Talk:Quasi-War

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Recent changes

None of the Sources provided back the suggested revised wording of "American victory" in the Infobox.

(1) Source One; Wikipedia guidelines preclude "Tactical victory", because it's so subjective - it is either "Victory" or "Inconclusive". Since the war was fought to prevent American merchant ship losses, focusing solely on ship to ship duels means using the wrong parameters.

(2) Source Two; The US Navy's Orientation Department (ie Welcome to your new career), commenting in 1977 on what amounts to its foundation story, is hardly a neutral source.

This (more recent) update from the USN states "American warships, by defeating their equals and capturing more than 80 French vessels, gave the world a convincing demonstration that the U.S. Navy was a professional fighting force". Nowhere does it claim an American victory https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/forgotten-wars-19th-century/quasi-war-france.html

(3) Source Three refers only to "American victories at sea" ie ship to ship duels, which are covered in the article. However, this source does not claims the war ended in an American victory.

Elsewhere on this TP, others have claimed a French victory, and I can produce several other sources that do the same - in fact, that was the original result before I edited it.

The war ended because Napoleon had bigger fish to fry in Louisiana (its covered in the article on the Convention, which I also edited), and Royal Navy convoying of US merchant ships. Even the official blurb for the USS Constitution museum, which provides a comprehensive summary of the war, does not claim the war ended in American military victory (it very carefully skirts around the whole question); https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/major-events/the-quasi-war-with-france/#:~:text=The%20Quasi%2DWar%20officially%20ended,States'%20right%20to%20free%20trade.

I think it's misleading, because wars rarely end in a clear result, but I can live with "Indecisive" if it resolves this discussion. Robinvp11 (talk) 22:12, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, even though the US Navy defeated a large number of privateers, at the end of the day hundreds and hundreds of American merchant ships were captured throughout the course of the war. The vast majority of combat actions in the war were actually between American armed merchant vessels and French privateers and aside from a small handful of notable exceptions, the French won the overwhelming majority of those engagements. I think indecisive is the most accurate thing to put.XavierGreen (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]