
- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Diplomacy of the American Revolution
About this book
"To the superficial observer there would seem never to have been an age less propitious for the birth of a new nation. The tendency of the times was altogether for the aggrandizement of big states and the consolidation of their territory at the expense of the little ones, for the extinction of the weaker nations and governments rather than for the creation of new ones. Nevertheless it was this bitter cut-throat international rivalry which was to make American independence possible."
On April 15th, 1783, the Articles of Peace between the United States and Great Britain went into effect proclaiming that "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the United States…to be free Sovereign and independent States." That recognition, the origins of which began almost seven years earlier in Philadelphia, the fate of which was uncertain at Valley Forge and ultimately vindicated at Yorktown, represented a monumental achievement for the new American nation. It also, as Samuel Flagg Bemis shows us, marked the end of a world war.
This book explains the ambitions and interests of European powers during the American Revolution. France's search for revenge against Britain after the French and Indian War, Spain's attempt to retake Gibraltar, the complicated trade interests of the Netherlands and Russia, Austria's fears of a two-front war – each of these saw America's struggle for independence as an event that affected their own strategies. And, as Bemis shows us, it is through that prism that we should consider the actions of those who supported America and Great Britain.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction to the Current Edition
- Preface to the First Edition (1935)
- Preface to the Second Printing (1937)
- Foreword to the Second Edition (1957)
- I. Introduction
- II. France’s Opportunity
- III. The First Foreign Mission of the United States
- IV. France and Spain in 1777
- V. The Franco-American Alliance
- VI. Austria and Spain in 1778
- VII. The Franco-Spanish Alliance
- VIII. Spain’s American Policy
- IX. The Perilous Neutrality of the Netherlands
- X. The Netherlands and Neutral Rights
- XI. The Armed Neutrality of 1780 and the Involvement of the Netherlands in the War
- XII. The United States and the Armed Neutrality
- XIII. The Imperial Mediators and France in 1781
- XIV. The Beginning of Peace Discussions
- XV. “Necessary” vs. “Desirable” Articles of Peace
- XVI. “The Point of Independence”
- XVII. The Preliminary Articles of November 30, 1782
- XVIII. The Peace Settlement of 1783
- Text of the Preliminary and Conditional Articles of Peace
- Bibliographical Note
- Index