Franklin played a crucial role in the American Revolution, being the ambassador to France and parlaying his celebrity into gaining French assistance, without which the American Revolution probably would not have succeeded. While the Americans rarely had 10,000 soldiers in the field at any time, the French committed more than 30,000 soldiers to the American Revolution. At the final battle of the Revolutionary War, the siege of Yorktown, there were as many French soldiers and sailors as American soldiers. Thirty French warships, cutting off the British Army from receiving reinforcements, proved decisive.