King Louis XIV: French Mastermind

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With the fall of Namur in 1695, the myth of French invincibility began to erode. By then Louis’ greatest marshals were dead–as was his minister of war, Louvois, who died in 1691–and the aging Sun King’s own judgment was beginning to show signs of decline.

By 1697, Louis had had enough and concluded the Treaty of Rijswijk, in which France returned everything she had taken since the Treaty of Nijmegen–Lorraine, Catalonia, Flanders, Luxembourg, the Rhine fortresses–with the exceptions of Strasbourg and the Alsatian territories. At home, the French people who had decried the 10-year war now complained that too much had been given away. Nevertheless, France remained the premier power in Europe, and Louis may already have been thinking about the possibilities that the political situation in Spain offered.

Carlos II of Spain, known as ‘Carlos the Bewitched,’ was a congenitally impaired king without an heir. There were three possible successors to the Spanish crown, and the one from Bavaria died before Carlos did. The two remaining candidates were from Hapsburg Austria and Bourbon France. Whoever succeeded Carlos stood to gain Spain’s vast domains, which stretched from Sicily to Belgium and from South America to the Philippines.

Spain had been under the dominion of Hapsburg kings before, and their days of dominance over France were less than a century in the past. Louis XIV did not want to see France surrounded by the Hapsburgs again. Neither did King William III of England, whose native Netherlands had once been under direct Spanish domination. Therefore, the two former enemies conspired to seek a compromise. Austria, however, adamantly rejected their proposal for a partition of Spanish holdings.

The Spaniards, equally adverse to the idea, turned to Carlos II’s will, composed a month before his death on November 1, 1700. It clearly designated his successor to be ‘the second son of the Dauphin of France, the successor to all his Kingdoms, without any exception’–that is, Philippe de Bourbon, duc d’Anjou and the grandson of Louis XIV. If Philippe died, the Spanish throne would pass to the Austrian House of Hapsburg.

Louis XIV faced the greatest decision of his life, but he saw no choice but to put his 16-year-old grandson on the throne, grandly declaring the elimination of boundaries between France and Spain by saying, ‘Henceforth, there are no Pyrennees.’ The result, predictably, was another war, pitting France and Bavaria against a Grand Alliance of Austria, Prussia, Hanover, Portugal, the Netherlands and England, soon joined by the Duke of Savoy.

Louis tried the usual aggressive opening moves, but his army no longer had a single great leader, whereas England had Sir John Churchill, later the Duke of Marlborough, and the Austrians were commanded by the equally brilliant Prince Eugene of Savoy. The French lost a succession of battles, most notably at Blenheim on August 13, 1704–their worst land defeat in centuries–which permanently removed them from Bavaria, and at Ramillies on May 22, 1706, which drove them from Flanders.

After Blenheim, the war seemed as good as over. Louis tried to sue for peace, but the terms were unacceptable. England, at the behest of the Portuguese, became involved in an invasion of Spain, in an attempt to install the Austrian candidate on the throne. That proved to be a costly mistake, because the Spanish, firmly behind the ‘rightful’ King Philip, resisted bitterly.

Then, in 1711, the Austrian emperor–who was also the Hapsburgs’ candidate for the Spanish throne–died. England, never enthusiastic about a melding of the Austrian and Spanish crowns, made a separate peace with France. Prince Eugene was outmaneuvered in Flanders following the victory of French Marshal Claude Louis Hector, duc de Villars, at Denain on July 24, 1712, eliminating the direct threat Prince Eugene had posed to Paris.

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