France lost more than three thousand men on American battlefields and many more in the war at sea. The effort nearly bankrupted the French treasury. The French commitment to the achievement of American independence has bound the two nations together for more than two centuries. It also helped forge the identity of the Society of the Cincinnati, which, from its founding in 1783, has included a French branch in recognition of those foreign officers who fought for the American cause.
Image credits:
(1) Landung einer Französischen Hülfs-Armee in America, zu Rhode Island. am 11ten Julius 1780 engraved by Daniel Chodowiecki (1726-1801). [Berlin, 1783]. The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection.
(2) Portrait of Claude, chevalier de Chavagnac by an unknown French artist, ca. 1784-1785. Oil on canvas. The Society of the Cincinnati, The Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection.
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