Alright, let me go over this again.
Americans typically think they "won" the war alone with plucky guerilla warfare punctuated by pitched battles against redcoats like Saratoga where they turned the odds.
In actuality something like twenty years of on-off warfare had already been raging between Britain and France and the various European powers, and France and Spain bitterly resented their crushing defeat in 1763. You know, the same war where French armies in America had shot two horses out from under Washington (yes, that one) and then forced him to surrender?
The war in the colonies was nothing more than the French government cynically seeing an opportunity to twist the knife into Britain without having to commit soldiers herself, which she did anyway by 1780 when she had to send ~9,000 regulars to Yorktown. Another siege that they still would've lost if it weren't for a French admiral distracting the British fleet, and which was only won because of massive, overwhelming French aid pouring in to support the colonials against badly outnumbered redcoats. Said admiral was still crushed at the Battle of the Saintes costing France the pride of her naval fleet in the process when her 5 largest ships were sunk.
This is not to mention that the French compelled Spain and the Netherlands into joining the war, which had the effect of arraying Britain ALONE against a Franco-Spanish-Dutch alliance. An alliance where the British navy (outnumbered 2-to-1 by the war's end) still smashed all three, particularly embarrassing the Dutch (whose alliance with the French proved worthless to the states-general) and ending their aspirations as a great power for the rest of time.
The French government sank something like 1 *BILLION* (with a B) livres into the Americans, giving everything from clothes, food, rifles, cannon (which were better than most British cannon at the time), military training, and almost 100% of all gunpowder used, largely passing through Dutch ports. They were so indebted by the war that Necker had to start cooking the books and it's arguable it even contributed to the French famine (the government was still in tremendous debt from the Seven Years' War, but this massive addition to the ledger didn't help). The American government later reneged on their enormous debt to France, probably because they knew they'd never be able to pay it back. Great allies!
It is honestly mind-boggling how Americans not only think this wasn't a French war but that *they* won it for themselves. You didn't win anything: you were handed a country to you by France, Spain and the Netherlands, all of which broke their backs on the wheel for your sake.