Quasi-War
Quasi-War | |||||||
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USS Constellation in combat with French Insurgente | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States[a] | French First Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Strength | |||||||
Maximum 9 frigates, 4 sloops, 2 brigs, 3 schooners 5,700 sailors and Marines, up to 365 privateers | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
c. 160 killed or wounded 22 privateers, up to 2000 merchant ships captured |
c. 100 killed or wounded, 517 captured 1 frigate, 2 corvettes, 1 brig and 118 privateers sunk or captured[2] |
The Quasi-War[b] was an undeclared war fought between 1798 to 1800 by the United States and the French First Republic. It took place at sea, primarily the Caribbean and the East Coast of the United States.
In 1793, Congress unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans incurred during the American Revolutionary War. France, then engaged in the 1792–1797 War of the First Coalition, also viewed the 1794 Jay Treaty between the USA and Great Britain, as incompatible with those treaties. They retaliated first by seizing American ships trading with Britain, and in October 1796, French privateers began attacking merchant ships sailing in American waters, regardless of nationality.
The dissolution of Federal naval forces following independence left the US unable to mount an effective response and by October 1797, over 316 American ships had been captured. In March 1798, Congress reformed the United States Navy, and in July authorized the use of military force against France. In addition to a number of individual ship actions, by 1799 American commercial losses had been significantly reduced through informal cooperation with the Royal Navy, whereby merchant ships from both nations were allowed to join each other's convoys.
The replacement of the French First Republic by the Consulate in November 1799 led to the Convention of 1800, which ended the war. The right of Congress to authorize military action without a formal declaration of war was later confirmed by the Supreme Court and formed the basis of many similar actions since, including American participation in the Vietnam War and the 1991 Gulf War.[3][c]
Background
Under the
In 1793, Congress suspended repayment of French loans incurred during the Revolutionary War, arguing the
France accepted these acts on the basis of 'benevolent neutrality'. Their interpretation of this was allowing French
As a result, in late 1796 French privateers began seizing American ships trading with the British. An effective response was hampered by the almost complete lack of a United States Navy, whose last warship had been sold in 1785, leaving only a small flotilla belonging to the United States Revenue Cutter Service and a few neglected coastal forts. This allowed French privateers to roam virtually unchecked; from October 1796 to June 1797, they captured 316 ships, 6% of the entire American merchant fleet, causing losses of $12 to $15 million.[8] On 2 March 1797, the French Directory issued a decree permitting the seizure of any neutral shipping without a role d'equipage, a crew manifest which listed the nationalities of each crewmen.[9] Since virtually no American merchantman carried such a document, this effectively initiated a French commerce war on American shipping.[10]
Efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomacy ended in the 1797 dispute known as the
Forces and strategy
Since ships of the line were expensive to build and required highly specialised construction facilities, in 1794 Congress compromised by ordering six large frigates. By 1798, the first three were nearly complete and on 16 July 1798, additional funding was approved for the USS Congress, USS Chesapeake, and USS President, plus the frigates USS General Greene and USS Adams. The provision of naval stores and equipment by the British allowed these to be built relatively quickly, and all saw action during the war.[15]
The US Navy was further reinforced by so-called 'subscription ships', privately funded vessels provided by individual cities. These included five frigates, among them the USS Philadelphia, commanded by Stephen Decatur, and four merchantmen converted into sloops. Primarily intended to attack foreign shipping, these were noted for their speed, and earned huge profits for their owners; the USS Boston captured over 80 enemy vessels, including the French corvette Berceau.[16]
With most of the French fleet confined to home ports by the Royal Navy, Secretary Stoddert was able to concentrate his forces against the limited number of frigates and smaller vessels that evaded the blockade and reached the Caribbean. The US also needed convoy protection, and while there was no formal agreement with the British, considerable co-operation took place at a local level. The two navies shared a signal system, and allowed their merchantmen to join each other's convoys, most of which were provided by the British, who had four to five times more escorts available.[17]
This allowed the US Navy to concentrate on attacking French privateers, most of very shallow draft and armed with between one and twenty guns. Operating from French and Spanish bases in the Caribbean, particularly Guadeloupe, they made opportunistic attacks on passing ships, before escaping back into port. To counter those tactics, the US used similarly sized vessels from the United States Revenue Cutter Service, as well as commissioning their own privateers. The first American ship to see action was the USS Ganges, a converted East Indiaman with 26 guns; most were far smaller.[18]
The
For various reasons, the role of the Royal Navy was minimised both at the time and later; the first significant study of the war by US naval historian Gardner W. Allen in 1909 focused exclusively on ship-to-ship actions, and this is how the war is often remembered.[22] However, historian Michael Palmer argues American naval operations cannot be understood in isolation and when operating in the Caribbean
...they entered a European theater where the war had been underway since 1793. The Royal Navy deployed four to five times more men-of-war in the West Indies than the Americans. British ships chased and fought the same French cruisers and privateers. Both navies escorted each other's merchantmen. American warships operated from British bases. And most importantly, British policies and shifts in deployment had dramatic effects on American operations.[23]
From the perspective of the US Navy, the Quasi-War consisted of a series of ship-to-ship actions in US coastal waters and the Caribbean; one of the first was the
On 9 February 1799, the frigate Constellation captured the French Navy's frigate L'Insurgente. By 1 July, under the command of Stephen Decatur, USS United States had been refitted and repaired and embarked on her mission to patrol the South Atlantic coast and West Indies in search of French ships which were preying on American merchant vessels.[26]
On 1 January 1800, a convoy of American merchant ships escorted by USS Experiment fought off an attack by French-allied Haitian privateers near Hispaniola. On 1 February, Constellation severely damaged the French frigate La Vengeance off the coast of Saint Kitts. Silas Talbot led a naval expedition against Puerto Plata in early May, capturing the coastal fort and a French corvette. When French troops occupied Curaçao in July, USS Patapsco and USS Merrimack began a blockade of the island in September that forced them to withdraw. On 12 October, the frigate Boston captured the corvette Le Berceau.[27]
On 25 October, USS Enterprise defeated the French brig Flambeau near Dominica. Enterprise also captured eight privateers and freed eleven U.S. merchant ships from captivity, while Experiment captured the French privateers Deux Amis and Diane and liberated numerous American merchant ships. Although US military losses were light, the French had seized over 2,000 American merchant ships by the time the war ended.[28]
Conclusion of hostilities
By late 1800, the United States Navy and the Royal Navy, combined with a more conciliatory diplomatic stance by the government of
See also
Explanatory notes
- ^ While Britain was not a formal belligerent, the Americans received considerable support from the Royal Navy. The two forces shared coded signals and intelligence on French naval movements, American warships used British Caribbean islands as bases, and American merchantmen joined British-escorted convoys.[1]
- ^ French: Quasi-guerre
- ^ Between 1776 to 2000, the United States engaged in over 115 undeclared wars, versus only five declared ie the War of 1812, Mexican–American War, Spanish–American War, World War I and World War II.[3]
Citations
- ^ Clodfelter 2002, pp. 136–137.
- ^ a b Fehlings 2000, p. 18.
- ^ Young 2011, pp. 436–466.
- ^ Fehlings 2000, pp. 106–107.
- ^ Hyneman 1930, pp. 279–283.
- ^ Combs 1992, pp. 23–24.
- ^ Sechrest 2007, p. 103.
- ^ Palmer 1989, p. 4-5.
- ^ Palmer 1989, p. 5.
- ^ Coleman 2008, p. 189.
- ^ Williams 2009, p. 25.
- ^ Eclov 2013, p. 67.
- ^ Fehlings 2000, pp. 101=102.
- ^ Eclov 2013, p. 69.
- ^ Sechrest 2007, p. 119.
- ^ Eclov 2013, pp. 8–10.
- ^ Eclov 2013, pp. 71–72.
- ^ "USRCS Lost at Sea". Archived from the original on 28 July 2013. Retrieved 9 November 2008.
- ^ The United States Coast Guard The Coast Guard at War
- ^ Love 1992, p. 68
- ^ Allen 1909.
- ^ Palmer 1989, p. x.
- ^ Mooney 1983, p. 84.
- ^ Rust 2023.
- ^ Mackenzie 1846, p. 40.
- ^ Hickey 2008, pp. 67–77.
- ^ Lyon 1940, pp. 305–333.
- ^ DeConde 1966, pp. 162–184.
General and cited references
- Allen, Gardner Weld (1909). Our Naval War With France. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 1202325.
- Clodfelter, Micheal (2002). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures 1500–1999. McFarland & Co. ISBN 978-0786412044.
- Coleman, Aaron (2008). ""A Second Bounaparty?" A Reexamination of Alexander Hamilton during the Franco-American Crisis, 1796-1801". Journal of the Early Republic. 28 (2): 183–214. S2CID 143138929.
- Combs, Jerald A (1992). The Jay Treaty: Political Battleground of the Founding Fathers. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520015739.
- DeConde, Alexander (1966). The Quasi-War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801. Charles Scribner's Sons.
- Eclov, Jon Paul (2013). Informal Alliance: Royal Navy And U.S. Navy Co-Operation Against Republican France During The Quasi-War And Wars of the French Revolution (PhD). University of North Dakota.
- Fehlings, Gregory E (2000). "America's First Limited War". Naval War College Review. 53 (3).
- Hickey, Donald R. (2008). "The Quasi-War: America's First Limited War, 1798–1801" (PDF). The Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord. XVIII (3–4).
- Hyneman, Charles (1930). "Neutrality during the European Wars of 1792–1815: America's Understanding Of Her Obligations". The American Journal of International Law. 24 (2): 279–309. S2CID 147162918.
- Knox, Dudley W., ed. (1939). Naval Documents related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers, Volume I. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. Retrieved 12 November 2018.
- Lyon, E Wilson (1940). "The Franco-American Convention of 1800". The Journal of Modern History. XII (3): 305–333. S2CID 144516482.
- Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell (1846). Life of Stephen Decatur: A Commodore in the Navy of the United States. C. C. Little and J. Brown.
- Mooney, James L., ed. (1983). Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Vol. 6. Defense Dept., Navy, Naval History Division. ISBN 978-0-16-002030-8.
- Palmer, Samuel Putnam (1989). Stoddert's War: Naval Operations During the Quasi War with France, 1798-1801. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0872494993.
- Rust, Randal (24 July 2023). "Quasi War — the Undeclared Naval War with France". American History Central. R.Squared Communications, LLC. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
- Sechrest, Larry (2007). "Privately Funded and Built U.S. Warships in the Quasi-War of 1797–1801". The Independent Review. XII (1).
- Williams, Greg H. (2009). The French Assault on American Shipping, 1793–1813: A History and Comprehensive Record of Merchant Marine Losses. McFarland Publishers. ISBN 9780786454075.
- Young, Christopher J (2011). "Connecting the President and the People: Washington's Neutrality, Genet's Challenge, and Hamilton's Fight for Public Support". Journal of the Early Republic. 31 (3): 435–466. S2CID 144349420.
Further reading
- Bowman, Albert Hall (1974). The Struggle for Neutrality: Franco-American Diplomacy During the Federalist Era. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press. OCLC 793507.
- Daughan, George C. (2008). If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy – from the Revolution to the War of 1812. Philadelphia: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01607-5.
- Harris, Thomas (1837). The life and services of Commodore William Bainbridge, United States navy. Carey Lea & Blanchard. p. 254. ISBN 0945726589.
- Hickey, Donald R. (2021). "The Quasi-War". The Journal of Military History. 85 (April). A history of the use of the term "Quasi-War" in the years after 1800.
- Jennings, John (1966). Tattered Ensign The Story of America's Most Famous Fighting Frigate, U.S.S. Constitution. Thomas Y. Crowell. OCLC 1291484.
- Kohn, Richard H. (1975). Eagle and Sword: The Federalists and the Creation of the Military Establishment in America, 1783–1802.
- Leiner, Frederick C. (1999). Millions for Defense: The Subscription Warships of 1798. Annapolis: US Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-508-8.
- Love, Robert (1992). History of the U.S. Navy Volume One 1775–1941. Harrisburg PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-1862-2.
- Nash, Howard Pervear. The Forgotten Wars: The Role of the US Navy in the Quasi War with France and the Barbary Wars 1798–1805 (AS Barnes, 1968)
- Toll, Ian W. (2006). Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of The U.S. Navy. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-05847-5.
- ISBN 978-0-471-65113-0.
- Waldo, Samuel Putnam (1821). The Life and Character of Stephen Decatur. Hartford, Conn.: P. B. Goodsell. ISBN 9780795013324.
External links
- "Selected Bibliography of The Quasi-War with France" Archived 8 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History
- U.S. Department of State "The XYZ Affair and the Quasi-War with France, 1798–1800"
- "U.S. treaties and federal legal documents re 'Quasi-War with France 1791–1800'", compiled by the Lillian Goldman Law Library of Yale Law School
Preceded by Irish Rebellion of 1798 |
French Revolution: Revolutionary campaigns Quasi-War |
Succeeded by Peasants' War (1798) |