Jimmah Carta has written a book about the Revolutionary times.  He states that we would not have been successful without our alliance with the French.  You can see where he's going here.

www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=180.....honest, I don't know why the Muslim Times came up on a search for this item...I read it somewhere else as a matter of fact.....

Carter's interview marked the publication in Britain of his book "The Hornet's Nest", a story of the American revolutionary war and the first novel to be published by a former president.

 

In his interview, he ironically noted that those fighting for U.S. independence could never have triumphed were it not for an alliance with the French, who have come under severe criticism for not backing the war on Iraq .

 



My question is ...

1.Is this true or provable?
2. Even if true does it mean that we wouldn't have fought the war?


My comment to him would be maybe France should go back to being the old France then....

Quoted: 1.Is this true or provable?

Yes, The French navy was crucial.  

Pretty much True.

France and England were not frendly back then...

France definitely helped.


SGtar15

Arguably true. The French naval blockade at Yorktown was the key to victory at Yorktown. Yorktown was the key to victory in the south. Victory in the south was the key to overall victory. Of course, it can also be argued that The American colonies would have eventually become independant without a war. No telling how long it would have taken or what kind of country we would be today. It can safely be said that there would have been no civil war. England would have settled the issue of slavery in the colonies long before we gained our independance.

You need to read  "The War For America" by Piers Mackesy.  Definitely from a British point of view but  gives some great insight to the internal political happenings and the global aspect of the war.  He and others have  postulated that the war in America was a side-show in what was the real first  "world" war.  The English were engaged here in what became the States, the Caribbean, the Mediterannean and India with the French, Spanish and others.  This was the war in which the English captured Gibraltar.  Kind of a continuation of the on-going conflicts between the English, French, Spanish and other empires.

Remember most "Americans" and  "Englishmen" though of the colonies and inhabitants as "Englishmen" and loyal to the Crown and they were for the most part up until  there was a ruling party change in England and the new government made a series of blunders that led to the fractures.  Did the French join out of altruism?  NO,  they wanted to win back some of the losses they incurred in previous conflicts.

Part of the reason that the Brits didn't squash the revolt like a bug was they were spread too thin in other areas and they didn't recognize the full import of the discontent.  Both in the US and UK at the time, hence the use of Hessian and other mercenaries, they didn't have the troops available  and couldn't raise enough in England to fight against  family.