Editing Louis XVI (section)

===Concerning the American Revolution and Europe===
{{main|France in the American Revolutionary War}}[[File:Louis XVI Receives the Ambassadors of Tipu Sultan 1788 Voyer after Emile Wattier 19th century.jpg|thumb|Louis XVI receiving the ambassadors of [[Tipu Sultan]] in 1788, Voyer after Emile Wattier, 19th century]]

In the spring of 1776, [[Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes]], the Minister for Foreign Affairs, saw an opportunity to humiliate France's long-standing enemy, [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]], and to recover territory lost during the [[Seven Years' War]], by supporting the [[American Revolution]]. In the same year Louis was persuaded by [[Pierre Beaumarchais]] to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Early in 1778 he signed a formal [[Treaty of Alliance (1778)|Treaty of Alliance]], and later that year France went to [[Anglo-French War (1778–83)|war with Britain]]. In deciding in favor of war, despite France's large financial problems, the King was materially influenced by alarmist reports after the [[Battle of Saratoga]], which suggested that Britain was preparing to make huge concessions to the [[Thirteen Colonies]] and then, allied with them, to strike at French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies.<ref>Corwin, Edward Samuel, [https://archive.org/stream/frenchpolicyamer00corwuoft#page/121/mode/1up French Policy and the American Alliance] (1916) pp. 121–148</ref> [[Spain and the American Revolutionary War|Spain]] and the [[Fourth Anglo-Dutch War|Netherlands]] soon joined the French in an anti-British coalition. After 1778, Great Britain switched its focus to the [[West Indies]], as defending the sugar islands was considered more important than trying to recover the Thirteen Colonies. France and Spain planned to invade the British Isles themselves with the [[Armada of 1779]], but the operation never went ahead.

France's initial military assistance to the American rebels was a disappointment, with defeats at [[Battle of Rhode Island|Rhode Island]] and [[Siege of Savannah|Savannah]]. In 1780, France sent [[Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau]] and [[François Joseph Paul de Grasse]] to help the Americans, along with large land and naval forces. The [[Expédition Particulière|French expeditionary force]] arrived in North America in July 1780. The appearance of French fleets in the Caribbean was followed by the capture of a number of the sugar islands, including [[Invasion of Tobago|Tobago]] and [[Capture of Grenada (1779)|Grenada]].<ref>''The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army'' (1994) p. 130.</ref> In October 1781, the French naval blockade was instrumental in forcing a British army under [[Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis|Cornwallis]] to surrender at the [[Siege of Yorktown]].<ref>Jonathan R. Dull, ''The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787'' (1975).</ref> When news of this reached London in March 1782, the [[North ministry]] fell and Great Britain immediately sued for peace terms; however, France delayed the end of the war until September 1783 in the hope of overrunning more British colonies in India and the West Indies.[[File:Yorktown80.JPG|thumb|Surrender of Cornwallis to French (left) and American (right) troops, at the [[Siege of Yorktown]] in 1781 (by [[John Trumbull]])|left]]Great Britain recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies as the United States of America, and the French war ministry rebuilt its [[French Royal Army|army]]. However, the British defeated the main French fleet in 1782 at the [[Battle of the Saintes]] and successfully defended [[Colony of Jamaica|Jamaica]] and [[Great Siege of Gibraltar|Gibraltar]]. France gained little from the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)]] that ended the war, except the colonies of Tobago and Senegal. Louis XVI was wholly disappointed in his aims of recovering Canada, India, and other islands in the West Indies from Britain, as they were too well defended and the [[Royal Navy]] made any attempted invasion of mainland Britain impossible. The war cost 1,066&nbsp;million [[Livre tournois|livre]]s, financed by new loans at high interest (with no new taxes). Necker concealed the crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and not mentioning the loans. After he was forced from office in 1781, new taxes were levied.<ref>On finance, see William Doyle, ''Oxford History of the French Revolution'' (1989) pp. 67–74.</ref>

This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawn into a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in the [[Seven Years' War]]. Vergennes, supported by King Louis, refused to go to war to support [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] in the [[War of the Bavarian Succession]] in 1778, when the Queen's brother [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor]] tried to partition [[Electorate of Bavaria|Bavaria]] over a disputed inheritance. Vergennes and Maurepas refused to support the Austrian position, but the intervention of Marie Antoinette in favor of Austria obliged France to adopt a position more favorable to Austria, which in the [[Treaty of Teschen]] was able to get in compensation the [[Innviertel]], a territory whose population numbered around 100,000 persons. However, this intervention was a disaster for the image of the Queen, who was named "''l'Autrichienne''" (a pun in French meaning "Austrian", but the "chienne" suffix can mean "bitch") on account of it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Félix |first1=Joël |title=Louis XVI et Marie-Antoinette : un couple en politique |date=2006 |publisher=Payot |location=Paris |isbn=978-2228901079 |pages=220–225}}</ref>