Nine Years' War (1688–1697): The Grand Alliance vs Louis XIV

The Nine Years’ War (1688–1697) was the third great war of Louis XIV’s reign and the first in which France faced almost all of western Europe at once. Fought on the Rhine, in the Spanish Netherlands, in Ireland, in Italy and Spain, on the oceans and in North America, it ended at the Treaty of Ryswick in a stalemate that left Louis’s ambitions checked and William III secure on the English throne.

Background

After the Franco-Dutch War ended in 1678–1679, Louis XIV used courts called “chambers of reunion” to claim towns and districts on France’s eastern border, and in 1681 he seized Strasbourg. The Truce of Ratisbon (Regensburg) of 1684 allowed France to keep these gains for twenty years, but not permanently.

Fear of France grew. In 1686 the Emperor Leopold I, Spain, Sweden and several German princes formed the League of Augsburg for mutual defence. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 also turned Protestant opinion firmly against Louis.

In 1688 two disputes came to a head. Louis backed Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg for the archbishopric and electorate of Cologne, but the Pope supported the Emperor’s candidate, Joseph Clemens of Bavaria. Louis also claimed parts of the Palatinate on behalf of his sister-in-law Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans. Meanwhile Leopold’s armies were winning against the Ottomans in Hungary, and Louis feared they would soon turn west.

Outbreak and the Grand Alliance

In late September 1688 French troops crossed the Rhine and besieged Philippsburg, which fell at the end of October. Louis expected a short campaign that would force the Germans to turn the truce into a permanent settlement.

Instead, the move freed William of Orange, stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, to sail for England. He landed at Torbay in November 1688, and in the Glorious Revolution James II fled to France. William and Mary were proclaimed joint monarchs in February 1689, and England declared war on France in May 1689. The Emperor and the Dutch Republic signed an alliance at Vienna in May 1689, and England, Spain and Savoy joined what became known as the Grand Alliance.

To deny supplies to the advancing Germans, French commanders, on orders associated with the war minister Louvois, systematically devastated the Palatinate in 1688–1689. Heidelberg, Mannheim, Speyer and Worms were burned, an act that caused outrage across Germany.

The war on land

The main theatre was the Spanish Netherlands, modern Belgium. The Duke of Luxembourg, France’s ablest general, defeated the allies at Fleurus in July 1690, at Steenkerque in August 1692 and at Neerwinden (Landen) in July 1693, one of the bloodiest battles of the century. France also took the major fortresses of Mons in 1691, Namur in 1692 and Charleroi in 1693.

These victories did not end the war. Armies of more than 100,000 men moved slowly between fortresses, and sieges mattered more than battles. After Luxembourg died in January 1695, William III recaptured Namur in September 1695, his greatest military success. In August 1695 the French bombarded Brussels in reprisal, destroying much of the Grand Place area.

In Ireland, James II landed in 1689 with French support. William defeated him at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, and the Williamite victory at Aughrim in 1691 led to the Treaty of Limerick in October 1691. In northern Italy Marshal Catinat beat Victor Amadeus II of Savoy at Staffarda (1690) and Marsaglia (1693), and Savoy made a separate peace in 1696. In Catalonia, the French took Barcelona in August 1697.

The war at sea and overseas

At sea, the French admiral Tourville defeated an Anglo-Dutch fleet off Beachy Head in July 1690. In 1692, however, the allies won at Barfleur and then burned French warships at La Hougue, ending plans to invade England for James II. France then turned largely to commerce raiding, the guerre de course, in which privateers such as Jean Bart preyed on allied merchant shipping.

In North America the conflict was known as King William’s War. French and Indigenous forces raided Schenectady in February 1690, New England forces under William Phips captured Port Royal in Acadia the same year but failed before Quebec. In India the Dutch took the French post at Pondicherry in 1693.

Exhaustion and the Treaty of Ryswick

By the mid-1690s both sides were financially drained. France suffered a catastrophic famine in 1693–1694, which is estimated to have killed around 1.3 million people or more, and introduced a new head tax, the capitation, in 1695. England founded the Bank of England in 1694 to help fund the war, a key step in its long-term financial strength.

Peace talks were held at the palace of Huis ter Nieuwburg in Rijswijk, near The Hague. France signed with the Dutch Republic, England and Spain on 20 September 1697, and with the Emperor on 30 October 1697.

Under the Treaty of Ryswick:

• France kept Strasbourg and Alsace but returned most other reunions, Lorraine (to its duke) and the right-bank Rhine fortresses of Freiburg, Breisach and Philippsburg.
• Louis XIV recognised William III as king of England and agreed not to support his enemies.
• The Dutch won a favourable trade tariff and the right to garrison “barrier” fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands.
• Spain recovered Catalonia and fortresses lost in the Low Countries, and colonial conquests were largely restored.

Key people

• Louis XIV (1638–1715), king of France, began the war expecting a short campaign and ended it willing to give back much of what he had seized.
• William III (1650–1702), Dutch stadtholder and from 1689 king of England, Scotland and Ireland, was the political heart of the coalition and commanded its army in the Low Countries.
• François-Henri de Montmorency, Duke of Luxembourg (1628–1695) won France’s greatest battles of the war; captured allied flags sent to Notre-Dame earned him the nickname “the upholsterer of Notre-Dame”.
• Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, Comte de Tourville (1642–1701) commanded the French fleet at Beachy Head and Barfleur.
• Leopold I (1640–1705), Holy Roman Emperor, fought the Ottomans in the east while contributing troops on the Rhine.

Consequences

The war marked the end of the period in which France could expand its borders by quick, limited offensives. Louis XIV gave up more at Ryswick than in any earlier treaty, a sign that his resources, though vast, were no longer enough against a united coalition.

For Britain the effects were lasting. The war tied England firmly to the Dutch and to continental alliances against France, and the new methods of borrowing, including the Bank of England and long-term government debt, allowed it to fund wars on a scale that had not been possible before. Huguenot refugees and Irish Jacobite exiles fought on opposite sides, a reminder of how religion and dynasty shaped the conflict.

Ryswick settled nothing about the biggest question in Europe: who would inherit the Spanish empire when the childless Charles II of Spain died.

By the numbers

Timeline

• 1686, July: The League of Augsburg is formed against French expansion.
• 1688, September: French troops cross the Rhine and besiege Philippsburg.
• 1688, November: William of Orange lands in England.
• 1689, May: England declares war on France; the Grand Alliance takes shape.
• 1690, July: French victories at Fleurus and Beachy Head; William wins at the Boyne.
• 1692, May–June: Anglo-Dutch victory at Barfleur and La Hougue.
• 1693, July: Luxembourg defeats William at Neerwinden.
• 1695, September: William III recaptures Namur.
• 1697, 20 September and 30 October: The Treaty of Ryswick is signed.

Why it matters

The Nine Years’ War showed that no single power could dominate Europe when its rivals combined. It secured the Protestant succession in Britain, launched the modern British system of public credit and set the pattern of coalition warfare that returned only four years later in the War of the Spanish Succession.