At the time of the death of Philip IV (1665), the Southern provinces, impoverished and inadequately defended, were an easy prey to foreign territorial greed. The Dutch Grand Pensioner De Witt returned to the old plan of 1634, whereby Holland and France should agree to the constitution of a protected buffer State, and, in case this proposal should not meet with the support of the States, to a partition along a line extending from Ostend to Maestricht. Holland and England, however, were soon to realize that no compromise was possible with France and that their safety required prompt joint action.

The Roi-Soleil would not agree to recognize the right of the new King of Spain, Charles II, to the Southern Netherlands. A few years before, King Louis had married Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Philip IV, and his legal advisers made a pretext of the non-payment of her dowry and of a custom prevalent in some parts of Brabant, according to which the children of a first marriage were favoured ("dévolution"), to claim this part of the Spanish succession. The King's troops entered the Netherlands in 1667, without meeting with any serious opposition, and hostilities only came to an end when, after concluding a hasty peace and enlisting the support of Sweden, the United Provinces and England concluded the Triple Alliance (1668). By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France nevertheless obtained the fortified towns of Bergues, Furnes, Armentières, Courtrai, Lille, Oudenarde, Tournai, Ath, Douai, Binche and Charleroi, strengthening her position still further on the borders of Walloon Flanders and in Hainault. The allies understood by then that Louis's ambitions threatened their very existence. When the French resumed hostilities, four years later, a revolution took place in Holland which overthrew De Witt in favour of William III of Orange, who was hereafter the strongest opponent of French policy. Charles II of England took an equally strong attitude, following the traditional English policy of not allowing the French to obtain a hold on the Flemish coast. Addressing Parliament, a few years later, he declared that England could not admit "that even one town like Ostend should fall into French hands, and could not tolerate that even only forty French soldiers should occupy such a position, just opposite the mouth of the Thames." William had therefore no difficulty in constituting a powerful alliance, including, besides the United Provinces and England, Spain, Germany and Denmark. In face of such opposition, Louis was finally compelled to sign the treaty of Nymegen, which restored to Spain some of the advanced positions obtained by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but confirmed the loss of Walloon Flanders and Southern Hainault.

After a few years, however, seeing the alliance broken off and his enemies otherwise engaged, the King of France assumed a more and more aggressive attitude and encroached so much on the rights of Spain that Charles II was finally compelled to resist his pretensions. Luxemburg was the only town which offered any serious resistance; everywhere else French armies pursued their methods of terrorism, bombarded the towns and ravaged the country. The Truce of Ratisbon, concluded in 1684 for twenty years, added Chimay, Beaumont and Luxemburg to the French spoils.

THE AUGSBURG LEAGUE

William III, alarmed by this progress, succeeded in enlisting the support of the Emperor Leopold I, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden and the Duke of Savoy. A new League against France was founded in Augsburg (1686). When, two years later, William succeeded in supplanting James II on the throne of England, this country entered the League and a new conflict became inevitable. Belgium was not directly interested in it, and, as on former occasions, served as the battleground of foreign armies. In spite of the series of victories won by the French general, the Marshal of Luxemburg, at Fleurus (1690), Steenkerque (1692) and Neerwinden (1693), William III always succeeded in reconstituting his army. Two years later, he retook Namur, in spite of Marshal de Villeroi's attack on Brussels, during which the capital was bombarded for two days (August 13th to 15th) with red-hot bullets, over four thousand houses, including those of the Grand' Place, being destroyed by fire. The peace of Ryswyck, September 20, 1697, gave back to Spain the advanced fortresses annexed by the two previous treaties, William being definitely recognized as King of England.

The personal union between the two countries reacted somewhat on British policy in the Netherlands, this country taking a far more important share in the last period of the struggle against Louis XIV. Up till then, England had been content with checking France's encroachments in Flanders and maintaining the balance of power in Europe. The closer relationships with the United Provinces, during the reigns of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, involved England in further responsibilities and even induced her to impose, for a short time, an Anglo-Dutch protectorate on the Belgian provinces. This attitude was made more apparent by Marlborough's personal ambitions concerning the governorship of the Southern provinces, but the failure of these projects and the prompt return to traditional policy, after the treaty of Utrecht, only makes more apparent the general territorial disinterestedness of this country concerning the Netherlands.

MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS

Charles II of Spain had died in 1700, leaving all his possessions and the crown of Spain to Philip, Duke of Anjou, the second grandson of Louis XIV, thus depriving of his hopes of the succession Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Leopold I, who stood in exactly the same relation to the deceased monarch. The emperor at once sought the support of the United Provinces, which, however, hesitated to reopen hostilities. The Spanish governor in Belgium was then Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, who harboured the project of restoring the Southern provinces to their former prosperity and of becoming the sovereign of the new State, with or without a Spanish protectorate. French agents at his court encouraged his plan and so lured him by false promises that, in 1701, he allowed French troops to enter Belgium unopposed and to establish themselves in the principal towns. The Grand Alliance, including the same partners as the Augsburg League, was at once re-formed, in spite of the death, in 1702, of William, and the Duke of Marlborough was placed at the head of the allied troops. During the first years of the War of the Spanish Succession, operations were purely defensive in the Netherlands, owing specially to the anxiety of the Dutch not to risk any offensive which might have left a gap for the enemy's attacks. It was not until 1706 that Marlborough was able to break through the enemy's defences at Ramillies, near Tirlemont. This victory was followed by a French retreat, and the Belgians expected to be placed at once under the rule of Charles III, the other claimant of the Spanish crown, instead of which the Council of State, summoned in Brussels, was subjected to the orders of an Anglo-Batavian Conference, which had no legitimate right to rule the country. The Council protested, upon several occasions, and the exactions of the allies, who had been first hailed as deliverers, caused such indignation in the provinces that some towns, such as Ghent, opened their gates to the French. The defeat of Louis XIV was, however, consummated at Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709). The French forces had been so considerably reduced that, had Louis's openings for peace been met at the time, the integrity of the Southern provinces might have been restored. The Allies were, however, rather indifferent to such advantages, since it became more and more evident that, owing to Anglo-Dutch rivalries, they could not reap any direct benefit from them, and the Netherlands would finally have to be restored to Charles III, who, at the death of the emperor, in 1710, succeeded his brother under the name of Charles VI. The Whig Party had fallen from power in England in the previous year, and Marlborough, no longer supported at home, could not undertake any further operations. Under these conditions negotiations became possible, and the result was not so damaging to the prestige of France as might have been expected. By the treaty of Utrecht (1713) the Southern Netherlands were transferred to the Austrian branch of the Hapsburgs as a compensation for its loss of the Spanish crown. Louis restored Tournai, and a portion of West Flanders beyond the Yser including Furnes and Ypres, but Artois, Walloon Flanders, the south of Hainault and of Luxemburg remained French.

TREATY OF UTRECHT

From the point of view of the Netherlands, the treaties of Rastadt and of Baden (1714) were merely the ratification, by the emperor and by the Holy Roman Empire, of the clauses of the treaty of Utrecht. But the treaty of Antwerp, or of the Barriers, concluded the next year, between Austria and the United Provinces, included new stipulations practically placing the new Austrian Netherlands under the tutelage of Holland and still increasing her territorial encroachments. This was the outcome of previous conventions concluded between England and the United Provinces and according to which the latter were promised, beside some territorial advantages, the possession of a certain number of fortified towns "in order that they should serve as a barrier of safety to the States General" (1705). If, at Utrecht, the British had obtained new possessions in Canada, at Antwerp the Dutch claimed their share of advantages and exacted from Charles VI the price of their services. Namur, Tournai, Menin, Ypres, Warneton, Furnes, Knocke and Termonde were to be the fixed points of the Barrier where the United Provinces might keep their troops at the expense of the Belgian provinces. Further advantages were obtained in Zeeland Flanders and on the Meuse by the annexation of Venloo, Stevensweert and Montfort. The fortifications of Liége, Huy and Ghent were to be razed and the Dutch had further the right to flood certain parts of the country if they considered it necessary for defence. The Scheldt, of course, remained closed, since, according to Article XXVI, "the trade of the Austrian Netherlands and everything depending on it would be on the same footing as that established by the treaty of Münster, which was confirmed."