moved her emotions and sympathies; and that feeling was one of deep solicitude for the great nation, which, in our hour of peril, had come to our relief and whose destruction as a beneficent world force would have been an irreparable disaster to Civilization. This feeling of gratitude—and republics are not always ungrateful—was powerfully stimulated by the admiration with which we witnessed the heroism of France in beating back a more powerful invader on the Marne, and later in the titanic struggle at Verdun, and on the Somme.
This factor in America’s epoch-making departure from its traditional policy of isolation would have been even greater had the average American known sufficient of his own history to realize the full measure of his country’s obligation to France. It is an extraordinary fact that the average American has scant knowledge of his own history, with the exception of the few basic and elementary facts which are taught in the schools. As a very practical people we are more interested in the living present and the future, and are too little concerned with our past. If the American reads history at all, he is more apt to study the Napoleonic wars, which always have had a fascinating interest for Americans because of the dramatic features of Napoleon’s career, and because in his earlier career he represented the democratic principle of the “career open to talent”.
If this lack of knowledge of American history were not so, this book would not be as much of a revelation to the average American, as I am confident it will be. I venture to say that not one in a hundred Americans ever heard of Beaumarchais as one of the earliest and most effective friends of the Colonies in their epic struggle for independence.
The writer of this foreword studied the facts, which are so effectively and attractively narrated in this volume, some
years ago; and although he always had been from early boyhood a student of history, the facts were then new to him and came with the force of a revelation. Since then, I have taken occasion to make many inquiries among educated Americans, and found few who had any adequate knowledge of the facts narrated in this book.
I have made a number of addresses on the same subject, which Miss Kite has so fully and ably treated, and I have found few in any audience, even of educated Americans, to whom the story of Beaumarchais did not come as a new and almost incredible chapter in history.
In my book, The War and Humanity, in discussing America’s lack of vision and the failure of its colleges and universities to teach adequately to the American youth their own history, I took occasion to say that if the ten most brilliant students of the senior classes of the ten leading universities were asked the simple question, “How did aid first come to America from France” that not five per cent could answer the question correctly. I referred to the secret aid which Beaumarchais secured for the armies of Washington, without which the American Revolution might have ended in a fiasco before Dr. Franklin reached Paris in his quest for such aid.
The great diplomat’s services in France in securing the formal alliance of 1778, and the immense prestige which he there enjoyed, have served to obscure the inestimable services of his predecessors in the great work, like Beaumarchais and Silas Deane. For it is true beyond question that before Dr. Franklin ever left America on his great mission, France was secretly aiding the Colonies, and that no one was more responsible for that aid than the distinguished author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. All that the average American knows of the subject is that
Dr. Franklin was well received in France, and that after the battle of Saratoga, the French Government decided to enter into a formal alliance with America; and sent to Washington its armies and navies under Rochambeau and De Grasse, and that among the chivalrous volunteers was Lafayette, a household name in every American home. Without depreciating the chivalrous services of the knightly Marquis, his contribution to the foundation of the American nation from a practical standpoint was less than that of Beaumarchais; but while Lafayette’s name is lisped with affectionate gratitude by every American child, the names of America’s earlier friends in France, like Beaumarchais and the great foreign Minister, Vergennes, are almost unknown.
Had Beaumarchais’s services in sending arms and munitions to Washington’s army, when they were so imperatively needed, been better known, there might have been a less dangerous agitation in the American Congress for an embargo on the shipment of arms and munitions to France in those earlier days of the present war, when France stood at a great disadvantage with its powerful adversary by reason of its comparative lack of equipment.