Forging the French-American Alliance in Morristown, New Jersey.

On August 27 at 1:00, Dr. Iris de Rode will uncover unknown details on French-American cooperation during the last stages of the American Revolution, with an emphasis on Morristown as a key location for the French-American alliance.

In April 1780, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington hosted the French ambassador to the United States, Chevalier de La Luzerne, at his headquarters at Morristown, NJ. Here, La Luzerne informed Washington that the French King planned to send an army to fight with him and, hopefully, finally defeat the British. La Luzerne was aware that assistance was on its way, but did not know when it would arrive. When La Luzerne returned to his residence in Philadelphia, the Marquis de Lafayette, who just returned from France, informed him that plans were formed for the deployment of an expeditionary army to North America. Lafayette told La Luzerne that the Comte de Rochambeau had been raised to the rank of general and that he and his forces would be arriving in America over the summer. La Luzerne had known Rochambeau since his days as an officer in the Seven Years' War, and he was delighted to discover that two of his old companions, the Chevalier de Chastellux and the Comte de Vioménil, would serve as Rochambeau's Major Generals. Throughout the next months, these four French noblemen would collaborate with George Washington and his staff, and together they would win the Battle of Yorktown (1781). This lecture will concentrate on this collaboration, drawing on unknown source material and emphasizing the unappreciated roles of La Luzerne, Chastellux, and Vioménil, all of whom visited Morristown at different moments of their stay in America. 

Iris de Rode received her doctorate from the Université de Paris VIII in November 2019, for her dissertation entitled François-Jean de Chastellux (1734-1788), un soldat-philosophe dans le monde atlantique à l'époque des Lumières (Paris: Éditions Honoré Champion, 2022) . Together with her PhD supervisor, Prof. Bertrand van Ruymbeke, she co-authored Le Journal de Dumas (16 juin-6 octobre 1781). Sur les traces de l'indépendance des États-Unis (Monfaucon: Éditions Jean-Jacques Wuillaume, 2018). 

Iris is currently working on a new English book titled "Military Enlightenment on the Ground" that will be published by the University of Virginia Press in 2024. She has received 18 fellowships for her work, including from George Washington's Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the Society of the Cincinatti and the American Philosophical Society. Iris has been teaching American and Transatlantic history at the French University SciencesPo Paris as an adjunct faculty member since 2013. She is also working on public history initiatives with the National Park Service, the Washington Rochambeau Revolutionary Route Association, the Philadelphia Museum of the American Revolution, and George Washington's Mount Vernon and the French embassy in Washington DC. She is the US committee member of “America 2026”. She recently obtained the prestigious Prix Guizot of the Académie Française for her book on Chastellux. 

Where: Morristown National Historical Park Museum auditorium; When: Sunday, August 27, 1:00; Cost: Free.