A Political and Social History of Modern Europe Part 25

Before opening hostilities, Louis XIV made use of his diplomatic wiles in order to guard himself against a.s.sistance which other states might render to Spain. In the first place, he obtained promises of friendly neutrality from Holland, Sweden, and the Protestant states of Germany which had been allied with France during the Thirty Years' War. In the second place, he threatened to stir up another civil war in the Holy Roman Empire if the Austrian Habsburgs should help their Spanish kinsman. Finally, he had no fear of England because that country was in the midst of a peculiarly bitter trade war with the Dutch. [Footnote: It was on the eve of this second trade war between England and Holland (1665-1667) that the English took New Amsterdam from the Dutch (1664) and rechristened it New York, and during this struggle that the remarkable Dutch admiral, De Ruyter, burned the English fleet and shipping on the Thames (June, 1667).]

[Sidenote: The "Balance of Power"]

The War of Devolution lasted from 1667 to 1668. The well-disciplined and splendidly generaled armies of Louis XIV had no difficulty in occupying the border fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands. The whole territory would undoubtedly have fallen to France, had not a change unexpectedly occurred in international affairs. The trade war between England and Holland came to a speedy end, and the two former rivals now joined with Sweden in forming the Triple Alliance to arrest the war and to put a stop to the French advance. The "balance of power" demanded, said the allies, that the other European states should combine in order to prevent any one state from becoming too powerful. This plea for the "balance of power" was the reply to the French king's plea for "natural boundaries."

[Sidenote: Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1668]

The threats of the Triple Alliance caused Louis XIV to negotiate the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which Spain surrendered to France an important section of territory in Flanders, including the fortified cities of Charleroi, Tournai, and Lille, but still retained the greater part of the Belgian Netherlands. The taste of the Grand Monarch was thereby whetted, but his appet.i.te hardly appeased.

[Sidenote: Franco-Dutch Rivalry]

Louis blamed the Dutch for his rebuff. He was thoroughly alive to the fact that Holland would never take kindly to having powerful France as a near neighbor, and that French acquisition of the Belgian Netherlands, therefore, would always be opposed by the Dutch. Nor were wounded vanity and political considerations the only motives for the Grand Monarch's second war, that against the Dutch. France, as well as England, was now becoming a commercial and colonial rival of Holland, and it seemed both to Louis XIV and to Colbert that the French middle cla.s.s would be greatly benefited by breaking the trade monopolies of the Dutch. Louis's second war was quite as much a trade war as a political conflict.

[Sidenote: Civil Strife in Holland]

First, Louis bent his energies to breaking up the Triple Alliance and isolating Holland. He took advantage of the political situation in England to arrange (1670) the secret treaty of Dover with Charles II, the king of that country: in return for a large pension, which should free him from reliance upon Parliament, the English king undertook to declare himself a Roman Catholic and to withdraw from the Triple Alliance. Liberal pensions likewise bought off the Swedish government.

It seemed now as if Holland, alone and friendless, would have to endure a war with her powerful enemy. Nor was Holland in shape for a successful resistance. Ever since she had gained formal recognition of her independence (1648), she had been torn by civil strife. On one side, the head of the Orange family, who bore the t.i.tle of stadholder, supported by the country districts, the n.o.bles, the Calvinistic clergy, and the peasantry, hoped to consolidate the state and to establish an hereditary monarchy. On the other side, the aristocratic burghers and religious liberals, the townsfolk generally, found an able leader in the celebrated Grand Pensionary, John DeWitt (1625-1672), who sought to preserve the republic and the rights of the several provinces. For over twenty years, the latter party was in power, but as the young prince of Orange, William III, grew to maturity, signs were not lacking of a reaction in favor of his party.

[Sidenote: The Dutch War]

Under these circ.u.mstances, Louis XIV declared war against Holland in 1672. French troops at once occupied Lorraine on the pretext that its duke was plotting with the Dutch, and thence, proceeding down the Rhine, past Cologne, invaded Holland and threatened the prosperous city of Amsterdam. The Dutch people, in a frenzy of despair, murdered John DeWitt, whom they unjustly blamed for their reverses; and, at the order of the young William III, who now a.s.sumed supreme command, they cut the d.y.k.es and flooded a large part of northern Holland. The same expedient which had enabled them to expel the Spaniards in the War of Independence now stayed the victorious advance of the French.

The refusal of Louis XIV to accept the advantageous terms of peace offered by the Dutch aroused general apprehension throughout Europe.

The Emperor Leopold and the Great Elector of Brandenburg made an offensive alliance with Holland, which subsequently was joined by Spain and several German states. The general struggle, thus precipitated, continued indeed with success for France. Turenne, by a brilliant victory, compelled the Great Elector to make peace. The emperor was defeated. The war was carried into the Spanish Netherlands and Franche Comte.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Nijmwegen, 1678]

But when at length the English Parliament compelled Charles II to adhere to the general anti-French alliance, Louis XIV thought it was time to make peace. As events proved, it was not Holland but Spain that had to pay the penalties of Louis's second war. By the treaty of Nijmwegen, the former lost nothing, while the latter ceded to France the long-coveted province of Franche Comte and several strong fortresses in the Belgian Netherlands. France, moreover, continued to occupy the duchy of Lorraine.

[Sidenote: Effects of the Dutch War on France]

Thus, if Louis XIV had failed to punish the insolence of the Dutch, he had at least succeeded in extending the French frontiers one stage nearer the Rhine. He had become the greatest and most-feared monarch in Europe. Yet for these gains France paid heavily. The border provinces had been wasted by war. The treasury was empty, and the necessity of negotiating loans and increasing taxes put Colbert in despair. Turenne, the best general, had been killed late in the contest, and Conde, on account of ill health, was obliged to withdraw from active service.

Yet at the darker side of the picture, the Grand Monarch refused to look. He was puffed up with pride by his successes in war and diplomacy. Like many another vain, ambitious ruler, he felt that what economic grievances or social discontent might exist within his country could readily be forgotten or obscured in a blaze of foreign glory--in the splendor of amba.s.sadors, the glint and din of arms, the grim shedding of human blood. Having picked the sanguinary path, and at first found pleasure therein, the Grand Monarch pursued it to an end bitter for his family and tragic for his people.

[Sidenote: The "Chambers of Reunion" and Further French Annexations]

No sooner was the Dutch War concluded than Louis XIV set out by a policy of trickery and diplomacy further to augment the French territories. The cessions, which the treaties of Westphalia and Nijmwegen guaranteed to France, had been made "with their dependencies." It now occurred to Louis that doubtless in the old feudal days of the middle ages or early modern times some, if not all, of his new acquisitions had possessed feudal suzerainty over other towns or territories not yet incorporated into France. Although in most cases such ancient feudal ties had practically lapsed by the close of the seventeenth century, nevertheless the French king decided to reinvoke them in order, if possible, to add to his holdings. He accordingly const.i.tuted special courts, called "Chambers of Reunion,"

composed of his own obedient judges, who were to decide what districts by right of ancient feudal usage should be annexed. So painstaking and minute were the investigations of these Chambers of Reunion that they adjudged to their own country, France, no less than twenty important towns of the Holy Roman Empire, including Luxemburg and Stra.s.sburg.

Nothing seemed to prevent the prompt execution of these judgments by the French king. He had kept his army on a war footing. The king of England was again in his pay and his alliance. The emperor was hard pressed by an invasion of the Ottoman Turks. Armed imperial resistance at Stra.s.sburg was quickly overcome (1681), and Vauban, the great engineer, proceeded to make that city the chief French fortress upon the Rhine. A weak effort of the Spanish monarch to protect Luxemburg from French aggression was doomed to dismal failure (1684).

[Sidenote: War of the League of Augsburg or of the Palatinate]

Alarmed by the steady advance of French power, the Emperor Leopold in 1686 succeeded in forming the League of Augsburg with Spain, Sweden, and several German princes, in order to preserve the territorial integrity of the Holy Roman Empire. Nor was it long before the League of Augsburg was called upon to resist further encroachments of the French king. In 1688 Louis dispatched a large army into the Rhenish Palatinate to enforce a preposterous claim which he had advanced to that valuable district. The war which resulted was Louis's third struggle, and has been variously styled the War of the League of Augsburg or the War of the Palatinate. In America, where it was to be paralleled by an opening conflict between French and English colonists, it has been known as King William's War.

[Sidenote: William III, Stadholder of Holland and King of England]

In his first two wars, Louis XIV could count upon the neutrality, if not the friendly aid, of the English. Their king was dependent upon him for financial support in maintaining an absolutist government. Their influential commercial and trading cla.s.ses, who still suffered more from Dutch than from French rivalry, displayed no anxiety to mix unduly in the dynastic conflicts on the Continent. Louis had an idea that he could count upon the continuation of the same English policy; he was certainly on good terms with the English king, James II (1685-1688).

But the deciding factor in England and in the war was destined to be not the subservient James II but the implacable William III. This William III, [Footnote: William III (1650-1702), Dutch stadholder in 1672 and British king in 1689.] as stadholder of Holland, had long been a stubborn opponent of Louis XIV on the Continent; he had repeatedly displayed his ability as a warrior and as a cool, crafty schemer.

Through his marriage with the princess Mary, elder daughter of James II, he now managed adroitly to ingratiate himself with the Protestant, parliamentary, and commercial parties in England that were opposing the Catholic, absolutist, and tyrannical policies of James.

We shall presently see that the English Revolution of 1688, which drove James II into exile, was a decisive step in the establishment of const.i.tutional government in England. It was likewise of supreme importance in its effects upon the foreign policy of Louis XIV, for it called to the English throne the son-in-law of James, William III, the stadholder of Holland and arch enemy of the French king.

[Sidenote: Beginning of a new Hundred Years' War between France and England]

England, under the guidance of her new sovereign, promptly joined the League of Augsburg, and declared war against France. Trade rivalries between Holland and England were in large part composed, and the colonial empires of the two states, now united under a joint ruler, naturally came into conflict with the colonial empire of France. Thus, in addition to the difficulties which the Bourbons encountered in promoting their dynastic interests on the continent of Europe, they were henceforth confronted by a vast colonial and commercial struggle with England. It was the beginning of a Hundred Years' War that was to be fought for the mastery of India and America.

Louis XIV never seemed to appreciate the importance of the colonial side of the contest. He was too much engrossed in his ambition of stretching French boundaries to the Rhine. So in discussing the War of the League of Augsburg as well as the subsequent War of the Spanish Succession, we shall devote our attention in this chapter primarily to the European and dynastic elements, reserving the account of the parallel colonial struggle to a later chapter on the "World Conflict of France and Great Britain."

The War of the League of Augsburg, Louis' third war, lasted from 1689 to 1697. Notwithstanding the loss of Turenne and Conde, the splendidly organized French armies were able to hold the allies at bay and to save their country from invasion. They even won several victories on the frontier. But on the sea, the struggle was less successful for Louis, and a French expedition to Ireland in favor of James II proved disastrous. After many years of strife, ruinous to all the combatants, the Grand Monarch sued for peace.

[Sidenote: The Treaty of Ryswick, 1697]

By the treaty of Ryswick, which concluded the War of the League of Augsburg, Louis XIV (1) surrendered nearly all the places adjudged to him by the Chambers of Reunion, except Stra.s.sburg; (2) allowed the Dutch to garrison the chief fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands as a "barrier" against French aggression; (3) granted the Dutch a favorable commercial treaty; (4) restored Lorraine to its duke; (5) abandoned his claim to the Palatinate; (6) acknowledged William III as king of England and promised to support no attempt against his throne. Thus, the French king lost no territory,--in fact, he obtained full recognition of his ownership of the whole province of Alsace,--but his reputation and vanity had been uncomfortably wounded.

THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION

One of the main reasons that prompted Louis XIV to sue for peace and to abandon his claims on Lorraine and the Palatinate was the rapid physical decline of the inglorious Spanish monarch, Charles II, of whose enormous possessions the French king hoped by diplomacy and intrigue to secure valuable portions.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Inheritance]

Spain was still a great power. Under its crown were gathered not only the ancient kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre in the Spanish peninsula, but the greater part of the Belgian Netherlands, and in Italy the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the duchy of Milan, and the control of Tuscany, as well as the huge colonial empire in America and the Philippines. At the time when kings were absolute rulers and reckoned their territories as personal possessions, much depended upon the royal succession.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Succession]

Now it happened that the Spanish Habsburgs were dying out in the male line. Charles II was himself without children or brothers. Of his sisters, the elder was the wife of Louis XIV and the younger was married to the Emperor Leopold, the heir of the Austrian Habsburgs.

Louis XIV had renounced by the peace of the Pyrenees (1659) all claims to the Spanish throne on condition that a large dowry be paid him, but the impoverished state of the Spanish exchequer had prevented the payment of the dowry. Louis, therefore, might lay claim to the whole inheritance of Charles II and entertain the hope of seeing the Bourbons supplant the Habsburgs in some of the fairest lands of Christendom. In opposition to the French contention, the emperor was properly moved by family pride to put forth the claim of his wife and that of himself as the nearest male relative of the Spanish king. If the contention of Leopold were sustained, a single Habsburg ruler might once more unite an empire as vast as that which the Emperor Charles V had once ruled.

On the other side, if the ambition of Louis XIV were realized, a new and formidable Bourbon empire would be erected. In either case the European "balance of power" would be destroyed.

[Sidenote: Commercial and Colonial Complications]

Bound up with the political problem in Europe were grave commercial and colonial questions. According to the mercantilist theories that flourished throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, every country which possessed colonies should reserve trade privileges with them exclusively to its own citizens. So long as France and Spain were separate and each was only moderately powerful, their commercial rivals, notably England and Holland, might hope to gain special trade- concessions from time to time in French or Spanish colonies. But once the colonial empires of France and Spain were united under a joint ruler, such a vast monopoly would be created as would effectually prevent the expansion of English or Dutch commerce while it heightened the economic prosperity of the Bourbon subjects.

[Sidenote: Attempts to Part.i.tion the Spanish Inheritance]

It was natural, therefore, that William III, as stadholder of Holland and king of England, should hold the balance of power between the Austrian Habsburgs and the French Bourbons. Both the claimants appreciated this fact and understood that neither would be allowed peacefully to appropriate the entire Spanish inheritance. In fact, several "part.i.tion treaties" were patched up between Louis and William III, with a view to maintaining the balance of power and preventing either France or Austria from unduly increasing its power. But flaws were repeatedly found in the treaties, and, as time went on, the problem grew more vexatious. After the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, Louis XIV was absorbed in the game of dividing the property of the dying Spanish king. One of the very greatest triumphs of Louis'

diplomatic art was the way in which he ingratiated himself in Spanish favor. It must be remembered that it was Spain which the Grand Monarch had attacked and despoiled in his earlier wars of aggrandizement, and neither the Spanish court nor the Spanish people could have many patriotic motives for loving him. Yet such was his tact and his finesse that within three years after the treaty of Ryswick he had secured the respect of the feeble Charles II and the grat.i.tude of the Spanish people.

[Sidenote: Will of Charles II of Spain in Favor of the French Bourbons]

A month before his pitiful death (1700), Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, summoned all his strength and dictated a will that awarded his whole inheritance to Philip of Anjou, the grandson of Louis XIV, with the resolute proviso that under no circ.u.mstances should the Spanish possessions be dismembered. When the news reached Versailles, the Grand Monarch hesitated. He knew that acceptance meant war at least with Austria, probably with England. Perhaps he thought of the wretched condition into which his other wars had plunged his people.

[Sidenote: Acceptance of the Will by Louis XIV]

Hesitation was but an interlude. Ambition triumphed over fear, and the glory of the royal family over the welfare of France. In the great hall of mirrors at Versailles, the Grand Monarch heralded his grandson as Philip V, the first Bourbon king of Spain. And when Philip, left for Madrid, his now aged grandfather kissed him, and the Spanish amba.s.sador exultantly declared that "the Pyrenees no longer exist."

Antic.i.p.ating the inevitable outbreak of hostilities, Louis proceeded to violate the treaty of Ryswick by seizing the "barrier" fortresses from the Dutch and by recognizing the son of James II as king of England. He then made hasty alliances with Bavaria and Savoy, and called out the combined armies of France and Spain.