The Diplomacy of the American Revolution

To the superficial observer there would seem never to have been an age less propitious for the birth of a new nation. The tendency of the times was altogether for the aggrandizement of big states and the consolidation of their territory at the expense of the little ones, for the extinction of the weaker nations and governments rather than for the creation of new ones. Nevertheless it was this bitter cut-throat international rivalry which was to make American independence possible.

On April 15th, 1783, the Articles of Peace between the United States and Great Britain went into effect proclaiming that His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the United Statesto be free Sovereign and independent States. That recognition, the origins of which began almost seven years earlier in Philadelphia, the fate of which was uncertain at Valley Forge and ultimately vindicated at Yorktown, represented a monumental achievement for the new American nation. It also, as Samuel Flagg Bemis shows us, marked the end of a world war. 

This book explains the ambitions and interests of European powers during the American Revolution. Frances search for revenge against Britain after the French and Indian War, Spains attempt to retake Gibraltar, the complicated trade interests of the Netherlands and Russia, Austrias fears of a two-front war each of these saw Americas struggle for independence as an event that affected their own strategies. And, as Bemis shows us, it is through that prism that we should consider the actions of those who supported America and Great Britain.