The “Quasi-War”: The only war between France and the United States

“There shall be a firm inviolable and universal peace, and a true and sincere friendship between His Britannick Majesty, his heirs and successors, and the United States of America; and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns and people of every degree, without exception of persons or places.”

“It is agreed between His [Britannick] Majesty and the United States of America, that there shall be a reciprocal and entirely perfect liberty of navigation and commerce, between their respective people, in the manner, under the limitations, and on the conditions specified in the following articles.”

– Articles 1 and 11 of the Jay Treaty (signed in 1794, and proclaimed in 1796), as negotiated by ambassador John Jay under President George Washington – which angered the French enough for France to fight the “Quasi-War” with the United States

That time that the United States went to war with France (sort of)

You might already know that the American colonies rebelled against Britain, in our “Revolutionary War.” You might further know that we fought against Britain again during our “War of 1812.” In both of these wars, we were thus allied with distant France. Thus, many Americans would feel some degree of “gratitude” to France for helping us with these wars. But the situation may actually be a little more complicated. In the late eighteenth century, we fought a small (but still important) war with France on the high seas. This is a lesser-known conflict, which was between the American Revolution and the War of 1812. During this conflict, we had to make some difficult choices about whom we would choose as allies. And we had to make some equally difficult choices … about whom we would choose as our enemies. Had the war gone a little differently, our “War of 1812” might have instead been against France – and who knows what the war’s consequences would have been in that case? This had the potential to change American history, if it had been navigated a little less delicately.

Fire at Port-Royal following Samuel Argall’s attack – French Acadia, 1613

Piracy played a role, early in the “Second” Hundred Years’ War

“When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village [Hannibal, Missouri] on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns … now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

– Mark Twain, in “Life in the Mississippi” (1883), Chapter 4

Those pirate movies that you watched as a kid … probably took place during this period

In 2003, Disney released the first installment in their “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise. The film must have seemed a little risky, because there had not been a popular pirate movie for some years by that point. But, to everyone’s surprise, the film franchise did quite well at the box office, and in the later home movie sales as well. Other pirate movies (such as “Treasure Island”) have likewise captured the public imagination. As “Peter Pan” reminds us, pirates are a popular subject, especially with children. In “Life on the Mississippi,” Mark Twain once said that “we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates” (as cited above). Obviously, the reality of piracy is a little less romantic, since pirates tended to be as violent and bloodthirsty as they’re usually portrayed to be. But, in some ways, the reality may be just as interesting as its depiction in these great movies. Today, I’d like to examine the role of piracy, during the aptly-named “Golden Age of Piracy.” This was the period when piracy became a significant factor in both the North Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. I should clarify that the term “Golden Age” is not meant to “approve” of the brazen theft that this piracy inherently involves. But, from the pirates’ point of view, it was indeed a “Golden Age,” where the world’s maritime trade was relatively vulnerable to their attacks. I will focus primarily on how it affected some of the major international wars of the period, particularly on the high seas. Indeed, it seems hard to discuss either the piracy or the wars in total isolation from each other. Specifically, I will start by talking about the three main Anglo-Dutch Wars, which were mostly at sea. Then I will focus on the naval parts of three other great European conflicts. These are (in order): the Nine Years’ War, the War of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession. These three conflicts, along with four others that soon followed them, would eventually be grouped together into the broader term of “Second” Hundred Years’ War. Piracy and privateering played a major role, in the early parts of this much-larger conflict.

Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, 1615

Great naval conflicts: From the Seven Years’ War to the Napoleonic Wars

Many pirate movies take place in this general time period, and so do many history movies

I grew up on pirate movies like “Treasure Island,” a classic story that takes place in the early eighteenth century. Most modern pirate movies seem to take place in this much-romanticized era of sailing ships and pirates. In this century, we have seen Disney’s fantasy-oriented “Pirates of the Caribbean,” which combines this eighteenth-century historical backdrop with elements of curses and magic. But there have also been more “serious” works of historical fiction, about the naval conflicts of the late eighteenth (and early nineteenth) centuries. For example, there has been the “Horatio Hornblower” franchise (with a TV series starring Ioan Gruffudd), and the Russell Crowe movie “Master and Commander.” (Pity that only one movie was made in that particular franchise, because it was a promising one.) These movies may have some fictional characters in them, along with references to real people like Lord Horatio Nelson. But they may still be “serious” historical movies anyway, in my opinion, since they dramatize the fighting at sea during the Napoleonic Wars.

The wars covered here were all part of a broader struggle between Britain and France

I’m much interested in the naval fighting of the Napoleonic Wars, in part because of the influence of these movies on me personally. But, today, I would like to look at naval fighting in the eighteenth century more generally. The Napoleonic Wars are traditionally dated to the early nineteenth century, and I promise the reader that I will also be giving some serious coverage of that conflict in this post. But, in order to understand the Napoleonic Wars themselves, one has to look at some prior conflicts in the eighteenth century. Most importantly, one has to look at the much broader struggle between Britain and France, and how they duked it out in one maritime conflict after another. Our story begins in 1754, with a frontier conflict in the distant European colonies of North America. Americans today remember it as the “French and Indian War,” but it would soon lead to the broader “Seven Years’ War,” and to many another great naval conflict for the Europeans.

Why World War II continues to fascinate so many

World War II has been depicted in countless books, documentaries, and Hollywood movies. Some of these movies are basically action films of one sort or another. That is, they dramatize the contributions of those who fought for the various Allied nations. These films can take place on submarines and other warships, in bombers or fighter planes, or in various (often exotic) ground locations all over the world. Other films tell the stories of those who lived under Nazi or Japanese rule, with difficult decisions dropped on these unluckily-placed people. For example, some of them chose to escape, some of them chose to spy for the Allies, and others of them chose to collaborate with the Axis occupations of their own countries (sadly enough). Other films depict parts of the Holocaust, dramatizing the countless victims of the genocide. Other films (such as “Tora! Tora! Tora!”) ask big questions, like how we got involved in the war. I have even heard of a film about the efforts to prevent the Nazis from getting the atomic bomb. (More about that here.) Other films depict World War II code-crackers or spies, prisoners of war in Axis-controlled prison camps, or even the postwar Nuremberg trials. There are biographies of major leaders – such as FDR, Churchill, Patton, or Eisenhower. And there are countless stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Why is this? What is it about World War II that continues to fascinate people, all of these decades after it tore the world apart – and then altered the very map of the world itself?

Firefighters tackling a blaze amongst ruined buildings after an air raid – London, 1941

U-boats in the Great War: The other “Battle of the Atlantic”

German U-boats were once the terror of the high seas, and this was true during both world wars. In the First World War, this campaign had much to do with the eventual American entry into the war. But we tend to associate these campaigns with the Second World War, which will probably continue to enjoy more glory than the first one ever did. And, in truth, the Battle of the Atlantic really was quite important. We thus tend to associate the phrase “Battle of the Atlantic” with World War Two, and describe its World War One equivalent simply as the “Atlantic U-boat campaign.” (When using the generic phrase “U-boat campaign,” though, this can also include the lesser-known “Mediterranean U-boat campaign.”) But in a broader sense, the First World War version was also a “Battle of the Atlantic,” and was vitally important in its own right. It was the lifeline of Allied Europe during the Great War, and (as mentioned earlier) played a big role in getting America to enter the war. This post will describe the U-boat front of the Great War, with a particular focus on the changing role of the Americans in this campaign. But I assure readers from other countries that I will tie in our own situation to that of our many allies, since it affected every other nation that participated in these campaigns – as readers may soon see, if they indeed decide to read this post.

German U-boats at Kiel (before the war started), 1914

Top secret: The role of spying and code-cracking in the World Wars

In the 1970s, a British television network made a series called “The World at War,” possibly the most comprehensive television history ever made about World War II. But it contains not one word about Bletchley Park, the primary British codebreaking operation of World War II. The reason is very simple: In the 1970s, information about Bletchley Park was still top-secret, since releasing this information would have risked compromising current espionage efforts. Thus, the existence of Bletchley Park was still a closely guarded secret in the early 1970s. But, after enough time had gone by, it was no longer necessary to keep these things confidential. Thus, in the decades since “The World at War,” much of the information about the era’s espionage (including code-breaking) has been officially declassified. Thus, historians today have somewhat more information to work with, in talking about the state secrets of that time. For example, we now know things that were once top-secret, and we now know how some of that information changed hands – while other parts remained protected. This post will try to use some of the now-declassified information, along with more traditional information, to tell the stories of spies and code-crackers in both world wars – especially World War II. But, in order to achieve a true understanding of the Second World War, it may help to consider the prior events of the First World War. The “Great War,” as it is sometimes called, had some spy stories that are fascinating in their own right – rivaling any others in their human interest. These juicy stories may help to shed some light on the later espionage of the Second World War – the conflict that most continues to fascinate people today.

Rear of the rebuilt British “Bombe” computer, used at Bletchley Park in World War II England

Air power in the World Wars: From “expensive toy” to a serious weapon

“There are a lot of people who say that bombing can never win a war. Well, my answer to that is that it has never been tried yet, and we shall see.”

– Royal Air Force general Sir Arthur Harris (a.k.a. “Bomber” Harris), in a speech given in 1942 (during World War Two)

In 1903, the Wright brothers showed the world that “man really can fly” (to paraphrase Dieter F. Uchtdorf). As Wikipedia puts it, Orville and Wilbur Wright made “the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles (6 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills.” (see source) Planes have since been used for scientific and commercial reasons, but they have also been an important part of warfare for more than a century now. They have altered the way that warfare has been fought, on both the land and the sea. The history of military aviation is one of conflict between carrier and battleship theories, between heavy bombing and close air support theories, and other changes in military strategy and tactics. I freely confess that I’m no expert on any kind of aviation, but my paternal grandfather was well-versed in the subject, and taught me some of what he knew about it. This post will thus focus on aviation in the two massive World Wars, particularly as used by the United States. This was my grandfather’s biggest area of historical expertise.

German biplane shot down by the Americans in the Argonne, 1918 (during World War One)

Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia led to his downfall

“From the day of exchanging the ratification of the present treaties, there shall be perfect peace and amity between his majesty the emperor of the French [Napoleon], king of Italy, and his majesty the emperor of all the Russias.”

– “Treaty of Tilsit, 7 July 1807,” between Napoleon Bonaparte of France and “Alexander the First” of Russia – a treaty which was soon broken in 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia

In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte came to the throne of France. He was the victor of campaigns in the “French Revolutionary Wars,” and must have seemed truly “invincible.” But his world came crashing down all around him, when his forces were defeated while invading Russia in 1812. How did all of this happen? How did the most powerful man in Europe become a prisoner in St. Helena by 1815 – later to die as a prisoner in 1821? How did the Russian people rally against the French (and other invaders) in this campaign? And what do certain prior events in the Napoleonic Wars, such as Russia’s twice switching sides in that conflict, tell us about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia? In this post, I will try to answer these questions. I will show how the larger “Napoleonic Wars” turned around in this massive Russian campaign. And I will show how Napoleon’s downfall owed much to his being routed by the Russians during this invasion.

Paul the First of Russia

A review of the “BBC History of World War II”

Note: This is a collection of several BBC documentaries about World War II. That is to say, it is not a unified history like “The World at War” is. Nonetheless, many of its documentaries are quite good, so I thought that I would review some of them here. I have reviewed the others elsewhere, in posts more focused on their respective topics.

I’ve actually reviewed five of the BBC’s installments elsewhere …

The “BBC History of World War II” contains ten different documentaries about various aspects of this conflict. I have reviewed a number of these documentaries in other blog posts. For example, I have reviewed “The Nazis: A Warning from History” here, “The Road to War” here, “War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin” here, “Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II” here, and “Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’” here. To review these again in this post would risk being redundant. Thus, I will not attempt to duplicate much of that coverage in this blog post.

British Lancaster bomber over Hamburg, 1943

… so I will instead focus this post on reviewing the other five BBC installments of this series

But there are five other installments that I’ve waited until now to comment on. I will thus try to cover these five documentaries in this post. To me, these five films would seem to have a common theme – namely, that they’re all focused on the combat part of the war against Nazi Germany, as engaged in by the Western Allies – and, particularly, the British. These installments are as follows: “Dunkirk,” “Battle of the Atlantic,” “Battlefields,” “D-Day 6.6.1944” (also marketed as “D-Day: Reflections of Courage”), and “D-Day to Berlin.” As you might imagine, there’s plenty of material to talk about with these subjects, and with the way that the BBC covers them.

A review of the BBC’s “The Crusades”

The Crusades are one of the most infamous episodes in all of medieval history. More than 700 years later, they are still extremely controversial. This may be why the BBC decided to examine them in 2012. At that time, the British and Americans (plus many others) were still fighting in Afghanistan, and would soon be returning their troops to Iraq. Even after the Allies’ departure from Afghanistan, Islamic terrorism remains a hot topic, and it will likely continue to be so. Islam holds many grudges against the West, many of which go back to this turbulent period. Thus, I will review the BBC’s coverage here, and see how it compares to the earlier coverage of the History Channel in 2005.

A review of “Lafayette: The Lost Hero” (PBS)

“If War should break out between France and Great Britain, during the continuance of the present War between the United States and England, his [French] Majesty and the said united States, shall make it a common cause, and aid each other mutually with their good Offices, their Counsels, and their forces, according to the exigence of Conjunctures as becomes good & faithful Allies.”

“In order to fix more precisely the sense and application of the preceding article, the Contracting Parties declare, that in case of rupture between France and England, the reciprocal Guarantee declared in the said article shall have its full force and effect the moment such War shall break out … ”

– Articles 1 and 12 of the “Treaty of Alliance Between The United States and France” (6 February 1778)

Fellow Americans tend to remember the American Revolution as a time of heroes. The names of Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison are known widely in this country. And for many Americans, the Marquis de Lafayette is right up there in the pantheon with these Founding Fathers, even though he was obviously not an American himself. As you may know, he was born a Frenchman, and was a citizen of France throughout his life. He never sought to obtain American citizenship, and was highly patriotic to France. Why, then, is he remembered with such fondness by so many Americans today?

Marquis de Lafayette

A review of “The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross” (History Channel)

To say that the relationship between Islam and the West is sometimes troubled would be something of an understatement. Since the rise of Islam in the seventh century, Christians and Muslims have often made war on each other. As it turns out, their sometime antagonism has roots going back deep into the Middle Ages; and some conflict between them still persists today. The most controversial episode in this long history may still be the medieval Crusades, where the Roman Catholic Church sent its soldiers into the Holy Land, ostensibly to help the Byzantine Empire to protect itself from the “Muslim invaders.” Their assistance had ironically been requested by the Byzantine emperor Alexios, whose empire had another form of Christianity – namely, the Eastern Orthodox Church. But despite their common ground, the relationship between the Orthodox Byzantines and the Catholic Crusaders was somewhat troubled at best, and not just because of their differing versions of Christianity. The Catholic Crusaders were, of course, arriving there more for their own benefit than for that of the Byzantines. Nonetheless, the Byzantines could not afford to offend their Catholic Crusader allies; and so they were unfortunately caught in this crossfire during much of the First Crusade (and afterwards, for that matter).

What does this documentary cover, and what does it not cover?

But after they conclude their discussion of the First Crusade in this documentary, there is virtually no further mention of the Byzantine Empire. After this, the story focuses mainly on the Crusaders and the Muslims – which are both good subjects, but nonetheless somewhat incomplete here. To be sure, this documentary is divided into two parts, and the first part is dedicated to the First Crusade. The second part covers both the Second Crusade and the Third Crusade, but does not really go into any of the others. After the Third Crusade, they mention that there were some campaigns on and off for the next century. However, they do not mention how many there were, by the time these campaigns ended in 1291. In all, there were nine crusades; and this documentary does not cover the last six of them. There is thus a lot of missing territory that I would have liked to see covered here. Nonetheless, I will acknowledge that the first three crusades were the most important ones, and thus (perhaps) the most worthy of being told for a television audience. Given that I know of few other documentaries covering any part of the Crusades (besides their bonus episode about the Knights Templar), it would thus seem that this documentary doesn't have a lot of competition from any others in this regard. Thus, I won't complain too much about this. Whatever its flaws, this documentary would seem to be a good starting point; and the information therein is also quite good. Thus, my overall assessment of it has tended to be positive; and I also found it to be quite entertaining as well.

Battle of Hattin, 1187 - the turning point of the Crusades