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For the Irish war see Nine Years War (Ireland).

Nine Years War
Siege of Mons (1691)
Date 24 September 1688 – 20 September 1697[1] Location Continental Europe, Ireland, North America Result Indecisive, leading to the Treaty of Ryswick
Combatants
Dutch Republic, Holy Roman Empire, England,[2] Duchy of Savoy, Spain	France
Commanders
King William III, Prince Waldeck, Duke of Lorraine, Elector of Bavaria, Elector of Brandenburg, Prince of Baden, Duke of Savoy	Duc de Luxembourg, Duc de Villeroi, Duc de Duras, Duc de Lorge, Duc de Boufflers, Nicolas Catinat, Duc de Noailles, King James II
Strength
~350,000, 275 ships[3]	~440,000,[4] 221 ships[5]
*The French strength is only a paper-strength. The actual number was nearer 350,000.

The Nine Years War (1688–1697) – often called the War of the Grand Alliance or occasionally, the War of the League of Augsburg or the War of the Palatinian Succession – was a major conflict fought primarily on Continental Europe, but which also encompassed secondary theatres in Ireland (often called the Williamite War), and North America (commonly known as King William's War).

[edit] Background 1678-87

King Louis XIV (1638–1715), by René Antoine Houasse.

Although the end of the Dutch War in 1678 brought an end to formal hostilities between France and her neighbours, it did not bring an end to conflict and aggression. The Treaty of Nijmegan had rewarded France with the entire province of Franche-Comte, as well as several cities in the Spanish Netherlands, but King Louis, labelled Louis le Grande after his victory, remained unsatisfied with his gains.^[6]

[edit] Prelude 1687-88

Initially the League of Augsburg had little military power – the Empire was still busy fighting the Ottomans. The French king however, watched with apprehension Leopold’s advances against the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans in 1687. Habsburg victories along the Danube at Mohács and Buda had convinced Louis that the Emperor would soon turn his attention towards France. In response to this threat, Louis sought to guarantee his territorial gains of the Reunions by forcing his German neighbours to turn the Treaty of Ratisbon into a permanent settlement, but an ultimatum issued in 1687 failed to gain the desired assurances from the Emperor.^[7]

Another testing point concerned the pro-French Elector, Maximilian Henry, and the question of his succession in Cologne and Liege. The small Rhineland state sheltered part of France’s German frontier, but when the Elector died in June 1688, Louis pressed for the French Bishop of Strasbourg, William Egon von Fürstenburg, to succeed him. The Emperor however, backed by Pope Innocent XI, favoured Joseph Clement, the brother of Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria.^[8]

As negotiations heated up over the Cologne issue, Leopold had further success in the Balkans where the fall of Belgrade seemed imminent. With the Ottomans appearing close to collapse, Louis felt it essential to have a quick resolution along his German frontier before the Emperor turned his victorious armies against France. On 24 September the French king published a manifesto, his ‘Mémoire de raisons’, demanding first, that the Treaty of Ratisbon be turned into a permanent resolution, and second, that Fürstenburg be appointed Archbishop of Cologne.^[9] However, the day after Louis issued his manifesto, (well before his enemies could have known its details), French forces crossed the Rhine, hoping the capture of Philippsburg, and other Rhineland towns, would compel the German states into accepting his conditions. Furthermore, Louis hoped that his aggression on the Rhine would encourage the Ottoman Turks to continue their own struggle with the Emperor in the east.^[10] Louis had never intended a long campaign, but his pre-emptive strike in September 1688 began the longest of his wars to date.

[edit] Continental Europe and the British Isles

[edit] Early Fighting: 1688-89

[edit] Destruction of the Palatinate

Rhine campaign 1688–89. French forces cross the Rhine at Strasbourg and proceed to invest Philippsburg on 27 September.

Marshal Duras, with 30,000 men, besieged Philippsburg on 27 Spetember 1688.^[11] Louis’ chief engineer, Marshal Vauban, directed the siege works against the fortress whose governor, General Starhemburg, commanded a garrison of some 2,300. The siege ended with the formal surrender on 30 October. Louis’ army proceeded to take Mannheim, which capitulated on 11 November, shortly followed by Frankenthal. Other towns fell without resistance, including Oppenheim, Worms, Bingen, Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Speyer and, above all, the key fortress of Mainz.

Louis now mastered the Rhine, but although the attacks kept the Turks fighting in the east, the impact on Leopold and the German states had the opposite effect of what had been intended.^[12] The German princes, including the Elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Hanover, met in Magdeburg to create an alliance against the French. The forces of Brandenburg, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Saxony, Bavaria, and the Emperor, all agreed to fight Louis. The coalition was further strengthened when, on 26 November, William of Orange brought the Dutch into the war on the side of the Alliance.^[13]

Louis was unprepared for this escalation, and had not mobilized for such an eventuality. Under the influence of Louvois and the Marquis de Chamlay, the French King, realising this would not be a brief and decisive parade of French glory, resolved upon a scorched-earth policy to deny the enemy local resources in the Palatinate, Baden and Württenberg. By 20 December, Louvois had selected all the cities, towns, villages and châteaux intended for destruction. On 2 March 1689, Count of Tessé torched Heidelberg; on 8 March Montclair levelled Mannheim ‘like a field’; on 31 May, Oppenheim and Worms were finally destroyed (the fortifications of both towns had already been razed); Speyer was torched on 1 June, and Bingen on 4 June. In all, French troops burnt 20 substantial towns and countless villages.^[14]

In the summer however, large German forces took back what they had lost. The Elector of Brandenburg, aided by the celebrated Dutch engineer, Menno van Coehoorn, besieged Kaiserwerth, which capitulated on 26 June. With a force of 60,000 men, commanded by Charles, the Duke of Lorraine, the Allies resolved to retake Mainz. After a bloody two months siege, the town was finally yielded by Marshal Huxelles on 8 September; this was followed by the capitulation of Bonn on 10 October, having endured a siege by the Elector of Brandenburg. The French had lost much more than they had gained along the Rhine that year, but Louis’ lands had not been compromised.^[15]

Irish campaign 1689–1691.

[edit] Expanding war

As the number of Louis’ enemies increased, so did the number of fronts. In 1689, French forces not only faced opposition in the German Rhineland, but also in the Spanish Netherlands, and a minor theatre in Catalonia. Louis also sent assistance to Ireland where the erstwhile King of England, James II, was attempting to regain his throne following William's success in the 'Glorious Revolution'.

Louis aided James for two reasons: firstly, Louis fervently believed in the Stuart king’s God-ordained right to the English throne; secondly, and primarily, the war in Ireland would divert William and his forces away from Flanders.^[16] With an army of 30,000 troops, James, and his deputy the Earl of Tyrconnell, besieged the Protestant town of Londonderry. However, after Admiral Rooke brought reinforcements from England, the siege was abandoned on 10 August. Later on 23 August, Rooke also managed to escort 15,000 Dutch, Huguenots, English and Danish reinforcements under the command of Marshal Schomberg, but after taking Carrickfergus and Belfast, Schomberg’s army stalled at Dundalk, suffering through the winter months from sickness and desertion.^[17]

In the Spanish Netherlands Louis’ forces were commanded by Marshal Humières. Although this theatre would later become the centre of France’s war effort, in 1689 it produced little more than a stand-off – the only engagement of significance occurred when the Allied commander in the region, Prince Waldeck, defeated Humières in a sharp skirmish at the Battle of Walcourt.^[18]

The Catalan front was also relatively quiet. The Duke de Noailles besieged Camprodon on 19 May, forcing the 500-strong garrison to capitulate on 22 May. The Spanish commander Villahermosa, commanding 20,000 troops, resolved to retake the fortress. After bombarding each other into stalemate, Noailles withdrew his garrison on 26 August and returned to Roussillon.^[19]

[edit] Crux of the fighting: 1690-91

Spanish Netherlands campaign 1689–1697.

The next two years brought the full weight of the contending forces against one another. Although the pace and goals of the war would be limited, the Continent would see a string of French victories and a share of French success at sea. Louis would also open a new front in northern Italy, while in Ireland, King William would decisively defeat King James and effectively end his hopes of regaining his throne.^[20]

Marshal Luxembourg (1628-1695). Commanded French forces in the Spanish Netherlands until his death in 1695.

[edit] French ascendancy

In 1690, the primary front of the war transferred from the Rhine to the Spanish Netherlands. French forces in the region were now commanded by the talented Marshal Luxembourg who, on 1 July, outflanked and defeated Waldeck’s Allied force at the Battle of Fleurus.^[21] But although Fleurus was a great tactical victory for the French Marshal, the battle’s consequences were typical of late seventeenth century warfare, and Waldeck, unpursued by Luxembourg, retired with his army to Brussels. The main goal for Flanders in 1691 centred around the major fortress of Mons. Boufflers invested the town on 15 March with some 46,000 men, while Luxembourg commanded a similar force of observation. After some of the most intense fighting of all of King Louis’ wars, the 4,500 defenders of Mons finally capitulated on 8 April.^[22] Luxembourg proceeded to take Halle at the end of May, while Boufflers bombarded Liege (despite its neutrality), but apart from a minor victory for Luxembourg at Leuze, little since Mons - beyond preventing the Allies investing Dinant - had been achieved.

In the Rhineland, three Allied armies were formed to face the French. With the death of the Duke of Lorraine in April 1690, command of the largest of these forces, passed to the Elector of Bavaria. The second - which would link up with Waldeck in August - was commanded by the Elector of Brandenburg; command of the third army was given to General Dunenvald. The opposing French forces, numbering some 40,000 men, were now led by Marshal de Lorge (although the dauphin held honorific command).^[23] However, little of note occurred throughout 1690-1. With German forces outnumbering the French, de Lorge was restricted to a mainly defensive posture, keeping the enemy out of French territory and imposing contributions on German lands.

On the Spanish front in 1690, Noailles’ small army of 12,000 men also condemned the French to a mainly defensive campaign. With Villahermosa’s similarly small force, the two armies spent most of the summer simply observing one another. The following year was again uneventful. Noailles took la Seu d’Urgell in late May, and the Spanish forces under Medina-Sidonia threatened to besiege Prats-de-Mollo, but when Noailles foiled Spanish plans, both contenders returned to winter quarters.

Northern Italian campaign 1690-96. The territories of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, primarily split into several distinct areas: Nice, Savoy and Piedmont, which contained the capital city of Turin.

While things stalled along the Rhine and Catalonia, war raged in Italy. Although General Catinat’s French army of 12,000 men was too small to besiege Turin, he aimed to put much of Victor Amadeus’s territory under his sphere of influence. After defeating Amadeus at the Battle of Staffarda in 1690, Catinat immediately took Saluzzo, followed by Susa on the 13 November. The following year brought further French success in the region. In March 1691 Catinat captured the port of Villefranche while a detachment invested nearby Nice. Catinat proceeded to take Avigliana in May and Carmagnola in early June, but an attack on Cuneo by the Marquis de Freuquèires led to a serious setback with the loss of some 800 men. A further blow for French arms followed in August when some 13,000 German troops arrived from the Ottoman front to reinforce Victor Amadeus. Part of these Allied forces, now numbering 45,000 in total, crossed the Po and besieged Carmagnola on 26 September, forcing Catinat to surrender the town two weeks later.^[24] However, the French to the north controlled the two major routes into Savoy, barring Amadeus from sending reinforcement to Montmélian, the region’s last remaining stronghold. After investing the town and its citadel, Montmélian fell to General Hoguette on 22 December. With these successes Louis tried to win over Victor Amadeus and bring him to a peace settlement, promising him the return of all his lands save Nice, Villafranch, Montmélian and Susa, but for now, the Duke refused.^[25]

[edit] Ireland secured

On 17 March 1690, a French squadron successfully ferried 6,000 reinforcements for James’ Irish campaign. Later, on 10 July, Admiral Tourville defeated Admiral Torrington’s Anglo-Dutch fleet off Beachy Head. However, the tactical victory was not converted into strategic gain, and by the end of August, after the Allies had regrouped, temporary French control of the English Channel had been lost.^[26] But it was the Irish Sea that proved to be the more consequential. Earlier in late June, Sir Clowdesley Shovell – unmolested by any French vessels – had successfully escorted William at the head of 15,000 reinforcements, to Ireland. With this army, the English king delivered a fateful blow to James at the Battle of the Boyne on 11 July – the day after Beachy Head – forcing James to flee to France. Although the war in Ireland dragged on into the following year, the capitulation of Limerick on 13 October 1691, finally sealed victory for William and his supporters.

[edit] Conflict and diplomacy: 1692-93

Battle of La Hogue (1692). Defeat at La Hogue undermined French naval morale, but the Allies gained little offensive value from their dominance of the channel in 1692.

Surviving French forces from the Irish campaign, together with 13,000 Irish troops, sailed for France. This army was nominally King James’s which he had intended for an invasion of England, but the naval defeat of Admiral Tourville at La Hogue in May-June 1692 put an end to invasion plans. The Irish troops were distributed to Savoy, Rousillon and even Flanders where once more they fought against King William.^[27]

Marshal Vauban, (1633-1707) was Louis' greatest military engineer, and the only engineer of the 17th century to attain the highest military rank.

[edit] Continuing French success

The French target in Flanders for 1692 was Namur. The engagement is notable because of the involvement of the period’s two undoubted masters of siege warfare: Marshal Vauban who directed the besiegers, and his Dutch opponent, Menno van Coehoorn. The town itself fell on 5 June, and the last of its fortifications capitulated on 30 June, but with 7,000 French casualties, it had been costly. William was now eager to confront Luxembourg. On 3 August he was able to surprise the French near Steenkerque, enjoying some initial success, but as French reinforcements came up, William’s advance stalled. Both sides could claim victory of sorts, but the battle produced little of consequence.^[28] The following year’s campaign in Flanders would see further French success on the battlefield, but it was to be Louis’ last. After falling ill in May, the 54 year-old French King was compelled to abandon his plans against Liege and return to Versailles, leaving Luxembourg as sole commander. After taking Huy on 23 July, the French marshal with 80,000 men, outmanoeuvred William and his army of some 50,000, catching him off-guard near the village of Landen. The ensuing bloody engagement on 29 July was a success for Luxembourg, but despite inflicting 14,000 casualties on the Allied forces, the battle had little immediate consequence and William was able to maintain himself in the field. However, Louis' commanders made further gains that year. Luxembourg and Vauban took Charleroi on 10 October, which, together with the earlier prizes of Mons, Namur and Huy, provided the French with a new and impressive forward line of defence.^[29]

In 1692 in Germany, de Lorge was again restricted to a defensive posture. Much of the campaign was devoted to imposing contributions on German lands and to keep the enemy out of French territory.^[30] By the beginning of the 1693 campaign however, de Lorge immediately undertook the siege of Heidelberg in May. The subsequent capture of the town had encouraged Louis to send reinforcements from Flanders. Theses forces, commanded by the Dauphin, combined with de Lorge’s at Melingen to form an army of 45,000 men; but the threatened battle against Prince Louis of Baden’s forces failed to materialize. In early September the dauphin returned to Versailles and the two opposing commanders sent their forces to winter quarters.

By 1692 the Allies in Italy numbered around 50,000 men. With 27,000 of these troops, Amadeus invaded Dauphiné, capturing Embrun and Gap in August. Catinat, with the aid of local militia prevented the loss of Grenoble, but before he left the region in September, the Duke of Savoy had destroyed over 70 French villages and chateaux. By 1693 however, Catinat’s small force of some 16,000 men, had been reinforced with troops from Catalonia, Provence, Germany and troops from Savoy under the command of the marquis de Larré. With this army, now 40,000 strong, Catinat intercepted the Duke of Savoy’s force between Pinerolo and Turin. The ensuing Battle of Marsaglia on 4 October was a resounding French victory, inflicting some 12,000 Allied casualties, a third of Amadeus’s army. Before Catinat returned to Dauphiné, he was able to put almost all of Piedmont under contribution.

Catalonia 1689-97

The transfer of forces from Spain to the Italian front in 1692 restricted French options in Catalonia - Noailles and the Spanish commander, Medina-Sidonia, simply faced-off against one another for the rest of the year. In 1693 however, Noailles achieved success for French arms with a combined army and navy operation against Rosas, leading to the port’s surrender on 9 July. Medina-Sidonia meanwhile made preparations for a siege of Bellver, but gave up the attempt after the preliminary moves, and both sides returned to winter quarters.

[edit] French invasion fears

The Allied victory at La Hogue in 1692 failed to deter the French, whose building efforts between 1691 and 1693 added 100,000 tons of shipping.^[31] With this fleet on 27 June 1693, Tourville ambushed the Smyrna convoy (a fleet of 400 Allied merchant vessels travelling under escort to the Mediterranean).

[edit] 1694-95

Throughout the summers of 1693 and 1694 France suffered one of the worst famines on record. The harvest failures caused wide-scale death and suffering amongst the population, upon which fell an ever increasing burden of taxation and recruitment.^[32]

Siege of Namur (1695) by Jan van Huchtenburg. In the foreground William III, dressed in grey, confers with Prince Emmanuel of Bavaria.

Fighting in Flanders in 1694 would be minimal. William and Luxembourg marched and counter-marched throughout the summer with little result. Later in the autumn the Allies gained some success when William’s forces garrisoned Dixmude, and, on 27 September, recaptured Huy. The following year in 1695, French forces suffered two further setbacks: first was the death on 5 January of Louis’ greatest general of the period, Marshal Luxembourg; the second was the loss of Namur. Coehoorn, in a role reversal of 1692, would this time conduct the siege of the stronghold, directing William’s army of some 80,000 men. Unwilling to attack such a large force, Luxembourg’s successor, Marshal Villeroi, could not prevent the town’s fall. After a stalwart defence, Boufflers finally led his men out of Namur on 5 September, but the siege had been costly; Boufflers suffered some 8,000 casualties, and the Allies almost 20,000.^[33]

On the Rhine in 1694 de Lorge and Baden manoeuvred without resulting in contact before the campaign petered out in October. The 1695 campaign was equally uneventful; both French and German forces remained unwilling to risk battle and in September returned to winter quarters.

Italy was also relatively quiet throughout 1694, but peace negotiations between Louis and Amadeus were making headway. Louis regarded the Duke the weak link in the Allied coalition; for his part, Amadeus was beginning to fear increased Habsburg influence in Italy. In 1695 negotiators agreed that the French would surrender Casale on the condition that it would be demolished and handed back to Mantua. The French garrison left on 18 September following a sham siege, after which, fighting between Louis and Victor Amadeus effectively came to an end.^[34]

[edit] Winding down: 1696-97

[edit] Colonial America and the West Indies

Main article: King William's War

[edit] Art of War

The War of the Grand Alliance, like other wars of the late 17th and early 18th centuries was dominated siege warfare. Many lesser commanders welcomed theses reltively predictable operations to mask their lack of military ability.^[35] As Daniel Defoe sarcastically remarked in 1697 – “Now it is frequent to have armies of 50,000 men of a side [who] spend the whole campaign in dodging – or, as it is genteelly called – observing one another, and then march off into winter quarters.”^[36]

[edit] Weapons technology

[edit] Aftermath

Map of European borders as they stood after the Treaty of Ryswick and just previous to King Louis XIV's last great war, the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701.

There was considerable pressure from politicians in both England and the Dutch Republic for peace. Commerce in both countries was suffering, and the continual disruption of trade was now undermining their resolve to continue the war – the financial and economic exhaustion felt by the maritime powers was also being felt by France.^[37] By the end of the 1696 campaigning season, both William III and Louis XIV were determined on peace. Louis’ aggressive stance had become increasingly moderate, but above all, he felt it essential to break up the Allied coalition before the infirm Charles II of Spain died – France would have far less chance of gaining the Spanish succession if it was still at war with Spain and if Austria’s allies were still committed to support Leopold’s claims.^[38]

A peace congress opened in May 1697 at William's palace in Ryswick near The Hague. The Swedes were the official mediators but in fact it was Williams' advisor William Bentinck, Earl of Portland, and Louis' general, Marshal Boufflers, who found it easier to come to a settlement in private. William himself had no intention of continuing the war or for pressing Leopold’s claims in the Rhineland or Spanish succession – to him it was more important for the security of England and the Dutch Republic to obtain Louis’ recognition of the 1688 revolution.^[39] Therefore, on 20 September 1697, France, the Dutch Republic, England and Spain signed the Treaty of Ryswick. Emperor Leopold though, desperate for a continuation of the war so as to strengthen his own claims to the Spanish succession, was reluctant to seek peace with Louis. However, because he was still at war with the Turks, and could not face fighting France alone, Leopold also sought terms and signed the treaty on 30 October.^[40]

By the peace terms the French retained the whole of Alsace and Strasbourg, but Louis returned Luxembourg to Spain and other areas seized under the reunions claims in the Spanish Netherlands. As well as returning territory captured during the war along the Rhine, Lorraine was also handed back to its duke, though France retained enough of it to ensure effective military control. Louis also evacuated Catalonia (to curry favour with Madrid regarding the question of the Spanish succession) and gave way regarding the Palatinate and Cologne issues.^[41] In North America, territorial gains made by the protagonists in the English and French colonies were returned to the original holders, establishing the status quo ante bellum. However in the Caribbean, Spain formally ceded Saint-Domingue to France.^[42]

Neither Leopold nor the German princes had achieved their aim of pushing France back to the Westphalian borders, but Louis’ more extensive ambitions in the Rhineland had been curtailed. Austria would also gain influence after their peace with the Turks in 1699 – under the Treaty of Karlowitz the Emperor gained all of Hungary and Transylvania.^[43] Although Louis continued to shelter James II, he now recognised William as King of Protestant England – Jacobitism had been suppressed and Scotland and Ireland were now firmly under direct control. French naval power had also been destroyed, paving the way for English naval supremacy in the following century – Britain had emerged as a European power in her own right.^[44]

Both the French and the Grand Alliance considered the agreements regarding France’s borders, as stipulated in the treaty, as little more than interim ones – the disputes over who would succeed the infirm Charles II had yet to be resolved. Within four years, both James II and William III would be dead, and Louis XIV and the Grand Alliance would plunge into an even more ferocious struggle – the War of the Spanish Succession.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Chandler, David G. The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough. Spellmount Limited, (1990). ISBN 0-946771-42-1
• Charlebois, E. Heroes and Heroines of New France. Ouskirts Press Inc. (2006). ISBN 1-59800-566-9
• Doyle, William. Short Oxford History of France – Old Regime France. Oxford University Press, (2001). ISBN 0-19-873129-9
• Dupuy, R. E & Dupuy, T. N. The Collins Encyclopaedia of Military History 4th ed. HarperCollins Publishers, (1995). ISBN 0-06-270056-1.
• Kinross, John. The Boyne and Aughrim: The War of the Two Kings. The Windrush Press, (1998). ISBN 1-900624-07-9
• Lynn, John A. The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667–1714. Longman, (1999). ISBN 0-582-05629-2
• McKay, Derek & Scott, H. M. The Rise of the Great Powers: 1648–1815. Longman, (1984). ISBN 0-582-48554-1
• Taylor, Alan. American Colonies: The Settling of North America. Penguin Books, (2002). ISBN 0-14-200210-0
• Parker, Geoffrey (editor). The Cambridge Illustrated History of Warfare. Cambridge University Press, (1995). ISBN 0-521-79431-5
• Wolf, John B. The Emergence of the Great Powers: 1685–1715. Harper & Row, (1962). ISBN 0061397509

James lands in Ireland Bantry Bay