France didn't help America until we started to win in 1778, two years after we declared independence and the war began.
More counterfactual historical baloney. So much to correct in just one sentence!
First, the war began in 1775, a year prior to the Declaration of Independence. The Continental Army was formed in June 1775 following the Battles of Lexington and Concord two months earlier that began the war. Covert aid in supplies, munitions, and financing from France began shortly thereafter, much of it channeled thru the French and Dutch West Indies, and continued unofficially until a formal treaty of alliance was signed in February 1778. The supplies and assistance from France from the beginning were crucial to maintaining the army and its ability to fight in the earliest years of the war.
The Battles of Saratoga, in September and October of 1777, were the first major turning point of the war. By this time, France had financed and supplied a vast amount of the war materials needed. Historians estimate that 90% of the arms and nearly all of the gun powder used by the Americans at Saratoga were supplied by France.
It wasn't only material support that came from France prior to the formal alliance. Washington and the Continental Congress realized there was an urgent need for experienced military engineers. Silas Deane, the same American envoy sent to enlist French material support, was also tasked with recruiting volunteer French officers. A Lt. Colonel in the French Royal Corps of Engineers, Louis Lebègue Duportail was secretly sent by France in March, 1777 and appointed as commander of all engineers in the Continental Army in July 1777.
Other French officers were enlisted as well. The most famous, the Marquis de Lafayette, was enlisted by Deane as a major general in the Continental Army in December 1776 and he arrived in June 1777. He was wounded in battle a few months later but stayed with Washington, who gave him command of an American division, and encamped at Valley Forge for the winter. Another French officer that arrived in 1777, and served as a military engineer with Lafayette, was Pierre Charles L'Enfant. L'Enfant is known for developing the basic plan for Washington, D.C., as well as his service in the war, during which he was also wounded.
After the French-American alliance was formalized in February 1778, France dispatched thousands of troops as well as naval forces. The crucial Battle of Yorktown in 1781, that resulted in the surrender of Cornwallis and his encircled army, was half French and half American soldiers with a French fleet blocking British escape by sea. The American Army was led by Washington and Lafayette with the French army led by Rochambeau with Washington having command of the combined forces.
Your dismissiveness of the role that France played in the initial stages of the war and their critical contribution to winning it are a disservice to history. It is, however, consistent with your recent comments dismissive of the need for America to have allies in Europe.
