France allies with America (Treaty of Alliance)

On February 6, 1778, American commissioners Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance with France in Paris. The agreement followed the American victory at Saratoga, which convinced the French court that the United States could survive as a useful ally against Great Britain. Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, committed France to military and diplomatic support for the American cause.

The French alliance transformed the Revolution from a colonial rebellion into a major international war between Britain and Bourbon France. American leaders needed a navy, money, and professional military assistance that Congress could not generate on its own under wartime conditions. The treaty therefore answered a diplomatic crisis by linking American independence to French strategy in Europe, the Caribbean, and North America.

French ships, soldiers, artillery, and loans sustained the United States through the later campaigns of the war, including the Yorktown campaign of 1781. The alliance also forced Britain to fight on a global stage, a pressure that helped make the Treaty of Paris of 1783 possible.