Nine Years War

The Nine Years War (also known as the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Grand Alliance, the Orleans War, the War of the Palatinian Succession, and the War of the English Succession) was a major war fought in Europe and America from 1688 to 1697, between France and the League of Augsburg — which, by 1689, was known as the "Grand Alliance". The war was fought to resist French expansionism along the Rhine, as well as, on the part of England, to safeguard the results of the Glorious Revolution from a possible French-backed restoration of James II. The North American theatre of the war, fought between English and French colonists, was known in the English colonies as King William's War.

Opening Campaigns

The war began with the French invasion of the Palatinate in 1688, ostensibly to support the claims of Louis XIV's sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, to the territory following the death of her nephew in 1685 and the territory's inheritance by the junior Neuburg branch of the family. The harshness of Louis's activities united all of Germany behind the Emperor, who was, however, still busy fighting a war in Hungary against the Ottoman Empire.

Related Topics:
Palatinate - 1688 - Duchess of Orleans - 1685 - Neuburg - Hungary - Ottoman Empire

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In pursuit of his new aggressive policy in Germany, Louis sent his troops into that country in the autumn of 1688. Some of their raiding parties plundered the country as far south as Augsburg, for the political intent of their advance suggested terrorism rather than conciliation as the best method. The League of Augsburg at once took up the challenge, and the addition of new members by the Treaty of Vienna in May 1689 converted it into the Grand Alliance of Spain, Holland, Sweden, Savoy and certain Italian states, Great Britain, the Emperor, and Brandenburg.

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Louvois had completed the work of organizing the French army on a regular and permanent basis, and had made it not merely the best, but also by far the most numerous in Europe, for Louis disposed in 1688 of no fewer than 375,000 soldiers and 60,000 sailors. The infantry was uniformed and drilled, and the socket bayonet and the flintlock musket had been introduced. The only relic of the old armament was the pike, which was retained for one-quarter of the foot, though it had been discarded by the Imperialists in the course of the Turkish wars described below. The first artillery regiment was created in 1684, to replace the former semi-civilian organization by a body of artillerymen susceptible of uniform training and amenable to discipline and orders.

Related Topics:
Louvois - Socket bayonet - Flintlock - Artillery

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In 1689 Louis had six armies on foot. That in Germany, which had executed the raid of the previous autumn, was not in a position to resist the principal army of the coalition. Louvois therefore ordered it to lay waste the Palatinate, and the devastation of the country around Heidelberg, Mannheim, Spires, Oppenheim and Worms was pitilessly and methodically carried into effect in January and February of 1689. There had been devastations in previous wars, even the high-minded Turenne had used the argument of fire and sword to terrify a population or a prince, while the whole story of the last ten years of the great war had been one of incendiary armies leaving traces of their passage that it took a century to remove. But here the devastation was a purely military measure, executed systematically over a given strategic front for no other purpose than to delay the advance of the enemys army. It differed from the method of Turenne or Cromwell in that the sufferers were not those people whom it was the purpose of the war to reduce to submission, but others who had no interest in the quarrel. The feudal theory that every subject of a prince at war was an armed vassal, and therefore an enemy of the prince's enemy, had in practice been obsolete for two centuries past; by 1690 the organization of war, its causes, its methods and its instruments had passed out of touch with the people at large, and it had become thoroughly understood that the army alone was concerned with the armys business. Thus it was that this devastation excited universal reprobation; and that, in the words of a modern French writer, the idea of Germany came to birth in the flames of the Palatinate.

Related Topics:
1689 - Heidelberg - Mannheim - Spires - Oppenheim - Worms - Turenne - Cromwell - 1690

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As a military measure this action was, moreover, quite unprofitable; for it became impossible for Marshal Duras, the French commander, to hold out on the east side of the middle Rhine, and he could think of nothing better to do than to go farther south and to ravage Baden and Breisgau, which was not even a military necessity. The grand army of the Allies, coming farther north, was practically unopposed. Charles of Lorraine and Maximilian of Bavaria (lately comrades in the Turkish war) besieged Mainz, and the elector of Brandenburg besieged Bonn. The latter, following the evil precedent of his enemies, shelled the town uselessly instead of making a breach in its walls and overpowering its French garrison. Mainz had to surrender on the September 8, 1688. The governor of Bonn, not in the least intimidated by the bombardment, held out until the army that had taken Mainz reinforced the elector of Brandenburg, and then, rejecting the hard terms of surrender offered him by the latter, he fell in resisting a last assault on October 12, 1688. Only 850 men out of his 6000 were left to surrender on the 16th, and the Duke of Lorraine, less truculent than the Elector, escorted them safely to Thionville. Boufflers, with another of Louis's armies, operated from Luxembourg (captured by the French in 1684) and Trarbach towards the Rhine, but in spite of a minor victory at Kochheim on August 21, he was unable to relieve either Mainz or Bonn.

Related Topics:
Marshal Duras - Rhine - Baden - Breisgau - Charles of Lorraine - Maximilian of Bavaria - Mainz - Bonn - September 8 - 1688 - Thionville - Boufflers - Luxembourg - Trarbach - Kochheim - August 21

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