The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

A policy of aggrandisement so open and so unmistakable could not fail to arouse at length the slumbering jealousy of Europe, but it was long before the enemies of France were in a position to take any active steps. Blunders of Louis. From 1678 to 1685 the danger from the Turks was too pressing to permit the Emperor to involve himself in responsibilities on the Rhine. In 1685 the accession of James II. to the English throne opened out prospects of ambition to William of Orange, which made him unwilling to have his hands tied by the necessity of defending the Low Countries. But gradually as the months passed the blunders of Louis himself gave the opportunity to his enemies which they desired. Alienation of Europe. His continued quarrel with the Pope and his alliance with the Turks alienated the more zealous Catholic opinion in Europe, and deprived him of the support of a sentiment, which at that very time he was most anxious to obtain. How could he claim the allegiance of zealous Catholics, when he was the enemy of the Pope and the friend of the Turk? Yet with what face could he apply to the supporters of Protestantism or the friends of religious liberty, when he was stained with the cruelties of the ‘dragonades,’ and had just revoked the Edict of Nantes? His intrigues with the Turks had lost him the assistance of John Sobieski and Poland. His seizure of the duchy of Zweibrücken had alienated his old ally of Sweden to whom it belonged. His attack upon Algiers and Tripoli had forfeited the friendship of the Turks. The system of tributary states beyond the frontiers of Germany had completely broken down. The league of Augsburg, 1686. The result of this was seen in the secret formation of the League of Augsburg in 1686, between the Emperor, Spain, Sweden, the princes of north Germany, and the United Provinces to oppose the domination of France threatened by the truce of Regensburg. In the next year it was joined by Bavaria and the princes of Italy, and the Pope, Innocent XI., even gave it his secret support.

For the moment the accustomed political skill of Louis deserted him. Though he knew of the League he hesitated to strike the first blow while his enemies were unprepared. He even allowed them to deprive him by a sudden stroke of his most important ally. Quarrel between Louis and James II., 1688. James II. of England was a very different person from his brother Charles. Gifted with much greater energy and independence of spirit, he was wholly destitute of political tact and discrimination. Louis quickly found that he was unable to bend him to his will, and make England humbly attend upon his chariot wheels as heretofore. All that Charles had cared about was a quiet life and plenty of money. James on the contrary had high political ambitions. He wished to make England Roman Catholic, and the English monarchy absolute, and in comparison with these objects he cared not a fig for the aggrandisement of France or the glory of Louis XIV. It was all-important to Louis that James should not embroil himself with his Parliament and people, when France wanted the assistance of the English fleet in the Channel and English soldiers on the Rhine. James on the contrary cared only for his own home policy, and in spite of the urgent remonstrances of Louis, and even of the Pope, was busied in schemes for weakening the English Church, removing the disabilities of Roman Catholics and altering the English constitution. Louis determined to read him a lesson. He remembered how years before he had had to teach Charles II. that he must obey French orders if he wanted French gold. He thought that a somewhat sharper lesson was needed by James II. now. He knew that the malcontent politicians in England were in close communication with William of Orange. He knew that William was fully prepared to attack his father-in-law’s throne directly he was sure that his departure for England would not be the signal for French troops to overrun the Low Countries and march upon Amsterdam. He held the fate of James II. at his disposal. William could not move without his permission. At that very moment, in 1688, a disputed election to the archbishopric of Köln gave Louis the opportunity of declaring war upon the Rhine. Persuaded that the invasion of England by William of Orange must bring about a struggle, which would force James to humble himself and beg for French assistance to crush the rebellion, he deliberately allowed William to sail. The French army was moved from the frontiers of the Low Countries to the Rhine, and occupied the Palatinate. James driven out of England by William III., 1688. In the midst of his triumph came the astounding news that James II. was a fugitive at Versailles, and the strength of England was added to the formidable coalition which threatened France from all sides.

The war of the League of Augsburg, 1688–1698.

The war of the League of Augsburg, which lasted from 1688 to 1698, is one of the most exhausting and most uninteresting wars of which history makes mention. Louis found himself alone against the world. Literally he had not a single ally. By the force of circumstances the war on his side was largely defensive. Thanks to his prevision and Vauban’s skill, his frontier was defended by a string of fortresses, which in those days of bad roads and worse artillery were only conquerable by the wearisome method of blockade, a method which often, owing to disease and exposure, was more fatal to the besiegers than the besieged. Using these fortresses as a base of operations his generals could advance to deal a blow at the enemy or retire behind them to recruit as occasion demanded. The allies, seeing the immense defensive strength which this gave to the French operations, in their turn fortified fortress against fortress, and Namur and Mons became under the hands of Coëhorn the equals of Lille and Charleroi. The generals too on both sides were well fitted for playing the game of war on such conditions. No strategist worth the name appeared in Europe between the days of Turenne and Marlborough. Luxemburg was a brilliant tactician. On the field of battle he had not an equal. But no one knew less how to win a campaign or utilise a victory. William III. was an excellent war minister, indefatigable in preparation, indomitable under reverses, but his commonplace leadership was never relieved by one spark of genius or even brilliance. In the Low Countries the tide of battle ebbed and flowed about the fortresses of Mons and Namur. The capture of them by the French in 1691 and 1692 and the defeats inflicted by Luxemburg upon William at Steinkirk and Neerwinden, after his efforts to save Namur in 1692, mark the highest point of French military success. The recapture of Namur by William in 1695 is his chief title to military renown, and the evidence of the increasing exhaustion of France. On the Rhine there was no great event which calls for notice, while in Italy the French, though much weakened by constant drafts for the Netherlands, managed to hold their own through the fine fighting qualities of Catinat, who completely defeated the duke Victor Amadeus at Staffarda in 1689, and drove prince Eugene out of Piedmont after the bayonet fight of Civita in 1693.

Importance of the naval operations.

The real interest of the war centres round the struggle at sea between the fleets of England and France. It was the first tilt in the dread tourney, which occupies the whole of the eighteenth century, which extends from Beachy Head to Trafalgar, and has given England her vast imperial position. The conquest of England and Scotland gave to William III. the navy of England to use against Louis XIV. The continued loyalty of Ireland to James II. made the command of the sea necessary to Louis, for without it he could not hope to maintain James in Ireland for a moment against the whole power of England. The issue of the struggle in Ireland depended therefore wholly upon the issue of the naval war. The great victory of Tourville over the English fleet off Beachy Head in July 1690 made the French for nearly two years masters of the Channel, and more than counteracted the effect of the battle of the Boyne, by enabling Louis to pour French troops and stores into Ireland, and even threaten the invasion of England itself. The defeat of Tourville by Russell off La Hogue put a final end of this dream of French ambition. All thought of invasion had to be laid aside, and Ireland left to the tender mercies of the cruel conqueror. France had to acknowledge the superiority of the English at sea, to acquiesce in the capture and annexation of its colonies in the East and West Indies, to submit to the absorption of its trade by its dominant rival, and to content itself with the impotent but lucrative revenge of the legalised piracy of privateering.

Exhaustion of France, 1698.

After eight years of war all sides were anxious for peace. To France, exhausted by maintaining year after year four armies at least in the field, peace was a necessity. Already the burden had become almost intolerable. The coinage was debased, the taille had been doubled, offices were openly sold, and indeed created in order to be sold, one tenth of the population was without means of subsistence. The government too had fallen into very inferior hands. Colbert, Louvois, and Seignelay were all dead. Pontchartrain who took charge of the finances was incapable, Barbesieux, the son of Louvois, who succeeded to his father at the war office, was young and without experience. When he pleaded his inexperience to Louis, the infatuated king replied, ‘Do not disturb yourself, I formed your father and will form you.’ He seemed to think human nature was a blank sheet of paper on which he could write what he liked. England too was tired of a struggle which brought her neither glory nor profit. William himself, worn out by disease, hated by his subjects, thwarted by his Parliaments, plotted against by his courtiers, was willing if not anxious to sheathe the sword. In 1696 Victor Amadeus of Savoy left the League and made a treaty with France, and negotiations for a general peace were set on foot, which eventually were brought to a successful issue at Ryswick in 1698 chiefly through the efforts of Bouffiers and Portland.

The treaty of Ryswick, 1698.

By the treaty of Ryswick France surrendered all the towns which she had captured since the treaty of Nimwegen except Strasburg, and agreed that the chief frontier fortresses of the Netherlands should be garrisoned by the Dutch in order to secure their ‘barrier.’ Clement of Bavaria was acknowledged as the lawful archbishop of Köln, and the right of William III. to the throne of England, with the succession to his sister-in-law Anne, recognised. The peace of Ryswick was a serious blow, not merely to the pride of Louis XIV., but to his power. France never had time to recover from the strain of that terrible and heroic struggle before she was again involved in the war of the Spanish Succession. Her finances were ruined, her navy was crushed. And the heir to her greatness was her hated rival. William III. by ousting the Stuarts from the English throne, by forcing France to acknowledge his own right, had changed the personal duel between himself and Louis into a national duel between England and France, a duel in which England had scored the first pass by wresting from France the command of the ocean, and compelling Louis to renounce his claim to be the dictator of Europe and the champion of the cause of Roman Catholicism in England.