Silly Mountain Walks
30-05-2004, 03:09
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Just a post to change from the usual country bashing on this part of the forum ....
Perhaps US citizens found France sometimes an exasperating country but our two nations are united by a friendship that goes back more than 200 years which makes France the oldest ally of the United States.
Based on solidarity that has never failed, from the battlefields of Yorktown to the beaches of Normandy and through all the crises of the past half century, the friendship between our two countries is especially strong because it is rooted in shared values. The American dream of the Founding Fathers melds readily with the ideals of the French Revolution. It is no accident that an American woman and a Frenchman, Eleanor Roosevelt and René Cassin, together wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than 50 years ago.
Panzermeyer
Member
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
How Dixieland Got Its Name and Other French Influence Facts in the United States ... (by Pascal Fuselier)
How the southern states got to be known as Dixieland is just another example of the French influence in the United States. If you go back in history from the 16th Century through the 19th, you will see that every major region in our nation was explored and settled by Frenchmen and French Canadians.
Let's look at Dixie first. The name was born and coined before the Civil War. Money was pouring out of the port of New Orleans like crazy. Boats of every description lined the levee on the riverfront waiting for cargoes to be loaded down the Mississippi and up the river to America's heartland or even overseas.
The city was divided at Canal Street. On one side were the French, and on the other were les Americains. Kentucky and Tennessee boatmen, with lots of cash after selling their cargoes, flocked the street. Mais, they had to use de l'argent Francais on the downriver side of the street, and American money on the upriver side.
But the officials of Citizen's Bank of New Orleans met and said 'On vas arranger ca." So to the satisfaction of all, the bank began issuing bilingual $10 bank notes. On the face of the note was the English word "ten" and the French word 'dix', and the boatmen corrupted the word dix (which is French for ten) by saying they were going to New Orleans "to get those old dixies.' So that is how the word dixie became an adjective to describe things of Southern origin, and from there it became a noun to describe the South itself. And I'm just crazy about the Dixie Chicks!
The United States has over 5,000 communities with French names. How did these places acquire French names ? They were named by French refugees settling here and Huguenots, or, even earlier, by French explorers who opened up the central United States. The map of the United States is full of such names, sometimes transformed and Anglicized (the Ozarks were named Aux Arcs).
Other places are named after prominent Frenchmen, such as Hugoton, Kansas, named after Victor Hugo, author of LES Miserables; Louisville, Kentucky, named after King Louis XVI; Talleyrand, Indiana, named for the Talleyrand/Perignard family and the forty two cities named Layayette, named after the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) who, at the age of 19 and a very rich man, came to join General George Washington in 1776 to help win the Revolutionary War. Invited by the U.S. Congress in 1825, he returned on a triumph voyage to where he had helped liberate a people. The grateful new nation bestowed upon him the special title "Citizen of the United States," transmissible to all his direct descendants. The law is still valid today. George Washington said that without Lafayette's help the war could not have been won.
Other municipalities in the U.S. are named after French cities and towns such as Brest, Michigan; Fountainbleu, Montana; Montpelier, capital of Vermont; Abbeville, Louisiana; and Paris, of which there are fifty in the United States. Some names were taken from the natural environment like Caribou, Colorado; L'Anguille (eel), Arkansas; Pomme de terre, Minnesota; Papillon, Arkansas; Terre Haute, Indiana; Ville Platte, Louisiana; and how about L'Anse Aux Pailles; L'Anse Bleu; L'Anse Megre; and La Pointe Aux Pins. And, sorry but Patasa is not a French name; it's a Choctaw Indian name meaning "flat fish."
We learned in history about how the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1604. But we were not taught that one of the pilgrims was a Frenchman. His name was Guillaume Mullins (probably of the French family Molines) and he arrived at Plymouth with his wife, two children, son Joseph and daughter Priscilla, and his two servants, George Saule and Robert-Carte (Cartier). The American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), a descendant on his mother's side, immortalized his ancestor's story in his novel, The Courtship of Miles Standish. (Longfellow also immortalized our parish namesake in his epic poem Evangeline). And the first white child born in New York is believed to be by most historians Jean Vigne, the son of a French Protestant.
We were taught in high school history about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but what we were not taught is that Paul Revere's real name was Paul Rivoire, the son of Appolos Rivoire, a gold and silversmith. Paul Rivoire played an important part in the struggle for American independence when he rode his horse from Charleston to Lexington to warn the Americans of an attack by the British. He was immortalized in "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." He worked as a bellmaker and furnished Fulton with copper sheeting for the construction of the first steamship.
You probably remember studying about John C. Fremont (1813-1890) in high school history. Actually his name was Jean-Charles Fremont and he was the son of a Quebecois. Fremont arrived in California in the middle of the 19th century when he was already well known as an explorer. At Sonora de Los Angeles in 1846 he commanded one of the armies which vanquished the Mexicans in the struggle for the country. He was governor of a free California until its annexation to the U.S. in 1850. The electors of the new state chose him as their senator.
Jean-Charles Fremont was the Republican Party's first candidate for president of the United States. Part of his platform was halting the advance of slavery into the free state, bringing Kansas into the Union, changing the policy of President Franklin Pierce, and building the Pacific railroad. He was defeated by James Buchanan. He later served as a Union general in the War Between the States (1861-1865) and after the war he became president of the Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad. He was governor of the territory of Arizona in 1878, and he was a major general in the American army.
William Gilet, count de Foix, a French Huguenot, was the ancestor of the Gillette family in Connecticut. And chew on this a while: one of the best investments in history was made by twenty individuals, who, in 1901 paid $250 each for 500 shares in a new company organized by an erstwhile sidewalk vendor named King C. Gillette - the company manufactured safety razors. Only fifty-three razors were made in the U.S. in 1903. If someone had made the original investment, and held onto his/her stock until 1975, his worth would have been in the neighborhood of 50 million dollars!
Other prominent Americans of French ancestry include the Tiffanys, who came from Champagne, France (Louis Tiffany founded the internationally known company in New York in 1837); John Jay, a French Huguenot, who was the first chief justice of New York and secretary for foreign affairs. He later became the first chief justice of the U.S. and in 1794, signed a treaty with Lord Grenville, which became known as Jay's Treaty, ending the military dispute between the United States and England. He later became governor of New York. John Audubon (1785-1857), American ornithologist, painter and naturalist was of French descent and he painted many of the birds in his classic collection of "Birds of North America" while living in the Felicianas in south Louisiana.
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Don't forget DesMoines Iowa, Dubuque Iowa etc.....Terre Haute Indiana......and the Le Compte de Rochambeau who marched across Connecticut and Rhode Island during the Revolution against Great Britain ...
How about the French Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) who was the founder of the gun powder manufacturing firm E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. ?
Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, was born in Paris on June 24, 1771. In 1787, he was accepted as a student in the Régie des Poudres, a government agency for the manufacture of gunpowder which was directed by Antoine Lavoisier. He married Sophie Madeleine Dalmas (1775-1828) in 1791. In 1800 Eleuthère Irénée du Pont emigrated to the United States and began investigating sites for a black powder manufactory. After consulting with Thomas Jefferson he established E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. on the banks of the Brandywine River, just north of Wilmington, Delaware. In the spring of 1803 he settled his family at Eleutherian Mills and wrote to Jefferson seeking government patronage for his new powder factory. During the 1810s, du Pont was active in the Society of the State of Delaware for the Promotion of American Manufacturers, where he lobbied Congress for high tariffs. In 1822 he was named a director of the Bank of the United States. Eleuthère Irénée du Pont died in Philadelphia on October 31, 1834.
Du Pont later evolved into one of the world's largest chemical companies, and in the 20th century led the polymer revolution by developing many highly successful materials such as nylon, teflon and kevlar. Today, DuPont is a multi-national chemicals and health care company with 2002 revenues of $24.5 billion.
The Statue of Liberty, which has welcomed immigrants since 1886, is one of the greatest symbols of the United States. On an island in New York Harbor, Lady Liberty stands as the most enduring emblem of Franco-American friendship.
October 28, 1886. 10,000 official guests, and an enthusiastic nation await the inauguration of the statue "Liberty Lighting the World." The statue, erected on Bedloe's Island at the entrance to New York Harbor, commemorated France's role in the American Revolution. Congress allocated funds for the event provided that "not one dollar be spent on spirits or tobacco." Fortunately, private enterprise easily met that demand, and the crowds were able to smoke or drink as much as they wished. When the statue was unveiled, revealing the unparalleled dimensions of the monument - 46 meters high from its base to its top and weighing 200,000 kilograms, it was the biggest monument of its type ever constructed - the American applause could be heard across the Atlantic. The sculptor, 52 year old Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was known in the United States for his statue of La Fayette. Bartholdi had given America this statue ten years before. In France, he was better known for his colossal Belfort Lion a gigantic figure sculpted in red sandstone that symbolized the heroic resistance of Alsace during the 1870 war with Prussia.
Built in France in sections, the Statue of Liberty is made of copper supported by an iron skeleton constructed by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the famous tower. Its 300 separate pieces were molded and shaped in Paris, and then reassembled in New York Harbor. The statue rests on a granite pedestal 25 meters high. Money for the statue itself came from a generous subscription fund in France and its pedestal was financed by the United States.
etc.
I found we have many things in common .... to bad that there is so much politics today that seperate our peoples ....
David
Panzermeyer
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:38 am
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France in the New World (1524-1778)
The love story between France and America began well before the colonists called their country the United States. As early as the XVIth century, French explorers returned to the coasts of the New World which they had hoped to make New France."Though the natives are extremely odd and covered with variously colored feathers, the physical attributes of the countryside are most pleasant. Situated in the middle of precipitous hills is a wide and deep bay. It is easily large enough to accommodate a good sized sailing vessel..." This entry, dated April 1524, describes the one day port of New York City. The steep hills will be called Brooklyn and Staten Island, and a bridge, named after the narrator will connect the two: Giovanni da Verrazanoi. Born into a rich Italian family of Lyons, France, Verrazano was a Frenchman at heart. Jean de Verrazane, as he was called in his adopted country, had sailed from Brittany three months earlier in search of the mythical "North-West passage" to India. After a stopover in Madeira, he and the crew of the Dauphine saw the New World on March 7,1524. They were off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Fearful of the Spanish in Florida, he looped back to explore the North. Crossing the immense bay between Cape Hatteras and the coast of Virginia, Verrazano thought he had seen the Eastern Sea, leading to the Pacific, and called it the Isthmus of Verrazano. This name, which later appeared on maps of the New World, was to encourage many false hopes. The Indians were very friendly to the travellers, and the French affectionately called present day Maryland "Acadia" (the Indians' kindness did not stop the French sailors from taking a native boy back to Europe as a souvenir). Sailing by day, and mooring at night, the Dauphine continued north off the coast of Delaware and New Jersey. On April 17, Verrazano lay claim to Manhattan in the name of Francis I. He wrote the French King, 'Sire, we called this land Angoulesme, the name you once had when lesser in fortune... As for the beautiful bay that is formed in this land, we gave it the name of Sainte-Marguerite, in honor of the princess, your sister, who is above all women in virtue and in spirit."
The French in Florida
Sixty Years before the Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock, French Hugenots, also fleeing religious intolerance in Europe, set up a colony in Florid These brave colonists might have played an important role in the foundation of the French Etats-Unis, but history decided otherwise. When Admiral de Coligny suggested sending Protestants to live in Florida to practice their religion in peace, the French king, Charles IX jumped at the idea. He saw an opportunity to counter the ambitions of Catholic Spain in the country described by Franciscan Marcos de Niza as a "new Eldorado." Jean Ribault, a Huguenot from the coastal town Dieppe, was chosen to lead the expedition. The ship weighed anchor in February 1562, and by April 30, she reached what they called Cap des Français, in present day South Carolina. On May lst, they had their first contact with the apparently peaceful natives. A French column, emblazoned with the royal fleur-de-lys soon stood next to the small colony on the bank of the May River (now called St. john's River). It marked the French claim to the land they considered 'the most beautiful, rich and pleasant in the world." Having established a colony at the mouth of the Port Royal river, (on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina) Ribault left thirty soldiers to build a camp called "Charles-fort," in honor of the king, while he returned to France for reinforcements and supplies.The religious wars prevented his immediate return. When a second expedition, led by René de Laudonnière, finally arrived in Florida in June 1564, famine and mutiny had overcome Charlesfort. A second colony, Fort Caroline, was established on the May River. Its fate was even worse. Men deserted to take up piracy, relations with the Indians degraded, and famine threatened. The survivors were relieved to see seven masts on the horizon. Jean Ribault had finally kept his promise. He landed on August 28, 1565 with 600 colonists. The joy was short lived. A storm sank the boats. Those who escaped death at sea were killed by the Spanish, who were only too happy to finish off the "Lutheran Filibusters." On September 20, the troops of Pedro Menédez de Avilés massacred the garrison in a surprise attack. This bloody encounter put an end to French colonial ambition in Florida.
Louis XIV, King of Louisiana
April 9, 1682 on the banks of the Mississippi River. Robert Cavelier de La Salle, outfitted in full dress uniform, sword in hand, read a proclamation that gave bis king "the country Louisiana". One bundred and fifty years after Jacques Cartier, Cavelier de La Salle offered France another chance to carve out an empire in the New World.
Born in Rouen, Normandy, in 1643, Robert Cavelier de La Salle was one of the greatest explorers of the North American continent. The son of wealthy parents who settled in Montreal in 1666, he could easily have led the life of a rich colonist. Gripped by the stories told him by the Indians, he swore to be the first to open the passage to the Great Western Ocean towards China. Pushed by the Governor General and supported by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, advisor to the King, and by King Louis XIV himself, Cavelier de La Salle made numerous expeditions to the Great Lakes and into present-day Illinois and Ohio. He left behind him a magnificent network of forts. After several fruitless attempts, the indefatigable traveller left Saint Louis (south of Lake Erie, in the territory of the Miami Indians) with twenty Frenchmen and thirty scouts from the Mohican and Abénaquis tribes to find the Mississippi River. When they reached the river on February 6, 1682, the ice was too thick to break. After a week, the ice began to break up, allowing the expedition to descend the river by canoe. Leaving behind places visited years before by Joliet and Marquette, they entered the territory of the Arkansas Indians, then went on to the Natchez, who gave them a very warm welcome. The two tribes were at war with one another, so the expedition didn't pause for too long. The river became wider. Soon the vegetation grew more exotic, and they sighted alligators. On the fifth of April they noticed that the water was briny. The following day, they reached the fork of the Mississippi Delta, and soon the area where the river swept into the sea. Several days later they erected a cross below which was placed a plaque that read: "In the name of Louis XIV, King of France and of Navarre, April 9, 1682." After they had chanted Vexilla Regis for the king, and a triumphal Te Deum, several shots were fired in salute. Cavelier de La Salle then read, in the presence of a public notary brought on the trip for this purpose, the proclamation giving Louis XIV "the country of Louisiana and all the seas, ports, provinces, all the peoples, nations, cities, villages, and mines of this country, as well as the length of the river Colbert or Mississippi, and all rivers that empty into it from their springs to the Gulf of Mexico." The proclamations were received several months later by Louis XIV. The "Sun King" was so pleased to gain such a vast territory that he named Cavelier de La Salle Governor and gave him gave him four ships and 200 men to begin colonization. The flotilla left in July 1684. While the voyage to the Gulf of Mexico was without incident, the expedition by-passed the Mississippi Delta, and ended up farther West, in Galveston Bay. The region was inhospitable, and the conditions in which the foundation of the future Saint Louis of Texas took place were very bad. Famine and mutiny soon threatened. On March 19, 1687, Cavelier de La Salle was killed by his own troops. Not long afterwards the settlement was overrun by Indians. The dreams of the explorer from Normandy ended in tragedy.
Panzermeyer
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:39 am
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A Brotherhood of Arms (1778-1783)
The court of Versailles followed closely the events leading up to the American Revolution. When, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed their independance, Vergennes, the Foreign Affairs Secretary, saw a perfect opportunity to take revenge on Britain, and thus advised the King to support the rebels. Fearing a war with the British, Turgot, the Minister of Finance, was less enthusiastic. King Louis XVI was not inclined to assist a rebellion which undermined another monarch. Despite popular opinion in favor of the Revolutionaries, France's support was far from certain when Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris on December 27,1776. He joined Silas Deane as American Minister to France. Deane was a wealthy Connecticut businessman, who, chosen in haste, had produced no concrete results. Franklin's reputation as a man of great learning, who lived modestly, greatly pleased the Court. Franklin soon had French support for the Revolutionary cause. Official aid was at first discreet. But the number of volunteers offering to help the Revolutionaries grew rapidly. There was a great deal to draw young Frenchmen to America: the attraction of new ideas, a thirst to fight their hereditary British enemy, a desire for adventure and the chance for exotic travel in the New World. Several months later, Silas Deane wrote, "the rage to sign up to serve with the Americans is continually growing. As a consequence I am inundated with offers, many from persons of consequential rank..." The King himself had to intervene when members of distinguished families wanted to leave for the New World. The count of Noaille and the count of Ségur, two of the most important names in the French kingdom, wanted to leave with the young Marquis de La Fayette. It was feared that these young men would compromise the neutral position of France. Noailles and Ségur bowed to the pressure, but La Fayette stole onto the boat La Victoire which sailed first to Bordeaux, then to Spain, and finally on to Georgetown, where he arrived in June 1777. Many of the volunteers were greatly disappointed in the New World. Most of them did not speak English and they did not understand how the Revolutionary Army, unlike anything in Europe, could function on a battlefield. Furthermore, their social background made it difficult for them to adapt to the democratic style of George Washington's soldiers. Welcomed with great enthusiasm in Philadelphia, La Fayette even offered to serve in the army as a foot soldier, and to pay his own way. Franklin, however, explained to the Continental Congress that it would be politically advantageous to enlist foreign soldiers whose families could influence the court at Versailles. La Fayette was finally appointed to the rank of General. Returning to the front just as the English General Howe marched on Philidelphia, he was injured at the battle of Brandywine. Soon after, he followed Washington to his headquarters at Valley Forge. The winter of 1777-1778 was a particularly tough one. Badly clothed, badly nourished and badly armed, Washington's army was on the verge of collapse. At this point, an attack by the English would almost certainly have changed the course of the war. In Paris, Franklin did his best to convince the court to adopt the American cause officially through a formal alliance with the United States.
The French to the Rescue
The resulting Treaty of Commerce and Friendship was signed on February 6, 1778. The Revolutionaries' situation was such that the French could have made any demand in the treaty, taking advantage of the vulnerable United States. Instead the French policy looked far into the future. Vergennes wrote to his ambassador in London on March 17, 1778: 'We did not want to procure any commercial favors that might make other nations jealous, such that the United States might one day accuse us of taking advantage of them." One week later he stated, "The authorized American deputies were open to giving us any exclusive rights of trade we might have demanded. We were aware of that. But through the recognition of the United States as a member of the family of nations, the King wanted to create a bond that would serve posterity and be as solid and enduring as is possible in human affairs.' The French policy prompted Benjamin Franklin, a great student of human nature, to say, "The truth is that this nation loves glory and loves to protect the oppressed." Back on the battlefields of North America, the British began to realize that time was against them. After taking Philidelphia they prepared themselves to deliver the death blow to the Revolutionaries. They wanted to quickly exploit tensions within the Revolutionary ranks, notably the rivalry between Washington and Gates, the victor of the battle of Saratoga. General Clinton took command of the British troops after Howe's resignation. Fearing a French blockade of the Delaware and an attack on the city by the Continental Army, Clinton moved towards New York.
Washington followed behind and launched an attack at Monmouth - an audacious military manoeuvre that would have been a decisive victory if Charles Lee, the commander of the vanguard, had not inexplicably disobeyed orders and retreated from ground he had captured and held. Court martialled, Lee, accused by some of treason, was finally released. The error had been commited. Washington was forced to stop his offensive, and instead set up headquarters in New Brunswick while Clinton went on to New York. Arriving in July 1778, the French fleet under Admiral d'Estaing came to the aid of the Revolutionaries, for the first time in force. A siege was planned ; Estaing would move in by sea, while the American General Sullivan would arrive by land to take Newport, Rhode Island. Unfortunately a violent storm arose, putting an end to this first attempt at military cooperation between the new allies. Estaing headed south to the West Indies for the winter. This setback did not bode well for the Americans. Paris would not look kindly on a failed military operation; but the Revolutionaries were very much in need of assistance and reinforcements. At the end of 1778, La Fayette obtained permission from the Continental Congress to go to Versailles. He was well received, and knew how to convince Vergennes and Maurepas to throw the weight of France into the battle. Among the plans that had been envisaged was a large-scale landing in Britain. Ships had been prepared for this purpose. The Project never saw the light of day. But the fleet gathered in Saint Malo and Le Havre made it technically possible to send an expeditionary force to the New World as La Fayette requested. Louis XVI was still worried about dissent among the Revolutionaries and feared that Spain's Charles III, although allied with France against England, would dislike to decisive an American victory next door to his overseas empire. Still, France eventually sent to General Washington 5,000 men chosen from their best troops. La Fayette was too young to command the expeditionary force. He was sent back to America to announce the imminent arrival of the long-awaited re-enforcements under the command of Rochambeau.
America, we are here
Leaving Brest, the convoy sighted land at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 11, 1780. Among the officers, were some of the most important names in France : Montmorency, Custine, Chartres, Noailles, Lauzun... The hopes raised by the arrival of the French were short-lived : soon after, a large British fleet was sighted. It was under the command of Admirals Arbuth-not and Rodney. It spoiled the plans for a quick attack on New York. The Hartford meeting, organized by La Fayette between Rochambeau and Washington, resulted in another request for more French reenforcements. Only a full-sized naval force could save the situation. To make matters worse, when Washington returned to his camp at West Point, he learned of Benedict Arnold's treason. One of the Colonels' most brilliant military minds had gone over to the enemy. Becoming chief counsellor to General Clinton, Arnold pushed for quick action to exploit the weakness of the Continental Army. Victims of the naval blockade, the American soldiers were neither paid, nor fed, nor clothed. Rochambeau began to worry, quite legitimately, about the effectiveness of these 11 men pushed to the limits of their resources." Once more Louis XVI and Vergennes responded to the needs of the Revolutionaries. On May 16, 1781, despite the terrible state of French finances, the ship La Concorde brought six million pounds to Washington. The American General wanted to attack New York. Rochambeau, however, thought it more prudent to head South, where the English General Cornwallis had not yet managed to win a decisive victory against the American fighter Greene, who used guerilla tactics. Clinton ordered Cornwallis to keep a minimal force in Yorktown, on the Chesapeake Bay, where they had the support of the Navy ; he would then send the remaining troops to reinforce the garrison in New York, where they thought the major battle would take place. Cornwallis was thus left vulnerable and Washington, knowing that de Grasse's fleet was en-route, was readily convinced to attack Yorktown. Moreover, de Grasse, who was sailing back to the continent after a series of victories in the West Indies, had sent a message to George Washington, telling him that he preferred fighting in the Chesapeake Bay because it was deeper than the Hudson River, and allowed for greater manoeuvrability.
On August 19th, crossing New Jersey, the Franco-American troops headed toward Virginia. On August 30th, Washington and Rochambeau triumphantly entered Philadelphia. From there they marched on Yorktown with an army of 18,000 men. There were 9,000 Americans and 5,000 French to which were added 3,300 more when the Marquis de Saint Simon arrived from Saint-Domingue with de Grasse's fleet. Cornered with a mere 7,000 Redcoats, Cornwallis was in a desperate situation. Hope appeared on September 5th, when 22 ships were sighted on the horizon. The fleet, commanded by Admiral Graves, had left New York two days earlier to rescue Yorktown. The tide seemed to be turning against the Revolutionaries, but de Grasse saved the day. In the Bay, the French ships were sitting ducks. De Grasse manoeuvered brilliantly; he slipped his fleet around Cape Henry and set up in formation around the Ville de Paris, the largest vessel of that period. When the battle began in the open seas, the English had already lost. When the canons stopped, one British ship had sunk and five more were seriously damaged. No French ships were destroyed and only two were damaged. Graves retreated ; the French victory was complete. Cornwallis had counted on the naval re-enforcements to back him up so he hadn't bothered to protect his positions. On September 28th, the Revolutionaries deployed their forces : the French on the left next to the Americans followed by La Fayette's Franco-American corps General Washington's troops ; and finally the troops under the command of Prussian General von Steuben (who had fought with the Revolutionaries since 1777). The fate of the British was sealed. On October 17th, the anniversary of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, the Star Spangled Banner flew over Yorktown. The defeated British garrison marched between two rows of the victors - the French on the left, the Americans on the right. The officer representing Cornwallis, who claimed to be ill, wanted to surrender his sword to Rochambeau. But the French General, gestured toward Washington, who respectfully refused the sword. The fall of Yorktown, which had been their stronghold, forced the British to negociate. The Treaty of Versailles, signed September 3, 1783, ended the American War of Independence. The official birth certificate of a new nation, this treaty was also a symbol of the friendship between France and the United States. It was a friendship for which the two countries would time and again pay for with their lives.
Panzermeyer
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Joined: 01 Apr 2002
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:40 am
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The Growth of Friendly Relations (1783-1911)
December 20, 1803. France sells Louisiana to the United States. The French tricolor flag which had long flown over New Orleans had come down.The Stars and Stripes now flew in its place. Louisiana had been sold to the United States for 80 million francs. In 1763, Louis XV abandoned to Spain, the vast Mississippi territory that Cavelier de La Salle had claimed for Louis XIV a century earlier. The secret treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in 1800, which gave Louisiana and Florida back to the French, worried the newly elected president, Thomas Jefferson : Napoléon Bonaparte's presence on the Mississippi meant the threat of a French colonial empire in North America. But war with France at that point would have required an alliance with the British, which was then unimaginable. Jefferson preferred a diplomatic solution. In March of 1803, James Monroe rushed to Paris to negotiate. In the French capital, he received an unexpected welcome : the Premier Consul knew that France would soon be at war with Britain and he did not want to run the risk of another enemy front. So he authorized Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had visited the United States, to sell Florida and Louisiana for 100 million francs. Sensing the urgency of the French negotiators, Monroe tried to reduce the price. On May 2, 1803, they decided on the sum of 80 million francs. Congress ratified this agreement on October 20th, despite Republican opposition. The Republicans were appalled because Congress had not been consulted sooner ; they worried about granting automatic American citizenship to the people of the new territories. The treaty was advantageous to the New Republic because it doubled its size. It was also a boom for Napoléon, who hailed this "ceding of land which will affirm forever the power of the United States [and give] England a naval rival who, sooner or later, will best them." Monsieur de Laussat, the prefect of Louisiana addressed the population: 'Prudence and humanity together with a larger political perspective have given a new direction to France's benevolent intentions for Louisiana : she has given the territory to the United States of America. Dear Louisianans, you have thus become the token of the friendship that cannot fall to grow stronger between the two American Republics." American possession of Louisiana took place on December 20, 1803. The French flag was lowered and the American flag was hoisted amidst great fanfare. There were four toasts during the banquet that followed: with Madeira wine, they toasted the United States and Kentuc Thomas Jefferson; with Malaga wine, they toasted Charles IV of Spain; and with champagne they toasted Labrad the French Republic and Napoleon Bonaparte. The fourth toast called for the eternal happiness for the newly acquired territory of Louisiana.
American Nature Revealed
After the War of Independence, exploration of the vast virgin western territories began in earnest. No one contributed more to the discovery of the New World's wildlife than the naturalist Jean-Jacques (John James) Audubon. Born in Saint-Dominau on April 26, 1785, Jean-Jacques Audubon was the illegitimate son of a wealthy French planter and a Creole woman - a fact he tried to conceal all his life. A former naval officer, who had fought in the battle at Yorktown, Audubon's father took his son to France when he returned. The boy was just four years old when he arrived in Nantes, Brittany. But his artistic ability earned him an apprenticeship with the painter Jacques-Louis David. Audubon went to Pennsylvania in 1803, where his father owned land. There, he discovered the sumptuous flora and fauna of North America. From that moment on, his life was dominated by three passions :
hunting, painting and ornithology. In 1808 he married an American. He would dedicate almost 40 years of his life to exploring, notebook in hand, the vast wilderness of his new country - Kentucky, the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. In 1833, he visited the Labrador coast, the habitat of numerous water birds. In 1842, he traversed vast areas of Canada. The following year he left Saint Louis to go up the Missouri as far as Montana. Audubon's monumental work, The Birds of America, was published in London in four volumes between 1827-1838. It received a triumphant reception in both the New World and the Old. Audubon was welcomed into the prestigious Academy of Science in Paris. The famous naturalist lost his vision in 1846. He died in New York in 1851, aged 66. In the United States today, the Audubon Society for the protection of Nature, perpetuates the memory of this great artist who was one of the most illustrious Frenchmen from America.
Panzermeyer
Member
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
Posts: 1076
Location: France (Lyon)
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:40 am
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World War I (1914-1918)
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States on November 5, 1912. Wilson, a minister's son, was an ardent pacifist. He wanted to avoid, at all costs, the United States becoming embroiled in the erupting European conflict. As a child he had witnessed the horrors of the American Civil War ;and he feared a new conflict would mean a return that barbarity.Moreover, he worried about maintaining national unity in acountry where one citizen in four had been born abroad, or whose parents had come from either of the opposing camps now forming inthe Old World. Wilson had to act with extreme prudence : how could he take sides when Americans of German origin supported the Axis powers; when Anglo-Saxon Protestants on the East Coast supported the Allied powers ; when the Irish detested the English, and the Polish were hostile to the Russians? Assigned the task of negotiating a peace between Paris, London and Berlin,American diplomat Colonel House went to Europe in the Spring of 1914. Then Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarayevo; and all hope for this negotiated peace ended. The much feared conflict began on August 3, 1914. Over the next three years, in his role as a "neutral mediator," Wilson, launched several diplomatic initiatives to end the war. He suggested a plan for "Peace without victory," but none of the belligerents would consider it.
Then in May of 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sunk the British passenger ship"Lusitania". This altered the course of events. The United States strongly condemned the act ; there were 128 Americans among he Lusitania's 1 000 victims. These deaths moved public opinion in favor of the war. But a British publication naming American companies who had violated a trade boycott with the Germans, annoyed those who wished to remain out of the conflict. The coming elections of November 1916, meant that the President could not force the issue. But in January of 1917, the Germans decided, despite ongoing negotiations, to order their submarines to fire on American ships. This strengthened American resolve to fight the Axis, Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Berlin.
"The War to End All Wars"
He did not have long to wait for the next 'act of intentional injustice." Soon after, the"Vigilentia" was torpedoed. On April 6, 1917, at 13:18,the United States Congress voted to go to war. The majority supported this decision, in part, because of the publication of the "Zimmerman telegram.' The German Minister of War telegrammed his Mexican ambassador to prepare Mexico to joint heir alliance against the United States. The telegram suggested a similar alliance with Japan which further fueled American public outrage. Though the Americans had chosen defense of law over that of peace," they were not prepared for war, The American Army was very small and its only troops with combat experience had fought the Indians, Filippino Insurgents, theSpanish in Cuba and Pancho Villa's Mexican outlaws . They hardly seemed capable of supporting the massive conflict on the far off battlefields of Europe. This explains the calm assurance with which the Kaiser declared, -If Wilson wants war , let him have it- and so much the worse for him." America, however, rose to the challenge. In very little time, there was concrete evidence of determination and efficacy. Despite what some Democrats called"another form of slavery," Congress approved the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917.
This Act conscripted all male citizens between ages of 21 and 30 into the Armed Service. Thus the Army increased from 200,000 in February of 1917 four million by November 1918. In the meantime,a committee for public information organized meetings and demonstrations to convince the public that the war was a just cause. The goverment sold War bonds which were promoted by famous film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Picford. The President decreed a "mobilization of every resource in the nation." Created at the end of 1917 the War Industries Bureau, under the direction of Bernard Baruch, took measures to control industrial production : the distribution of raw materials and sources of energy was organized in deference to the war effort; industries were converted; railways were placed under government control ; and the organization of food for Europe was administered by a mining engineer named Herbert Hoover.
The turning point
For the French, the American entry into the war came at the perfect moment : the fall of the Czar meant that the future role of Russia was uncertain ; and there was the bloody failure of the Nivelle offensive in the area of Chemin des Dames;and finally the mutinies at the front gave even those mostoptimistic reason to doubt. The news of the American intervention raised the soldiers' moral, and revived the govemment's hope that in time, "we will win.' In the Spring of 1917, when he took command of the French Army, which had been bled all but white by an extreme and reckless offensive strategy, General Pétain announced that he would wait for the "Americans and the tanks." The arrival en masse of the "Sammies" as the French called them, turned the tide in the Allies' favor. By the summer of 1918, two milion American soldiers would be on French soil. As important as American military ground support,was the financial aid the United States contributed to the cause.The Allies had long before exhausted the funds, and only the United States Federal Treasury could afford to make such loans.When President Wilson announced, 'America goes to war with allher force," it also meant that the Allied nations would obtain financial aid for the war effort ; this amounted to ten billion dollars between April, 1917 and June, 1920. Logistically,the American Navy was vital in the fight against the German U-Boat blockade. The constrution of new ships, the work of the American Merchant Marine and the capture of German ships anchored in the previously neutral ports of Latin America, made marine transport, which had been seriously limited, available to the Allied Forces.
During his visit to the United States in April of 1917, Marshal Joffre explained how desperate the situation remained : three years of bloody combat had weakened the Anglo-French alliance, fresh troops were desperately needed. The French could quickly equip and train these troops in the combat skills required for trench warfare. France thus provided the American Expeditionary Force with: 75 and 155 mm canons; 155 mm shells, all of its tanks; 81% of the airplanes; more than half of its long range canons; 57,000 machine guns; 10 million shells; and more than 200 million bullets.
The Doughboys go "Over There"
One hundred seventy seven Americans of the Expeditionary Force, including the commanding officer General Pershing and Lieutenant Patton, arrived at Boulogne-sur-Mer onJune 13, 1917. They were welcomed by the Allies' highest ranking military representatives and Colonel Jacques Aldebert de Chambrun (who like all direct descendants of the Marquis de La Fayette automatically possessed American citizenship.) Pershing, Pattonand their men went directly to Paris where they met with the Minister of War Paul Painlevé, Marshal Joffre, and General Foch.In Paris, the Americans received an unprecedented reception: the people mobbed the streets of the capital to cheer the soldiers as they marched to the Place de la Concorde. General Pershing had to appear at the balcony of the Hotel Crillon before the crowd agreed to disperse. Two weeks later on June 28,1917, 14,000 American soldiers arrived at the port of Saint-Nazaire : there were 13,000 men in the lst division (the famous "Big RedOne') and a battalion of the 5th Marine regiment -soldiers who their commander had planned to send immediately to camps for several months of training. The French, however Insisted that the"Sammies" celebrate the 141st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The 16th Infantry regiment was chosen to march in the parade ; the soldiers were covered by flowers thrown by hundreds of thousands of Parisians.
"La Fayette, nous voila !"
On his ceremonial visit to the tomb of La Fayette,Pershing, a better soldier than an orator, asked Captain Stanton to say a few words on his behalf. There were just four: 'LaFayette, nous voila!." Immediately, the crowd at Picpus cemetery unleashed a riotous and joyful cheer which, to this day,echoes throughout the world. Pershing refused an amalgamation of the inexperienced American troops and the battle-toughened Frenchor British soldiers. President Wilson and Pershing agreed that the American Army should retain its own identity ; once preparedand strong enough, the Americans would play their own role in the common effort. At the end of July, the Ist division began training near Langres, in the Haute-Marne region, east of Paris.In September, they were joined by the 26th division, composed mostly of National Guard members from New England. Then a brigade of Marines arrived; they were soon followed by the 2nd division.This division included : an infantry brigade of regulars three artillery regiments ; a civil engineering regiment and a battalion of radio transmission soldiers. In October, the 42nd division arrived. It was known as the "Rainbow Division" because its soldiers, all from the National Guard,came from twenty six different states.
"Sammies" in"Looneyville"
Pershing had very little time to prepare the American Expeditionary Force for battle. By the end of October 1917, the Ist division was given a region near Toul and Lunéville, soon called "Looneyville" by the American troops. At the request of Marshal Foch, who had recently been promoted to commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, the other three divisions were deployed to contain the German's Spring offensive which threatened to break through the Front. The 28th regiment of the Ist Division fought south of Amiens near the village of Cantigny, where they took the territory without much difficulty.Despite seven fierce German counter attacks, which included violent bombardments and canisters of the infamous "mustardgas," the "Sammies" held their ground. In just one battle, they had proven to the Germans that they should not beunder estimated. In June and July, the superb action at Bois-Belleau of the American 2nd division and Marines,re-enforced by French colonial troops, demonstrated their capacity to counter a major German offensive. Through their combined efforts these troops managed, for three long weeks, toblock all enemy movements towards Paris. When the French decided to launch a counter-offensive on July 18, from the Champagne region, 85,000 Americans stood by for combat. Pershing wanted his troops to have a large victory of their own under the Stars and Stripes. This victory came during the major offensive of September, 1918. On September 12, at 05:00 after a long artillery bombardment using 3,000 canons, seven American divisions under Generals Dickmann, Ligget and Cameron, charged the Saint-Mihielbulge assisted by the French 2nd colonial corps.
"A Magnificent Victory"
At the end of the combat, 16,000 Germans were taken prisoner, and more than 300 canons were confiscated. Foch congratulated Pershing, "The American Ist Army, under your command, has managed a magnificent victory with a plan of action that was as carefully conceived as it was magnificently executed." The next offensive, launched at the end of the month, in the Argonne region, became a mud bath because of the incessant rain. Pershing wrote of this operation : "Under the icy rain in these dark nights, our civil engineers not only have to build new roads over terrain made sponge-like byshelling, but they must also repair the damaged roads and build bridges over flooded rivers. Our artillery, thinking not of sleep, moves hand-pulled carts through deep mud and clay, to bring the equipment necessary to support the infantry."Badly nourished, subjected to constant enemy bombardments,confronted with appalling weather conditions and stuck on difficult terrain, Ligget's troops held their position while threatened from all sides. Fortunately the Germans weakened and the 197 divisions they had on paper, could not resist the 220 Allied divisions. Moreover, the 42 American divisions were now receiving 250,000 re-enforcements each month. Thesere-enforcements added to the two million "Sammies" already deployed by the end of 1918. When the armistice wasfinally signed on November 11, 1918 in the Compiègne forest, it brought to an end the bloodiest conflict in human history-collectively the war cost nearly 8,500,000 lives and 30 million more had been injured - 50,000 Americans had died on French soil.
A Rendez-vous with Death
A Legion since the beginning mong those casualties was the poet Alan Seeger, who had been a volunteer in the french Foreign of the conflict. Several days before he met Death, the centerpieceof his poetry, he wrote, 'We are leaving for another assault tomorrow. This will probably be the toughest I have ever seen. We have been given the honor to be on the front line. No duffel bag,but a backpack, a canvas sheet hanging off one shoulder, lots of cartridges and hand grenades, as well as a bayonet on the end of our rifle. I am happy to be in the first assault wave. If you must go into battle, it is best to be thrown in completely. Thatis the supreme experience." On July 4, 1916, Alan Seeger kept his rendezvous : he was killed in action and became thesymbol of the young Americans who sacrificed their lives in the name of Liberty.
France and America, Partners for Peace
In 1928, ten years after World War I, France and America united to ban armed conflict forever. Even though it was hailed as the dawn ofa new age of universal peace, the"Kellogg-Briand Pact" could not defuse the antagonisms that would become WWII. "Never again!" In 1927, France and Germany were on a honeymoon unimaginable a year before. As President had Wilson hoped, the League of Nations worked vigorously for the foundation of universal peace. Despite their ascent to the a rank of worldpower, the United States had returned to its pre-war isolationism. The country that had inspired the League of Nations was not even a member! In April, on the tenth anniversary of America's entry into World War 1, Aristide Briand made a remarkable speech inviting the United States to become more involved in European affairs. Briand, a much respected politician, had been President of the French Council several times before being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by successive governments on both the Left and the Right. Briand'sspeech came at an opportune moment. Preparations for the conference to discuss disarmament were going badly. And the problem of French war debts weighed on the Franco-American relationship. In June of 1927, Briand proposed to American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg that their nations sign a pact of mutual renunciation of war. Secretary Kellogg readily accepted. This accord, purely symbolic, would unite their two nations in peace and friendship; in time it would grow to include every nation on earth. The "Kellog-Briand Pact," as it was called, was signed on February 6, 1928 by France and the United States. It prohibited recourse to war as a political instrument. There were no sanctions planned other than the censure of the other signatories. But as one newspaper edit noted, "at least the moral conscience will act as a serious obstacle to those wishing to break the agreement." The accord remained in Washington DC, under the protection of the United States, where it would stay until future adherents signed.The Kellogg-Briand Pact was eventually ratified by 63 countries including Germany, the British Empire, Japan, Poland, Italy and Czechoslovakia. For their work toward world peace, both the French and the American statesmen were awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Panzermeyer
Member
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
Posts: 1076
Location: France (Lyon)
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:41 am
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World War 2 (1939-1945)
Very carefully planned for months and preceded by a monumental aerial bombardment, Operation Overlord was considered a success by dusk on D-Day. East of the landing zone, the English and Canadians had established beachheads. To the West, despite theist and 29th infantry divisions' dreadful losses during the landing at Omaha Beach, the American Ist Army division had solid possession of the beach. At Utah Beach, the 4th infantry division managed to land without much difficulty, although they did have problems in the marshes beyond the beach. As for the 82nd and 101st Airborne, the landing in Sainte-Mère-Eglise was confused. Ironically, the vast dispersal of the US paratroopers helped to surprise the enemy; they didn't know where to concentrate their defensive efforts. While General Dempsey's English and Canadian troops progressed very slowly against the Germans' Panzer units, the Americans successfully reached their objectives in good time in the weeks that followed. The capture of Isigny and Carentan opened the road to Cotentin. Despite the actions of thel7th SS Panzer division, "Gotz von Berlichingen," the Allied troops had by June 18th, reached the West coast of the peninsula. By the end of the month, the American Ist Army had taken Cherbourg. Unfortunately the port installations had been mined by the Germans before their surrender. And the fierce storm that had hit the prefabricated concrete ports built offshore Arromanche and Omaha Beaches, had revealed their weaknesses. But the skill and determination of the American Army Corps of Engineers put Cherbourg Port back in service in even less time than the most optimist estimates. One port could not arm and supply the entire Allied war machine, which, by August numbered nearly two million men, 500,000 vehicles and three million tons of equipment. It was therefore urgent to move toward Brittany and take the coast ; in this way, the Allies would control a large enough section of the English Channel and the Atlantic, to facilitate access to the sea. For several weeks, the Americans fought the "battle of the hedgerows," over terrain that favored defensive positions and did not permit the use of superior, but massive weaponry. By the end of June, the Americans had lost 22,000 men. On July 18th, several days after the English bad taken Caen, Saint-Lo, which the Germans had defended fiercely, fell to the Americans. From then on, General Omar Bradley, Commander of the American Ist Army, could penetrate enemy lines and shove the Germans South. Operation Cobra, launched the following week realized this plan.
Operation Cobra
General Patton, commander of the IIIrd American Army, deployed the 4th and 6th armored divisions towards Coutances. Coutances was captured on July 28th, and Granville on July 30th. The following day, Avranches was also under American control. Moving now in longer strides, the American tanks seized Pontaubault and its bridge over the Sélune; this opened the road to the Loire and Brittany. Inspired by Patton's continuous drive, the 8th corps bad made the legendary "Avranches breakthrough" which was fully exploited to give a new pace to the Battle of Normandy. The Americans, returning German fire in kind, captured in succession: Rennes, Vannes and Saint-Malo. Brest did not fall until Septemberl8th; and even though the Germans did hold on to several "Atlantic enclaves" until the Spring of 1945, the remainder of Brittany was liberated. Rather than move southeast along the coast, the Allies decided to push the offensive northwest and liberate the Channel ports in the Pas-de-Calais. By September, General Montgomery's British troops had advanced as far as Anvers. In the meantime, General Patton wanted to surround the German forces to the south of Normandy and encircle them in the Falaise enclave. The Germans were not completely beaten, but they were cornered. During this battle, General Leclerc's legendary 2nd French armored division which had been integrated into Patton's IIIrd Army, took a decisive role in the liberation of Alenqon. Patton's 79th infantry division moved first to Dreux, then to Mantes-la-jolle and finally reached the Seine by August 19th. Initially, the Americans had planned to skirt around Paris to the north and south and not take it by force; but the vicious civil war that raged in the capital's streets convinced Eisenhower and Bradley to let Leclerc take the city. At 21:00 on August 24, 1944, every bell in Paris rang to celebrate General Leclerc's arrival at the Hôtel de Ville with the first detachment of the second armored division. On August 25th von Choltitz surrendered. Charles De Gaulle made his now famous speech: "Paris ! Paris outragé ! Paris brisé ! Libéré par lui meme, libéré par son peuple avec le concours des armées de la France!" (Paris ! Paris raped ! Paris broken ! Liberated by herself, liberated by her people with the help of the armies of France!" Among the first of Paris' liberators was the writer Ernest Hemingway. He had done his best writing in the Paris of the 1920's. But in 1944, he immediately visited his old friend Pablo Picasso and offered him a gift... a case of hand grenades! (Hemingway also took credit for liberating the bar at the Ritz Hotel).
Meanwhile, the 20th US Army corps seized Melun and Fontainebleau, and the 12th army corps, under General Patton, liberated Orléans on August 17th, Chartres on the 18th, Sens on the 21st and Troyes on the 26th. While events in the North moved quickly, with Bradley's Ist and Illrd Armies heading north and cast, on August 15, General Patch landed in the south, near Cavalaire, on the coast of Maures and Estérel. Toulon and Marseilles were taken one month earlier than expected, due to the courage of the newly re-organized French Army. By September 3rd, Lyons had been liberated and on the 12th, the Allied forces from Operation Overlord and Operation "Anvil Dragoon " (The code name for the landing in Provence) met in Montbard, near Dijon in Burgundy. The pace of the Allied offensive quickly accelerated. Nancy fell, then Epinal. Up near Metz, the Allied troops had to stop - the victim of its own success. Allied headquarters had not calculated such a quick advance, and logistical problems grew increasingly worse. From September 29th to October 4th, Patton had to resist a German counter offensive in Nancy. The enemy was forced back and Patton moved on to the Saar river and the Siegfried line.
Metz was finally captured on November 15 th; Leclerc, now part of the American VIIth Army, moved on to Strasbourg. While the Americans marched toward the rhine, and then to the Ruhr, which they took with the British, the Germans had begun a massive counter offfensive through the Ardennes. Operation "Autumn Fog," conceived by Adolf Hitler himself, began on December 16. Middleton's American 8th corps suffered the brunt of the Panzers that were sent to the Meuse. In several hours, the American Front was dislodged and had had to retreat nearly 30 kilometers. Three days later, Patton and Eisenhower organized a fank counter attack. The operation was risky but a fearless General Patton successfully moved the IIIrd Army to the northeast and launched a rescue mission to Mac Auliffe's 101st Airborn which was defending Bastogne. On December 26th, the surrounded paratroopers finally received help from the American 4th armored division. The weather improved, which enabled the Americans to exploit their control of the skies and to attack the enemy from the air. Soon after, the lack of fuel for their tanks put an end to the Germans' final offensive.The Allies' eastward advance could now continue. To the south, the 6th group of American armies and the First French Army of de Lattre de Tassigny destroyed the Colmar enclave. The men of the 9th armored division of the Ist army reached the Rhine, north of Coblenz, on March 7, 1945. General Hodges led the 9th and seized the bridge at Remagen. At 16:00 on April 25, at Torgau-on-Elbe, the men of the Ist American Army met the Soviet Army. On the 7th of May, 1945, at 02:45, the Third Reich surrendered at Reims. This time the sacrifices were greater, but as they had in 1918, the United States played a decisive role in the final victory. Once again, Europe was greatly indebted to the United States.
Panzermeyer
Member
I found this post of a person "Panzermeyer" on a WWII forum.(Axis History Forum) and I think that his wise words are worth to mention here.
It has been a long time ago that I saw so much wisdom (and also so much text :roll: ) for something that I underscribe (almost) completely.
What is your opinion on this? You don't have to read it completely, some parts are allready making a good point.
Just a post to change from the usual country bashing on this part of the forum ....
Perhaps US citizens found France sometimes an exasperating country but our two nations are united by a friendship that goes back more than 200 years which makes France the oldest ally of the United States.
Based on solidarity that has never failed, from the battlefields of Yorktown to the beaches of Normandy and through all the crises of the past half century, the friendship between our two countries is especially strong because it is rooted in shared values. The American dream of the Founding Fathers melds readily with the ideals of the French Revolution. It is no accident that an American woman and a Frenchman, Eleanor Roosevelt and René Cassin, together wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights more than 50 years ago.
Panzermeyer
Member
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
How Dixieland Got Its Name and Other French Influence Facts in the United States ... (by Pascal Fuselier)
How the southern states got to be known as Dixieland is just another example of the French influence in the United States. If you go back in history from the 16th Century through the 19th, you will see that every major region in our nation was explored and settled by Frenchmen and French Canadians.
Let's look at Dixie first. The name was born and coined before the Civil War. Money was pouring out of the port of New Orleans like crazy. Boats of every description lined the levee on the riverfront waiting for cargoes to be loaded down the Mississippi and up the river to America's heartland or even overseas.
The city was divided at Canal Street. On one side were the French, and on the other were les Americains. Kentucky and Tennessee boatmen, with lots of cash after selling their cargoes, flocked the street. Mais, they had to use de l'argent Francais on the downriver side of the street, and American money on the upriver side.
But the officials of Citizen's Bank of New Orleans met and said 'On vas arranger ca." So to the satisfaction of all, the bank began issuing bilingual $10 bank notes. On the face of the note was the English word "ten" and the French word 'dix', and the boatmen corrupted the word dix (which is French for ten) by saying they were going to New Orleans "to get those old dixies.' So that is how the word dixie became an adjective to describe things of Southern origin, and from there it became a noun to describe the South itself. And I'm just crazy about the Dixie Chicks!
The United States has over 5,000 communities with French names. How did these places acquire French names ? They were named by French refugees settling here and Huguenots, or, even earlier, by French explorers who opened up the central United States. The map of the United States is full of such names, sometimes transformed and Anglicized (the Ozarks were named Aux Arcs).
Other places are named after prominent Frenchmen, such as Hugoton, Kansas, named after Victor Hugo, author of LES Miserables; Louisville, Kentucky, named after King Louis XVI; Talleyrand, Indiana, named for the Talleyrand/Perignard family and the forty two cities named Layayette, named after the Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) who, at the age of 19 and a very rich man, came to join General George Washington in 1776 to help win the Revolutionary War. Invited by the U.S. Congress in 1825, he returned on a triumph voyage to where he had helped liberate a people. The grateful new nation bestowed upon him the special title "Citizen of the United States," transmissible to all his direct descendants. The law is still valid today. George Washington said that without Lafayette's help the war could not have been won.
Other municipalities in the U.S. are named after French cities and towns such as Brest, Michigan; Fountainbleu, Montana; Montpelier, capital of Vermont; Abbeville, Louisiana; and Paris, of which there are fifty in the United States. Some names were taken from the natural environment like Caribou, Colorado; L'Anguille (eel), Arkansas; Pomme de terre, Minnesota; Papillon, Arkansas; Terre Haute, Indiana; Ville Platte, Louisiana; and how about L'Anse Aux Pailles; L'Anse Bleu; L'Anse Megre; and La Pointe Aux Pins. And, sorry but Patasa is not a French name; it's a Choctaw Indian name meaning "flat fish."
We learned in history about how the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1604. But we were not taught that one of the pilgrims was a Frenchman. His name was Guillaume Mullins (probably of the French family Molines) and he arrived at Plymouth with his wife, two children, son Joseph and daughter Priscilla, and his two servants, George Saule and Robert-Carte (Cartier). The American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), a descendant on his mother's side, immortalized his ancestor's story in his novel, The Courtship of Miles Standish. (Longfellow also immortalized our parish namesake in his epic poem Evangeline). And the first white child born in New York is believed to be by most historians Jean Vigne, the son of a French Protestant.
We were taught in high school history about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, but what we were not taught is that Paul Revere's real name was Paul Rivoire, the son of Appolos Rivoire, a gold and silversmith. Paul Rivoire played an important part in the struggle for American independence when he rode his horse from Charleston to Lexington to warn the Americans of an attack by the British. He was immortalized in "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." He worked as a bellmaker and furnished Fulton with copper sheeting for the construction of the first steamship.
You probably remember studying about John C. Fremont (1813-1890) in high school history. Actually his name was Jean-Charles Fremont and he was the son of a Quebecois. Fremont arrived in California in the middle of the 19th century when he was already well known as an explorer. At Sonora de Los Angeles in 1846 he commanded one of the armies which vanquished the Mexicans in the struggle for the country. He was governor of a free California until its annexation to the U.S. in 1850. The electors of the new state chose him as their senator.
Jean-Charles Fremont was the Republican Party's first candidate for president of the United States. Part of his platform was halting the advance of slavery into the free state, bringing Kansas into the Union, changing the policy of President Franklin Pierce, and building the Pacific railroad. He was defeated by James Buchanan. He later served as a Union general in the War Between the States (1861-1865) and after the war he became president of the Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad. He was governor of the territory of Arizona in 1878, and he was a major general in the American army.
William Gilet, count de Foix, a French Huguenot, was the ancestor of the Gillette family in Connecticut. And chew on this a while: one of the best investments in history was made by twenty individuals, who, in 1901 paid $250 each for 500 shares in a new company organized by an erstwhile sidewalk vendor named King C. Gillette - the company manufactured safety razors. Only fifty-three razors were made in the U.S. in 1903. If someone had made the original investment, and held onto his/her stock until 1975, his worth would have been in the neighborhood of 50 million dollars!
Other prominent Americans of French ancestry include the Tiffanys, who came from Champagne, France (Louis Tiffany founded the internationally known company in New York in 1837); John Jay, a French Huguenot, who was the first chief justice of New York and secretary for foreign affairs. He later became the first chief justice of the U.S. and in 1794, signed a treaty with Lord Grenville, which became known as Jay's Treaty, ending the military dispute between the United States and England. He later became governor of New York. John Audubon (1785-1857), American ornithologist, painter and naturalist was of French descent and he painted many of the birds in his classic collection of "Birds of North America" while living in the Felicianas in south Louisiana.
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Don't forget DesMoines Iowa, Dubuque Iowa etc.....Terre Haute Indiana......and the Le Compte de Rochambeau who marched across Connecticut and Rhode Island during the Revolution against Great Britain ...
How about the French Eleuthère Irénée du Pont (1771-1834) who was the founder of the gun powder manufacturing firm E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. ?
Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the son of Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, was born in Paris on June 24, 1771. In 1787, he was accepted as a student in the Régie des Poudres, a government agency for the manufacture of gunpowder which was directed by Antoine Lavoisier. He married Sophie Madeleine Dalmas (1775-1828) in 1791. In 1800 Eleuthère Irénée du Pont emigrated to the United States and began investigating sites for a black powder manufactory. After consulting with Thomas Jefferson he established E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. on the banks of the Brandywine River, just north of Wilmington, Delaware. In the spring of 1803 he settled his family at Eleutherian Mills and wrote to Jefferson seeking government patronage for his new powder factory. During the 1810s, du Pont was active in the Society of the State of Delaware for the Promotion of American Manufacturers, where he lobbied Congress for high tariffs. In 1822 he was named a director of the Bank of the United States. Eleuthère Irénée du Pont died in Philadelphia on October 31, 1834.
Du Pont later evolved into one of the world's largest chemical companies, and in the 20th century led the polymer revolution by developing many highly successful materials such as nylon, teflon and kevlar. Today, DuPont is a multi-national chemicals and health care company with 2002 revenues of $24.5 billion.
The Statue of Liberty, which has welcomed immigrants since 1886, is one of the greatest symbols of the United States. On an island in New York Harbor, Lady Liberty stands as the most enduring emblem of Franco-American friendship.
October 28, 1886. 10,000 official guests, and an enthusiastic nation await the inauguration of the statue "Liberty Lighting the World." The statue, erected on Bedloe's Island at the entrance to New York Harbor, commemorated France's role in the American Revolution. Congress allocated funds for the event provided that "not one dollar be spent on spirits or tobacco." Fortunately, private enterprise easily met that demand, and the crowds were able to smoke or drink as much as they wished. When the statue was unveiled, revealing the unparalleled dimensions of the monument - 46 meters high from its base to its top and weighing 200,000 kilograms, it was the biggest monument of its type ever constructed - the American applause could be heard across the Atlantic. The sculptor, 52 year old Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was known in the United States for his statue of La Fayette. Bartholdi had given America this statue ten years before. In France, he was better known for his colossal Belfort Lion a gigantic figure sculpted in red sandstone that symbolized the heroic resistance of Alsace during the 1870 war with Prussia.
Built in France in sections, the Statue of Liberty is made of copper supported by an iron skeleton constructed by Gustave Eiffel, architect of the famous tower. Its 300 separate pieces were molded and shaped in Paris, and then reassembled in New York Harbor. The statue rests on a granite pedestal 25 meters high. Money for the statue itself came from a generous subscription fund in France and its pedestal was financed by the United States.
etc.
I found we have many things in common .... to bad that there is so much politics today that seperate our peoples ....
David
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:38 am
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France in the New World (1524-1778)
The love story between France and America began well before the colonists called their country the United States. As early as the XVIth century, French explorers returned to the coasts of the New World which they had hoped to make New France."Though the natives are extremely odd and covered with variously colored feathers, the physical attributes of the countryside are most pleasant. Situated in the middle of precipitous hills is a wide and deep bay. It is easily large enough to accommodate a good sized sailing vessel..." This entry, dated April 1524, describes the one day port of New York City. The steep hills will be called Brooklyn and Staten Island, and a bridge, named after the narrator will connect the two: Giovanni da Verrazanoi. Born into a rich Italian family of Lyons, France, Verrazano was a Frenchman at heart. Jean de Verrazane, as he was called in his adopted country, had sailed from Brittany three months earlier in search of the mythical "North-West passage" to India. After a stopover in Madeira, he and the crew of the Dauphine saw the New World on March 7,1524. They were off the coast of present-day North Carolina. Fearful of the Spanish in Florida, he looped back to explore the North. Crossing the immense bay between Cape Hatteras and the coast of Virginia, Verrazano thought he had seen the Eastern Sea, leading to the Pacific, and called it the Isthmus of Verrazano. This name, which later appeared on maps of the New World, was to encourage many false hopes. The Indians were very friendly to the travellers, and the French affectionately called present day Maryland "Acadia" (the Indians' kindness did not stop the French sailors from taking a native boy back to Europe as a souvenir). Sailing by day, and mooring at night, the Dauphine continued north off the coast of Delaware and New Jersey. On April 17, Verrazano lay claim to Manhattan in the name of Francis I. He wrote the French King, 'Sire, we called this land Angoulesme, the name you once had when lesser in fortune... As for the beautiful bay that is formed in this land, we gave it the name of Sainte-Marguerite, in honor of the princess, your sister, who is above all women in virtue and in spirit."
The French in Florida
Sixty Years before the Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth rock, French Hugenots, also fleeing religious intolerance in Europe, set up a colony in Florid These brave colonists might have played an important role in the foundation of the French Etats-Unis, but history decided otherwise. When Admiral de Coligny suggested sending Protestants to live in Florida to practice their religion in peace, the French king, Charles IX jumped at the idea. He saw an opportunity to counter the ambitions of Catholic Spain in the country described by Franciscan Marcos de Niza as a "new Eldorado." Jean Ribault, a Huguenot from the coastal town Dieppe, was chosen to lead the expedition. The ship weighed anchor in February 1562, and by April 30, she reached what they called Cap des Français, in present day South Carolina. On May lst, they had their first contact with the apparently peaceful natives. A French column, emblazoned with the royal fleur-de-lys soon stood next to the small colony on the bank of the May River (now called St. john's River). It marked the French claim to the land they considered 'the most beautiful, rich and pleasant in the world." Having established a colony at the mouth of the Port Royal river, (on what is now Parris Island, South Carolina) Ribault left thirty soldiers to build a camp called "Charles-fort," in honor of the king, while he returned to France for reinforcements and supplies.The religious wars prevented his immediate return. When a second expedition, led by René de Laudonnière, finally arrived in Florida in June 1564, famine and mutiny had overcome Charlesfort. A second colony, Fort Caroline, was established on the May River. Its fate was even worse. Men deserted to take up piracy, relations with the Indians degraded, and famine threatened. The survivors were relieved to see seven masts on the horizon. Jean Ribault had finally kept his promise. He landed on August 28, 1565 with 600 colonists. The joy was short lived. A storm sank the boats. Those who escaped death at sea were killed by the Spanish, who were only too happy to finish off the "Lutheran Filibusters." On September 20, the troops of Pedro Menédez de Avilés massacred the garrison in a surprise attack. This bloody encounter put an end to French colonial ambition in Florida.
Louis XIV, King of Louisiana
April 9, 1682 on the banks of the Mississippi River. Robert Cavelier de La Salle, outfitted in full dress uniform, sword in hand, read a proclamation that gave bis king "the country Louisiana". One bundred and fifty years after Jacques Cartier, Cavelier de La Salle offered France another chance to carve out an empire in the New World.
Born in Rouen, Normandy, in 1643, Robert Cavelier de La Salle was one of the greatest explorers of the North American continent. The son of wealthy parents who settled in Montreal in 1666, he could easily have led the life of a rich colonist. Gripped by the stories told him by the Indians, he swore to be the first to open the passage to the Great Western Ocean towards China. Pushed by the Governor General and supported by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, advisor to the King, and by King Louis XIV himself, Cavelier de La Salle made numerous expeditions to the Great Lakes and into present-day Illinois and Ohio. He left behind him a magnificent network of forts. After several fruitless attempts, the indefatigable traveller left Saint Louis (south of Lake Erie, in the territory of the Miami Indians) with twenty Frenchmen and thirty scouts from the Mohican and Abénaquis tribes to find the Mississippi River. When they reached the river on February 6, 1682, the ice was too thick to break. After a week, the ice began to break up, allowing the expedition to descend the river by canoe. Leaving behind places visited years before by Joliet and Marquette, they entered the territory of the Arkansas Indians, then went on to the Natchez, who gave them a very warm welcome. The two tribes were at war with one another, so the expedition didn't pause for too long. The river became wider. Soon the vegetation grew more exotic, and they sighted alligators. On the fifth of April they noticed that the water was briny. The following day, they reached the fork of the Mississippi Delta, and soon the area where the river swept into the sea. Several days later they erected a cross below which was placed a plaque that read: "In the name of Louis XIV, King of France and of Navarre, April 9, 1682." After they had chanted Vexilla Regis for the king, and a triumphal Te Deum, several shots were fired in salute. Cavelier de La Salle then read, in the presence of a public notary brought on the trip for this purpose, the proclamation giving Louis XIV "the country of Louisiana and all the seas, ports, provinces, all the peoples, nations, cities, villages, and mines of this country, as well as the length of the river Colbert or Mississippi, and all rivers that empty into it from their springs to the Gulf of Mexico." The proclamations were received several months later by Louis XIV. The "Sun King" was so pleased to gain such a vast territory that he named Cavelier de La Salle Governor and gave him gave him four ships and 200 men to begin colonization. The flotilla left in July 1684. While the voyage to the Gulf of Mexico was without incident, the expedition by-passed the Mississippi Delta, and ended up farther West, in Galveston Bay. The region was inhospitable, and the conditions in which the foundation of the future Saint Louis of Texas took place were very bad. Famine and mutiny soon threatened. On March 19, 1687, Cavelier de La Salle was killed by his own troops. Not long afterwards the settlement was overrun by Indians. The dreams of the explorer from Normandy ended in tragedy.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:39 am
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A Brotherhood of Arms (1778-1783)
The court of Versailles followed closely the events leading up to the American Revolution. When, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed their independance, Vergennes, the Foreign Affairs Secretary, saw a perfect opportunity to take revenge on Britain, and thus advised the King to support the rebels. Fearing a war with the British, Turgot, the Minister of Finance, was less enthusiastic. King Louis XVI was not inclined to assist a rebellion which undermined another monarch. Despite popular opinion in favor of the Revolutionaries, France's support was far from certain when Benjamin Franklin arrived in Paris on December 27,1776. He joined Silas Deane as American Minister to France. Deane was a wealthy Connecticut businessman, who, chosen in haste, had produced no concrete results. Franklin's reputation as a man of great learning, who lived modestly, greatly pleased the Court. Franklin soon had French support for the Revolutionary cause. Official aid was at first discreet. But the number of volunteers offering to help the Revolutionaries grew rapidly. There was a great deal to draw young Frenchmen to America: the attraction of new ideas, a thirst to fight their hereditary British enemy, a desire for adventure and the chance for exotic travel in the New World. Several months later, Silas Deane wrote, "the rage to sign up to serve with the Americans is continually growing. As a consequence I am inundated with offers, many from persons of consequential rank..." The King himself had to intervene when members of distinguished families wanted to leave for the New World. The count of Noaille and the count of Ségur, two of the most important names in the French kingdom, wanted to leave with the young Marquis de La Fayette. It was feared that these young men would compromise the neutral position of France. Noailles and Ségur bowed to the pressure, but La Fayette stole onto the boat La Victoire which sailed first to Bordeaux, then to Spain, and finally on to Georgetown, where he arrived in June 1777. Many of the volunteers were greatly disappointed in the New World. Most of them did not speak English and they did not understand how the Revolutionary Army, unlike anything in Europe, could function on a battlefield. Furthermore, their social background made it difficult for them to adapt to the democratic style of George Washington's soldiers. Welcomed with great enthusiasm in Philadelphia, La Fayette even offered to serve in the army as a foot soldier, and to pay his own way. Franklin, however, explained to the Continental Congress that it would be politically advantageous to enlist foreign soldiers whose families could influence the court at Versailles. La Fayette was finally appointed to the rank of General. Returning to the front just as the English General Howe marched on Philidelphia, he was injured at the battle of Brandywine. Soon after, he followed Washington to his headquarters at Valley Forge. The winter of 1777-1778 was a particularly tough one. Badly clothed, badly nourished and badly armed, Washington's army was on the verge of collapse. At this point, an attack by the English would almost certainly have changed the course of the war. In Paris, Franklin did his best to convince the court to adopt the American cause officially through a formal alliance with the United States.
The French to the Rescue
The resulting Treaty of Commerce and Friendship was signed on February 6, 1778. The Revolutionaries' situation was such that the French could have made any demand in the treaty, taking advantage of the vulnerable United States. Instead the French policy looked far into the future. Vergennes wrote to his ambassador in London on March 17, 1778: 'We did not want to procure any commercial favors that might make other nations jealous, such that the United States might one day accuse us of taking advantage of them." One week later he stated, "The authorized American deputies were open to giving us any exclusive rights of trade we might have demanded. We were aware of that. But through the recognition of the United States as a member of the family of nations, the King wanted to create a bond that would serve posterity and be as solid and enduring as is possible in human affairs.' The French policy prompted Benjamin Franklin, a great student of human nature, to say, "The truth is that this nation loves glory and loves to protect the oppressed." Back on the battlefields of North America, the British began to realize that time was against them. After taking Philidelphia they prepared themselves to deliver the death blow to the Revolutionaries. They wanted to quickly exploit tensions within the Revolutionary ranks, notably the rivalry between Washington and Gates, the victor of the battle of Saratoga. General Clinton took command of the British troops after Howe's resignation. Fearing a French blockade of the Delaware and an attack on the city by the Continental Army, Clinton moved towards New York.
Washington followed behind and launched an attack at Monmouth - an audacious military manoeuvre that would have been a decisive victory if Charles Lee, the commander of the vanguard, had not inexplicably disobeyed orders and retreated from ground he had captured and held. Court martialled, Lee, accused by some of treason, was finally released. The error had been commited. Washington was forced to stop his offensive, and instead set up headquarters in New Brunswick while Clinton went on to New York. Arriving in July 1778, the French fleet under Admiral d'Estaing came to the aid of the Revolutionaries, for the first time in force. A siege was planned ; Estaing would move in by sea, while the American General Sullivan would arrive by land to take Newport, Rhode Island. Unfortunately a violent storm arose, putting an end to this first attempt at military cooperation between the new allies. Estaing headed south to the West Indies for the winter. This setback did not bode well for the Americans. Paris would not look kindly on a failed military operation; but the Revolutionaries were very much in need of assistance and reinforcements. At the end of 1778, La Fayette obtained permission from the Continental Congress to go to Versailles. He was well received, and knew how to convince Vergennes and Maurepas to throw the weight of France into the battle. Among the plans that had been envisaged was a large-scale landing in Britain. Ships had been prepared for this purpose. The Project never saw the light of day. But the fleet gathered in Saint Malo and Le Havre made it technically possible to send an expeditionary force to the New World as La Fayette requested. Louis XVI was still worried about dissent among the Revolutionaries and feared that Spain's Charles III, although allied with France against England, would dislike to decisive an American victory next door to his overseas empire. Still, France eventually sent to General Washington 5,000 men chosen from their best troops. La Fayette was too young to command the expeditionary force. He was sent back to America to announce the imminent arrival of the long-awaited re-enforcements under the command of Rochambeau.
America, we are here
Leaving Brest, the convoy sighted land at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 11, 1780. Among the officers, were some of the most important names in France : Montmorency, Custine, Chartres, Noailles, Lauzun... The hopes raised by the arrival of the French were short-lived : soon after, a large British fleet was sighted. It was under the command of Admirals Arbuth-not and Rodney. It spoiled the plans for a quick attack on New York. The Hartford meeting, organized by La Fayette between Rochambeau and Washington, resulted in another request for more French reenforcements. Only a full-sized naval force could save the situation. To make matters worse, when Washington returned to his camp at West Point, he learned of Benedict Arnold's treason. One of the Colonels' most brilliant military minds had gone over to the enemy. Becoming chief counsellor to General Clinton, Arnold pushed for quick action to exploit the weakness of the Continental Army. Victims of the naval blockade, the American soldiers were neither paid, nor fed, nor clothed. Rochambeau began to worry, quite legitimately, about the effectiveness of these 11 men pushed to the limits of their resources." Once more Louis XVI and Vergennes responded to the needs of the Revolutionaries. On May 16, 1781, despite the terrible state of French finances, the ship La Concorde brought six million pounds to Washington. The American General wanted to attack New York. Rochambeau, however, thought it more prudent to head South, where the English General Cornwallis had not yet managed to win a decisive victory against the American fighter Greene, who used guerilla tactics. Clinton ordered Cornwallis to keep a minimal force in Yorktown, on the Chesapeake Bay, where they had the support of the Navy ; he would then send the remaining troops to reinforce the garrison in New York, where they thought the major battle would take place. Cornwallis was thus left vulnerable and Washington, knowing that de Grasse's fleet was en-route, was readily convinced to attack Yorktown. Moreover, de Grasse, who was sailing back to the continent after a series of victories in the West Indies, had sent a message to George Washington, telling him that he preferred fighting in the Chesapeake Bay because it was deeper than the Hudson River, and allowed for greater manoeuvrability.
On August 19th, crossing New Jersey, the Franco-American troops headed toward Virginia. On August 30th, Washington and Rochambeau triumphantly entered Philadelphia. From there they marched on Yorktown with an army of 18,000 men. There were 9,000 Americans and 5,000 French to which were added 3,300 more when the Marquis de Saint Simon arrived from Saint-Domingue with de Grasse's fleet. Cornered with a mere 7,000 Redcoats, Cornwallis was in a desperate situation. Hope appeared on September 5th, when 22 ships were sighted on the horizon. The fleet, commanded by Admiral Graves, had left New York two days earlier to rescue Yorktown. The tide seemed to be turning against the Revolutionaries, but de Grasse saved the day. In the Bay, the French ships were sitting ducks. De Grasse manoeuvered brilliantly; he slipped his fleet around Cape Henry and set up in formation around the Ville de Paris, the largest vessel of that period. When the battle began in the open seas, the English had already lost. When the canons stopped, one British ship had sunk and five more were seriously damaged. No French ships were destroyed and only two were damaged. Graves retreated ; the French victory was complete. Cornwallis had counted on the naval re-enforcements to back him up so he hadn't bothered to protect his positions. On September 28th, the Revolutionaries deployed their forces : the French on the left next to the Americans followed by La Fayette's Franco-American corps General Washington's troops ; and finally the troops under the command of Prussian General von Steuben (who had fought with the Revolutionaries since 1777). The fate of the British was sealed. On October 17th, the anniversary of the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, the Star Spangled Banner flew over Yorktown. The defeated British garrison marched between two rows of the victors - the French on the left, the Americans on the right. The officer representing Cornwallis, who claimed to be ill, wanted to surrender his sword to Rochambeau. But the French General, gestured toward Washington, who respectfully refused the sword. The fall of Yorktown, which had been their stronghold, forced the British to negociate. The Treaty of Versailles, signed September 3, 1783, ended the American War of Independence. The official birth certificate of a new nation, this treaty was also a symbol of the friendship between France and the United States. It was a friendship for which the two countries would time and again pay for with their lives.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:40 am
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The Growth of Friendly Relations (1783-1911)
December 20, 1803. France sells Louisiana to the United States. The French tricolor flag which had long flown over New Orleans had come down.The Stars and Stripes now flew in its place. Louisiana had been sold to the United States for 80 million francs. In 1763, Louis XV abandoned to Spain, the vast Mississippi territory that Cavelier de La Salle had claimed for Louis XIV a century earlier. The secret treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in 1800, which gave Louisiana and Florida back to the French, worried the newly elected president, Thomas Jefferson : Napoléon Bonaparte's presence on the Mississippi meant the threat of a French colonial empire in North America. But war with France at that point would have required an alliance with the British, which was then unimaginable. Jefferson preferred a diplomatic solution. In March of 1803, James Monroe rushed to Paris to negotiate. In the French capital, he received an unexpected welcome : the Premier Consul knew that France would soon be at war with Britain and he did not want to run the risk of another enemy front. So he authorized Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had visited the United States, to sell Florida and Louisiana for 100 million francs. Sensing the urgency of the French negotiators, Monroe tried to reduce the price. On May 2, 1803, they decided on the sum of 80 million francs. Congress ratified this agreement on October 20th, despite Republican opposition. The Republicans were appalled because Congress had not been consulted sooner ; they worried about granting automatic American citizenship to the people of the new territories. The treaty was advantageous to the New Republic because it doubled its size. It was also a boom for Napoléon, who hailed this "ceding of land which will affirm forever the power of the United States [and give] England a naval rival who, sooner or later, will best them." Monsieur de Laussat, the prefect of Louisiana addressed the population: 'Prudence and humanity together with a larger political perspective have given a new direction to France's benevolent intentions for Louisiana : she has given the territory to the United States of America. Dear Louisianans, you have thus become the token of the friendship that cannot fall to grow stronger between the two American Republics." American possession of Louisiana took place on December 20, 1803. The French flag was lowered and the American flag was hoisted amidst great fanfare. There were four toasts during the banquet that followed: with Madeira wine, they toasted the United States and Kentuc Thomas Jefferson; with Malaga wine, they toasted Charles IV of Spain; and with champagne they toasted Labrad the French Republic and Napoleon Bonaparte. The fourth toast called for the eternal happiness for the newly acquired territory of Louisiana.
American Nature Revealed
After the War of Independence, exploration of the vast virgin western territories began in earnest. No one contributed more to the discovery of the New World's wildlife than the naturalist Jean-Jacques (John James) Audubon. Born in Saint-Dominau on April 26, 1785, Jean-Jacques Audubon was the illegitimate son of a wealthy French planter and a Creole woman - a fact he tried to conceal all his life. A former naval officer, who had fought in the battle at Yorktown, Audubon's father took his son to France when he returned. The boy was just four years old when he arrived in Nantes, Brittany. But his artistic ability earned him an apprenticeship with the painter Jacques-Louis David. Audubon went to Pennsylvania in 1803, where his father owned land. There, he discovered the sumptuous flora and fauna of North America. From that moment on, his life was dominated by three passions :
hunting, painting and ornithology. In 1808 he married an American. He would dedicate almost 40 years of his life to exploring, notebook in hand, the vast wilderness of his new country - Kentucky, the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. In 1833, he visited the Labrador coast, the habitat of numerous water birds. In 1842, he traversed vast areas of Canada. The following year he left Saint Louis to go up the Missouri as far as Montana. Audubon's monumental work, The Birds of America, was published in London in four volumes between 1827-1838. It received a triumphant reception in both the New World and the Old. Audubon was welcomed into the prestigious Academy of Science in Paris. The famous naturalist lost his vision in 1846. He died in New York in 1851, aged 66. In the United States today, the Audubon Society for the protection of Nature, perpetuates the memory of this great artist who was one of the most illustrious Frenchmen from America.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:40 am
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World War I (1914-1918)
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States on November 5, 1912. Wilson, a minister's son, was an ardent pacifist. He wanted to avoid, at all costs, the United States becoming embroiled in the erupting European conflict. As a child he had witnessed the horrors of the American Civil War ;and he feared a new conflict would mean a return that barbarity.Moreover, he worried about maintaining national unity in acountry where one citizen in four had been born abroad, or whose parents had come from either of the opposing camps now forming inthe Old World. Wilson had to act with extreme prudence : how could he take sides when Americans of German origin supported the Axis powers; when Anglo-Saxon Protestants on the East Coast supported the Allied powers ; when the Irish detested the English, and the Polish were hostile to the Russians? Assigned the task of negotiating a peace between Paris, London and Berlin,American diplomat Colonel House went to Europe in the Spring of 1914. Then Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarayevo; and all hope for this negotiated peace ended. The much feared conflict began on August 3, 1914. Over the next three years, in his role as a "neutral mediator," Wilson, launched several diplomatic initiatives to end the war. He suggested a plan for "Peace without victory," but none of the belligerents would consider it.
Then in May of 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed and sunk the British passenger ship"Lusitania". This altered the course of events. The United States strongly condemned the act ; there were 128 Americans among he Lusitania's 1 000 victims. These deaths moved public opinion in favor of the war. But a British publication naming American companies who had violated a trade boycott with the Germans, annoyed those who wished to remain out of the conflict. The coming elections of November 1916, meant that the President could not force the issue. But in January of 1917, the Germans decided, despite ongoing negotiations, to order their submarines to fire on American ships. This strengthened American resolve to fight the Axis, Wilson severed diplomatic relations with Berlin.
"The War to End All Wars"
He did not have long to wait for the next 'act of intentional injustice." Soon after, the"Vigilentia" was torpedoed. On April 6, 1917, at 13:18,the United States Congress voted to go to war. The majority supported this decision, in part, because of the publication of the "Zimmerman telegram.' The German Minister of War telegrammed his Mexican ambassador to prepare Mexico to joint heir alliance against the United States. The telegram suggested a similar alliance with Japan which further fueled American public outrage. Though the Americans had chosen defense of law over that of peace," they were not prepared for war, The American Army was very small and its only troops with combat experience had fought the Indians, Filippino Insurgents, theSpanish in Cuba and Pancho Villa's Mexican outlaws . They hardly seemed capable of supporting the massive conflict on the far off battlefields of Europe. This explains the calm assurance with which the Kaiser declared, -If Wilson wants war , let him have it- and so much the worse for him." America, however, rose to the challenge. In very little time, there was concrete evidence of determination and efficacy. Despite what some Democrats called"another form of slavery," Congress approved the Selective Service Act on May 18, 1917.
This Act conscripted all male citizens between ages of 21 and 30 into the Armed Service. Thus the Army increased from 200,000 in February of 1917 four million by November 1918. In the meantime,a committee for public information organized meetings and demonstrations to convince the public that the war was a just cause. The goverment sold War bonds which were promoted by famous film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Picford. The President decreed a "mobilization of every resource in the nation." Created at the end of 1917 the War Industries Bureau, under the direction of Bernard Baruch, took measures to control industrial production : the distribution of raw materials and sources of energy was organized in deference to the war effort; industries were converted; railways were placed under government control ; and the organization of food for Europe was administered by a mining engineer named Herbert Hoover.
The turning point
For the French, the American entry into the war came at the perfect moment : the fall of the Czar meant that the future role of Russia was uncertain ; and there was the bloody failure of the Nivelle offensive in the area of Chemin des Dames;and finally the mutinies at the front gave even those mostoptimistic reason to doubt. The news of the American intervention raised the soldiers' moral, and revived the govemment's hope that in time, "we will win.' In the Spring of 1917, when he took command of the French Army, which had been bled all but white by an extreme and reckless offensive strategy, General Pétain announced that he would wait for the "Americans and the tanks." The arrival en masse of the "Sammies" as the French called them, turned the tide in the Allies' favor. By the summer of 1918, two milion American soldiers would be on French soil. As important as American military ground support,was the financial aid the United States contributed to the cause.The Allies had long before exhausted the funds, and only the United States Federal Treasury could afford to make such loans.When President Wilson announced, 'America goes to war with allher force," it also meant that the Allied nations would obtain financial aid for the war effort ; this amounted to ten billion dollars between April, 1917 and June, 1920. Logistically,the American Navy was vital in the fight against the German U-Boat blockade. The constrution of new ships, the work of the American Merchant Marine and the capture of German ships anchored in the previously neutral ports of Latin America, made marine transport, which had been seriously limited, available to the Allied Forces.
During his visit to the United States in April of 1917, Marshal Joffre explained how desperate the situation remained : three years of bloody combat had weakened the Anglo-French alliance, fresh troops were desperately needed. The French could quickly equip and train these troops in the combat skills required for trench warfare. France thus provided the American Expeditionary Force with: 75 and 155 mm canons; 155 mm shells, all of its tanks; 81% of the airplanes; more than half of its long range canons; 57,000 machine guns; 10 million shells; and more than 200 million bullets.
The Doughboys go "Over There"
One hundred seventy seven Americans of the Expeditionary Force, including the commanding officer General Pershing and Lieutenant Patton, arrived at Boulogne-sur-Mer onJune 13, 1917. They were welcomed by the Allies' highest ranking military representatives and Colonel Jacques Aldebert de Chambrun (who like all direct descendants of the Marquis de La Fayette automatically possessed American citizenship.) Pershing, Pattonand their men went directly to Paris where they met with the Minister of War Paul Painlevé, Marshal Joffre, and General Foch.In Paris, the Americans received an unprecedented reception: the people mobbed the streets of the capital to cheer the soldiers as they marched to the Place de la Concorde. General Pershing had to appear at the balcony of the Hotel Crillon before the crowd agreed to disperse. Two weeks later on June 28,1917, 14,000 American soldiers arrived at the port of Saint-Nazaire : there were 13,000 men in the lst division (the famous "Big RedOne') and a battalion of the 5th Marine regiment -soldiers who their commander had planned to send immediately to camps for several months of training. The French, however Insisted that the"Sammies" celebrate the 141st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The 16th Infantry regiment was chosen to march in the parade ; the soldiers were covered by flowers thrown by hundreds of thousands of Parisians.
"La Fayette, nous voila !"
On his ceremonial visit to the tomb of La Fayette,Pershing, a better soldier than an orator, asked Captain Stanton to say a few words on his behalf. There were just four: 'LaFayette, nous voila!." Immediately, the crowd at Picpus cemetery unleashed a riotous and joyful cheer which, to this day,echoes throughout the world. Pershing refused an amalgamation of the inexperienced American troops and the battle-toughened Frenchor British soldiers. President Wilson and Pershing agreed that the American Army should retain its own identity ; once preparedand strong enough, the Americans would play their own role in the common effort. At the end of July, the Ist division began training near Langres, in the Haute-Marne region, east of Paris.In September, they were joined by the 26th division, composed mostly of National Guard members from New England. Then a brigade of Marines arrived; they were soon followed by the 2nd division.This division included : an infantry brigade of regulars three artillery regiments ; a civil engineering regiment and a battalion of radio transmission soldiers. In October, the 42nd division arrived. It was known as the "Rainbow Division" because its soldiers, all from the National Guard,came from twenty six different states.
"Sammies" in"Looneyville"
Pershing had very little time to prepare the American Expeditionary Force for battle. By the end of October 1917, the Ist division was given a region near Toul and Lunéville, soon called "Looneyville" by the American troops. At the request of Marshal Foch, who had recently been promoted to commander-in-chief of the Allied forces, the other three divisions were deployed to contain the German's Spring offensive which threatened to break through the Front. The 28th regiment of the Ist Division fought south of Amiens near the village of Cantigny, where they took the territory without much difficulty.Despite seven fierce German counter attacks, which included violent bombardments and canisters of the infamous "mustardgas," the "Sammies" held their ground. In just one battle, they had proven to the Germans that they should not beunder estimated. In June and July, the superb action at Bois-Belleau of the American 2nd division and Marines,re-enforced by French colonial troops, demonstrated their capacity to counter a major German offensive. Through their combined efforts these troops managed, for three long weeks, toblock all enemy movements towards Paris. When the French decided to launch a counter-offensive on July 18, from the Champagne region, 85,000 Americans stood by for combat. Pershing wanted his troops to have a large victory of their own under the Stars and Stripes. This victory came during the major offensive of September, 1918. On September 12, at 05:00 after a long artillery bombardment using 3,000 canons, seven American divisions under Generals Dickmann, Ligget and Cameron, charged the Saint-Mihielbulge assisted by the French 2nd colonial corps.
"A Magnificent Victory"
At the end of the combat, 16,000 Germans were taken prisoner, and more than 300 canons were confiscated. Foch congratulated Pershing, "The American Ist Army, under your command, has managed a magnificent victory with a plan of action that was as carefully conceived as it was magnificently executed." The next offensive, launched at the end of the month, in the Argonne region, became a mud bath because of the incessant rain. Pershing wrote of this operation : "Under the icy rain in these dark nights, our civil engineers not only have to build new roads over terrain made sponge-like byshelling, but they must also repair the damaged roads and build bridges over flooded rivers. Our artillery, thinking not of sleep, moves hand-pulled carts through deep mud and clay, to bring the equipment necessary to support the infantry."Badly nourished, subjected to constant enemy bombardments,confronted with appalling weather conditions and stuck on difficult terrain, Ligget's troops held their position while threatened from all sides. Fortunately the Germans weakened and the 197 divisions they had on paper, could not resist the 220 Allied divisions. Moreover, the 42 American divisions were now receiving 250,000 re-enforcements each month. Thesere-enforcements added to the two million "Sammies" already deployed by the end of 1918. When the armistice wasfinally signed on November 11, 1918 in the Compiègne forest, it brought to an end the bloodiest conflict in human history-collectively the war cost nearly 8,500,000 lives and 30 million more had been injured - 50,000 Americans had died on French soil.
A Rendez-vous with Death
A Legion since the beginning mong those casualties was the poet Alan Seeger, who had been a volunteer in the french Foreign of the conflict. Several days before he met Death, the centerpieceof his poetry, he wrote, 'We are leaving for another assault tomorrow. This will probably be the toughest I have ever seen. We have been given the honor to be on the front line. No duffel bag,but a backpack, a canvas sheet hanging off one shoulder, lots of cartridges and hand grenades, as well as a bayonet on the end of our rifle. I am happy to be in the first assault wave. If you must go into battle, it is best to be thrown in completely. Thatis the supreme experience." On July 4, 1916, Alan Seeger kept his rendezvous : he was killed in action and became thesymbol of the young Americans who sacrificed their lives in the name of Liberty.
France and America, Partners for Peace
In 1928, ten years after World War I, France and America united to ban armed conflict forever. Even though it was hailed as the dawn ofa new age of universal peace, the"Kellogg-Briand Pact" could not defuse the antagonisms that would become WWII. "Never again!" In 1927, France and Germany were on a honeymoon unimaginable a year before. As President had Wilson hoped, the League of Nations worked vigorously for the foundation of universal peace. Despite their ascent to the a rank of worldpower, the United States had returned to its pre-war isolationism. The country that had inspired the League of Nations was not even a member! In April, on the tenth anniversary of America's entry into World War 1, Aristide Briand made a remarkable speech inviting the United States to become more involved in European affairs. Briand, a much respected politician, had been President of the French Council several times before being appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs by successive governments on both the Left and the Right. Briand'sspeech came at an opportune moment. Preparations for the conference to discuss disarmament were going badly. And the problem of French war debts weighed on the Franco-American relationship. In June of 1927, Briand proposed to American Secretary of State Frank Kellogg that their nations sign a pact of mutual renunciation of war. Secretary Kellogg readily accepted. This accord, purely symbolic, would unite their two nations in peace and friendship; in time it would grow to include every nation on earth. The "Kellog-Briand Pact," as it was called, was signed on February 6, 1928 by France and the United States. It prohibited recourse to war as a political instrument. There were no sanctions planned other than the censure of the other signatories. But as one newspaper edit noted, "at least the moral conscience will act as a serious obstacle to those wishing to break the agreement." The accord remained in Washington DC, under the protection of the United States, where it would stay until future adherents signed.The Kellogg-Briand Pact was eventually ratified by 63 countries including Germany, the British Empire, Japan, Poland, Italy and Czechoslovakia. For their work toward world peace, both the French and the American statesmen were awarded the Nobel peace prize.
Panzermeyer
Member
Joined: 01 Apr 2002
Posts: 1076
Location: France (Lyon)
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 12:41 am
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World War 2 (1939-1945)
Very carefully planned for months and preceded by a monumental aerial bombardment, Operation Overlord was considered a success by dusk on D-Day. East of the landing zone, the English and Canadians had established beachheads. To the West, despite theist and 29th infantry divisions' dreadful losses during the landing at Omaha Beach, the American Ist Army division had solid possession of the beach. At Utah Beach, the 4th infantry division managed to land without much difficulty, although they did have problems in the marshes beyond the beach. As for the 82nd and 101st Airborne, the landing in Sainte-Mère-Eglise was confused. Ironically, the vast dispersal of the US paratroopers helped to surprise the enemy; they didn't know where to concentrate their defensive efforts. While General Dempsey's English and Canadian troops progressed very slowly against the Germans' Panzer units, the Americans successfully reached their objectives in good time in the weeks that followed. The capture of Isigny and Carentan opened the road to Cotentin. Despite the actions of thel7th SS Panzer division, "Gotz von Berlichingen," the Allied troops had by June 18th, reached the West coast of the peninsula. By the end of the month, the American Ist Army had taken Cherbourg. Unfortunately the port installations had been mined by the Germans before their surrender. And the fierce storm that had hit the prefabricated concrete ports built offshore Arromanche and Omaha Beaches, had revealed their weaknesses. But the skill and determination of the American Army Corps of Engineers put Cherbourg Port back in service in even less time than the most optimist estimates. One port could not arm and supply the entire Allied war machine, which, by August numbered nearly two million men, 500,000 vehicles and three million tons of equipment. It was therefore urgent to move toward Brittany and take the coast ; in this way, the Allies would control a large enough section of the English Channel and the Atlantic, to facilitate access to the sea. For several weeks, the Americans fought the "battle of the hedgerows," over terrain that favored defensive positions and did not permit the use of superior, but massive weaponry. By the end of June, the Americans had lost 22,000 men. On July 18th, several days after the English bad taken Caen, Saint-Lo, which the Germans had defended fiercely, fell to the Americans. From then on, General Omar Bradley, Commander of the American Ist Army, could penetrate enemy lines and shove the Germans South. Operation Cobra, launched the following week realized this plan.
Operation Cobra
General Patton, commander of the IIIrd American Army, deployed the 4th and 6th armored divisions towards Coutances. Coutances was captured on July 28th, and Granville on July 30th. The following day, Avranches was also under American control. Moving now in longer strides, the American tanks seized Pontaubault and its bridge over the Sélune; this opened the road to the Loire and Brittany. Inspired by Patton's continuous drive, the 8th corps bad made the legendary "Avranches breakthrough" which was fully exploited to give a new pace to the Battle of Normandy. The Americans, returning German fire in kind, captured in succession: Rennes, Vannes and Saint-Malo. Brest did not fall until Septemberl8th; and even though the Germans did hold on to several "Atlantic enclaves" until the Spring of 1945, the remainder of Brittany was liberated. Rather than move southeast along the coast, the Allies decided to push the offensive northwest and liberate the Channel ports in the Pas-de-Calais. By September, General Montgomery's British troops had advanced as far as Anvers. In the meantime, General Patton wanted to surround the German forces to the south of Normandy and encircle them in the Falaise enclave. The Germans were not completely beaten, but they were cornered. During this battle, General Leclerc's legendary 2nd French armored division which had been integrated into Patton's IIIrd Army, took a decisive role in the liberation of Alenqon. Patton's 79th infantry division moved first to Dreux, then to Mantes-la-jolle and finally reached the Seine by August 19th. Initially, the Americans had planned to skirt around Paris to the north and south and not take it by force; but the vicious civil war that raged in the capital's streets convinced Eisenhower and Bradley to let Leclerc take the city. At 21:00 on August 24, 1944, every bell in Paris rang to celebrate General Leclerc's arrival at the Hôtel de Ville with the first detachment of the second armored division. On August 25th von Choltitz surrendered. Charles De Gaulle made his now famous speech: "Paris ! Paris outragé ! Paris brisé ! Libéré par lui meme, libéré par son peuple avec le concours des armées de la France!" (Paris ! Paris raped ! Paris broken ! Liberated by herself, liberated by her people with the help of the armies of France!" Among the first of Paris' liberators was the writer Ernest Hemingway. He had done his best writing in the Paris of the 1920's. But in 1944, he immediately visited his old friend Pablo Picasso and offered him a gift... a case of hand grenades! (Hemingway also took credit for liberating the bar at the Ritz Hotel).
Meanwhile, the 20th US Army corps seized Melun and Fontainebleau, and the 12th army corps, under General Patton, liberated Orléans on August 17th, Chartres on the 18th, Sens on the 21st and Troyes on the 26th. While events in the North moved quickly, with Bradley's Ist and Illrd Armies heading north and cast, on August 15, General Patch landed in the south, near Cavalaire, on the coast of Maures and Estérel. Toulon and Marseilles were taken one month earlier than expected, due to the courage of the newly re-organized French Army. By September 3rd, Lyons had been liberated and on the 12th, the Allied forces from Operation Overlord and Operation "Anvil Dragoon " (The code name for the landing in Provence) met in Montbard, near Dijon in Burgundy. The pace of the Allied offensive quickly accelerated. Nancy fell, then Epinal. Up near Metz, the Allied troops had to stop - the victim of its own success. Allied headquarters had not calculated such a quick advance, and logistical problems grew increasingly worse. From September 29th to October 4th, Patton had to resist a German counter offensive in Nancy. The enemy was forced back and Patton moved on to the Saar river and the Siegfried line.
Metz was finally captured on November 15 th; Leclerc, now part of the American VIIth Army, moved on to Strasbourg. While the Americans marched toward the rhine, and then to the Ruhr, which they took with the British, the Germans had begun a massive counter offfensive through the Ardennes. Operation "Autumn Fog," conceived by Adolf Hitler himself, began on December 16. Middleton's American 8th corps suffered the brunt of the Panzers that were sent to the Meuse. In several hours, the American Front was dislodged and had had to retreat nearly 30 kilometers. Three days later, Patton and Eisenhower organized a fank counter attack. The operation was risky but a fearless General Patton successfully moved the IIIrd Army to the northeast and launched a rescue mission to Mac Auliffe's 101st Airborn which was defending Bastogne. On December 26th, the surrounded paratroopers finally received help from the American 4th armored division. The weather improved, which enabled the Americans to exploit their control of the skies and to attack the enemy from the air. Soon after, the lack of fuel for their tanks put an end to the Germans' final offensive.The Allies' eastward advance could now continue. To the south, the 6th group of American armies and the First French Army of de Lattre de Tassigny destroyed the Colmar enclave. The men of the 9th armored division of the Ist army reached the Rhine, north of Coblenz, on March 7, 1945. General Hodges led the 9th and seized the bridge at Remagen. At 16:00 on April 25, at Torgau-on-Elbe, the men of the Ist American Army met the Soviet Army. On the 7th of May, 1945, at 02:45, the Third Reich surrendered at Reims. This time the sacrifices were greater, but as they had in 1918, the United States played a decisive role in the final victory. Once again, Europe was greatly indebted to the United States.
Panzermeyer
Member
I found this post of a person "Panzermeyer" on a WWII forum.(Axis History Forum) and I think that his wise words are worth to mention here.
It has been a long time ago that I saw so much wisdom (and also so much text :roll: ) for something that I underscribe (almost) completely.
What is your opinion on this? You don't have to read it completely, some parts are allready making a good point.