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Wall Street Journal

‘Shots Heard Round the World' Review: America's Transatlantic Revolution

The American Revolution pitted colonists against the British Empire in a struggle that resembled David's stand against Goliath, but it also became a global war in which Britain defied an allied coalition alone. In his international history of the Revolutionary War written for the 250th anniversary of its outbreak, John Ferling brings Europe and its rivalries into the familiar story of American independence. With 'Shots Heard Round the World,' Mr. Ferling, a professor emeritus of history at the University of West Georgia, shows not only why nations fought but also how they waged a protracted struggle whose outcome remained in doubt to the end. Foreign assistance was critical in what the author calls 'America's longest war before the Vietnam conflict.' Absolutist monarchs in France and Spain aided rebellious Americans, and the unruly colonists eagerly looked to them for help. The explanations for this odd coupling lie in the earlier Seven Years' War (1756-63). Britain had won a victory at stupendous financial cost, which prompted its efforts to tax and regulate the colonies. Americans, free of danger on their frontiers, now defied encroachments on their self-government by the mother country. Many colonists, as Mr. Ferling notes, believed France would give help in any confrontation. Indeed, after France and Spain's humiliating defeat, the two empires set out on a path to revenge. British victory had disrupted the balance of power beyond Europe in ways that irked other powers. Noting Britain's insults to France, the Comte de Vergennes, who advised Louis XVI on foreign policy, described the empire as 'greedy, restless, [and] more jealous of the prosperity of its neighbors than awake to its own happiness.' Spain felt its American colonies were threatened by Britain's increased power in the New World, and other European states resented how Britain used dominance at sea against their trade. Ruling the waves allowed Britannia to waive the rules for its own advantage. The tyranny of what Austria's emperor, Joseph II, called British 'despotism at sea' grated on Europe as much as taxation or regulation did on the colonies. Britain, for its part, saw America as essential to its prosperity. Losing the mainland colonies, many believed, would create a domino effect, costing it the West Indies and then Ireland. This assumption fueled intransigence among ministers and George III, who believed concession brought more defiance. The decision to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party in 1773 began an escalating cycle that led to the shots fired at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. A colonial rebellion quickly turned into a civil war across British America. To defeat and dismantle the regime that the Continental Congress and the Patriots had established, large-scale action would be required. George III had already told his prime minister, Lord North, that 'blows must decide' how the quarrel would end.