Impact of French World-Wide Involvement
in the War for American Independence

This page provides a brief summary of data to help assess the size of the French contribution to the War for American Independence. In particular the American cause was fought by the combined action of two partners:

• The insurgents of the thirteen English Colonies,
  coordinated by the American Continental Congress.
• The dominant power in Continental Europe, namely France

Respective belligerent resources and forces in the 'War for America'

Populations (as a potential for raising manpower and taxes to support military and naval operations):

• 13 American colonies: 2 million, including the loyalists
• United Kingdom: 11 million
• Spain: 12 million
• France: 28 million.

Historians have estimated the overall cost of the War to the Royal French budget at 1,500 million livres -- about five billion Euro Dollars -- (L'économie de la Révolution Française by Florin Aftalion (Hachette, Paris 1987).

Continental Army (according to général Knox, secretary of War, report to Congress, 1789).
(militia not included)

1775	27,443
1776	46,891
1777	34,820
1778	32,899
1779	27,699
1780	21,015
1781	13,292
1782	14,256
1783	13,476

British ground troops : The War for America by Piers Macksey (Harvard 1964).

REGION	Apr 1775	Aug 1777	Oct 1778	Mar 1780	Mar 1782
South UK	10,612	13,868	53,465	61,402	64,274
North UK + Scotland	1,745	2,116	3,282	5,651	5,872
Jersey/Guernesey	343	431	2,585	2,674	4,556
Gibraltar / Minorca	5,232	5,351	7,081	8,008	7,371
India			1,099	1,009	1,062
West Indies	1,983	3,315	1,751	9,290	8,756
Canada	incl in USA	7,767	6,647	7,471	10,225
"USA"	6,991	23,694*	39,637	32,149	34,463
embarked				6,194	5,872
TOTAL	27,063	57,637*	112,239	142,386	150,310

* these figures for 1777 do not include mercenaries from German principalities [Hesse-Kassel, Anspach-Bayreuth].

French Royal Armies in 1778 (États Militaires; Ordonnances en vigueur)

• Infantry = 109 regiments ; half of them have been involved in this world war : at least 40 in North America and the West Indies (two Irish, one German speaking).
  (see 'Régiments', in www.cincinnati.asso.fr/commision/histoire/index.html).
  
  
• Cavalry = 52 regiments; 4 have sent drafts in North America or the West Indies.

  This means altogether 220,000 professional soldiers, 35,000 officers on a war footing
  among them. One thousand officers and more than 15,000 soldiers (Land service) were directly engaged in North America (2,113 lost their lives); twice as many around the World.
  
  

• Marine Royale (1779) ( La vie de Charles-Henri, comte d'Estaing by Jacques Michel (éd. J. Michel, 1976): 72,500 sailors, 2,500 officers
  
  The annual French Royal Navy budget amounted to 140 million livres (470 million Euros).

Line vessels (French Navy and American Independence by J. Dull)

European alliances

Thanks to Louis XVI's foreign diplomacy, Britain did not succeed, for once, entring into any alliance.

In order to balance the British Navy effectives, France dragged Spain into the conflict. Spain's policy was to minimise the American English colonists' forces that could threaten her efforts to keep Louisiana, to recover Florida, and to enlarge further its possessions in North America.
To obtain Spain's participation, the French Royal Government had to:

• remind Spain and request the implications of the so called "Family Compact" between the two Bourbon kingdoms, negotiated and concluded on August 1761 by Choiseul, French Foreign Affairs Minister;
• accept preparing a military landing in the UK;
• undertake not to stop fighting until Spain recovered Minorca and Gibraltar.

The other main European nations (Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Portugal) entered into a League of Armed Neutrality not to be involved. They refused the American Congress demand to be admitted into this pacific alliance.

Germany did not yet exist as a nation. Almost every German speaking participant from Europe who fought for the American cause were members [or had been in service] of the French Royal Armies (Deux-Ponts, Kalb, etc. ...) or dispatched under French governmental influence (Steuben).

Page posted 15 November 2001; revised 3 January 2010.

World War Context of the American Revolution.

French Regiments in the American Revolution

The Expédition Particulière Commemorative Cantonment Society.