Jonathan Thomas (00:06) Check that we're recording. All right. We are recording. Perfect. You were uploaded. So, okay. All right. Welcome to the Angotopia podcast where we explore British history, travel and culture. This week, we're going to broaden our historical lens to take a deeper look at the American revolution, not just the pivotal moment in American history, but an event that also reshaped British history and the global balance of power. I'm your host Jonathan Thomas. And today I'm joined by historian John Ferling, author of Shots Heard Around the World, the Untold Story of the American Revolution. In this sweeping and deeply researched new book, Ferling revisits the familiar story of the American struggle for independence, but he tells it through a global lens, illuminating how the revolution was shaped by the decisions of leaders in London, Paris, Madrid, and beyond. We'll explore how the Revolutionary War became an international conflict involving five major powers, discuss why the war dragged on for eight long years, and examine how unexpected choices and shifting alliances ultimately brought the war to a dramatic close. Ferling brings fresh insight to well-known figures like Washington Franklin and King George III, and gives long overdue attention to the European actors who helped shape the outcome of the war. His account is especially timely as we approach the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and invites us to reconsider how the struggle for independence is understood around the world. Welcome, John. John Ferling (01:45) Well, I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Jonathan Thomas (01:49) No problem. Thank you for being on the podcast. love, I love talking to historians because you guys, you guys have my dream job, professional historian. love it. So please give us some background on your career as a historian and your background. John Ferling (01:58) you Well, it started a long time ago. ⁓ Actually, I got interested in history ⁓ when I was in college. When I started, I had no idea what I was going to do. And as I took the required history courses, I disliked every one of them. They were just boring lecture courses. Until the last semester of my sophomore year, the last required history course that I had to take, ⁓ the professor really turned me on to history. He did the lecture. He had us buy a series of five books. And we read about 50 pages for each class period and discussed what we had read and by the end of the semester, I knew that I wanted to go to grad school and I wanted to teach and write ⁓ history. that's fortunately things worked out for me that I've been able to do that. And I had a 40 year ⁓ teaching career and I've been writing all along. during that career. My first book came out 48 years ago, in fact, in 1977. It was a book on a loyalist, Joseph Galloway, who had been a major political figure in Pennsylvania, a political partner with Benjamin Franklin. But whereas Franklin became a revolutionary, Galloway remained loyal. to Britain and he served the British Army as an intelligence official during the war and then was police commissioner of Occupy in Philadelphia. And through working on Galloway, I really got interested in military history and I wrote a book on... warfare in the colonial period and through that I got interested in George Washington and discovered that no one, and this was in the 1980s, that no one had written one volume biography of Washington in 50 years. So I wrote a one volume biography of Washington and working on that I got interested in John Adams. I kept running into him and I discovered no one had written a one volume biography of Adams in 50 years. wrote a biography of him and it just kept going on ⁓ that way. Most of, I wrote two books on warfare in the colonial period and a couple of books on ⁓ politics in the early republic. In fact, my best-selling book is a book entitled Adams versus Jefferson on the election of 1800. But most of what I've written has been on the American Revolution and recently, the last several years, I've really ⁓ gotten back more into military history and that's what this book is largely about. Jonathan Thomas (05:13) You sound like an expert. So that's great. I love talking to experts because they it's always illuminating. ⁓ So speaking of your new book, ⁓ what inspired you to write Shots Heard Around the World? How does it differ from your previous work on the revolution? John Ferling (05:17) Hahaha Yeah, I have to give you a little background. My previous book was Winning Independence and I submitted the manuscript for that book. ⁓ two days before everything got shut down in the pandemic in early 2020. So for a year, I couldn't get in the library, couldn't do anything and didn't know what I was going to do. And early in 2021, I got a phone call from my editor at Bloomsbury Press and Anton Mueller. And he said that they were interested in in having a book or two for the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. And so I started thinking about that. and Anton and I kicked around a few possible topics. And when the library reopened, I went back and dug a little bit. And out of all of that came the idea of doing a kind of an international history of the Revolutionary War. I think what When most people in America at any rate think of the Revolutionary War, they think of the leading generals, George Washington or Nathaniel Green or Henry Knox or whatever, or they may think of common soldiers or they may think of a particular battle, whether it's Brandywine or Saratoga or whatever. But they don't think very much about what was going on elsewhere. And they don't think they don't ⁓ remember that this really became a global war. I hate to admit this, but I taught courses on the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War many times. And I don't think I emphasized the global nature of the war sufficiently in those courses. So so I wanted to to do that and let people know that this was a war that wasn't just fought in North America, there was fighting in the Caribbean, was fighting in the Mediterranean, in Central America, in South America, in Europe, in Africa, on the subcontinent. So it really was a global war and a very long war. was America's longest war until the war in Vietnam. It went on from eight long difficult years. Jonathan Thomas (08:14) Yeah, I remember when I was in college doing American history, ⁓ my professor made the argument that the Revolutionary War was actually one of the first world wars and that it's because of its global nature. that blew my mind. was like, what? wasn't this parochial colonial issue just between, you know, internal matter and the British empire. No, it involved a lot of actors and it's American foreign policy is never, never on its own. John Ferling (08:31) You It sounds as if he did a better job than I did when I was teaching. Jonathan Thomas (08:51) So how long did the research and writing process take? Were there any major surprises along the way as you were digging through the library? John Ferling (09:03) Yeah, it took about three years all together ⁓ to pull everything together. And as far as surprises were concerned, I have... I think there were a couple of things that surprised me a bit, and we'll probably talk about both of these as we go along. One was that I didn't realize that there was as much ⁓ internal dissension ⁓ and opposition to the war in Great Britain. as ⁓ there was. And so I tried to go into that in the course of the book. As the war goes along, not at first. I think it was initially a very popular ⁓ war in England. But by the time a couple of years have gone by, It began to appear as though this was a sinkhole that the British had gotten into, that there was no end in sight and ⁓ that victory ⁓ might be elusive in this war. ⁓ so there began to be a good bit of opposition. Towns were sending in petitions to ⁓ George III urging an end ⁓ to the war. And I was surprised at the degree of opposition. In a sense, it reminded me of the opposition to the war in Vietnam when I was a young man ⁓ in the 1960s and 70s. It wasn't an exact duplicate of that, but there was more opposition than I realized. And I think the other thing that surprised me was that I developed something of an affinity for the French foreign minister during the war, Comte de Vigiennes. I had run into Vigiennes ⁓ earlier. I had written a book on Jefferson and Hamilton ⁓ several years ago. And after the war, Jefferson was the US minister to France. So he worked with Vigiennes during that. period. He had some on the whole very complimentary things to say about Virgins. He portrayed him as being dedicated and well prepared and easy to get along with and so forth. And so I knew something about Virgins but as I went along I just developed a much greater admiration of for him. And I think those were probably the two surprises that I encountered doing my work on them. Jonathan Thomas (12:20) What sources or archives proved to be the most helpful or illuminating during your research? John Ferling (12:29) Yeah, well I used the papers of several of the American activists, papers of Washington and John Adams and Jefferson and Franklin and John Jay in particular. And there's a source called Letters of Delegates to Congress. It's a 25 volume series that includes, really a sort of a day by day ⁓ account of what's going on in Congress and it's based on letters and diaries kept by members of Congress. that was important and I used quite a few pamphlets that were published both in Britain and ⁓ in the United States. ⁓ Some written before the war began, some written ⁓ during the during the war and I relied pretty heavily on a multi-volume series that's called Parliamentary History and despite the title it's not really a history of Parliament it's a I guess transcripts might be the best term for the debates that occurred within the Parliament. And of course, many of the debates had nothing to do with the Revolutionary War, but I focused on the ones that did. so the speeches that were given in the Parliament, the debates that occurred, show up all through the end notes in the book. Jonathan Thomas (14:16) I'm curious, this isn't on my list of questions, so sorry if I stump you. How different were the congressional official sources and the parliamentary official sources in the way they presented information? Were they very similar or were they completely different? John Ferling (14:35) Yeah, no, Congress, Continental Congress published the journals of the Continental Congress, but they didn't include any debates. It was just sort of a compendium of what they had decided ⁓ to do. So it might mention that orders were given to a governor to call out the militia or There might be something in there about. ⁓ quotas that each state had for the number of men that they had to raise to meet ⁓ that year's ⁓ supply, that sort of thing. But the debates that went on weren't listed. And in parliamentary history, they are listed. So you can see ⁓ some pretty harsh things that foes of the ministry said about Lord North or the American secretary, George Germain. or whatever. You don't find that in the journals of the Continental Congress. All of that was kept under wraps. Jonathan Thomas (15:49) Interesting, super interesting though. Always have to rely on the British to keep thorough records, right? John Ferling (15:54) You Jonathan Thomas (15:58) So your book presents both the American and British perspectives of the war while it's going on. Why was it important to you to give equal weight to each side? John Ferling (16:09) Well, I mean, I think you really needed to flash out what was going on and to present a full picture of what was occurring during the war, not only between America and Britain, but as much as I could, what was going on in France and Spain and then the Dutch Republic since. So all five of those countries wind up as. as belligerence. But also, think there are a couple of books that are really favorites of mine and I've over the years was influenced by the authors of those books. One of the authors is John Keegan. who wrote a history of World War I and then the history of World War II. And what I think really separated Keegan's work from others was that he looked at all of the sides in those wars. So you got really a fuller account of what was going on. ⁓ And a better idea of why decisions were made because those who were making decisions in one country had a pretty good idea of what was going on in the other countries. And another favorite author of mine is Richard Overy who's written extensively on World War II. And Overy. generally has done the same thing in his book. So I was really ⁓ following the lead that those historians had provided in trying to do this. Jonathan Thomas (17:57) So this is a very broad question. But do you believe the American Revolution was inevitable or could it have been avoided? John Ferling (18:09) Well, I think at some point there was going to be some sort of change in the relationship between ⁓ Britain and the American colonists. ⁓ Benjamin Franklin, for example, about 20 years before the war broke out. No one at that point really foresaw the war. But Franklin was interested at that point in population and he was calculating how fast the population would grow and whatever and he wrote an essay about it. And he said in 50 years, the American population will be greater than the population in Great Britain. And at that point, the capital of the British Empire will move from London to Philadelphia. He didn't say that independence was inevitable, but I think he foresaw it and probably most other people to some degree saw that changes were going to come. And a couple of things happen, I think, as you move toward. ⁓ the revolution. One of the really big things is that France and Britain fight, they really fight four wars in the 75 years before the American Revolution. And in the fourth war, the seven years war, what Americans persist in calling the French and Indian War, the British took Canada. from France and ⁓ gained sole possession of almost all of the territory between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. And to that point, well, as long as France had been in control of Canada, ⁓ the American soul of Britain as sort of a... they're indispensable because the British could assist them when troubles arose with the French. That was particularly true for the Northern colonists in New England and New York, for instance. But now, after 1763, France is gone. And even John Adams, who at that point was only probably still in his 20s, wrote a letter saying in effect, I'm not quoting it, but saying in effect, well, now that France is gone, why do we need Great Britain? So I think that that kind of attitude existed and it made it possible to think in terms of at least the colonists gaining greater autonomy and protesting some British policy. I think change was going to occur in one way or another. Once the problems really began with tighter control of colonial trade and attempts to tax the colonists beginning with the Stamp Act in 1765, from that point on, the parliament maintained that parliament had the authority to levy any legislation that it wished over the American colonies. And as long as it took that position, then I think trouble was inevitable. The colonists objected to that. They said we... We can't send any elected representatives to Parliament. They're too far away. They can't consult their constituents and so forth. And the Americans were after greater autonomy. So it becomes a matter of whether the British are going to relax that, the Parliament's going to relax that stand. And they never did. And as long as they didn't, then I think there's... trouble is inevitable. But having said all of that, let me mention one other thing, and that is that even after the war began for more than a year, it's about 13, 14 months or so after the war began, the majority of delegates in Congress still were in favor of reconciliation. with Britain. They weren't pushing for independence. Independence isn't declared until July of 1776. That's 15 months after the first shots were fired at Lexington and conquered in April of 1775. So there was a chance, I think, that the revolution could have been avoided if Britain had had backed off of his policies and certainly there's a large minority faction in parliament that includes Lord Chatham, William Pitt, and Edmund Burke and others who are advocating ⁓ abandonment of the new colonial policies and granting more ⁓ autonomy to the Americans. And one other thing about the inevitability of the revolution, and that is if Britain had won the war, the revolution wouldn't have occurred. And so it's certainly possible that ⁓ it could have been prevented ⁓ by a British victory even after the war began. Jonathan Thomas (24:35) And so on top of that, you mentioning that, you know, the war was going on for 13 to 14 months and people were still kind of hoping that they would find a political settlement solution. What was the John Ferling (24:46) Well, the majority in Congress was, but you could raise questions about how representative Congress was. I think if you went into the interior of New England, you wouldn't find very many people who still were in favor of reconciliation. It varies from colony to colony. There were probably more reconciliationists in the southern Jonathan Thomas (24:54) Right. John Ferling (25:15) In fact, as you move south from New England, you run into more and more ⁓ reconciliation. So it just depended on where you were. Jonathan Thomas (25:32) So then what was the point of no return where like, you know, this is a war and we're gonna finish it till it's done. John Ferling (25:40) Okay, yeah, I think there probably are two points of ⁓ no return. One is before the war begins with the ⁓ passage of the Tea Act, which imposed restrictions or imposed taxes on consumption of tea and mandated that. tea had to be from the East India Company and whatever. That's passed in 1773 and that's what leads to the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773. And I think once the Boston Tea Party occurs, there's just such outrage in England, outrage in two respects. One, that the colonists just absolutely refused to obey British policy, but also secondly, outraged at the destruction of this private property. ⁓ the title Boston Tea Party makes it sound like a lark, but the fact was that ⁓ in today's currency, millions of dollars in private property had been destroyed. in the Boston Tea Party. So I think after that, the mood in England is really to get tough. Before that, the British had been pretty conciliatory toward the Collins. They'd pass legislation, there would be protest against the legislation. The British would back off and repeal the legislation or mediate the legislation. or whatever. So was kind of a policy of appeasement on the part of the British before the Boston Tea Party. But after the Boston Tea Party, there really is no move for appeasement. But even having said that, the British did not immediately go to war. They tried one last thing, really in essence, to prevent war. And that was they leveled a series of acts that they called, the parliament called the coercive acts against the Americans. And they were levied really initially only on Massachusetts and particularly on Boston. They closed the port of Boston, for example, until the colony or the city paid for the tea that had been destroyed. And they thought that by isolating Massachusetts sort of divide and conquer strategy, the message would get out to the rest of the colonies that if defiance continues, then we're going to use force and war will be inevitable. And it probably won't be just Massachusetts, but other colonies that will pay the price as well. So. The British tried the coercive acts and the colonists reject those as well and they call it First Continental Congress so they continue their defiance ⁓ of the British. But even at the First Continental Congress, although they defied the coercive acts, the colonists made one concession. To this point, they had always stipulated that Parliament did not have the right to regulate colonial trade. The colonists could trade with whomever they pleased. And the First Continental Congress buckled on that issue and said, yes, Parliament, while Parliament doesn't have the authority in all cases whatsoever, it does have the authority and really the necessity to regulate imperial trade, including American trade. And so it comes back to Britain ⁓ and the British in early 1775 know that the colonists have defied the coercive acts, but they have moderated their stand somewhat with regard to trade. And so it's up to the British now to make the decision. Do we use force? ⁓ or do we appease the colonists again? And there was, as I said earlier, after the Boston Tea Party, there really no interest in further appeasement. And so Lord Norris' ministry makes the decision early in January, in fact, of 1775 to use force. And they send orders to General Thomas Gage. who's the commander of the British Army in America, to use force and the result is war began. Jonathan Thomas (31:08) So what surprised you most in researching the British political response to the early rebellion in the colonies? John Ferling (31:16) Yeah, well, I think it's one of the things certainly is what I mentioned earlier about I was somewhat surprised at the degree of opposition to the war that occurred in England. it's or in Great Britain, it's not at the outset of the war, but by 1777 when you get deep into the war. And by 1780, the war's going on for about five years at that point. The messages that the American secretary, George Germain, Lord Germain, is sending to Sir Henry Clinton, who at that point is the commander in chief of the British Army in America. Germain is telling Clinton in... mid and late 1780. Look, we've got to get this war over. It can't go on beyond 1781. There has to be a resolution then because the mood here is to bring an end to the war. It's causing too many dislocations. ⁓ so ⁓ I found that somewhat surprising ⁓ as well. And I think it was a little bit surprised by Lord North, ⁓ who actually I really came to like. He seems like an affable individual. What surprised me about Lord North was that I think there were two things really. One was that he He, of course, really wanted to avoid war. And I think he was trying as best he could. He becomes a prime minister in 1770. So he's the prime minister for five years before the war begins. And I think he's just trying to avoid the war and trying to buy time and the hopes that If they can avoid a war for maybe five years, 10 years, 15 years, the situation is going to change. In international relations, things always change in time. And if he can get through a few years, then it's conceivable that there might never be a war, at least not in his ⁓ lifetime. And I think the second thing about North that surprised me is that he's kind of like the proverbial ⁓ man riding on the back of a tagger. He can't get off the tagger without being destroyed. And he's into the war after the spring of 1775. ⁓ I think within, he's one of the earliest people I think in England, among those who supported the war, ⁓ to come to the conclusion that the war probably could not be won. That's not to say that it was gonna be lost inevitably, but that he came to the conclusion, I think, probably within a year or 18 months of the beginning of the war that the British just faced too many obstacles to utterly suppress the rebellion in America. So it didn't mean that American independence was inevitable or that British defeat was inevitable, but that what he had presumed at the beginning of the war that it would probably not be a long war and that Britain could win the war relatively easily, but that probably wasn't true. And I was surprised, I think, to learn that he was among the first within the faction that supported the war to come to that conclusion. Jonathan Thomas (35:55) So did you find that the British leaders underestimated the American resistance from the beginning? John Ferling (36:02) Yeah, I did. I think when the debates were going on in North's ⁓ ministry over whether to use force before Lexington and Concord, the general feeling at that time was that the Americans were, they had, They were untrained soldiers. They didn't have a standing army. The military leaders, they didn't know who they were going to be, but turned out to be people like George Washington and others, had never been up against anything like this. Washington had never, he had been a commander ⁓ of a Virginia army during the Seven Years War, but ⁓ he was... mostly up against indigenous peoples in America, not up against the French army. And so they had a little command experience and the feeling was that colonial militiamen just could not stand up and fight against British regulars. They were professional soldiers. They knew the ins and outs. They were experienced and the colonists could. couldn't do that. And so there were some people that said, well, wait a minute, sooner or later, France might come into the war and then we could be in trouble. But I think the general feeling in Norse ministry was it would be a very short war and it would be over before the French decided to intervene. And in a sense, they were about halfway correct because the war begins... in April of 1775 and France doesn't come into the war until ⁓ February of 1778. So almost three years go by before the French make the decision to enter the war. So the British did have a long time to suppress the rebellion, but they did underestimate some of the problems. I think one of the things that they underestimated was the colonial unity against Britain. The colonists had fought in all four of those ⁓ inter-colonial wars ⁓ from the 1690s ⁓ through the 1760s that Britain fought against France and Spain, colonists to some degree got involved in each of those wars. But they were very disunited. The New England colonies didn't cooperate much with New York or New Jersey and whatever. And so, ⁓ The British just couldn't imagine the colonists getting united in this war, but they did remain ⁓ united throughout the war. So I think they underestimated that. They underestimated just the size of America, what was involved in ⁓ suppressing a rebellion. If they did suppress the rebellion in Massachusetts, they'd have to leave some of their army there to maintain control while they move next door to Connecticut. if they suppressed the rebellion in Connecticut, they'd have to leave some of their army there when they moved to New York to try to suppress New York. So it's a very large continent. And it was so large, in fact, that the Royal Navy... strongest Navy in the world at the time really could not maintain the embargo that it tried to impose on American trade. It's 3000 mile long Atlantic coastline and it was just too long for the British to cope with. So I think they underestimated that and they... They underestimated, I think, some of the logistical problems that they faced. 3,000 miles separated the colonists in North America from Great Britain, and they had to ship over arms and ⁓ munitions and food and clothing and everything else for... British Army and for the horses, thousands and thousands of horses that the British ⁓ Army ⁓ utilized. That became just a staggering ⁓ problem for the British. This is after all an era before computers and cell phones and whatever that would have made that a ⁓ lesser ⁓ problem. ⁓ for them. ⁓ certainly the British, I think, under underestimated things. In every war, I think that you go into, as I mentioned in the book, it's sometimes been said that when you open the door to, when you go to war, it's like opening the door into a dark room. You don't know what's in that room. And there's always some surprises. in that war. And everybody, every belligerent in the war, the Americans, the British, the French, the Spanish, were all surprised to one degree or another by things that they encountered in this conflict. Jonathan Thomas (42:15) So what role did propaganda and press coverage play in shaping the British and American views of each other during the war? John Ferling (42:25) Yeah, I think ⁓ there were, course, newspapers with essays and certainly lots of pamphlets were published on both sides and that shaped American ⁓ opinion. In America, I think without a doubt, the foremost pamphlet here was Thomas Paine and he writes Common Sense. that's published in January of 1776. He advocates ⁓ independence and ⁓ there's an attack on monarchical government and aristocratic rule that existed in Britain. And ⁓ I think he helps to marshal opinion for breaking with England. What Payne was in essence saying, and he does say it in common sense in a couple of ⁓ sentences, is that America, to win this war, needs foreign assistance. But it can't get that assistance if its object is reconciliation. There'd be nothing for France. to provide help for America if the Americans stay within the British Empire. So they have to move to independence to obtain help from abroad. And then Payne later on publishes more than 20 or around, I forget exactly, I think it was about 13 or 14 essays in his series, of the American crisis. And it's just really a propaganda tool. In many cases, he sort of white washes the mistakes that George Washington made as something of an amateur general. And he tries to and succeeds to some degree, I think, in maintaining morale ⁓ in America. So. There is that and the same thing was of course going on in Britain with pamphleteers. They are trying to maintain support for the war. Jonathan Thomas (44:59) So let's talk about France. Why... Do you need a second? John Ferling (45:07) you Jonathan Thomas (45:10) Do you need a second? John Ferling (45:12) no, for the cough drop. Jonathan Thomas (45:15) fine. So let's talk about France. Why in 1776 did royalist France agree to provide secret aid to the American rebels? John Ferling (45:28) Yeah, the French had lost the Seven Years' And it was a brutal loss for the British, or for the French. Their navy is destroyed. They lose a great deal of territory and some important territory like access to the Newfoundland fisheries, which was the source of a great deal of money for powerful people in France. French nationalists from the beginning, I think, were bent on revenge ⁓ against Great Britain and a restoration of French power and prestige. So as early as 1765, 10 years before the war breaks out, is the moment that the French learn of the first colonial ⁓ protests against Parliamentary policies, the French send secret agents over to America to snoop around and to determine whether there is a possibility of a revolution, whether they can do anything to help bring about a revolution. And those secret agents to a man said, ⁓ no, we can't do anything. The colonists... and just they're outnumbered. There's no mood for a revolution ⁓ at this point. ⁓ But they turned out to be wrong ⁓ or at least maybe premature because in time, the war does break out in 1775. And as soon as it breaks out, Virginie, the foreign minister ⁓ in France, sends over another secret agent, actually a French army officer who poses as a businessman. And he arrives in Philadelphia just before Christmas in 1775. And he meets secretly with a congressional committee called the Secret Committee. And the meetings were so secret. that no one else in Congress even knew that they were taking place. Congress was meeting at what now is called Independence Hall, and those secret meetings took place at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. And ⁓ in those discussions, the French secret agent learned two things. He came away convinced that the Americans would fight to the last man. that they really wanted to break away from England. But also, secondly, he discovered that the Americans did not have the capability of waging a long war. He said they've got thousands of militiamen and they have a well-led army by General Washington, but otherwise they don't have weaponry, don't have munitions, they don't have. They don't have uniforms. They don't have military engineers. All the things that you need to wage a war. So he brings that back to Brugens. And Brugens then goes to the king, Louis XVI, and he urges secret aid for the Americans. And there's opposition in France to that, particularly from the French. economic ministry, finance ministry, because the French economy was not in good shape. And there was a fear that war would bring on bankruptcy and social upheaval, which in the long run it did with the French Revolution. but Louis XVI is condensed by Vigiennes who says, well, look, it's secret aid. And the British Jonathan Thomas (49:32) Did it, yeah. John Ferling (49:43) won't come into the war. And Virginia was right. The British knew that they were providing aid. You couldn't keep it secret, but they did not come into the war. The secret aid begins coming over in, the first ship arrives with the secret aid in January of 1777. And it's 13 months after that before Britain really comes. into the war. So what Virginia is hoping for at this point is not that the Americans can ⁓ pull off a great victory over the British necessarily, and he's hoping that would be the case, but that the Americans could prolong the war and that the British, after maybe a year and a half, two years, three years, whatever it took. would come to the conclusion that they could not suppress the rebellion and that the best course for them would simply be to give up the colonies. And that was what Virgins was really hoping for. Virgins and a great many others in France believed that the real source of British strength that had enabled Britain to win the Seven Years War. was their possession of the American colonies. They not only got manpower from the colonies, but they got a lot of raw materials, an enormous amount of wealth that was translated into military capabilities. But if the colonists would break away, become independent, then Britain would lose that source of wealth and France would be... able to gain its revenge and they would restore French power and prestige. And what what Vigin's is really playing for here is time because the French and the Spanish, the French ally in Spain, are both rebuilding their navies that had been decimated in the in the Seven Years War. And that's a long process. can't build a ship, an 18th century ship overnight. It takes a long time. And from the very beginning in 1763, because this process really begins before Virgins becomes the foreign minister, the assumption was that it would probably take France about 15 years to build a sufficient ⁓ fleet to challenge the the Royal Navy and that turned out to be exactly the case. Jonathan Thomas (52:43) So, and then why did France decide to openly aid the Americans? Why did they give up the secret aid and go with, we know what, we're fully in support of this in 1778. John Ferling (52:56) Yeah, I think there's two reasons for that. One is the Americans score a great victory ⁓ at Saratoga. They fight two battles against a British army under John Burgoyne that's invading New York from Canada. And they win those two battles and Burgoyne's army surrenders at Saratoga. in October of 1777. And I think the message that Vigin's and Louis XVI and others in the French government drew from that was that if the British had not been able to suppress the Leveille before, how can they do it now? They're going to have a weaker army. Much of their army's been lost at Saratoga. so that France can enter the war with a really reasonable chance of gaining victory and not facing another defeat at the hands of the British. But the second thing is, after Saratoga, Brugens was apprehensive that the British would offer peace terms. He knew that they were gonna offer peace terms to the Americans. was nothing else that... Lord North could do at that point. And he was afraid that the colonists would find those peace terms so attractive that they would accept them and reconcile with England. So what he wanted to do was give the colonists a choice. If France allied with the Americans and came into the war, the Americans would have a choice of returning to the British Empire on or taking a chance on by allying with France and the odds were pretty good in fact of gaining independence and in fact when General Washington learned of the French alliance he says in essence this makes independence inevitable. Now turned out he was wrong about that. and began to realize that within a year or so by late 1779, Washington is saying we just can't go on much longer this way. We can't fight another two or three or four years. Morale is breaking down in the country because the war has been so long, seemed interminable. and the American economy was collapsing. in June of 1780, Washington writes, and this is like almost two years after the alliance, Washington writes a letter in which he says, have almost ceased to hope that independence can be attained. So. Jonathan Thomas (56:14) you John Ferling (56:16) But that was why France made the decision, I think, to ally with the Americans. Jonathan Thomas (56:25) So skipping ahead and because we ran out of time for my final question after all your research and writing this book and your assessment, why did Britain lose the war? John Ferling (56:37) Well, I think it largely comes down. I think they certainly had chances to win the war. ⁓ There are a couple of opportunities, I think, when they might have won the war. One was even before the war began, the commander of the British Army in America, Thomas Gage, was writing back to the authorities in London and he was telling them Look, this is a more widespread rebellion than you think it is. And that we need a much larger army than exists. The British only had about 5,000 6,000 men in all of North America at that point before the war begins. And he says we need a much larger army. And he says too, and I think this was crucial, if we go to war, The first battle that is fought is absolutely crucial. If we can just totally obliterate the colonial army that we face in that first engagement, then probably a mood for continuing the war is going to evaporate outside of New England. But he didn't get the men and the British went to war with too small an And instead of scoring a great victory, they suffer heavy losses on the first day of the war and then again at Bunker Hill. So I think that was a missed opportunity. And I think the British could also secondly have perhaps ⁓ won the war with a more imaginative ⁓ leadership in the campaign in New York in the summer. fall of 1776. ⁓ By this time, it's General William Howe, who I think just was too cautious. were times when he, had he adopted a more aggressive policy, I think he could have absolutely destroyed Washington's army in New York. I think that could have been done on... August it could have been done in September, it could have been done in October of 1776. So the British missed a real opportunity at that point, I think, to crush the Reveille. So it was possible. And even as late as I mentioned earlier, as you get to 1781, there's a sense on all sides that that's the last year of the war. And General Clinton's policy, Sir Henry Clinton, who at this point is the commander of the British Army, his policy is essentially to try to avoid a defeat. He wasn't pursuing an aggressive strategy. And it seems to me as though at that point he was pursuing a proper strategy, trying to avoid getting defeated. And if he gets through 1781 without his army being defeated, then the chances were that there would be a negotiated settlement in Europe. France, Spain, Britain would sit down, maybe there would be American representatives, maybe there wouldn't be American representatives at that conference, and they would hammer out some sort of solution to the war, sort of like what's going on in Ukraine now. discussions between the United States and Russia. I don't know how involved Ukraine actually is going to be in those discussions. so, Clinton was playing for time, but he was pressured by Germain in Britain to keep a large army in Virginia, something he didn't want to do. And the French send over an army, they send over a large... task force under Admiral DeGraws and the combination of the French Army, the French Navy, the Continental Army, Virginia militiamen, about 22,000 men altogether gather in Virginia and trap Earl Cornwallows at Yorktown and bring about the defeat. that in the long run, I think the British just did not have the resources to fight a global war. They had the best Navy in the world, but that Navy was stretched out from the Mediterranean to Central America to the Caribbean to North America, and they were just stretched too thin to win the war. Jonathan Thomas (1:01:56) Well, it's fascinating stuff. thank you for joining us on the Angletopia podcast, John. His new book is, shots heard around the world, the untold story of the American revolution, which is available now from Bloomsbury for links to purchase the book and to learn more about John Farrelly's extensive research into the war. Check out the show notes. If you enjoyed today's wide ranging discussion. John Ferling (1:02:03) Well. Jonathan Thomas (1:02:19) On the international scope of the American revolution, please subscribe, like us, or leave a comment wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the Angotopia podcast, please consider joining the friends of Angotopia club, where you get early access to new episodes, exclusive content, and a private community to chat about all things British. So join us next time as we continue exploring the pivotal moments that shaped British and American history. Thank you, John. That was perfect. John Ferling (1:02:44) Okay, thank you, Jonathan. Enjoy.