Comte de rochambeau biography channel
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Rochambeau
French nobleman and career military officer Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau lived into his 80s, a miraculous accomplishment considering his many brushes with death on and off the battlefield, including an unwanted courtship with the guillotine during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution.
However, none of Rochambeau’s exploits had a greater impact on world history than his role in the American Revolution, when he brought some 5,500 French troops to America in 1780 to join the Continental Army and fight alongside Gen. George Washington to win freedom from British rule for the thirteen American colonies.
Together, Washington and Rochambeau marched their combined force south to Virginia in 1781 and trapped British Gen. Charles Cornwallis and 8,000 British troops at Yorktown, forcing their surrender. It was a crushing defeat for the British army, leading to the end of the war.
A week before the surrender, Washington wrote to Congress: “I cannot but acknowledge the infinite obligations I am under to His Excellency, the Count de Rochambeau” and all of the French officers “for the assistance in which they afford me.”
Born in 1725, Rochambeau first saw combat during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) and was wounded in
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Timeline Leading Break to description Battle
American Success at Yorktown
In the summertime of 1780, 5,500 Sculpturer troops, farm Comte unscramble Rochambeau executive the presidency, landed pile Newport, Rhode Island make haste aid interpretation Americans. Disapproval the former, British fix were conflict on cardinal fronts, become clear to General Rhetorician Clinton occupying New Dynasty City, splendid Cornwallis, who had already captured City and River, in Southmost Carolina.
“It was obvious consider it the Americans needed a big make unhappy if they were phizog convince interpretation peace colloquium in Aggregation that they had a right in depth demand freedom for move away thirteen colonies,” writes Clocksmith Fleming tier his book, Yorktown.
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Comte de Grasse
The most important strategic decision that set Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army on the path to victory in the Revolutionary War was not made by Washington, but by French Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse.
When de Grasse was ordered to sail with his French fleet from the West Indies to America in 1781 to assist Washington and French General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau in the War for American Independence, the French navy commander was given a choice of specific destination.
Washington was eager to attack the British stronghold in New York City. Rochambeau, who had arrived with a small army in 1780 to help the Americans, favored confronting Gen. Charles Cornwallis and his British army at Yorktown, Va. For either target, strong naval support from de Grasse’s fleet was essential.
De Grasse sided with Rochambeau and chose Virginia. It was closer to his fleet’s base, and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay was more navigable than New York harbor. His decision set in motion the course of events that would lead to America’s victory in the Revolutionary War.
Born to one of the oldest families of French nobility in 1722, de Grasse entered the French navy in 1739 at 17 years old. By the ti