| Treaties of Peace of Nijmegen | |
|---|---|
The Place des Victoires in Paris, with an equestrian statue of Louis XIV, was designed as a memorial to the Peace of Nijmegen. |
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| Other names | Négotiations de Nimegue; Négotiations de la Paix de Nimègue |
| Participants | France, Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and Holy Roman Empire |
| Location | Nijmegen |
| Date | 1678–79 |
| Result | Franco-Dutch War end; France control Franche-Comté, select Flanders cities, and Hainaut County. |
The Treaties of Peace of Nijmegen (Négotiations de Nimegue or Négotiations de la Paix de Nimègue; Friede von Nimwegen) were a series of treaties signed in the Dutch city of Nijmegen between August 1678 and December 1679. The treaties ended various interconnected wars among France, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Brandenburg, Sweden, Denmark, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, and the Holy Roman Empire. The most significant of the treaties was the first, which established peace between France and the Dutch Republic.[1]
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The Franco–Dutch War of 1672–78 was the source of all the other wars that were ended formally at Nijmegen. Separate peace treaties were arranged for conflicts like the Third Anglo-Dutch War and the Scanian War, but all of them had been directly caused by, and form part of, the Franco-Dutch War. England initially participated in the war on the French side, but withdrew in 1674 in the Treaty of Westminster.
Peace negotiations had begun as early as 1676, but nothing was agreed to and signed before 1678. These treaties did not result in a lasting peace. Some of the countries involved signed peace deals elsewhere, such as the Treaty of Celle (Sweden made peace with Brunswick and Lunenburg-Celle), Treaty of Saint-Germain (France and Sweden made peace with Brandenburg) and Treaty of Fontainebleau (France dictated peace between Sweden and Denmark-Norway).
The Franco–Dutch War ended with a treaty which gave France control over the regions of Franche-Comté and Lorraine.[2]
Beyond the acquisitions made by King Louis XIV according to the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees and the 1668 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France not only gained the Imperial County of Burgundy (Franch-Comté), but also further territories of the Spanish Netherlands, including the town of Saint-Omer with the remaining northwestern part of the former Imperial County of Artois, the lands of Cassel, Aire and Ypres in southwestern Flanders, the Bishopric of Cambrai, as well as the towns of Valenciennes and Maubeuge in the southern County of Hainault.
In turn, the French king ceded the occupied town of Maastricht and the Principality of Orange to the Dutch stadtholder William III. The French forces withdrew from several occupied territories in northern Flanders and Hainault.
Emperor Leopold I had to accept the French occupation of the towns of Freiburg (until 1697) and Kehl (until 1698) on the right bank of the Rhine.
Marc-Antoine Charpentier wrote a Te Deum for this occasion. The prelude of the Te Deum is also known as the Eurovision-tune.