Franco‐American Alliance
Franco‐American Alliance (1778–1800).In 1778, Benjamin Franklin and France's foreign minister, the comte de Vergennes, signed two documents—a Treaty of Amity and Commerce, and a Treaty of Alliance—midway through the American Revolutionary War. They expressed realpolitik for both parties. Vergennes hoped to weaken the British, make France the Americans' primary trade partner, and contain U.S. expansion. American leaders had hoped to achieve independence without a binding military alliance, but after the battlefield setbacks in 1776, they saw the treaty as the only way to overcome the British forces. Britain's willingness to negotiate after the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777 convinced Vergennes that only a “permanent” alliance could prevent American‐British rapprochement. Hence, he proposed preferential Franco‐American commercial...
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