The French War Against America: How a Trusted Ally Betrayed Washington and the Founding Fathers

by Harlow Giles Unger

By the end of 1798, France—“our oldest ally”—had captured or sunk more than eight hundred American ships, and President John Adams called George Washington out of retirement to command the defense of the nation’s shores against imminent French invasion. The French war against America had reached its climax. After thirty-five years of feigning friendship for America, France at last revealed her real motive for supporting the American Revolution—and it had nothing to do with liberty.  In  The French War Against America,  award-winning author and historian Harlow Giles Unger shatters the myth of France as our oldest ally and reveals her as our oldest enemy. Citing hundreds of secret and not-so-secret personal and official documents and letters from French, American, and British sources, Unger lays bare a chapter of American history ignored by many the long and treacherous French plot to recapture North America. Contrary to popular belief, the French Army came to fight in America’s Revolutionary War not to save America but to conquer her. By infiltrating the Continental Army high command, French officers hoped to replace Washington and establish a French military dictatorship. By war’s end, French agents had infiltrated every area of American life, developing close relationships with top American officials, working their way to the highest levels of the American military, and bribing cabinet members to obtain secret documents—all to try to turn the young nation into a French vassal state. From the beginning of the war, however, a small group of courageous Founding Fathers had remained suspicious of French motives. This action-packed history follows them—Washington, Adams, John Jay, and others—as they outwit every overt and covert French plot to destroy the United States. A decade after the American Revolution, French government agents tried to overthrow President Washington by provoking widespread street rioting, while French warships occupied the harbors of major cities. Again, the Founding Fathers outwitted the French. Furious at their nation’s humiliation, the French Navy began sinking American ships to crush American foreign trade. John Adams ordered construction of an American Navy that destroyed the French fleet. Undeterred, the French continued to plot to reconquer North America into the next century. Napoleon I prepared to send 20,000 troops to invade Louisiana in 1802, and his nephew Napoleon III sent 40,000 troops to conquer Mexico in 1863, with orders to march northward into the United States. To this day, “our oldest ally” often seems still at war with America—metaphorically and diplomatically, if not militarily.  The French War Against America  provides new perspectives on the origins of that war and explains why it may never end. An important addition to Franco-American history, it adds new insights into current diplomatic relationships. It is also an exciting, action-filled drama of remarkable human courage.

Genres: History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Harlow Giles Unger is an American author, historian, journalist, broadcaster, and educator known for his extensive work on American history and education. Educated at the Taft School, Yale College, and California State University, Unger began his career as a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune Overseas News Service in Paris. He later wrote for newspapers and magazines across Britain, Canada, and other countries, while also working in radio broadcasting and teaching English and journalism at New York-area colleges.
Unger has written over twenty-seven books, including ten biographies of America's Founding Fathers and a notable biography of Henry Clay. His historical works include Noah Webster: The Life and Times of an American Patriot, The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation’s Call to Greatness, and First Founding Father: Richard Henry Lee and the Call to Independence. He is also the author of the Encyclopedia of American Education, a three-volume reference work.
A former Distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at Mount Vernon, Unger has lived in Paris and currently resides in New York City. An avid skier and horseman, he has spent time in Chamonix, France, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He has one son, Richard C. Unger.

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

There's a reason they were selling a pretty talk stack of these for $2 a pop at a local salvage market. What should be a good story - the complicated relationship between France and the United States nee the 13 North American colonies in the context of Great Powers relationships - is completely botched by poor historical research and some of the most hackneyed writing I've seen.

Sure, Unger has the facts more or less straight, and there's no doubt that French support for the American Revolution was motivated less by love for freedom and democracy (absolute monarchs surely harbor these sentiments, no?) and more by the worldwide game of Empire in which they were competing (and losing) to Britannia. The French monarchy was decadent, and they had every intention of trying to reassert the claims of Empire in the New World. Yes. But to jump from that to characterizing that as a "plot against America" - and more significantly, a plot against Americans - is in no way warranted by the research, and reducing French "anti-Americanism" (in itself a complicated phenomenon that goes beyond "they hate everything about us because...").

Even with the poor and unsystematic historical analysis, I would've given this book a chance, if just to familiarize with the point of view and how it's arrived at. But then I read this line in describing the French enthusiasm for the American cause in the early days of the Revolutionary War: "Unarmed American farmers had displayed more courage than kings, cried critics of the crown, and demonstrated the vulnerability of the vaunted English Army." There is, of course, no source cited for these "critics," but more significantly, no one would have characterized one of the sides in an armed conflict as "unarmed." There are other moments of titillating detail which serve to stoke anger at the French aristocracy (and nation) rather than to illuminate the narrative. Unger relies on a lazy use of cliched tropes, and makes no attempt to use them in interesting, or even in accurate kind of ways. His credibility is just dashed at this point, and I wasn't able to make it past page 90 before I felt like this was a complete waste of my time.

Don't even bother picking this up out of a free box.

[Dorothy Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unger believes the French aided the American revolt against Britain in order to prolong the war and weaken both parties, allowing the French to reclaim New France. Admiral DeGrasse reluctantly left the ships that blockaded Yorktown, preventing the British from reinforcing Cornwallis and leading to the American victory that all but ended the war. France attempted to undermine the presidency of George Washington with the same goal in mind. France carried on a quasi-war with the United States during John Adams term as president, which only ended when the US built a navy that drove them out. According to Unger, "In effect, the French constitution establishes the state as the basic political unit, from which individuals derive their rights; the United States constitution establishes the individual as the basic political unit, with the state deriving its rights from the people." Unger sees the French still believing they have the right to rule the world, and resent the United States as a result.

[BigHeadWalt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book might not fit well as a stand-alone book; however when read along with Unger's other works (Improbable Patriot, Hancock, Lafayette, etc.) it fills in the blanks, or much over-laps, but information in this tome would not fit in the other books.
Would have rated higher, however the final chapter where he stretches how France has continued to work underhandedly against the US's wishes seemed to be a bit of a stretch.