not have been so. Every southern campaign that the British had tried to pull off was a disaster. The cost to the British crown of maintaining a…

Washington lost most, if not all of the major battles that he fought. His opponent, General Howe, obviously had sympathy for the American cause, as he stayed the hand of destruction many times. It was only when General Nathaniel Green was unleashed that victory favored us, ripping Tarlelton and Cornwallis' forces to tatters, giving us Yorktown.

>> if not all

Pardon? He forced the British to vacate Boston, and won decisive victories at Trenton and Yorktown. His worst defeats were delaying actions around NYC, where, in each case, he withdrew in good form.

I would attribute Howe's failures to incompetence rather than treason.

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