Louis XIV and the Outbreak of the Nine Years War

Abstract

The crisis which overtook Louis XIV in 1688 was the outcome of his aggrandisement during the earlier part of his reign, but it took him by surprise and found France unprepared for war. He had completely failed to understand the effects that his aggressive policies had produced, he did not realise that his own actions had united his enemies against him as nothing else could have done. Self-delusion is the occupational disease of absolute monarchs; and although Louis was normally less afflicted than some of his fellow-rulers, in the decade between the Peace of Nijmegen and the outbreak of the Nine Years War he succumbed to this dangerous disease. In fact Louis could no longer rely on the overwhelming military superiority which had assured him the triumphs of his early years. Slowly, in the decade after Nijmegen, the balance of power began to tip in favour of Louis’ enemies, while he continued to act as if nothing had changed. The economic base of French power began to be eroded; French military superiority began to be challenged by the resurgence of Habsburg Austria, whose armies were tempered in the harsh school of the Turkish wars; French diplomacy no longer checked and outwitted William III’s efforts to build up a European alliance.

Specially commissioned for this volume.