Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678): Louis XIV Invades the Republic

The Franco-Dutch War was fought from 1672 to 1678 between France and its allies on one side and the Dutch Republic and a growing European coalition on the other. It began with Louis XIV’s invasion of the Republic in spring 1672, which nearly destroyed the Dutch state before flooded land and stubborn resistance stopped the French. The war ended with the Peace of Nijmegen, which left the Republic intact but extended France’s borders.

Background: from allies to enemies

For much of the 17th century France and the Dutch Republic had been allies against Habsburg Spain. That changed after Louis XIV began his personal rule in 1661. In the War of Devolution (1667–1668) he seized towns in the Spanish Netherlands, and the Dutch, worried about having France as a neighbour, joined England and Sweden in the Triple Alliance to force him to stop.

Louis took this as a betrayal. Trade rivalry made things worse: France’s finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert raised tariffs on Dutch goods in 1667, and the Dutch retaliated. Louis also disliked the Republic as a Protestant state where critical pamphlets about him were freely printed.

French diplomats spent years isolating the Dutch. By the secret Treaty of Dover of 1670, Charles II of England agreed to join an attack in return for French subsidies. Sweden was bought off, and two German prince-bishops, Bernhard von Galen of Münster and the Elector Maximilian Henry of Cologne, agreed to attack from the east.

The invasion of 1672

France declared war on 6 April 1672, the day before England. A French army of well over 100,000 men, commanded in name by the king and in practice by the great generals Turenne and Condé, marched down the Meuse and around the Spanish Netherlands, then turned north along the Rhine.

On 12 June 1672 French troops crossed the Rhine at the Tolhuis near Lobith, partly by swimming their horses through the river, a feat celebrated in French art and verse. The Dutch army, small and poorly prepared, retreated in disorder. Town after town surrendered, and Utrecht opened its gates. At the same time the forces of Münster and Cologne overran much of the eastern provinces.

At sea, Michiel de Ruyter attacked the combined Anglo-French fleet at Solebay off the Suffolk coast on 7 June 1672. The battle was bloody but indecisive, and it prevented an Anglo-French landing on the Dutch coast.

The Water Line holds

The Dutch saved the heart of their country with water. From late June 1672 they opened sluices and cut dykes to flood a belt of low-lying land running from the Zuiderzee to the great rivers, known as the Hollandic Water Line. The flooded strip was too deep for an army to wade through but too shallow for most boats, and fortified points guarded the few dry crossings.

The French army halted at the edge of the water. Louis, expecting surrender, made harsh demands that the Dutch refused, and he returned to France in the summer. Inside the Republic, defeat brought political upheaval, described in the Rampjaar or “disaster year”. The young William III of Orange became stadtholder and took charge of the war, while the former leader Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis were murdered by a mob in The Hague.

In the north, the Bishop of Münster’s siege of Groningen failed in August 1672, and the city’s relief is still celebrated each year on 28 August.

The war becomes European

What Louis had planned as a short campaign turned into a long coalition war. Alarmed by French power, Emperor Leopold I, Spain and the Duke of Lorraine allied with the Dutch at The Hague in August 1673, and Brandenburg also joined against France. William III recaptured Naarden in September 1673 and, with Imperial and Spanish troops, took Bonn in November, cutting French supply lines to the Republic. French forces withdrew from most Dutch territory in 1674.

At sea, de Ruyter fought off Anglo-French attempts to gain control of the Dutch coast at the two battles of Schooneveld in June 1673 and at Texel (Kijkduin) in August 1673. Unpopular and expensive, the war turned English opinion against Charles II’s French alliance, and England made peace with the Dutch at Westminster in February 1674.

The French, meanwhile, overran the Franche-Comté in 1674. In Flanders, William and Condé fought the costly and indecisive battle of Seneffe on 11 August 1674. In Alsace, Turenne’s winter campaign of 1674–1675 drove Imperial forces back across the Rhine, but he was killed by a cannonball at Sasbach on 27 July 1675.

Later campaigns

The war became a struggle of sieges in the Spanish Netherlands, where the engineer Vauban organised the capture of fortified towns such as Valenciennes and Cambrai in 1677 and Ghent and Ypres in 1678. The French defeated William at Cassel in April 1677. In the north, Sweden fought as France’s ally and was beaten by Brandenburg at Fehrbellin in June 1675.

The war also reached the Mediterranean. France supported a revolt against Spain in Messina in Sicily, and in 1676 de Ruyter was mortally wounded fighting the French fleet off Augusta; he died on 29 April 1676.

In November 1677 William III married Mary, daughter of the future James II of England, strengthening Anglo-Dutch ties. Exhausted by the cost of the war, the Dutch were ready for peace by 1678.

The Peace of Nijmegen

Peace was negotiated at Nijmegen. France and the Dutch Republic signed on 10 August 1678, and France and Spain on 17 September 1678; the Emperor followed in February 1679. The Dutch lost no territory, recovered Maastricht and won the withdrawal of Colbert’s harsh 1667 tariff. Spain paid the price: France gained the Franche-Comté and a belt of towns in the Spanish Netherlands, including Valenciennes, Cambrai, Saint-Omer and Ypres, which gave France a stronger northern border.

Four days after the Dutch treaty was signed, William attacked the French at Saint-Denis near Mons on 14 August 1678, a bloody battle fought before news of the peace had been officially confirmed.

Key people

• Louis XIV: King of France, who launched the war for glory and security and took personal part in campaigns and sieges.
• William III of Orange: Stadtholder from 1672, the organiser of Dutch resistance and of the anti-French coalition, and later King of England.
• Michiel de Ruyter: Dutch admiral whose victories kept Anglo-French fleets away from the Dutch coast.
• Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne: France’s leading general until his death in 1675.
• Louis II de Bourbon, Prince of Condé: French commander in the 1672 invasion and at Seneffe.

Timeline

• 1670, 1 June: Secret Treaty of Dover between France and England.
• 1672, 6 April: France declares war on the Dutch Republic.
• 1672, 7 June: Battle of Solebay.
• 1672, 12 June: French army crosses the Rhine at Lobith.
• 1672, June: The Dutch flood the Hollandic Water Line.
• 1673, 21 August: Battle of Texel (Kijkduin).
• 1674, February: England leaves the war by the Treaty of Westminster.
• 1675, 27 July: Turenne killed at Sasbach.
• 1678, 10 August: Franco-Dutch peace signed at Nijmegen.
• 1678, 17 September: Franco-Spanish peace signed at Nijmegen.

Why it matters

The Franco-Dutch War showed both the strength and the limits of Louis XIV’s France: it won new territory but failed to crush the Dutch, and it created the coalition against French power that would fight again in the Nine Years’ War. It also made William III of Orange the leading opponent of Louis XIV, a role that later took him to the English throne.