We are now standing outside in the garden and you can see the hatch where the tunnel ends. The bomb shelter is an interesting part of tudor houses history, helping to show the story of the family from the American Revolution to the cold war. It is a portion of the garage we will be opening for interpretation in the future, a project i am excited about. Weve only had a chance today to see a portion of our collection so i hope you will take a tour and experience the house. We are constantly highlighting different items from our 15,000 object collection, as well as as well as exhibits. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website at cspan. Org history. American history tv is on cspan3 every weekend featuring museum tours and programs on the presidency. The civil war and more. Here is a clip from a recent program. One thing we should talk about would be nancy reagan and barbara bush. It is 1980. George h. W. Bush and Nancy Ronald Reagan run against each other. Vice president george h. W. Bush and president ronald reagan. Nancy reagan is constantly putting barbara in her place, disrespectful to barber, to both bushes, particularly our repairs. Theres a story where barbara bush shows up to the white house in a similarly colored dress and nancy makes it clear the event will not start until barbara changes. They are fellow republicans. Similar feud between julia grant and Mary Todd Lincoln. Theyre going to get into a boat to go into richmond. Julia gets in the boat. She sits down. Mary todd lincoln gets in and ,ays you are sitting in my seat get up. Julia got up. She never forgot this. A carriage tour around washington to see all the lights to celebrate the victory of the north, Mary Todd Lincoln invites her husband, ulysses s grant, to join her in a carriage and leaves julia sitting there. Julia did not forget this. When they were invited to the theater the evening lincoln was killed, julia says to her husband, i am not going to see that woman. Thank goodness she did not because her husband might have been killed as well. There was a feud that turned out well for somebody. And holding a grudge, yes. This and otherh American History programs on our website where all of our video is archived. Cspan. Org history. Authors discuss france and spains involvement in the American Revolution arguing colonial forces could not withstand the british army without french and spanish weaponry, money, and soldiers. They also talk about the repercussions of french assistance, which ballooned their debt, contributed to the french revolution, and factored into the sale of french louisiana to the u. S. The National Archives hosted this hour and 20 minute event. Americans advocating separation from Great Britain knew that they had to have the backing of a major european power, and not just support of the best moral support but material in the form of money, supplies, and men. France and spain were the logical places to turn. From the earliest days of the war, Benjamin Franklin and other american envoys lobbied the courts of spain. The papers of the Continental Congress contained the longrunning correspondence between congress and its envoys abroad. The american diplomats efforts were rewarded in the treaty of alliance and the treaty with france, and the entry of spain into the war in 1779. Arms and supplies from the spanish governor of louisiana aided the american cause and the french army and navy made the yorktown victory possible. The stories of our nations early days cannot be told without reference to the records at the National Archives, diplomatic correspondence, treaties, military commissions, and more documents on the International Side of the American Revolution. The authors will enlighten us about the roles france and spain played in our countrys formative years. Lets now hear from the panel. To lead the discussion we are happy to have a professor at George Mason University. Revolutionary\. Larrie ferreiro teaches history and engineering at George Mason University. Francois furstenburg, professor of history at johns hopkins. Most importantly, his parents, are the furstenbergs here . If you have ever shopped on connecticut at furst, it is furstenberg. There he is. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome them. [applause] good evening. I am rosemary zagari from George Mason University and we are thrilled to see you tonight. The first item of business is to let you know that it will not be in french. [laughter] maybe you are disappointed but maybe you are relieved. In any case, what we would like to do first is have each of our authors speak to you for a few minutes about their books, and give you a general sense about what they talk about in their books. We will be talking among ourselves, and try and give you a good understanding of some of the issues that they discuss. These are issues that you may not have thought about, because when we think about early america, the post revolutionary period, we tend to think primarily about england and the new United States. And this discussion will introduce you to a whole other dimension of the conflict involving france and spain. Lets start with professor ferreiro to talk about his book, brothers at arms or con thank you. In 1776, britain was engaged in war with america and we were fighting for independence without gunfire, artillery, or a navy. France and spain were historical enemies of britain. They were the only ones with the naval strength to defeat the british, which is why we needed their alliance. They would not ally with us if they saw it simply as a civil war. They had to be convinced we were fighting as a sovereign, separate nation. You can see john adams quote, which i have to turn and read. The foreign powers would not engage with us until we had acknowledged ourselves as an independent nation, and adams was not known as a fan of foreign entanglements. Thomas jefferson also said the declaration of independence alone would allow European Countries to treat with us. This is important. The declaration was not commissioned by congress as a message to george the third. He had already gotten the memo. He knew the americans were fighting for independence, and the americans knew this. They also were not sending the declaration for the American People because they American People had sent delegates to philadelphia to vote for independence. In fact, the document that is upstairs in the rotunda was written specifically as a call to arms, an engraved invitation asking france and spain to come and fight alongside us. Now, when we started the war, we were bereft of gun power, guns, artillery. France and spain who first began to furnish all of these arms. Even before the declaration of independence had been signed, a french merchant named beaumarcher, and silas deane, the american envoy in paris were , negotiating for the sale of arms to come to the United States. In late 1776, early 1777, a large shipment of arms, 20,000 guns and other accoutrements that arrived just in time to supply the americans who were about to face, who were going at saratoga. You can see this quote by caleb stark who was there, that unless these arms had been timely furnished to the americans, he said, they would have made an easy march to albany. It was actually french arms which turned the tide of the battle and gave the americans their first taste of victory, major victory at saratoga. In the meantime, there were volunteers from france and other parts of europe who came to the United States. They came to fight the british because that was where the enemy was. But along the way, they came to make the american cause their own. And washington came to depend upon these immigrants who got the job done. As the musical hamilton so aptly portrays. My right, louis deporter became washingtons righthand demand righthand man. He was the engineer. He understood strategy. He was able to help washington d deploy the strategic intent of the continental army, that army fought as a professional army under the not so gentle gaze and the lash of brand bond baron von steuben who created a program at valley forge, and took a somewhat ragtag group of militia and formed an army that could actually go toe to toe against the british. And of course, lafayette, the best known of the group ended up with an independent command in the southern theater. In those engagements, he kept cornwallis from coming north and he also followed cornwallis all the way to yorktown. Now back in europe, there were two individuals who were the most important characters in this whole story. To my right was the French Foreign minister, and of all the characters, he was the one who made most of the decisions that concerned the alliances both between france and the United States, and between france and spain. France and spain were allied. They had been allied through military and family ties called the bourbon family compact. Both kings were descended from louis the 14th. Even though they were allied , they had much different goals. The goal of france was to sufficiently weaken britain so it could regain me balance of power it lost during the sevenyear war. That had ended just a decade earlier. In that alliance was also spain. Spain had also come out badly in the seven years war, and they lost a lot of territory , including florida. Spains primary goal was to regain territory. The frenchamerican alliance of 1778 brought france into the war for the first time, and what that did was bring most importantly the french navy into american waters. Any war at this time with britain was always going to be a naval war. Remember britannia ruled the , waves. It prevented britain from having the kind of dominance it used to to be able to resupply and move troops around. That knocked them back on their heels but it would not have been enough until the Spanish Foreign minister, on my left, who as i mentioned established the spanish goals of recovering territory like gibraltar and florida, to come into the war. The entry of spain into the war a year later in 1779 fundamentally changed the nature of the war, from a regional clash in north america to a global conflict. The combined spanish and french navies outnumbered the british, and they were overwhelmed. They had to defend not only their troops and territories in north america, but their colonies in the caribbean. They had to defend land such as gibraltar and mallorca, even as far away as india. Meanwhile, back in louisiana, the governor of spanish louisiana was supplying the american troops with gunpowder and guns and supplies, but as soon as war was declared in 1779, he launched a series of raids that brought down british posts. The goal was always pensacola, which was the capital of british west florida and was the key to the gulf of mexico, which spain wanted to recapture. After a few setbacks by a series of devastating hurricanes, in 1781 he launched a joint spanishfrench attack that took pensacola and got the british out of the golf of mexico which happened at just the right time. Right about then, the french commander came to the caribbean and asked the spanish to please guard the french colonies in the caribbean. Remember, that is where the money was. Sugar plantations in the caribbean. Please guard those colonies from the british while i take my entire fleet north to the chesapeake. He was a fighting admiral who was loved by his sailors. They said of him that he stands on days of 65 battle. They learned he was heading to the chesapeake and they raced south from new york to meet him, and surround cornwallis in yorktown. When they got there and when washington came aboard degrasflagship, degrasstood two inches taller than washington. He exclaimed. Since you asked, yes, he was one of the ancestors of the rockstar astrophysicist Neil Degrasse tyson. He was landing his fleet around the chesapeake when the british fleet under Thomas Graves appeared. Degrasse sortied his entire week, drove him off to once that happened, the British Forces at yorktown could neither be resupplied nor evacuated. That sealed their fate. The story of yorktown is pretty well known. Washington and rochambeau led the troops on a quick march, surrounded yorktown, laid siege for five days. By that siege was directed french officers. The french also lost twice as many men as the americans. So when charles ohara, who was cornwallis second in command , came out to surrender he saw it as a french victory, and offered to surrender to rochambeau, who knew the moment belonged to washington. He directed ohara to washington. Washington would not take surrender from somebody elses second in command so he directed him to benjamin lincoln, his second in command, and the battle was over. The battle was over but the war was not. I just said the war was a world war. By the time yorktown was fought, britain was fighting five separate nationstates and they were overwhelmed. The United States, france, britain, the dutch republic, and the kingdom of mysore in india were all fighting britain. In summary, during this battle during this war, 200,000 french and spanish soldiers and sailors fought, as compared with about 250,000 to 380,000 americans. They were as invested in this war as we were. So i want you to know that america could never have won the war without france, and france would never have fought the war without spain. What i hope all of you take away is this, that america did not achieve independence by itself. Instead, it was borne as a centerpiece of an International Coalition which worked together to defeat a common adversary, and that is pretty much who we are today. We are the centerpiece of International Coalitions striving towards a common goal, and that is why we remain the indispensable nation. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] now we will have professor furstenberg talk about his book, when the United States spoke french. Let me begin by thanking rosie for moderating this panel discussion. It is an honor to be here with larrie, and thanks to you for hosting. It is an ideal pairing, these two books because if i had written it a little bit later i would have understood it as a sequel. I am glad you wrote yours first. Leaned heavily on it. I think it would have sold a lot more. As we learned, the American Revolution was really a french victory. I think it is fair to say, Something Like that. At least, i think it is fair to say it was a french and spanish war as much as an american war. One of the things we can talk about, we really need a new name for this war, dont we . In a sense, everything i will talk about follows from what larrie was talking about because just as the seven years war led into the American Revolution, so did the American Revolution lead a decade later into the french revolution and the napoleonic wars that lasted nearly a quarter century. There are lots of factors and causes of the french revolution. Probably few things have been studied as much as that one. I think it is fair to say the debt left over from french involvement in the American Revolution, because everything you were talking about was enormously expensive. People keep forgetting that wars are very expensive, and this left a crushing debt on the french government. This debt was the catalyst for the french revolution. When the french revolution broke out, americans were thrilled. They could hardly have been more excited to this was the most powerful monarchy in europe that had suddenly, out of nowhere, fallen to its knees. It was like a dream for people, it seemed surreal. It is hard to capture the excitement and shock. You have to think of may 1968, the fall of the berlin wall, arab spring, president donald trump, all of these astonishing, sort of unbelievable events, all of them wrapped up into this one spectacular moment. Best of all, the americans thought they started this all. In 1792, france became a republic and in america there became a frenzy. In january of 1793, king louis the 16th was executed and aristocrats were massacred in the streets of paris. Thousands fled. Including many to the United States. The book that i wrote was about five of these refugees who came to the United States on their american adventure. I thought using their stories would be a way of looking at early American History from slightly different eyes. I had originally envisioned this as a small, little project, something i could get over in a couple of years. But it quickly ballooned into something much bigger. It took me way beyond paris and philadelphia through london, the caribbean, and into the american continental interior. It grew beyond the five aristocrats to include bankers in amsterdam slaves in haiti, native americans in the ohio valley, and many other people. And all of them were involved with the story that i was trying to tell about these five figures. I do not have a whole lot of time tonight to tell you all about the book. I will introduce you briefly to the five characters who structure the account, and tell you three or four important lessons i drew from the research and writing i did, and we can elaborate on that as we talk at it through. The first of the characters that i studied and the most famous today was the former french archbishop who sat at the constituent assembly and for proposed the nationalization of french land. He would largely reshape the map of europe. He spent a couple of years here along with all these others. There was also lafayettes brotherinla