French Alliance and the War's Conclusion

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Decent And fair That's our heritage Well, that's our song We sing it still We raise our voices to the God Who is the author? off this most tender music And may he continue to hold us close as we fill the world with our sound In unity Affection and love One people Under God Dedicated to the dream Our freedom God bless you Bless. America. So that absolute mush was obviously Ronald Reagan, unmistakable tones there, delivering his second inaugural address on the twenty first of january nineteen eighty five and Dominiic Rald Reagan loved American history, didn't he? he loved the idea of American exceptionalism. He loved the idea of his country as a shining city on a hill And clearly, there is no better way kick off our new series, which is marking the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the colonial tax rebellion than with that great Hollywood actor turned two times president Yeah, you're right, S. Reagan absolutely bles in America's special place in the world, isn't he? I don't think any president has ever really topped it. Yeah, has drunk so deeply of the kool aid. than Ronald Reagan. And so what better way to kick off? I mean, I said that was mush. I had to say that to reassure myself that I wasn't buying into the whole thing because obviously We are a patriotic British podcast. We are. Yeah. So we have to keep our distance from some of the flag of Liberty and all of that stuff. Yeah. All of that. So we are going to be looking at four of the founding fathers and in due course, we are going to be looking at Benjamin Franklin and his extraordinary transatlantic career, so the sense in which he's British as well as American We're going to be looking at the infamous duel between Earren Burr Alexander Hamilton Yeah as in the eponymous musical. And we're going to be looking at the moral and intellectual contradictions of Thomas Jefferson. That's a kind way of putting it in all kinds of ways, I think the most extraordinary of the founding fathers, but also perhaps the most compromised. But today There can be only one candidate can't there for our opening episode. And this is the most famousax defaultter, independence fighter of them all. Right. So George Washington, the man who gave his name to the capitol, the city where Reagan gave that speech, the man who led the Continental Army through the War of Independence and the man who, of course became the first president of the United States And Washington had, I mean, a really, really extraordinary life, you know, not quite apart from his military career. there's obviously his time as president So I thought it would be fun to focus on just one particular episode And one episode really stands out and it's the one that Reagan alluded to in that speech So he mentioned the moment when a general falls to his knees in the horr snow of valley forge. you know, tears listening in his eyes. Did that happen Did it happen? Well, we will be finding out. Yeah. We've did a series before about Ronald Reagan in which Reagan tells a series of absolutely tremendous anedotes about things that never happened. Yeah he commentated on an entire baseball match, didn't he that never happened Exactly. So that sets the tone for what will follow Anyway t this moment when George Washington does or does not fall to the snow in Valley Forge Many of our American listeners will immediately recognize this. I would say Not one in a hundred of our British listeners will ever have heard of this moment So we should explain just a bit of context. This moment of Valley Forge Hens in the winter of seventeen seventy seven, seventeen seventy eight, and things are actually looking bleak for the American cause So they have been fighting their tax rebellion for almost two years but it's not going well The capital, Philadelphia Their provisional capital has been occupied by British troops They've been looking to the French to come in and bail them out, but so far the French have not yet officially entered the war looks quite possible they might not enter at all. Although Dominic Benjamin Franklin is on the scene to help out, so we'll be doing that in our next episode. That's right. And George Washington and his Contental arrmy are holed up in a place called Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. They've holed up there for the winter They are desperately short of food and supplies and clothing. They're at the mercy of the weather, they are ravaged by disease and they're hoping for a miracle So this is one of the mythic moments in American Um of patriotic history. It is the episode that turns Washington into a national father figure And before we get into the story of Valley Forge itself, we should pull back a bit and look at who Washington is And what on earth is going on with this story So There's a recent biography of Washington W Lads of Prizes, Great Alaim by Ron Chernaow. And Churno calls Washington the most elusive figure in American history more revered than truly loved, an impossibly stiff and inflexible figure, composed of too much marble to be quite human Andne of the things that Cherenno does is to show that actually he was human, he was a flesh and blood character behind the kind of marble facade. And Tom, I think you've got a tremendous anecdote. Have news that will illustrate this? I do have an amusing anecdote. So it happens at the Constitutional Convention seventeen eighty seven And the guy who writes the preamble to the Constitution is a guy called Governor Morris He sets the template for mad American names, right? fromrom the very beginning. Suspiciously French. And he's the guy who goes on to he's kind of involved in establishing the grid system in New York in Manhattan. Yeah But he's a massive japster So he's the fster of the Constitutional Convention And he is approached by Alexander Hamilton as in the musical And Hamilton says that Morris will go up to Washington and slap him on the shoulder and say, my dear general, how happy I am to see you look so well then Hamilton will buy him a dinner And Morris does this But the icy quality of Washington's stare as he greets this slap on the shoulder was so terrifying that he would not do it again for a thousand dinners. Wow, and surely ruined the dinner. The memory of that would have ruined the dinner. It must have been a chilly occasion, I imagine. Yeah. he felt he just let himself down. He was ashamed of himself, surely. Well he had to go off and design grid systems to work it out of his system. That's quite anedict isn't it It's a brillant annd.'s the best one the andid,'s actually everything think I've ever heard. Thank you. That's treendous. C'ertainly the best anidate I'veard about Georgeashington. And so, Washington was born in seventeen thirty two. He wass born into a kind of gentry family in the colony of Virginia That's the oldest of all the British colonies in North America, named by one friend of the show, Sul's a Rally For another, Elizabeth I So The Washington's originally, I believe from Tring in Hertfordshire John Washington, Washington's great grandfather, had started off in Ting and he had moved to Virginia. He establishes a tobacco plantation with African slave labor in the late sixteen fifties So this is a theme that will run through this series. There's a lot of slave labor in this series. Anyway, George grows up in the seventeen thirties and seventeen forties. His great ambition is to be an English country gentleman And he is He does stand out. I mean, he's an outstanding man because he's so big So he's six feet tall, which of course in the seventeen forties is very tall He's very powerful, huge shoulders, everyveryone talks about his massive hands, so he has to have gloves made specially He's a great horseman and he likes riding, he likes drinking tea and he likes reading the novels of Henry Fielding, which is nice. I' just wondering about the cherry tree. Yeah, because that's the other famous story it's told about him is that he chopped down a cherry tree and then ever said, I cannot tell a lie. Yeah, hisis father said, Did you chop down a cherry tree? and he said, I did, I can't tell a lie This story is itself a lie It was invented. It was invented by a man called, of course, inevitably an American writer called Parson Weems. Oh yes. And Parson Weems will be reappearing in this story. Oh brilliant. Parson Weems just basically goes around making stuff up Today, he'd have a history podcast about the Costa Rican Civil War. Right. Anyway, so George Washington H's this massive bloke with his huge hands. but Disappointingly, he's got a very weak voice. He's got a very thinort of breathy describes having a breathy vice. because he had pleurusy So he speaks he speaks like Marilyon Monroe birthday mrter President. Exactly to himself as he looks in the mirror. And come we're just on the topic of accent? Yeah. Does he have a West countountry accent ndoubtedly. How do they talk about in Virginia? Happyth, Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Mr. President. You can basically imagine a Dorsit Yokel doing Marilyn Monroe. withith massive hands with Kenny Everettss hands in the night ' eighty three General election rally. That's a that's a niche reference D didnn't expect we get that in Okay So The thing is he said that Governor Morris was great fst George Washington is a total fun He's a massive fun sponge P. It's often said of him People would say they never saw him laugh Whenne of his officers said of him, you would seldom see a frown or smile on his countenance, his air was serious and reflecting And part of the reason he's not keen on smiling is that he's got these terrible dental issues. So from early age, his teeth are decaying As early as seventeen sixty so long before He's involved in the tax business. One of his friends said of him, his mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time discloses some defective teeth. Is that because of all the sugar from the plantations. Yeah, possibly. Is it a Virginia thing I don't know. Tobacco is Virginia really? Yeah.irginia is tobacco. but does that does that damage your teeth? Sure it does. Anyway, it's just got terrible teeth. Again, a theme that will run through this episode The key to him, says Ron Conno in his biography, is Washington's intense self discipline and his sense of control. So Washington is not actually boring as you would think He' a man of fierce passions and a hot temper keeps these under sort of rigid inflexible control. Thomas Jefferson said of him. His temper was naturally high toned, but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. John Adam great self command, but to preserve so much equanimity as he did required a great capacity. John Adams also called him a mutton headad. He did. And actually Jd Adams would have said he had a great self command, but to reserve so much equanimity as he did required a great capacity Because that's how Joh Adam spoke as we discussed in our previous American Revolution series. Anyway The crucial moment in Washington's life comes when he's in his early twenties. Britain and France were fighting for control of North America This is what we call the Seven Years War and what Americans call the French and Indian War. Washington became a commander of the Virginia militia And he established a reputation as the preeminent colonial officer from North America, from the colonies. Everyone said, he's very brave. he's a good leader. He's very disciplined. he's great But at the end of the war, he was denied a royal commission by his British superiors They said, no, you know, he's not quite good enough or whatever. And he felt a deep sense of resentment. He thought basically, they look down on me because I'm a mere colonial and they're from the metropolis I'm the Imperial Metrople And they've made me grovel to them and I've got nothing out of it And so he definitely has a sort of, you know, for him This is personal. There's a chip on his shoulder The Seven Years War has been a great triumph for Britain Butot Unfortunately, Tom, it creates huge problems which is sad Because the victory in the Seven Years War leaves Britain with this massive debt one hundred forty million pounds. So basically our debt has gone up ten times to win the war paying interest on the debt. That alone takes up half Britain's national budget. This sounds quite familiar. Yeah, yeah it does. exxcept we're not winning triumphant wars against the French. No, No. Anyway, the question is how do you pay for this debt? Now that you've conquered all this territory in North America How are you going to fund troops to look after it and to keep the peace, notot least because there are increasing conflicts with native tribes as the settlers push west In England, the gentry who shoulder the tax burden are already paying more tax than they've ever paid before. So what three percent? Yeah, exactly half a percent or something. So Parliament decides it will raise revenue from the colonies themselves to pay for their own defence. that sounds entirely reasonable. Qite right, and Parliament also says, well this is the time basically the British Empire, Britain's overseas possessions, have now swollen to dimensions that we never dreamed of. And the system for dealing with all this is very ramshackle and corrupt. There's all sorts of smuggling and what Basically, let's use this opportunity to sort this out and to streamline and modernize it for the age of the Enlightenment. Sensible policies for a happy America Exactly. We'll have new courts, we'll have nice new customs duties On all legal documents in America, there'll be a stamp tax as there is already in Britain. We'll just basically streamline the whole thing. This sounds great. I mean, who could possibly object to that? It is great because basically if if you just Follow this, You'll turn into Canada, which is Brilliant or Australia and everyone loves those countries However At the time, the American colonists don't like this at all. And very, very simply, I mean, obviously this is a massive issue that we can spend hours discussing and going into all the nuances, but very simply The issue is that until the seventeen sixties, the North American colonists had basically been left alone But what's happened now is that obviously Parliament is trying to legislate for them. Parliament says, look, it's time to sort all this out. And the more militant colonists don't like it, they don't want to be sorted out. they don't want to be interfered with. And the militants say, Well, we had traditional liberties, you know from the seventeenth century. Which are English liberties? English liberties. And you're interfering with them. You don't have any right to make laws for us without our consent And the French have been beaten. so actually frankly, we don't really need you anyway Because we can probably deal with the natives ourselves. Right. So that's the thing, isn't it? that they don't actually want the British to come in and be woke about the Native Americans. They just want to go out and grab their land. Yes, absolutely right. This is such a great patriotic badcast. Brilliant. But it's true, isn't it? It is true. I mean, that is the state of play. Yeah. And to just point out what the British and the looyalists take on because don't forget At least one in five Americans probably is a loyalist and stays loyal to King in Parliament They say, well here's the reasons for doing this. Don't go moaning about that you're not represented in Parliament. Most people in Britain votes in elections for Parliament, most towns in Britain Lots of them don't have an MP. The way that Parliament works is Parliament has chosen on ancient organic principles that have evolved over time Parliament, as a body represents our entire British global family Parliament's laws bind not just British subjects in Britain, but British subjects all over the world. So Parliament does speak for you as it speaks for everybody at home Now that doesn't cut any ice with the militants or indeed with George Washington Washington stands very much on the more extreme wing of this issue He has money problems like a lot of landowners do after the Seven Years War The tobacco price had fallen considerably in the seventeen sixties, so he's struggling to maintain his gentry lifestyle He's run at big debts, and obviously he hates the thought of paying new taxes He doesn't want to pay a stamp tax He doesn't want to pay a tax on glass or paper or tea brought in by a parliament in London where he's never been Washington is also involved, you mentioned land, so important Washington is involved in land speculation in the West. and when in seventeen sixty three Britain forbids American settlement west of the Appalachians Parliament says, stop expanding west We don't want to get into conflict with the native tribes. Washington is gutted. Washington and his mates want to get stuck in. Yeah, of course. At every point during the breakdown of relations, Washington is very much with the militants So he goes to the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia in seventeen seventy four. and he doesn't really say much because of course is worried about showing people his teeth He's very much on the hawkish wing Then in seventeen seventy five. After fighting has already broken out with British troops at Lexington and Concorde, this's a secondcond Continental Congress. This time Washington turns up in his militia uniform And it's at this second Continental Congress that the militants vote to set up a secessionist proto state. called the United colonies of North America which will have its own continental army to fight off their imperial overlords. can I ask Is this why Washington turns up in his militia uniform? Of course, that he suspects this is going to happen. He therefore thinks there's going to need to be a commander. and if I turn up in my militia uniform It will serve as a nudge to everybody that I'm the guy. Yeah, fighting has broen out and Washington wants to proclaim that he is you know, tanned, rested and ready to take on the British. So the contininental arrmy has been set up, someone's got to command it There are various people, but Washington is by far the most obvious He's got military experience in the seeven years W He's from the most populous colony, which is Virginia, the oldest And the other important thing about Washington, which will run through his career He is a unifier. He is a bit vanilla Because he's a bit boring and he doesn't say anything. No no one's offended by him So a delegate from Massachusetts said of him, He's a complete gentleman, his sensible, amiable, virtuous, modest, and brave Bak from Connecticut He seems discreet and virtuous, no harem, sarum, ranting, swearing fellow, but sober, steady and calm You know, these could be Washington's epith So now what he has to do is he has to weld the militias from these thirteen rebel colonies into a continental army And he has to lead the resistance to the British You know, arguably at this point the greatest imperial power on eararth and a power that Washington knows of his experience with them knows very well Now, in American kind of patriotic legend, this is a great underdog victory And you can see why they would say that Britain has the Royal Navy Britain has a bigger population Britain has a trained professional army with up to fifty thousand men and Britain also brings over about thirty thousand German mercenaries the so called Hessians. But if you read distinguished American historians, academic historians of this period, like Gordon Wood, who died a week ago seees obituaries in the papers in Britain as well as America. Gordon Wood points out actually the rebels have an awful lot of things going for them First of all They're fighting on home soil The British have to send troops three thousand miles away You know, in an age when there are massive communications and logistics problems And actually no country in the eighteenth century has ever fought and won a war like this, three thousand miles from home I suppose that's true isn't it? Yeah I mean, it's not been done before. The British are trying to do something that's never really been done. And I suppose the closest analogy would be the conquest of America by the Conquistadors, but they there Nothing that on the scale that's required to defeat colonial rebels in America. Yeah. I mean, there's a big difference between basically toppling A kind of bronze age state a widely disliked regime that doesn't even understand what you are. Yeah and dealing with an insurgency on a massive scale I mean, that's a really important point. secondecond point. You could send eighty thousand troops or whatever. But you can't conquer North America It's huge And that's perfect for a guerrilla war. I mean, it's covered with woods and forests and lakes and all of these things. evenven if you captured the towns and cities, which of course are very small by European standards. So what the guerrillas can just go off into the countryside. So there is a kind of Vietnam quality to it Totally there is. So I think that's the other issue. I think Vietnam is absolutely the right comparison becausecause basically what the Americans can do First of all, they care much more than the British do The Americans basically know, I think, even from the start that if they just keep going, they will probably win, the British will eventually give up I mean, and in Britain, there are lots of people who have sympathy with them It's not like everyone in Britain is opposed to this. No no, there's lots of people who sympathize with the colunists, but also Even if you don't sympathize with the Cunists, you're much more interested in India or the Caribbean, the rich sugar Islands of the Caribbean, than you are in, you know, Georgia or Vermont or something. I mean, no one in Briston cares that much about these places So basically Washington's job, I mean, rather like if you're a member of the Viet Kong or something His job is Don't get caught into a massive pitch battle, justust keep going, melt into the shadows, keep up a long guerrilla campaign and eventually the British will come to terms, surely they will. And so this is the story of the next two years Washington does a pretty good job of building this into an army, although he's often complaining that they're very licentious and disorderly his men because Washington is very straight laced He loses far more battles than he wins, but these are very small battles by European standards. K of little skirmishes. If they were fought in Europe, we would call it a skirmish. We wouldn't even think of them as a battle. Of course they're battles by North American standards But the thing is every time he loses, he just melts away into the woods A good example is one of his biggest defeats, he's driven out of New York in seventeen seventy six He escaped south from New York into Pennsylvania And then he pulls off this tremendous PR cp byy crossing the river Delaware at Christmas, and then he wins two little battles at Trenton and Princeton And everybody in Europe says, Oh Gosh Washington, you know, he's got one over on the British again Washington crossing the Delaware That one wasn't that nice? Yeah. Lydia the tattooed lady ' try to explain that reference to people to. It's a song called Lydia The Tattooed Lady and she has all kinds of tattoos and one of them is Washington Crossing the Delaware There go. So people can Google it. Maybe you should sing the entire thing as a bonus spepecial bonus treat for our Rst of History Club members. Do you know Maybe So let's get to seventeen seventy seven It's a very mixed picture of the war that year. On the one hand, the Americans get a massive result. They captured General John Burgoyin's army at Saratoga. And they capture lots of prisoners. and that's a great propaganda coup for them, especially in the capitals of Europe, Paris, Madrid, and so on But for Washington personally, seventeen seventy seven is a nightmare. He's outwitted by the British General William Howe in rural Pennsylvania. He loses a crucial battle and the result of that is that the British at the end of September are able to march into the rebel capital of Philadelphia unopposed And the contininental Congress, this is the kind of political wing of the tax protest They have fled And basically, Philadelphia has been only the women and children remain. Washington's army is outside Philadelphia, kind of lurking around in the woods. And the morale that autumn is very, very low So that' the pouring of rain They haven't got any food The discipline is breaking down. E Ron Cerneo, who's definitely a patriotic American historian describes them as marauding through the countryside, terrorizing the inhabitants They're basically sort of looting and stuff and they're very miserable So let's pick up the story a few weeks after that Winter has come and Washington has a dilemma. what's he going to do with his army So his army, there' about twelve thousand of them and about four hundred women and servants and general hangers on. And among those twelve thousand men are men from all thirteen breakaway colonisties, and we'll talk about them more after the break They can't just go home Washington himself only went home once between seventeen seventy five and seventeen eighty one What they need to do, he needs to keep the army together and he needs to find winter quartersull of them He doesn't want to retreat too far from Philadelphia because he doesn't want to abandon the capital's kind of rural hinterland of the British But he also wants to stay in touch with the Continental Congress, which is in York, Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania legislature which is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Oh, it's just veryy Wars of the Roses. Very Wars of the Roses. Yeah. I don't think that was by design. I think that's by accent Yeah, beep posossibly pushing things too far to imagine that was by deside. It would. So the place he chooses is Valley Forge which is eighteen miles northwest of Philadelphia, A Valley Forge is somewhere that becomes one of the most sacred sites in American history Washington said it was dreary, which was a bit unfair, I think. It's a sort of plateau, it's high ground surrounded by woods and fields you're on high ground, you can see if the British are coming because there's woods, you've got timber for your camp. There were streams for water And you can basically sort of keep an eye and make sure the British don't go out from Philadelphia to raid the countryside And because there's farmland around, Washington is hopeful. that the locals who are Welsh Quakers So ticking two very familiar rest as history boxes in one go that the Welsh Quakers will keep them supplied with crops and livestock Unfortunately, Tom, one of the only lessons of history that really endures is that you can never truly rely on a Welsh Quaker Washingon will learn that lesson in the second half of the episode. So they're on their way to Valley Forge Washington knows even as they're marching there that this is going to be pretty grim His men have run out of supplies, many of them don't have a blanket between them About four thousand of them don't have any boots or shoes And Washington said later that even the march through the Sleet to Valley Forge was Grim ordeal He remembered seeing men without clothes to cover their nakedness, without blankets to lay on withithout shoes by which their marches might be traced by the blood from their feet. marching through frost and snow without a murmur. But I think you can argue that I mean, we've been quite down on Washington But this is the moment when he really emerges as a national leader Because basically Washington says he has it known, has it widely known? that he will share the hardships of his men. He's not going to bunk off to Mount Vernon He will be there with them every step of the way And his artillery commommander Henry Knox said to him The people of America look to you as their father and into your hands then entust that all confident of every exertion on your part for their security and happiness. So basically this is on you now. You're going to you're we're looking to you to get us through this Anyway, six days before Christmas, the nineteenth of deecember they arrive at Valley Forge. There is absolutely nothing there, no shelter But this is the sort of challenge at which Washington excels. So he divides his men up into construction teams, he says I'm going to cut down the trees and build these cabins. American historians love these cabins. Wood cabins. Log cabins. 'use they like they love summer camps in America, then't they? This must be the ancestor of that winter camp Washington says, we have a race So you can build their cabins most quickly. And the winner gets twelve dollars And Washington says I'll give a hundred dollars to the team that comes up with the best way of making a waterproof roof U using the least wood It are very exciting scenes. I mean, you called him a fun sponge, That all could be more fun than that. It's great fun. Winter fun, the Washington way. actually, they do a really good job. They put up two thousand log cabins within a few days. They dig trenches, they dig redoubts. Oh we love our redoubt, don't we? We haven't had a redoubt on the show since the Battle of Poltara. Yeah, Great to have the redoubts back And actually, I mean, this gives you a sign of how small North America is in terms of demography By the time they finish, they've built the fourth biggest city in North America with the two thousand cabins. That's an amazing start Anyway, I compared this momentarily to a summer camp, it is not like a summer camp. It's pouring with rain. There are dead horses everywhere They just throw discarded wood everywhere. It's very muddy, it's very sludgy, as we will discover in the second half. The toilet facilities are extremely poor. Can I ask why they don't bury the horses baffled me I mean, isn't it kind of basic No howow ye There's just rotting horse corpses everywhere. Yeah, the British would have pared their horses, I think Anyway, a lot of them haven't got any clothes and because of that, theyve ripped up some tents and they're wearing them as shirts and as shoes, weirdly ne European volunteer said, afterwards, the unfortunate soldiers were in want of everything They had neither coats, hats, shirts nor shoes. theirir feet and legs froze until they become almost black And it was often necessary to amputate them Now on top of all this, they'd have enough food becausecause the war has destroyed the Continental Army's supply chain So to Washington's horror the days go by Some supplies come but they've all rotted They live on something which they call fire cakes, which is basically they make this disgusting mixture flour and water and they cook it on kind of heated stones. Oh my Godd That's horrible Yeah, they're eating flour basically. I mean, Americans do love a big breakfast, don't they? They do. And we before we started recording, we were discussing the quality of American food So you know, again, I think it will run through American history So After a few days, they're basically look like a camp of ghosts or beggars and there's an excellent diary entry by another splendidly named American I've just looked at the name. He's a regimental serge. This can't be true He's cool Dr. Albert Gents Waldo That's just a Star Wars name, isn't it? This's one of those Star Wars names or an NFL name. Albera Jents Waldo says. he' describing the scene he says Poor food, hard lodging, cold weather, fatigue. Nasty clothes, Nasty cookery. Vomit half my time I'm getting I'm going west more West country, the more I do it. Smoke out of my senses. The devil's in it. I can endure it There comes a bowl of beef soup full of burnt leaves and dirt sickish enough to make a hect to spew. And on and on he goes, on he goes pooor food, hard lodge in cold weather, nasty clothes, nasty cookery. Tom, it's like my dayays living in Minnesota. Oh Bang Bang. Great banter. So anyway, they're all al really sick. They've got Sabies, they've got sccurvy, they've got tyyphersus, they've got Tphoi, they've got dysentery. I mean, we emphasize dysenterry the role of dysentery in hory, don't we? Yeah And they've got loads of it. Very rarely discussed by historians, but a key key factor, the massive killer. Now, you know I've had that fact for you about this being the fourth biggest city in North America. Yeah. I actually have a better fact that I hope people will take away from this podcast apart from the teeth More Americans died at Valley Forge any battle of the entire war Well, I mean, that is illustrative of the impact of dysentery on the patterns of history, isn't it? I have to say I was really struck by that. And that's partly because the battles have basically glorified punch upps in fields Yeah know, two thousand people died at Valley forge, which was the sixth of Washington's army. And more would probably have died Washington hadn't been An enthusiastic proto Vaxa So it's inoculations, isn't it at this point? Inoculations. It's not vaccination, it's inoculations. So basically, what they do is they scratch your skin and they give you a very mild dose of smallpox from which you'll probably recover Because if you get it through the skin, you're more likely to recover And the army had been plagued by smallpucks. Had Washington not organized this program of inoculation, probablyably more men would have died. So It's one of the more memorable scenes in John Adams, the TV series. Yeah, where they scrape a bit of passse out of one of her someomeone with smallpox. Franklin was very keen on this. wasas he? Be he'd lost one of his sons when he was four years old to smallpox and he hadn't inoculated him and so he became a great proselytizer And of course, he's the great you know, the great scientist of America. So everyone listens to him. Yeah. I have to tell you that we gave up on John Adams as a family because Mrs Sambrook said she found it interminibly boring and refused to watch anymore There were similar sentiments for Mrs. Holland She she didn't that actually she complain, she just fell asleep he voted with her eyelids. Voted with her. I love it. So anyway, the inoculation campaign This is testament to Washington's great strength as a commander So actually on the battlefield, Washington is not brilliant tacticition at all I mean, he loses most of his battles. But he's brilliant. I take my hat up to him. He is brilliant at managing his men. And this doesn't matter if the battles are just glorified skirmishes. Correct, exactly. So he's basically he's got his headquarters in this little stone cottage at of inevitably Valley Forge Creek. Hold on, how tom he's got a stone cottage? Yeah, the sharing the hardships was kind of nominal for the first few days. He was in a tent for the first few days. And now he's got a stone cottage Luxury, but yeah His entire reputation is a lie, We dare to tell it as it is. Yeah. It's a podcast that tells you the truth finally about top hypocrite George Washington. So here he is in his lovely stone cottage, his holiday home. with Zaga. it's not terribly good for fun because he doesn't believe in fun. so dice and card games are banned and all of his aides are sleeping in the downstairs rooms and stuff And actually The general sense of discipline was very impressive to European visitors. So one French officer said he was struck by the air of calm dignity through which you could trace the strong feelings of the patriot and discern the father as well as the commander of his soldiers. And this emphasis on Washington as a father figure You know, it runs right through accounts of Valley Forge even at the time. And I think again, that's one of his distinguishing characteristics Now It's precisely because of Washington's insistence on his own dignity Ronald Reagan's story about kneeling to pray in the snow M be false. We know it must be false and historians have you know, spent a lot of ink talking about Did Washington believe in God or not? Was he a Christian becausecause it's a slightly confusing picture He did go to church, but he didn't go regularly When everyone else knelt to pray, Washington would stay standing. Washington never took communion Washington very rarely mentioned Jesus Christ He would talk about provrovidence, so we would talk about the author of our being So some historians have painted him as a deaist So you know, God is a clock maker But Some of Washington's mates, like Jamesadison, said, o, no, no, he was a very devout Anglican. And it's probably, I think the consensus actually is that in the eighteenth century, if you were part of the Virginia gentry, your Anglicanism was very austere and sort of restrained. I like that in Anglicanism. Yeah, you like that. sort of small pe, puritanical We literally upstanding. Exactly. you want to say standing, kneeling is flummerery, you don't want to do that. It's performative. And it's precisely because of that. that it's utterly implausible that Washington would have knelt in the snow, especially where his men could have seen him. I mean, Reagan would have done that Yeah, but Washington wouldn't He definitely would. Oh, my Lord. It would have been a lapse of the dignity Bill Clinton would have lain down in the snow or something. Oh God yeah. Tears streaming down his cheeks. Trum would have stayed in his stained cottage. Yeah. and his gold cottage, surely Yeah I made out golden goods Well anyway This story about him kneaning in the snow is absutely fake It was invented in eighteen hundred after Washington's death. Soays Parson Weems again? This is Parson Weems. He's an absolute villain man. That's a terrible man. Making up stuff randomly But actually, do you know what? Washington should have knlt in the snow. Maybe he should have done because Things are looking very bleak for him as they approach Christmas Two days before Christmas, twenty third of deecember, he writes to the Continental Congress. He says our situation here at Valley Forge is absolutely desperate Yesterday I asked the troops to be in reiness to scour the countryside for food He said that they were too weak and hungry to obey. Only the efforts of my officers, he says, prevented a dangerous mutiny or I am now convinced beyond a doubt that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place, this army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things, starve, dissolve, or disperse in order to obtain subsistence And just three or four days of bad weather would prove our destruction. Tom is the game up for George Washington, the American cause Are they going to abandon the rebellion Pay their taxes, obey the laws. peacefully evolve into a warmer Canada Well There's only one way to find out. And sppoilera, I'm afraid the answer to that is pretty disappointing After the break and find out the worst. Hi, this is Garalinika from Goldhangers. The restest is foootball. This episode is brought to you by Wise. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas, or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate and easy transfer and no surprises along the way. Wise keeps things simple Wise is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than one hundred and sixty countries and with over forty currencies. Most transfers arrive instantly. WS uses the mid market exchange rate, like the one you see on Google, with no markups or hidden fees. So when money needs to move, you can see the rate Know the fee and get on with it. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees by downloading the Wise app today. Be smart, get wise, T's and T's apply This episode is brought to you by MintMobile. It's easy to ditch overpriced wireless with Mint mobile. Sign up online at mintmobile dot com slash history. get three months of premium wireless service fifteen bus a month. forty five dollars upfront payment required, equivalent to fifteen dollars per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speeds slower above forty gigabytes on a limited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details This episode is brought to you by TikTok, now discovering something new Nothing could be more thrilling than that. That's so true, Tom. So the most exciting intellectual adventure that I've been on in the last couple of years was finding out all about the siege of Shemishl in Eastern Poland, so that's during the First World War And I went online, I read lots of books about it. But what particularly thrilled me was discovering that there's a phenomenon called Jimich L Toqu So people on TikTok Exchanging facts about the Siege of Shemisha, talking about its history, its people, and for me, that was one of the most invigorating intellectual journeys that I've ever been on. Well, of course, studying the history of obscure First World War battles, that's the kind of thing we're all into, but there are less mainstream areas that you can discover on TikTok like history or maths or literature or cooking or music or sport or Anything like that Crreators on TikTok make it easy to discover something new every day. TikTok is where discovery turns into conversation Visit TikTok. com forward slash explore more to learn more Hello everyone and welcome back to the Rest is History. It is the twenty third of december seventeen seventy seven And in Valley Forge It's not looking like it's going to be Christmas ever. So a very cold miserable George Washington evenough he's got his lovely stone cottage, he's still not having a fun time. He sent a desperate message to the Continental Congress basasically saying, you've got to help me out here or the entire army is going to implode. And with it the war efforts Exactly, so, exactly So two days later they have Christmas And Washington is A, they have a dinner, a Christmas dinner of mutton, cabbage and crusts of bread with water to drink Because he's lost all his baggage in the campaign outside Philadelphia, he's only got a single spoon to eat it with So his aspirations of becoming an English country gentleman. are very, very far from being realized at this moment. Well, you could say, I mean, this is the kind of training that you get at an elite English public school, don't you? It's true actually It's true, kind of awful food and kind of shivering in the cold toughen you up. Yeah. If he saw it in those terms perhaps it would have cheaered him up exactly. Well actually, do you know what You say it's terribly cold And Reagan talked about the snow and Parson Weems talked about all the snow But it's not actually that cold So it's not a particularly cold winter. It doesn't snow that much It's basically rain and wind that they have to worry about Now before the I mentioned that he was hoping for aid from Welsh Quakers. This was foolish. Because basically The locals are not that interested in helping him And this may, you know, surprise American listeners who have been brought up, you know, to in the sort of hurh, hurh view of the American Revolution Historians disagree about the exact numbers, but let's say quarter, a third maybe even. colonial population. actually support the British in this war. The Quakerism I think means they're probably not desesperately keen on piling into a warall. But by and large, they just wantan to keep out. they just want to get on with their lives And they do have food. The British troops in Philadelphia paying them more for their food So they just think, well, I'd rather sell it to the British troops in Philadelphia than I would to these blakes I, that's the American way isn't it? Capitalism is the American way. Washington is very disappointed by this. Interestingly, Washington does not think that selling to the highest bidder is the American way So Washington at various points talks about making trading with the British punishable by death. He sends thousand men out to basically requisition all the livestock from the local fields to basically steal it. to steal it, exactly And he says in letters, This business about selling to the highest bidder is a sign of the debasement of our national character He says our spirit of American independence is imperiled by our own abominable lust of gain. Gness. What would he make of Eld Musk? Yes, exactly. Ver good question. And actually the interesting thing is that Washington at this point is not quite as popular. withith even his fellow officers all with Congress, as he would later become That winter while he was a Valley forge, there was a movement to sack him as commander in chief. Bring in the Boke who won the Battle of Saratoga, six months earlier General Horatio Gates And this movement fizzled out, but it's a reminder that Washington is not as secure as he looks. And actually at the end of january, seventeen seventy eight, you know, he's been writing these letters to Congress A congressional delegation at the end of January, visits the camp And Washington has to be on his very best behavior He's very polite, he's very respectful And he basically begs them to improve recruitment and to sort out their supply chains. But the visitor that he's really looking forward to getting comes a few days after that, and this is his wife Martha So Martha hasn't seen it for months. She arrives in early February by carriage over the kind of icy roads. She's joined by some of their slaves When She gets to Valley Forge, she's really shocked by his condition. She writes to a friend, He is well but much worn with fatigue and anxiety, I never knew him to be so anxious as now. Now if George is a little bit elusive, I have to say Martha is positively opaque So I had a look in my files and in twenty fifteen, I reviewed a biography of Martha Washington for the Sunday Times And the final line of my review read as follows. I don't think I've ever read a biography of a more boring woman. really. Anyway She arrives at the camp. she rolls up her sleeve, she gets stuck in. She manages the staff, she organizes the meals. Everyone says, Ohh, she's brilliant You know, I never in my life knew a woman so busy from early morning till late at night as was Lady Washington. Interesting, they call her Lady Washington actually. Yeah, very. Now she's not the only woman at the camp. and modern historians pererhaps unsurprisingly very, very keen to play up general diversity of Valley Forge So there's other generals' wives this one with with the exionber. I just again, just saw that and thought didid I read that right? It leaps off the page, isn't it? So this is Lucy Flucker knocks. She So which prompts me to ask Soly, Fucker is not a nickname nor is Knox. No. So you've put down that there are wives of the various generals, that there are nurses and there are laundndresses. but are there prostitutes? because I mean They generally follow Amies, don't they? Do know what? I haven't seen any mention, which I did I find odd and I wondered whether that was either because American historians don't really want to mention it. O because Washington forbade it. It's perfectly possible that Washington because he is very puritanical where he basically tried to stamp it out Even so twelve thousand men, is it really plausible that there's nobody there? Well, he's shown that he's alert to the danger of disease, I suppose, so that might be possible. Yes. And Washington generally was very down on women being at the camp. He said The multitude of women in particular, especially those who are pregnant or have children, are a clog upon every movement. can't stop them Now the other thing is the kind of the racial diversity or the ethnic diversity So as we said before, there are men from all thirteen rebel colonies. There are Catholics and Jews. There are lots of people from Scotland and Ireland. There are French, there are Prussians, there are Austrians, Poles, Dutch, Italians, Spanish, there're even Hungarians. Now the most celebrated foreigner at the camp someomebody you admire Tom or you always make excuses for. plus an ineffective Marquis de Lafayette Is he is he dazing off Right, a man who fell asleep at the crucial moment of the French Revolution. Thereby lost completely lost the initiative Mafayette had arrived in the summer of seventeen seventy seven as a volunteer when he was only nineteen years old He was incredibly idealistic he'd gone and made his case personally to Congress about being involved. Washington at first was suspicious of him But basically fell in love with him at Valley Forge. Really impressed by Lafayette's energy and his enthusiasm. So he's not falling asleep at this point. No, no, not at all, actually. Maybe he bured himself out at Valley Forge and that meant he was underpowered when it came to the crisis in his own country. But Washington adopted him as a protege. Kind of son almost, wasn't it? Yeah, Exactly. as a surrogate son. Yeah really, Exactly so Now there are also some people of color. What Thally forgge So Most native tribes sided with the British for understandable reasons because they think The North American colents just want to steal all our lands and they're not wrong. Yeah, they're not wrong. And the British have, you know, although they probably would have taken them, the British have made a feeble attempt to stop this happening But there are about fifty scouts from the Ornada and Washington was great fan of these fellowas. He said they they were brilliant But the really striking story is the presence of African American soldiers. And if you look at sort of online accounts of this. and very recent history books In the last decade, the estimates have kind of got bigger and bigger and bigger, I think probably because historians have trying to see what they want to see To get into the sort of the details of this, In january seventeen seventy eight, the smallest colony which was Rhode Island was struggling to fulfill its quota that it had to send Basically it's got a recruitment quota And one of Washington's officers was a guy called James Mitchell Varnam said, Well, why don't you just why don't you sign up slaves put them in the army And for Washington, that's a big ask because Washington was born into a slave owning family. And Washington did own slaves himself He was conflicted about it by the standards of slave owners. Washington was Pretty humane Even so dozens of slaves during his lifetime. By the time the crisis, you know with Britain breaks out in the seventeen seventies He owns forgetting on a hundred slaves, something like eighty seven slaves Ron Cerno, who loves Washington, says in his biography, Savery was woven into every aspect of Mount Vernon life even for visitors Even though Washington has slaves, even though Washington knows that southerners will be appalled by this, he agrees to this proposal. And so the colony of Rhode Island bought the freedom of one hundred and seventeen slaves. and sent them as soldiers to Valley Forge Two other states then followed suit, Massachusetts and Connecticut And the deal there in Connecticut, for example, was if you're a slave owner You could duck military service if you sent slaves in your place. But they're not slaves any They're not like the mammal looks or something. They've been freed by this point. You get freed, exactly. You're freed and you're sent into the army and then afterwards you will be free. So by august seventeen seventy eight, so this is the point after which they've lost Valley Forge The total of black men in the army is about seven hundred and fifty five soldiers. And the really interesting thing the top man on this, the top historian on this is guy called Henry Vincheck And he says There are remarkably few reports of any trouble at all. There's no record of people complaining. There's no record of fights or interdisciplinary problems caused by racial integration Base, u Weinechck and Cherno that the war had a big impact on Washington personally on his attitude to slavery. So it's at this point In seventeen seventy eight he tells his steward back home at Mount Vernon We should stop selling slaves against their will. We should stop breaking up slave families. And then at the end of the year, he's writing to his student, he mentions his slaves in passing And he says My slaves of whom I every day long more and more to get clear of. In other words I'd like to set them all free. He never actually does set them all free though I thought he did in his will Well, not in his lifetime exactly. He doesn't set them free in his l. There's a complication becausecause this is what actually Martha owns most of them Exactly. But he kind of makes provisions for when she dies that they will be set free. Exactly so. It's a complicated story of Washington but I don't think there's any doubt that Washington thinks slavery is wrong and he feels bad about it. As we will see with Jefferson That doesn't necessarily mean that you set your slave free though. No, exactly So back to the story. We're in february seventeen seventy eight. They're still very short of food. They're still suffering from disease Washington writes to the Governor of New York, George Clinton. He says You know, we're pretty close to a famine in the camp. There are more rumours of a mutiny Nothing but the most active efforts can avoid so shocking a catastrophe. But a week later it's his birthday, his forty seventh birthday And I thought you'd like this detail, Tom. His junior offers organized an entertainment for him And this was a British play by Joseph Addison and how the life of Cato the Younger. So you want to tell everyone who Kato the Younger is? Kato the Younger is a model of Republican virtue who prefers to commit suicide rather than submit to Caesar. There you go. So Basically, he's the kind of model of inflexible, humoress opposition to monarchy that Washington is all about Exactly. He's seen this play several times he actually could quote bits of it at length without the text So some of his favourite lines, Loy's steady temper can look on guilt, rebellion and fraud in the calm lights of mild philosophy It is not immortals to command success, but we'll do more, will'll deserve it. So all this sort of stuff about duty, steadfastness, deserving success. Yeah, this is absolute Washington Bingo So that's his birthday Brilliant. watch just playerack Kato, the younger And the next day, an excellent man arrives in the camp And this is a man who actually is going to transform the fortunes of the Cinental Army completely And this is a man called Friedrich Wilhelm, Ludolph Gerhardt, Augustine Louis Fy h on Steuyen Dominik, would this gentleman by any chance be a German? He is German. he's a top absolute topop tip top Prussian and this bloke A von Steyn He came from a military family in Prsia He'd served in the Seven yearsars War, He'd been a captain. He'd been a great pal of Frederick the Great But then he'd been discharged from the Prussian army murky circumstances and there are some clues to those circumstances perhaps that will emerge in the next few moments He became the court chamberlain for the Prince of Hohenolen Heckingen But he found it a bit boring So he made contact with your great pal, Benjamin Franklin And in the summer of seventeen seventy seven, thiske von Stey been sailed to America With his greyhound who was called Azor, he went with him everywhere H secretary The excellently name, Pierre Iienne Guponso. And Duponso was cly seventeen years old. He a very good looking young lad. Good looking young man. And his suspiciously handsome young aid, Louis de Pontier So they land in Boston. they're wearing these very tight red uniforms and they've got loads of medals And Strobven says to the Americans, I've come here to fight for you. I don't want pay. I just pay my expenses. So what's his beef with the British Because you know, Britain and Prussia were allies. Same side. Yeah, sad. He's just there for fun. He wants to hang out and have some, you know, with the lads and their tight uniforms. I think it's a big element of the appeal So he arrives at Valley Forge and he makes a great impression straightway He's an unusual looking man, He's very jowlyy. He's got a gigantic red nose and he speaks comically bad English And one American private said later, trappings of his horse the enormous holsters of his pistols His large size and his strikingly martial aspect made him a perfect personification of Mars, the ancient fabled god of war Now when Stebn arrives, remember he's a German He is appalled by the litter and the filth of the camp dead horses, I mean, we've flagged that up, haven't we? We have already. so we too will report by it. He says he remembers the officers wearing and I quote, a sort of dressing gown made of an old blanket or woolen bed cover And most of all, the issue about the lack of proper toilet facilities And he says to Washington He says in broken English. In Prussia, we would not stand for this You are literally preparing the food feet away from the bodies of rotting horses You have your toilets next to the kitchens and next to people's cabins. Dig your latrines on the other side of the camp. sort yourself out If they are so short of food and they're reduced to eating kind of water and flour, why are they not eating the horses N' not an American, I don't know. God say. I mean I just think I'd do a better job than Washington. Absolute shambles from Washington. Yeah So anyway, Washington is delighted that this blak's turned up Basically because he's lost loads of offices. Some of his officers have gone home. they're sick of things And of course, two thousand of his men have died of disease. So this bke who's a paliffred at the Great, he's like mana from heaven. And Steyan says, I'll train your army for him. Washington gives him one hundred and twenty men as guinea pigs And Stropin basically turns them into Prusians What he does is he write outs the drill every day in French And he gets some of Washington's young officers to translate it into English for him D you know one of those officers who does it for him Alexander Hamilton. Yeah. of musical fame. Yeah. becauseuse he's hangs with Washington in the musical doesn't He does. Yeah. So Streban drills them, he teaches them to march in formation. He teaches them to use a bayonet. they't haven't been using their bayonets properly. He said afterwards, the American soldier had no faith in it and never used it but to roast his beef steak And the men love him. They think he's brilliant. they think he's very eccentric, he's funny He's an absolutely textbook example of the hired football manager of a Premier League team who speaks only in sort of mumbled English Obsenators. F this, F that. He's basically Claudio Ranieri when he was the manager of Leicester And he's going to pull off a similarly Stling feat of promotion, isn't it? Yes, exactly. So Stooban's drills actually became the instruction manual for the US Army until like It talk for like decades still influencing American military strategy right up to the Civil War. So Custer might have Experienced it. Exactly So the result of this is the Continental Army will leave Valley Forge a much more modern and professional unit than they came. And afterwards Streeyn was made an American citizen, he was given a bigger state in New York And he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society, alongside loads of other founding fathers He clearly had a brilliant time because he became very close to other handsome young men from Washington's army in their early twenties called Benjamin Walker and William North He adopted them. He made them his heirs which was actually very common for gay men to do in the late eighteenth century, this was a way for you to establish a kind of formal relationship. And when he died in seventeen ninety four, he left them his estate it worked out well for him. But it well for him and for them actually So that's one European contribution to the insurgent effort Obviously the Americans need more help than just this one Prussian The war is now almost three years old. And although the British are not really anywhere near victory, it's not clear how the Americans will ever force the British out pin their hopes all this time on French intervention But the French, although they've sent arms kind of surrepitiously They haven' formally joins the war Basically, the Americans are praying that the French will one day join the war to challenge Britain's command of the Sas The months have passed and there's been no breakthrough But then in the dying days of april seventeen seventy eight, the news reaches the inssurgent camp at Valley Forge There has been a diplomatic bombshell because at Versailles Tw months earlier Your mate, Benjamin Franklin. He has secured French recognition of the American Republic and a military alliance. and a month later, war was formally declared between Britain and France When the news reaches Valley Forge, Washington and his officers recognize this as a total game changer Lafayette is said to have kissed Washington on the cheeks with joy, which Washington probably didn't really approve of And a week later after they got the news, Washington his troops have a day of Thanksgiving. They fire their guns in the air They read copies of the treats aloud, they all shout Long live the King of France and Britant shout this, God save the friendly powers of Europe That didn't bec an anthem. No that didn't bec an an them. And there's loads of drinking. Everyone said that actually this time this is the one time that Washington's lost his sort of impertbable G glacial exterior accountants of uncommon delight and the most shocking thing is that at the end of the day, he agreed to throw aside his dignity cricket with the junior officers. Well, that is the traditional American way of celebrating, isn't it? Exactly. He was very, very good at throwing things because there are all these kind of mad stories of him throwing bricks over rivers and things Right. So I think he'd be quite good at cricket As a bowl or as a fielder? Well, the bowling, wouldn't he because at this point the ball was thrown rolled along the ground rather than Yeah kind of it wasn't kind of airborne, but you know, you hit the ball, you have to throw it back in So is this the ancestor of American enthusiasm for temp bowling Well yeah, it's all kind of part of it. Also has very big hands and that's very useful if you're a bowler in cricket Of course, of course So French entrry into the war has changed everything Because from this point onwards, the odds really are against Britain And from this point onwards, London thinks, oK, well The North American colonist is sou the North American colonies. what really matters is the Caribbean and the Sugar Islands. So within weeks of this, London sends a message to the new British commander in North America, Sir Henry Clinton send a third of your army to the Caribbean When Clinton gets this message, he says, Well, opposition in Philadelphia is now untenable We should evacuate east to New York City On the sixteenth of June Washington at Valley Forge gets word that the British The British in Philadelphia have asked for the return of their clothes from the local laundries which is a sign that they are moving out This's obvious a British army would never take to the to the to the roads Unlaundered uniforms that would be appalling So A couple days after this The first American brigades move out of Valley forge in hot pursuit By the twenty second of june, the whole Cinental Army has crossed the Delaware into New Jersey And on the twenty eighth of june at a bas called Monmouth Courtthouse, New Jersey Washington's men have their first military test since they've been at Valley Forge. So they have caught up with the British The heat is overpowering. It's almost forty degrees Celsius, so one hundred degrees Fahrenheit It's so hot that some soldiers actually dropp dead from sunstroke And the result of this battle, and Iess say battle, it's basically another skirmish is a draw really. There's about three hundred and fifty casualties in either side. The British continued their evacuation to New York Having lost so many battles, even a draw to Washington seems like a victory And actually afterwards, even the British commented. they said, goosh, you, the Americans have changed their tune. they're pretty professional And obviously this is the result of this top crussian this von Steybenn So where does all this leave the war? They've got out of Valley Forge. they're back on the road again. You know, things are looking up. They've got the French on their side The war is not over, but the balance has fundamentally shifted because ten days after this battle A French fleet sails into Delaware Bay with ten ships to the line, four frigates and four thousand French soldiers So from this point, the war is a global war Britain will be on the defensive. And although American independence is not inevitable at this point in seventeen seventy eight, it is probably much more likely they're not. Washington himself never gets the Hollywood endings. that you might have thought he would have liked because actually Monmouth Courtthouse is the last major battle in the Northern theatre. Do you think that's why he hasn't been the hero of a kind of Classic Hollywood And that's also maybe why the War of independence Actually, there aren't that many Hollywood films about it. There's the Patriot Mel Gibson But I can't actually think of any others. I mean, certainly none others that are well known in Britain or on Europe And part of that is because it ends in a very kind of desultary manner It kind of splutters out, doesn't it? It splutters out. The the British end up sort of trapping themselves at Yorktown Washington is there But even Ron Cherno in his biography says, this is really a victory for French siegecraft and French naval supremacy, and Washington is really a supporting actor at Yorktown And it's a sort of slightly confusing ending to war then it normally goes on for another two years before the treaties of Paris are signed Anyway, back to Washington himself Did Washington matter? I think the answer is undoubtedly yes, and actually this is why the story of Valley Forge is so important Because at that moment in seventeen seventy seven, seventeen seventy eight Almost any other commander probably would have seen his army fall apart They're hungry, they don't have supplies. The weather is terrible You know Congress is losing confidence in them. The men are attempted to mutiny. It's easy to imagine the different colonial units turning on one another And if the army had broken up the Contental Army I think it would have been pretty hard to rebuild it. I think the momentum would have been lost Even with French backing. I mean, probably the French would not have joined the war in February And Valley Forge could have been You know, the end of the war, there could have been some sort of compromise, who knows Now instead, of course, it becomes one of the most mythologized moments of the entire campaign And Washington, because of his dignity, because of his leadership, because of his glacial self control All of which are a bit performative, but of course that's not to criticize them. it's precisely because they're so that they're so powerful Washington has set the tone You know, he's played the Roman commander, he has played his hero, Cato and it has absolutely worked He does the same trick again in December seventeen eighty three. so that's when the treaty was signed. He famously walks into the Confederation Congress And he resigns his command And he returns to private life. Back to his plow Back to his plow. Well again, he's self consciously playing a Roman, he's playing Cinnatus isn't he And people loved it, and George III said, Ohh, if you did that, he must be the greatest man in the world You know, because people love the Romans at this point in the late eighteenth century They're obsessed by this idea of honor and duty and stuff. And Republican virtue, that this is what you do in a republic is that you don't monopolize monarchical power even if you're given it briefly Exactly so. And so this will also be important for his role as the first president that he ends up laying down his power. This is why they choose him They don't just choose him as president in seventeen eighty nine because he was the victorious commander in chief They choose him, I think because he's the only one of the founding fathers who has the dignity and the self control and the kind of paternalistic vibe that allows him to transcend all the factional and regional differences. The other founding fathers may be more interesting, more spiky more distinctive in their different ways But that means that they are they have enemies. They have people who don't like them Everybody likes and respects Washington. But you said that he's got a very memorial quality that he's like a statue hewn out of marble And that is an enormous advantage if you have unstable republic. And you need a kind I'm literally heavyweight there's someone who's hewn out of marble. Yes. who will provide the kind of dignity that you need in a headad of state in the early years of your infant repepublic but who will also serve as a kind of monument to that republic after his death. And they must all be kind of thinking of this. Yeah, I think exactly right So we've got a bonus episode coming up for our Rest of History Club memers I talked to Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker. he's made this massive series, a billion episodes about the American Revolution And he says in this Washington is the kind of indisp he's the one indispensable man. without which it could not have succeeded A rare example of a great man of history who lives up to his reputation However Just in case people are thinking they've gone mad, they've gone native They're sucking up to the colonials. I should stress this. Even American heroes have feet of clay. or in Washington's case Teth of clay toom because by the time the war ends, George Washington's teeth, which should end with this crucial point are in an absolutely shocking state byy seventeen eighty one He was wearing dentures that were held together with his crude wire mesh in seventeen eighty four, so a year after the war ended. bought nine Teth from unknown African Americans and these teeth were then transplanted into his gums By the time he became president in seventeen eighty nine For all that George II said he was the greatest man in the world He had just one working tooth left Which is why, as president, I think, he went on to sayve almost nothing memorable or interesting whatsoever And on that, I think is why since the dawn of their Republic two hundred and fifty years ago Americans's terrible teeth. been the cause of so much innocent amusement all over the world and nowhere more so of course, than in our own beloved country in Britain And so the ultimate lesson of this story is that if you want to have proper teeth T like the British Britishy, then you should pay your taxes Thank you, Dominic and we have more to come So Benjamin Franklin is next the great scientist and diplomat in France. Then we have Alexander Hamilton and his duel with Aaron Burr and then Thomas Jefferson We also have an amazing couple of American Revolution bonuses. So as Dominic mentioned, the world's greatest historical documentary maker, the legendary Ken Burns And then we will be talking to very much friend of the show, Conan O'Brien. for his views on the foundounding fathers. And on top of that, of course, there's a massive array of supplementary benefits, including our brilliant newsletter. So to get all this, the rest is history. com you're able to do. sign up there And one other thing we should mention actually, so we are doing our Restless History Festival at Hampton Court this weekend. It's got tons of exciting events The Saturday I'm sorry to say is sold out. That's disappointing for people who want to get tickets, but the good news is that there are still one or two tickets available, I think for Sunday be all kinds of treats, but among them will be the appearance of Friends of the show Helen Caster, William Dowalryrmple, Adam Smith, Katia Heoyer, and very excitingly, Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye Magazine And if you'd like to get a ticket, go to the rest ishistory. com We will be back In our next episode with Benjamin Franklin for now. Thank you, Dominiic. Thankk youone for listening. Bye bye Bye bye