The final American victory in the Revolutionary War was made possible by the intervention of a French fleet that delayed British reinforcements. French support for United States independence was both vital and varied, Norman Desmarais points out here, and he surveys how France provided military and economic aid, but also Enlightenment ideas that formed the basis for the Declaration of Independence and other revolutionary texts. Suggesting that this was in some respects the "first world war," Desmarais discusses the naval battles that erupted in the Pacific and Indian oceans.