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Home A Period of Foreign Wars, 1689-1714 Part 2 |
Part 2The causes of this constant warfare between England and France were not, however, solely European. The ambitions of France and of England clashed, as will be shown later, throughout the world. In India and in the West Indies, in North America and in North Africa, a great struggle had to be contested to decide between their competing ideals of expansion. And if contemporary statesmen, with rare exceptions, attached more importance to the European than to the Imperial aspect of the struggle, to us today it is the struggle for Empire that must always possess the greater interest.We must now deal with the wars in detail And first we will take the two wars that were fought between 1688 and 1713. The position of Louis XIV in 1688 was unique. His army, although it had been engaged in continual wars, had suffered no serious reverse in battle for over forty years, and his navy was equal to those of Holland and England combined. In Louvois the king possessed the best war minister, in Vauban the best engineer, and in Tourville the best admiral of the age; and though Conde and Turenne, his greatest generals, were dead by 1689, he still had Luxembourg and Villars. With such resources at his command, Louis, during his reign, had added to his dominions many of the frontier fortresses in the Netherlands already referred to, and, farther south, Alsace, Franche Comte, and the great fortress of Strasbourg, He was threatening further annexations at the expense of the Netherlands and of Germany. The English kings, Charles II and James II, had been his pensioners, and he had hopes of securing for his family the succession to the throne of Spain. The Revolution in England, however, ruined the plans of Louis XIV. To a king of England who was dependent upon Louis for money and upon his ambassador for advice succeeded William III, the ruler of Holland, one whose whole life had been devoted to resisting France. William had already in 1688 formed a League against France, and the support of England in 1689 was the coping stone to that alliance. "Without the concurrence of the realm and power of England", said William later, "it was impossible to put a stop to the ambitions and greatness of France." |
Chronology |
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