1ºHowever the Tyrant known as Napoleon, without whom the American revolutionaries would never have won their independence. Never had any intention of allowing America to remain independent. His ambitions were similar in kind to Hitler and to Stalin. Napoleon had a dream to rule the entire World himself. But he realized he could not take on all of the other nations at once. He also realized he was woefully outmatched by the Royal Navy and the British Army at that time. So in a ploy to divide the British forces (divide & conquer) he set in place a series of events to cause disruption within the new American Colonies. Its a tactic the CIA still use today to overthrow foreign Governments who wont play ball with the US. And the plan almost worked...... He succeeded in initiating an uprising to call for independence. And with a huge injection of French Gold, French Soldiers and French ships Napoleon was able to initiate the US War of independence. He thought King George would send all his best forces to America, effectively leaving the United Kingdom & its other territories defenseless !. He was sorely wrong...... Instead King Geogre sent ex Con's, Runaways and New Recruits to fight in the American war, much to the great disappointment of General Cornwallis who repeatedly begged King George for seasoned experience troops. The result of course we all know, a Rag Tag bunch of Farmers and Cattle Headers backed by Napoleon won the day...... However Napoleon's plan for World Domination backfired on him. Because King George sent his best ships and troops to finish Napoleon off for good, leaving him stranded as a lone prisoner on a tiny island for the remainder of his life........ So yes the US can thank France for its Independence, but it should also thank the United Kingdom for preventing a Tyrannical Dictator from taking over shortly thereafter.
2ºDid you know that the Statue of Liberty, which the whole world thought to belong to America, was actually built with the money and order of the Ottoman Empire?
The date is November 30, 1854, during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid. Egypt is an Ottoman province that is independent in internal affairs and dependent on the Ottoman sultan in foreign affairs. Said Pasha, who was the Khedive (governor) of Egypt at that time, prepared the Suez Canal project connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean and presented it to Sultan Abdulmecid for approval.
England stood as an obstacle in front of Said Pasha's Suez Canal Project, which was supported by France. This canal, which would increase the Ottoman's power in the seas as well as its financial power, would also be able to end the British domination in the Mediterranean and India. Being aware of this situation, England kept Sultan Abdülmecid Han under constant pressure to reject the project. For this reason, Said Pasha did not wait for the approval of Sultan Abdülmecid.
Said Pasha ordered the establishment of the necessary company for the realization of the project when the approval from Abdülmecid was delayed. On November 30, the French gave the engineer the necessary permission. When all the shares of the company, which was founded with French capital, were sold, England increased its pressure on the Ottoman Empire.
When Sultan Abdülmecid passed away, the project was still awaiting approval. However, even though it was not approved, it continued to progress slowly. Two years later, Said Pasha also died suddenly. İsmail Pasha, who succeeded him, was a supporter of the British. However, he did not delay in realizing the vital importance of this canal for Egypt and took up the task.
British pressure continued on Sultan Abdulaziz Han, who ascended the Ottoman throne after the death of Sultan Abdulmecid. But Sultan Abdulaziz immediately gave the necessary approval for the project, which had already begun, as he gave importance to maritime. Not only that, he himself invested a lot of money in the shares of the canal company, by guaranteeing the foreign debts of Egypt for the canal.
In the agreement between Said Pasha and the canal's engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1854, there was also a project for a giant female statue to be erected in the port of Port Said, located on the shores of the Suez Canal opening to the Mediterranean. This statue would represent both the Ottoman Empire and Egypt.
On the head of the statue of a woman dressed in the clothes of the pharaohs, representing Egypt, there would be a crown with 7 pointed ends, representing the 7 continents and 7 seas, representing the Ottoman Sultan, the sultan of 7 climates.
The statue would have a torch in its hand. Abdulaziz Khan wanted the statue to face west. Because the sultan wanted him to symbolize that he carried the light in his hand from east to west, that light, civilization, civilization rose from the east and illuminated the west.
The order of the statue, whose money was paid by Sultan Aziz Han himself, was given to Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, one of the famous sculptors of France.
Isabelle Eugenie Boyer, widow of Isaac Singer, the founder of Singer sewing machines, modeled the statue. Frederic Bartholdi completed the copper and steel skeleton of the statue together with Gustave Eiffel, who built the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
The statue was completed, but the place where it was placed was not Egypt.
The new governor, İsmail Pasha, did not want this statue, which Said Pasha ordered and whose money came from the Ottoman treasury, for fear that the statue of a woman would cause local unrest in a Muslim country. Upon this decision, the "light of Asia" began to wait for its fate, all alone in a warehouse in France.
Those were the years of friendship between America and France. During the exchange of gifts, Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye, the head of the Franco-American friendship group, made an offer to the French government to "give America a statue".
Convinced, the French government commissioned Frederic Bartholdi for this statue. Bartholdi's work was already ready. According to the instructions from the French government, the statue was to hold a book in its left hand and "a torch, a symbol of freedom that illuminated the world," in its right hand. In other words, the statue requested by France was almost the same as the statue prepared for Egypt.
Bartholdi completely changed the face of the statue and embroidered the face of his mother Charlotte, and it was gifted to America with a delay of 10 years on the occasion of its 100th anniversary.