The Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe from the High Middle Ages to 1848 during its dissolution. It was also an early colonial power , with colonies in Asia and Africa, and the largest being New France in North America centred around the Great Lakes.
239-573: British victory over French in Canada. Spanish Empire in the Americas remains intact. [REDACTED] France [REDACTED] Spain loyal to Philip V [REDACTED] England (before 1707) [REDACTED] Great Britain (after 1707) Queen Anne's War (1702–1713) was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought in North America involving
478-648: A Parliament and a constitutional Charter , usually known as the " Charte octroyée " ("Granted Charter"). His reign was characterized by disagreements between the Doctrinaires , liberal thinkers who supported the Charter and the rising bourgeoisie , and the Ultra-royalists , aristocrats and clergymen who totally refused the Revolution's heritage. Peace was maintained by statesmen like Talleyrand and
717-438: A centralized state governed from the capital of Paris. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism still persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the noble elite to regularly inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles , built on the outskirts of Paris, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the earlier " Fronde " rebellion during Louis' minority. By these means he consolidated
956-560: A raid on Deerfield in the Province of Massachusetts Bay . They destroyed the settlement, killing many and capturing more than 100 captives. These were taken on an overland journey hundreds of miles north to the Caughnawaga mission village south of Montreal . Most of the children who survived the journey were adopted by Mohawk families. Several adults were later redeemed (ransomed) or released in negotiated prisoner exchanges, including
1195-512: A system of impregnable fortresses along the frontier to keep France's enemies out. To construct a proper system, however, the King needed to acquire more land from his neighbours to form a solid forward line. That rationalisation of the frontier would make it far more defensible and define it more clearly in a political sense, but it also created the paradox that while Louis's ultimate goals were defensive, he pursued them by offensive means. He grabbed
1434-816: A French settlement in Penobscot Bay near Castine, Maine , which had all been bases for attacks on New England settlers migrating toward Acadia during King William's War. The frontier areas between the Saint Lawrence River and the primarily coastal settlements of Massachusetts and New York were still dominated by Indigenous peoples, primarily Abenaki in the east and Iroquois west of the Hudson River. The Hudson River – Lake Champlain corridor had also been used for raiding expeditions in both directions in earlier conflicts. The threat of Indigenous peoples had receded somewhat because of reductions in
1673-667: A Jacobite restoration (Louis XIV threatened to overthrow the Glorious Revolution and the precarious political settlement by supporting the old king over the new one). William III had secured his goal of mobilising Britain's resources for the anti-French coalition, but the Jacobite threat in Scotland and Ireland meant only a small English expeditionary force could be committed to assist the Dutch States Army in
1912-539: A captured boy, Ashur Rice, was returned to Marlborough after he was ransomed in 1708 by his father Thomas Rice. New England colonists were unable to effectively combat these raids, so they retaliated by launching an expedition against Acadia led by the famous Indigenous fighter Benjamin Church . The expedition raided Grand Pré , Chignecto , and other settlements. French accounts claim that Church attempted an attack on Acadia's capital of Port Royal, but Church's account of
2151-690: A favorable commercial treaty. However, both sides viewed the peace as only a pause in hostilities, since it failed to resolve who would succeed the ailing and childless Charles II of Spain as ruler of the Spanish Empire, a question that had dominated European politics for over 30 years. This would lead to the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701. In the years following the Franco-Dutch War (1672–78), Louis XIV of France, now at
2390-615: A fleet in 1706 that destroyed French fishing outposts on the island's northern coasts. In December 1708, a combined force of French, Canadian, and Mi'kmaq volunteers captured St. John's and destroyed the fortifications. They lacked the resources to hold the prize, however, so they abandoned it, and St. John's was reoccupied and refortified by the English in 1709. (The same French expedition also tried to take Ferryland , but it successfully resisted.) English fleet commanders contemplated attacks on Plaisance in 1703 and 1711 but did not make them,
2629-500: A large community whose enemies included the English-allied Chickasaw . All of these populations had suffered to some degree from the introduction of infectious diseases such as smallpox , endemic among early explorers and traders. The Native Americans had no immunity and suffered high mortality. The arrival of French colonists in the south threatened existing trade links that Carolina colonists had established into
SECTION 10
#17327794933792868-792: A long-standing dispute over the rights to Gascony in the south of France, and the relationship between England and the Flemish cloth towns, led to the Hundred Years' War of 1337–1453. The following century was to see devastating warfare, the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War , peasant revolts (the English peasants' revolt of 1381 and the Jacquerie of 1358 in France) and the growth of nationalism in both countries. The losses of
3107-593: A maximum range of about 100 yards (91 m) but were inaccurate at ranges beyond half that distance. Some colonists also carried pikes, while Indigenous warriors either carried arms supplied by the colonists or were armed with weapons such as primitive tomahawks and bows. A small number of colonists had training in the operation of cannon and other types of artillery, which were the only effective weapons for attacking significant stone or wooden defenses. English colonists were generally organized into militia companies, and their colonies had no regular military presence beyond
3346-758: A more active role in the direction of military policy, relying on advice from experts such as the Marquis of Chamlay and Vauban. Louvois' death also brought changes to state policy with the less adventurous Duc de Beauvilliers and the Marquis de Pomponne entering Louis' government as ministers of state. From 1691 onwards the king and Pomponne pursued efforts to unglue the Grand Alliance, including secret talks with Emperor Leopold I and, from August, attempts of religious solidarity with Catholic Spain. The approaches made to Spain came to naught (the Nine Years' War
3585-640: A new front in Piedmont-Savoy proved more eventful. A ferment of religious animosities and Savoyard hatred of the French produced a theatre characterised by massacres and atrocities: constant guerrilla attacks by the armed populace were met by draconian reprisals. In 1690 Saint-Ruth took most of the Victor Amadeus II's exposed Duchy of Savoy, routing the Savoyard army in the process until only
3824-677: A peace with the New Englanders. Governor Dudley organized a major peace conference at Portsmouth, New Hampshire (of which he was also governor). In negotiations there and at Casco Bay , the Abenakis objected to British assertions that the French had ceded to Britain the territory of eastern Maine and New Brunswick , but they agreed to a confirmation of boundaries at the Kennebec River and the establishment of government-run trading posts in their territory. The Treaty of Portsmouth
4063-665: A plan to besiege Namur or Charleroi. For the Emperor and the German princes, though, the most serious fact of 1690 was that the Turks had been victorious on the Danube, requiring them to send reinforcements to the east. The Elector of Bavaria – now Imperial commander-in-chief following Lorraine's death in April – could offer nothing on the lower or upper Rhine, and the campaign failed to produce
4302-734: A powerful coalition aimed at forcing France to recognise Europe's rights and interests. The main fighting of the Nine Years' War took place around France's borders: in the Spanish Netherlands ; the Rhineland ; Catalonia ; and Piedmont-Savoy . The importance of the Spanish Netherlands was the result of its geographic position, sandwiched between France and the Dutch Republic. Initially Marshal Humières commanded French forces in this theatre but in 1689, while
4541-651: A prelude to offering generous peace terms before the Grand Alliance Louis XIV planned to go over to the offensive: Luxembourg would campaign in Flanders, Catinat in northern Italy, and in Germany, where Louis XIV had hoped for a war-winning advantage, Marshal de Lorge would attack Heidelberg . In the event, Heidelberg fell on 22 May before Luxembourg's army took to the field in the Netherlands, but
4780-662: A raiding expedition by Moore that became known as the Apalachee massacre of 1704. Many of the survivors of these raids were relocated to the Savannah River where they were confined to reservations. Raids continued in the following years consisting of large Indigenous forces, sometimes including a small number of white men; this included major expeditions directed at Pensacola in 1707 and Mobile in 1709. The Muscogee (Creek), Yamasee , and Chickasaw were armed and led by English colonists, and they dominated these conflicts at
5019-464: A renewed attempt on Quebec in 1711. The plan for 1711 again called for land and sea-based attacks, but its execution was a disaster. A fleet of 15 ships of the line and transports carrying 5,000 troops led by Admiral Hovenden Walker arrived at Boston in June, doubling the town's population and greatly straining the colony's ability to provide necessary provisions. The expedition sailed for Quebec at
SECTION 20
#17327794933795258-560: A resounding French victory. Turin now lay open to attack but further manpower and supply difficulties prevented Catinat from exploiting his gain, and all the French could get out of their victory was renewed breathing-space to restock what was left of Pinerolo. Elsewhere, Noailles secured the valuable seaport of Rosas in Catalonia on 9 June before withdrawing into Roussillon. When his opponent, Medina-Sidonia, abandoned plans to besiege Bellver , both sides entered winter quarters. Meanwhile,
5497-548: A series of delays and conflicting orders ensured a very uneven naval contest in the English Channel. The engagement was fought at the tip of the Cherbourg peninsula , and lasted six days. At the action off Cape Barfleur on 29 May, the French fleet of 44 rated vessels under Admiral Tourville put up stern resistance against Admirals Russell 's, Rooke 's and Almonde 's 82 rated English and Dutch vessels. Nevertheless,
5736-531: A settlement. Under the terms of the 1697 Peace of Ryswick , French control over the entirety of Alsace was officially recognized, but Lorraine and gains on the right bank of the Rhine were relinquished and restored to their rulers. Louis XIV also recognised William III as the rightful king of England, while the Dutch acquired barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their borders and were granted
5975-559: A similar force of observation under Luxembourg), Marshal Vauban invested the stronghold on 29 May. The town soon fell but the citadel – defended by van Coehoorn – held out until 30 June. Endeavouring to restore the situation in the Spanish Netherlands William III surprised Luxembourg's army near the village of Steenkirk on 3 August. The Allies enjoyed some initial success, but as French reinforcements came up William III's advance stalled. The Allies retired from
6214-484: A similar force of observation. After some of the most intense fighting of all of Louis XIV's wars the town inevitably capitulated on 8 April. Luxembourg proceeded to take Halle at the end of May, while Boufflers bombarded Liège ; but these acts proved to have no political nor strategic consequence. The final action of note in the Low Countries came on 19 September when Luxembourg's cavalry surprised and defeated
6453-675: A single major battle or siege. The smallest front of the war was in Catalonia. In 1689 the Duke of Noailles had led French forces there aimed at bringing further pressure to bear on the Spanish by re-igniting a peasant rising against Charles II, which initially broke out in 1687. Exploiting the situation, Noailles captured Camprodon on 22 May, but a larger Spanish army under the Duke of Villahermosa forced him to withdraw back to Roussillon in August. The Catalan campaign settled down in 1690, but
6692-409: A small number in some of the communities of Newfoundland. The French colonists were also organized into militias, but they also had a standing defense force called the troupes de la marine . This force consisted of some experienced officers and was manned by recruits sent over from France, numbering between 500 and 1,200. They were spread throughout the territories of New France, with concentrations in
6931-593: A son to James's second wife in June displaced William's wife Mary as James's heir apparent. With the French busy creating their cordon sanitaire in the Palatinate (too busy to consider serious intervention in the Spanish Netherlands or to move against the south-eastern Dutch provinces along the Rhine) the States General unanimously gave William their full support in the knowledge that the overthrow of James II
7170-578: A system of absolute monarchy in France that endured 150 years until the French Revolution . McCabe says critics used fiction to portray the degraded Turkish court, using "the harem, the Sultan court, oriental despotism, luxury, gems and spices, carpets, and silk cushions" as an unfavorable analogy to the corruption of the French royal court. The king sought to impose total religious uniformity on
7409-662: A treaty to supply William III with 7,000 troops in return for a subsidy. However, in March 1691 Sweden and Denmark put aside their mutual distrust and made a treaty of armed neutrality for the protection of their commerce and to prevent the war spreading north. To the annoyance of the Maritime Powers the Swedes now saw their rôle outside the great power-struggle of the Nine Years' War, exploiting opportunities to increase their own maritime trade. Nevertheless, Louis XIV at last faced
Queen Anne's War - Misplaced Pages Continue
7648-656: The 1711 Battle of Bloody Creek and raids along the Maine frontier. The remainder of Acadia (present-day eastern Maine and New Brunswick ) remained disputed territory between New England and New France. The French in New France's heartland of Canada opposed attacking the Province of New York . They were reluctant to arouse the Iroquois , whom they feared more than they did the British colonists and with whom they had made
7887-706: The Alpine districts of Piedmont in the Duchy of Savoy , a northern Italian state that was nominally part of the Empire. From their fort at Pinerolo, the French were able to exert considerable pressure on the Duke of Savoy and to force him to persecute his own Protestant community, the Vaudois (Valdesi). The constant threat of interference and intrusion into his domestic affairs was a source of concern for Victor Amadeus, and in 1687,
8126-534: The Alps for the winter. French successes in 1690 had checked the Allies on most of the mainland fronts, yet their victories had not broken the Grand Alliance. With the hope of unhinging the coalition French commanders in 1691 prepared for an early double-blow: the capture of Mons in the Spanish Netherlands, and Nice in northern Italy. Boufflers invested Mons on 15 March with some 46,000 men, while Luxembourg commanded
8365-690: The American Revolutionary War helped the United States secure independence from King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain , but was costly and achieved little for France. France through its French colonial empire , became a superpower from 1643 until 1815; from the reign of King Louis XIV until the defeat of Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars . The Spanish Empire lost its superpower status to France after
8604-571: The Danube at Buda in September 1686, and Mohács a year later had convinced the French that the Emperor, in alliance with Spain and William of Orange, would soon turn his attention towards France and retake what had recently been won by Louis's military intimidation. In response, Louis XIV sought to guarantee his territorial gains of the Reunions by forcing his German neighbours into converting
8843-459: The Duke of Brittany his vassal, and in effect ruled the western half of France as a greater power than the French throne. However, disputes among Henry's descendants over the division of his French territories, coupled with John of England 's lengthy quarrel with Philip II , allowed Philip to recover influence over most of this territory. After the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214,
9082-643: The Duke of Richelieu , as well as the King's moderation and prudent intervention. In 1823, the Trienio Liberal revolt in Spain led to a French intervention on the royalists' side, which permitted King Ferdinand VII of Spain to abolish the Constitution of 1812 . However, the work of Louis XVIII was frustrated when, after his death on 16 September 1824, his brother the Count of Artois became king under
9321-662: The Duke of Savoy , and to threaten the Spanish Duchy of Milan . All of the Reunion claims and annexations were important strategic points of entry and exit between France and its neighbours and were immediately fortified by Vauban and incorporated into his fortress system. Thus, the Reunions carved territory from the frontiers of present-day Germany, and the annexations established French power in Italy. However, by seeking to construct his impregnable border, Louis XIV so alarmed
9560-536: The Franco-Dutch War , 1672–1678) brought further territorial gains ( Artois and western Flanders and the free County of Burgundy , previously left to the Empire in 1482), but at the cost of the increasingly concerted opposition of rival royal powers, and a legacy of an increasingly enormous national debt . An adherent of the theory of the "Divine Right of Kings" , which advocates the divine origin of temporal power and any lack of earthly restraint of monarchical rule, Louis XIV continued his predecessors' work of creating
9799-473: The French and Indian War broke out. Kingdom of France The Kingdom of France was descended directly from the western Frankish realm of the Carolingian Empire , which was ceded to Charles the Bald with the Treaty of Verdun (843). A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, when Hugh Capet was elected king and founded the Capetian dynasty . The territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum ('king of
Queen Anne's War - Misplaced Pages Continue
10038-526: The Great Peace of Montreal in 1701. New York merchants were opposed to attacking New France because it would interrupt the lucrative Indigenous fur trade , much of which came through New France. The Iroquois maintained their neutrality throughout the conflict, despite Peter Schuyler 's efforts to interest them in the war. (Schuyler was Albany 's commissioner of Indians.) Francis Nicholson and Samuel Vetch organized an ambitious assault against New France in 1709, with some financial and logistical support from
10277-459: The Gulf of St. Lawrence . Some terms were ambiguous in the treaty, and the concerns of various Indigenous communities were not included, thereby setting the stage for future conflicts. When war broke out in Europe in 1701 following the death of King Charles II concerning who should succeed him to the Spanish throne, it was initially restricted to a few powers in Europe, but it widened in May 1702 when England declared war on Spain and France. Both
10516-450: The Habsburg monarchy in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. The kingdom became Europe's dominant cultural, political and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV . Throughout the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, France was Europe's richest, largest, most populous, powerful and influential country. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in
10755-415: The Hundred Days . When a Seventh European Coalition again deposed Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Bourbon monarchy was once again restored. The Count of Provence - brother of Louis XVI, who was guillotined in 1793 - was crowned as Louis XVIII , nicknamed "The Desired". Louis XVIII tried to conciliate the legacies of the Revolution and the Ancien Régime, by permitting the formation of
10994-471: The Industrial Revolution that was beginning in Britain, the rising middle class of the cities felt increasingly frustrated with a system and rulers that seemed silly, frivolous, aloof, and antiquated, even if true feudalism no longer existed in France. Upon Louis XV's death, his grandson Louis XVI became king. Initially popular, he too came to be widely detested by the 1780s. He was married to an Austrian archduchess, Marie Antoinette . French intervention in
11233-498: The Jansenists , a group that denied free will and had already been condemned by the popes. In this, he garnered the friendship of the papacy, which had previously been hostile to France because of its policy of putting all church property in the country under the jurisdiction of the state rather than that of Rome. In November 1700, King Charles II of Spain died, ending the Habsburg line in that country. Louis had long planned for this moment, but these plans were thrown into disarray by
11472-432: The July Revolution . The King abdicated, as did his son the Dauphin Louis Antoine , in favour of his grandson Henri, Count of Chambord , nominating his cousin the Duke of Orléans as regent. However, it was too late, and the liberal opposition won out over the monarchy. On 9 August 1830, the Chamber of Deputies elected Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans as "King of the French": for the first time since French Revolution,
11711-426: The Kingdom of Navarre over two time periods, 1284–1328 and 1572–1620, after which the institutions of Navarre were abolished and it was fully annexed by France (though the King of France continued to use the title "King of Navarre" through the end of the monarchy). France in the Middle Ages was a decentralised, feudal monarchy. In Brittany and Catalonia (the latter now a part of Spain), as well as Aquitaine ,
11950-439: The Norman Conquest of 1066, making himself and his heirs the king's equal outside France (where he was still nominally subject to the Crown). Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou , and married France's newly single ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine , who ruled much of southwest France, in 1152. After defeating a revolt led by Eleanor and three of their four sons, Henry had Eleanor imprisoned, made
12189-448: The Northeast Coast Campaign . They killed or captured more than 300 settlers. There were also a series of raids deep into New England by French and Indigenous forces aimed at securing captives. There was an active trade in captives, as families and communities struggled to raise ransoms to reclaim them. In February 1704, Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville led 250 Abenaki and Caughnawaga Indians (mostly Mohawk) and 50 French Canadians in
SECTION 50
#173277949337912428-412: The Porte that he would not support the Emperor. He had also urged John III Sobieski of Poland, unsuccessfully, against siding with Leopold I and pressed the malcontent princes of Transylvania and Hungary to join with the Sultan's forces and free their territory from Habsburg rule. When the Ottomans besieged Vienna in the spring of 1683 , Louis did nothing to help the defenders. Taking advantage of
12667-471: The Rhône and Meuse basins (including Verdun , Vienne and Besançon ) but leaving the Rhineland with Aachen , Metz , and Trier in East Francia . Viking incursions up the Loire , the Seine , and other inland waterways increased. During the reign of Charles the Simple (898–922), Vikings under Rollo from Scandinavia settled along the Seine, downstream from Paris, in a region that came to be known as Normandy . The Carolingians were to share
12906-406: The Salic law . During the Late Middle Ages , rivalry between the Capetian dynasty, rulers of the Kingdom of France and their vassals the House of Plantagenet , who also ruled the Kingdom of England as part of their so-called competing Angevin Empire , resulted in many armed struggles. The most notorious of them all are the series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) in which
13145-463: The Seven Years' War . Massachusetts and New Hampshire were on the front line of the war, yet the New England colonies suffered less economic damage than other areas. Some of the costs of the war were offset by the importance of Boston as a center of shipbuilding and trade, combined with a financial windfall caused by the crown's military spending on the 1711 Quebec expedition. Spanish Florida never really recovered its economy or population from
13384-427: The Third Republic , the French monarchy has not restored. Before the 13th century, only a small part of what is now France was under control of the Frankish king; in the north there were Viking incursions leading to the formation of the Duchy of Normandy ; in the west, the counts of Anjou established themselves as powerful rivals of the king, by the late 11th century ruling over the " Angevin Empire ", which included
13623-400: The War of the Polish Succession from 1733 to 1735. Large-scale warfare resumed with the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). But alliance with the traditional Habsburg enemy (the " Diplomatic Revolution " of 1756) against the rising power of Britain and Prussia led to costly failure in the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and the loss of France's North American colonies. On the whole,
13862-481: The War of the Three Henrys in which Henry III assassinated Henry de Guise , leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic League , and the king was murdered in return. After the assassination of both Henry of Guise (1588) and Henry III (1589), the conflict was ended by the accession of the Protestant king of Navarre as Henry IV (first king of the Bourbon dynasty ) and his subsequent abandonment of Protestantism (Expedient of 1592) effective in 1593, his acceptance by most of
14101-559: The Williamite war in Ireland , and King William's War in North America. Louis XIV of France emerged from the Franco-Dutch War in 1678 as the most powerful monarch in Europe. Using a combination of aggression, annexation, and quasi-legal means, he then set about extending his gains to strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the 1683 to 1684 War of the Reunions . The Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed these new borders for twenty years, but concerns among European Protestant states over French expansion and anti-Protestant policies led to
14340-590: The conquest of Algeria . The absolutist tendencies of the King were disliked by the Doctrinaire majority in the Chamber of Deputies , that on 18 March 1830 sent an address to the King, upholding the rights of the Chamber and in effect supporting a transition to a full parliamentary system. Charles X received this address as a veiled threat, and in 25 July of the same year, he issued the St. Cloud Ordinances , in an attempt to reduce Parliament's powers and re-establish absolute rule. The opposition reacted with riots in Parliament and barricades in Paris, that resulted in
14579-451: The kingdom of England . It was only with Philip II of France that the bulk of the territory of Western Francia came under the rule of the Frankish kings, and Philip was consequently the first king to call himself "king of France" (1190). The division of France between the Angevin (Plantagenet) kings of England and the Capetian kings of France would lead to the Hundred Years' War , and France would regain control over these territories only by
SECTION 60
#173277949337914818-420: The kings of England laid claim to the French throne. Emerging victorious from said conflicts, France subsequently sought to extend its influence into Italy , but after initial gains was defeated by Spain and the Holy Roman Empire in the ensuing Italian Wars (1494–1559). France in the early modern era was increasingly centralised; the French language began to displace other languages from official use, and
15057-440: The "Sun King", a more mature Louis, conscious that he had failed to achieve decisive results against the Dutch, had turned from conquest to security by using threats, rather than open war, to intimidate his neighbours into submission. Louis XIV, along with his chief military advisor, Louvois , his foreign minister, Colbert de Croissy , and his technical expert, Vauban , developed France's defensive strategy. Vauban had advocated
15296-420: The 11th century and increased intermittently throughout the Middle Ages, with multiple expulsions and returns. Nine Years%27 War The Nine Years' War was a European great power conflict from 1688 to 1697 between France and the Grand Alliance . Although largely concentrated in Europe, fighting spread to colonial possessions in the Americas, India, and West Africa . Related conflicts include
15535-409: The 1732 founding of the Province of Georgia , which was granted on territory that Spain had originally claimed, as was also the case with Carolina. James Moore took military action against the Tuscaroras of North Carolina in the Tuscarora War which began in 1711, and many of them fled north as refugees to join their linguistic cousins the Iroquois. The economic costs of the war were high in some of
15774-448: The 18th century saw growing discontent with the monarchy and the established order. Louis XV was a highly unpopular king for his sexual excesses, overall weakness, and for losing New France to the British. The writings of the philosophes such as Voltaire were a clear sign of discontent, but the king chose to ignore them. He died of smallpox in 1774, and the French people shed few tears at his death. While France had not yet experienced
16013-434: The Abenakis nor the Mi'kmaq were recognized in the Treaty of Utrecht, and the 1713 Portsmouth treaty was interpreted differently by them than by the New England signatories, so the Mi'kmaq and Abenakis resisted these incursions into their lands. This conflict was increased by French intriguers such as Sébastien Rale , and eventually they developed into Father Rale's War (1722–1727). British relations were also difficult with
16252-414: The Acadians and Mi'kmaq living there. Britain's hold on Nova Scotia was initially quite tenuous, a situation on which French and Mi'kmaq resistance leaders capitalized. British relations with the Mi'kmaq after the war developed in the context of British expansion in Nova Scotia and also along the Maine coast, where New Englanders began moving into Abenaki lands, often in violation of previous treaties. Neither
16491-413: The Allies his 'rights' to the Spanish succession should Charles II die during the conflict, did not desire a peace that would not prove personally advantageous. The Grand Alliance would not come apart as long as there was money available and a belief that the growing strength of their armies would soon be much greater than those of France. In the Spanish Netherlands Luxembourg still had 100,000 men; but he
16730-471: The American War of Independence was also very expensive. With the country deeply in debt, Louis XVI permitted the radical reforms of Turgot and Malesherbes , but noble disaffection led to Turgot's dismissal and Malesherbes' resignation in 1776. They were replaced by Jacques Necker . Necker had resigned in 1781 to be replaced by Calonne and Brienne , before being restored in 1788. A harsh winter that year led to widespread food shortages, and by then France
16969-399: The Americas. In the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over 10,000,000 square kilometres (3,900,000 sq mi), the second-largest empire in the world at the time behind the Spanish Empire . Colonial conflicts with Great Britain led to the loss of much of its North American holdings by 1763. French intervention in
17208-537: The Ancien Régime were the result of years of state-building, legislative acts (like the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts ), internal conflicts and civil wars, but they remained a confusing patchwork of local privilege and historic differences until the French Revolution brought about a radical suppression of administrative incoherence. For most of the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), ("The Sun King"), France
17447-463: The Anglo-Dutch fleet soon regained maritime supremacy, and the opportunity was lost. By the end of 1690, French and Jacobite troops were confined to the south and west of Ireland. Although repulsed with heavy losses at Limerick in September, William transferred command to Godert de Ginkel and returned to Flanders. Despite receiving reinforcements and a new general in the Marquis de St Ruth ,
17686-589: The Atlantic to Cape Breton Island . French were resettled there from Newfoundland, creating the colony of Île-Royale, and France constructed the Fortress of Louisbourg in the following years. This presence plus the rights to use the Newfoundland shore resulted in continued friction between French and British fishing interests, which was not fully resolved until late in the 18th century. The economic effects of
17925-420: The British and French wanted to keep their American colonies neutral, but they did not reach an agreement. The American colonists had their own tensions which had been growing along the borders separating the French and English colonies. They were concerned about boundaries and governing authority in the northern and southwestern frontiers of the English colonies , which stretched from the Province of Carolina in
18164-651: The Carolina back country. The English colonists had advance warning of the expedition and organized a defense at the head of the Flint River , where they routed the Spanish-led force , and captured or killed some 500 Spanish-led Indigenous peoples. Carolina's Governor Moore received notification concerning the hostilities, and he organized and led a force against Spanish Florida. 500 English colonial soldiers and militia and 300 Indigenous peoples captured and burned
18403-687: The Catholic establishment (1594) and by the Pope (1595), and his issue of the toleration decree known as the Edict of Nantes (1598), which guaranteed freedom of private worship and civil equality. France's pacification under Henry IV laid much of the ground for the beginnings of France's rise to European hegemony. France was expansive during all but the end of the seventeenth century: the French began trading in India and Madagascar , founded Quebec and penetrated
18642-458: The Duke's policy started to become increasingly anti-French as he searched for a chance to assert his aspirations and concerns. Criticism of Louis XIV's regime spread all over Europe. The Truce of Ratisbon, followed by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, caused suspicion as to Louis's true intentions. Many also feared the King's supposed designs on universal monarchy, the uniting of the Spanish and
18881-598: The Dutch Republic tying William's hands and the Elector of Brandenburg stubbornly holding to his alliance with Louis, no possible outcome could occur but complete French victory. The War of the Reunions was brief and devastating. With the fall of Courtrai in early November, followed by Dixmude in December and Luxembourg in June 1684, Charles II was compelled to accept Louis XIV's peace. The Truce of Ratisbon (Regensburg), signed on 15 August by France on one side and by
19120-509: The Dutch Republic, Switzerland, and Germany, and spread tales of brutality at the hands of the monarch of Versailles . The direct effect on France of the loss of the community is debatable, but the flight helped destroy the pro-French faction in the Dutch Republic because of its Protestant affiliations, and the exodus of Huguenot merchants and the harassment of Dutch merchants living in France also greatly affected Franco-Dutch trade. The persecution had another effect on Dutch public opinion since
19359-442: The Dutch side. The Convention Parliament did not see that the offer of joint monarchy carried with it the corollary of a declaration of war, but the subsequent actions of the deposed king finally swung Parliament behind William's war policy. British historian J. R. Jones states that King William was given supreme command within the alliance throughout the Nine Years' War. His experience and knowledge of European affairs made him
19598-498: The Elector led his army on Bonn, which, having endured a heavy bombardment , finally capitulated on 10 October. The invasion of the Rhineland had united the German princes in their opposition to Louis XIV who had lost more than he had gained that year along the Rhine. The campaign had also created a diversion of French forces and sufficient time for William of Orange to invade England. James II's ill-advised attempts to Catholicise
19837-666: The Elector of Bavaria secured Belgrade for the Empire. With the Ottomans appearing close to collapse, Louis XIV's ministers, Louvois and Colbert de Croissy, felt it essential to have a quick resolution along the German frontier before the Emperor turned from the Balkans to lead a comparatively united German Empire against France on the Rhine and reverse the Ratisbon settlement. On 24 September Louis published his manifesto, his Mémoire de raisons , listing his grievances: he demanded that
20076-560: The Elector of Brandenburg joined the anti-French coalition on 6 September. However, few of the minor powers were as devoted to the common cause, and all protected their own interests; some never hesitated to exact a high price for continuing their support. Charles XI of Sweden supplied the contingents due from his German possessions to the Allied cause (6,000 men and 12 warships), while in August Christian V of Denmark agreed to
20315-504: The Emperor and Spain on the other, rewarded the French with Strasbourg, Luxembourg and the gains of the Reunion (Courtrai and Dixmude were returned to Spain). The resolution was not a definitive peace but only a truce for 20 years. However, Louis had sound reasons to feel satisfied since the Emperor and German princes were fully occupied in Hungary, and in the Dutch Republic, William of Orange remained isolated and powerless, largely because of
20554-587: The English and Dutch during the Nine Years' War. Meanwhile, in southern Europe the Duke of Savoy with 29,000 men (substantially exceeding Catinat's number who had sent some troops to the Netherlands) invaded Dauphiné via the mountain trails shown to them by the Vaudois. The Allies invested Embrun , which capitulated on 15 August, before sacking the deserted town of Gap . However, with their commander falling ill with smallpox, and concluding that holding Embrun
20793-467: The English at St. John's and in Conception Bay (see Carbonear Island ). During King William's War , d'Iberville had destroyed most of the English communities in 1696–97, and the island again became a battleground in 1702. In August of that year, an English fleet under the command of Commodore John Leake descended on the outlying French communities but made no attempts on Plaisance. During
21032-481: The English colonists, but they simultaneously sent warnings to the French about the expedition, effectively playing both sides of the conflict. Newfoundland's coast was dotted with small French and English communities, with some fishing stations occupied seasonally by fishermen from Europe. Both sides had fortified their principal towns, the French at Plaisance on the western side of the Avalon Peninsula ,
21271-583: The English looked upon French pretensions in New France as encroaching upon their own possessions. The rivalry had spread to the other side of the world, where English and French East India Companies had already embarked upon hostilities. Many in Germany reacted negatively to the persecution of the Huguenots, which disabused the Protestant princes of the idea that Louis XIV was their ally against
21510-660: The English military organisation to reform the English army according to the Dutch model and train the troops in the 'Dutch Exercise', a musketry drill more commonly referred to as platoon fire . To make their dominance over the English army less painful for the British, the Dutch agreed that an Englishman would always be in command of a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet. After his flight from England in December 1688, James II had been given refuge by Louis XIV, who provided him financial and diplomatic assistance. Accompanied by 6,000 French troops, on 12 March 1689 he landed in Ireland, where he
21749-455: The English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Aquitaine . The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line. Under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman (Philip IV's daughter was Isabella , whose son was Edward III of England ), so the throne passed to Philip VI , son of Charles of Valois . This, in addition to
21988-752: The Franco-Irish army was defeated at Aughrim on 12 July 1691; the war in Ireland ended with the Treaty of Limerick in October, allowing the bulk of the Williamite forces to be shipped to the Low Countries. The success of William's invasion of England rapidly led to the coalition he had long desired. On 12 May 1689 the Dutch and the Holy Roman Emperor had signed an offensive compact in Vienna,
22227-643: The Franks') well into the High Middle Ages . The first king calling himself rex Francie ('King of France') was Philip II , in 1190, and officially from 1204. From then, France was continuously ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines under the Valois and Bourbon until the monarchy was abolished in 1792 during the French Revolution . The Kingdom of France was also ruled in personal union with
22466-569: The French campaign on the Piedmontese plain was far from successful. Although Carmagnola fell in June, the Marquis of Feuquières , on learning of the approach of Prince Eugene of Savoy 's relief force, precipitously abandoned the Siege of Cuneo with the loss of some 800 men and all his heavy guns. With Louis XIV concentrating his resources in Alsace and the Low Countries, Catinat was forced onto
22705-456: The French commander relieved the siege of Ebernburg on the left bank of the Rhine before returning to winter quarters. By 1693 the French army had reached an official size of over 400,000 men (on paper), but Louis XIV was facing an economic crisis. France and northern Italy witnessed severe harvest failures resulting in widespread famine which, by the end of 1694, had accounted for the deaths of an estimated two million people. Nevertheless, as
22944-515: The French concentrated on the Rhine, it produced little more than a stand-off – the most significant engagement occurred when William's second-in-command, the Prince of Waldeck , defeated Humières at the Battle of Walcourt on 25 August. However, by 1690 the Spanish Netherlands had become the main seat of the war where the French formed two armies: Boufflers' army on the Moselle , and a larger force to
23183-553: The French monarchy maintained a significant degree of autonomy, namely through its policy of " Gallicanism ", whereby the king selected bishops rather than the papacy. During the Protestant Reformation of the mid 16th century, France developed a large and influential Protestant population, primarily of Reformed confession; after French theologian and pastor John Calvin introduced the Reformation in France,
23422-522: The French monarchy was effectively abolished by the proclamation of the French First Republic . The role of the King in France was finally ended with the execution of Louis XVI by guillotine on Monday, January 21, 1793, followed by the " Reign of Terror ", mass executions and the provisional " Directory " form of republican government, and the eventual beginnings of twenty-five years of reform, upheaval, dictatorship, wars and renewal, with
23661-634: The French navy achieved victory in its final fleet action of the war. On 27 June Tourville's combined Brest and Toulon squadrons ambushed the Smyrna convoy (a fleet of between 200 and 400 Allied merchant vessels travelling under escort to the Mediterranean) as it rounded Cape St. Vincent . The Allies lost approximately 90 merchant ships with a value of some 30 million livres. French arms at Heidelberg, Rosas, Huy, Landen, Charleroi and Marsaglia had achieved considerable battlefield success, but with
23900-655: The French were forced to disengage: some escaped, but the 15 ships that had sought safety in Cherbourg and La Hogue were destroyed by English seamen and fireships on 2–3 June. With the Allies now dominant in the English Channel James II's invasion was abandoned. Yet the battle itself was not the death-blow for the French navy: the subsequent mismanagement and underfunding of the fleet under Pontchartrain , coupled with Louis' own personal lack of interest, were central to France's loss of naval superiority over
24139-568: The German crowns with that of France. In response, representatives from the Emperor, the southern German princes, Spain (motivated by the French attack in 1683 and the imposed truce of 1684) and Sweden (in its capacity as princes in the Empire) met in Augsburg to form a defensive league of the Rhine in July 1686. Pope Innocent XI , partly because of his anger at Louis's failure to go on crusade against
24378-515: The German states into accepting his conditions, while encouraging the Ottoman Turks to continue their own struggle with the Emperor in the east. Louis XIV and his ministers had hoped for a quick resolution similar to that secured from the War of the Reunions, but by 1688 the situation was drastically different. In the east, an Imperial army, now manned with veteran officers and men, had dispelled
24617-540: The Holy Roman Empire declared war on France on 11 February 1689, beginning a unified imperial war effort . The Germans prepared to take back what they had lost, and in 1689 formed three armies along the Rhine. The smallest of these, initially under the Elector of Bavaria, protected the upper Rhine between the lines north of Strasbourg to the Black Forest . On the middle Rhine stood the largest army under
24856-630: The Huguenot presence gave an immense boost to anti-French discourse and joined forces with elements in England that had already been highly suspicious of James. Moreover, conflicts between French and English commercial interests in North America had caused severe friction between both countries since the French had grown antagonistic towards the Hudson's Bay Company and the New England colonies, but
25095-680: The Iroquois and agreed that commerce with Indigenous peoples farther inland would be open to all nations. It retained all of the islands in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, including Cape Breton Island , and retained fishing rights in the area, including rights to dry fish on the northern shore of Newfoundland. By the later years of the war, many Abenakis had tired of the conflict despite French pressures to continue raids against New England targets. The peace of Utrecht, however, had ignored Indigenous interests, and some Abenaki expressed willingness to negotiate
25334-510: The King was designated as the ruler of the French people and not the country. The Bourbon white flag was substituted with the French tricolour , and a new Charter was introduced in August 1830. The conquest of Algeria continued, and new settlements were established in the Gulf of Guinea , Gabon , Madagascar , and Mayotte , while Tahiti was placed under protectorate . However, despite
25573-734: The Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic . The monarchy was restored by the other great powers in 1814 and, with the exception of the Hundred Days in 1815, lasted until the French Revolution of 1848 . During the later years of Charlemagne 's rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks . After Charlemagne's death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and
25812-476: The League of Augsburg") had just concluded. The reign (1715–1774) of Louis XV saw an initial return to peace and prosperity under the regency (1715–1723) of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans , whose policies were largely continued (1726–1743) by Cardinal Fleury , prime minister in all but name. The exhaustion of Europe after two major wars resulted in a long period of peace, only interrupted by minor conflicts like
26051-490: The Mississippi watershed and then leveraging those relationships to push the English colonists off the continent, or at least limit them to coastal areas. In pursuit of this grand strategy, he rediscovered the mouth of the Mississippi (which had first been found by La Salle in 1670) and established Fort Maurepas in 1699. From this base and Fort Louis de la Mobile (founded in 1702), he began to establish relationships with
26290-563: The New England colonists stayed in their forts and would not come out. In October 1710, 3,600 British and colonial forces led by Francis Nicholson finally captured Port Royal after a siege of one week. This ended official French control of the peninsular portion of Acadia (present-day mainland Nova Scotia ), although resistance continued until the end of the war. Resistance by the Wabanaki Confederation continued in
26529-667: The North American Great Lakes and Mississippi , established plantation economies in the West Indies and extended their trade contacts in the Levant and enlarged their merchant marine . Henry IV's son Louis XIII and his minister (1624–1642) Cardinal Richelieu , elaborated a policy against Spain and the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) which had broken out in Germany. After
26768-541: The November 1688 Glorious Revolution secured English resources and support for the Alliance. Over the next few years, fighting focused around the Spanish Netherlands , the Rhineland , the Duchy of Savoy , and Catalonia . Although engagements generally favoured Louis' armies, neither side was able to gain a significant advantage, and by 1696 the main belligerents were financially exhausted, making them keen to negotiate
27007-516: The Ottoman defeat at Vienna on 12 September had emboldened it. In the hope that Leopold I would now make peace in the east and come to his assistance, Charles II declared war on France on 26 October. However, the Emperor had decided to continue the Turkish war in the Balkans and to compromise in the west for the time being. With Leopold I unwilling to fight on two fronts, a strong neutralist party in
27246-493: The Ottoman front to defend south Germany. The French had not prepared for such an eventuality. Realising that the war in Germany was not going to end quickly and that the Rhineland blitz would not be a brief and decisive parade of French glory, Louis XIV and Louvois resolved upon a scorched earth policy in the Palatinate, Baden and Württemberg , intent on denying enemy troops local resources and prevent them from invading French territory. By 20 December, Louvois had selected all
27485-440: The Ottoman threat in the east, Louis invaded the Spanish Netherlands on 1 September 1683 and renewed the siege of Luxembourg, which had been abandoned the previous year. The French required of the Emperor and of Charles II of Spain a recognition of the legality of the recent Reunions, but the Spanish were unwilling to see any more of their holdings fall under Louis's jurisdiction. Spain's military options were highly limited, but
27724-504: The Rhine, the others being Breisach, which was already in French hands, and Philippsburg , which Louis XIV had lost by the Treaty of Nijmegen. On the same day that Strasbourg fell, French forces marched into Casale , in northern Italy. The fortress was not taken in the process of the Reunions but had been purchased from the Duke of Mantua , which, together with the French possession of Pinerolo , enabled France to tie down Victor Amadeus II,
27963-640: The Rhineland, the most important parts of the treaty were the secret articles pledging England and the States-General to assist him in securing the Spanish succession should Charles II die without an heir, and to use their influence to secure his son's election to succeed him as Emperor. William III regarded the war as an opportunity to reduce the power of France and protect the Dutch Republic, while providing conditions that would encourage trade and commerce. Although there remained territorial anomalies, Dutch war aims did not involve substantial alterations to
28202-409: The Spanish Netherlands 'buffer-zone' would be effectively bypassed. The day after Louis issued his manifesto – well before his enemies could have known its details – the main French army crossed the Rhine as a prelude to investing Philippsburg , the key post between Luxembourg (annexed in 1684) and Strasbourg (seized in 1681), and other Rhineland towns. This pre-emptive strike was intended to intimidate
28441-408: The Spanish territory of Roussillon after the crushing of the ephemeral Catalan Republic and ushered a short period of peace. The Ancien Régime , a French term rendered in English as "Old Rule", or simply "Former Regime", refers primarily to the aristocratic, social and political system of early modern France under the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties. The administrative and social structures of
28680-563: The Truce of Ratisbon be turned into a permanent resolution, and that Fürstenburg be appointed Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. He also proposed to occupy the territories that he believed belonged to his sister-in-law regarding the Palatinate succession. The Emperor and the German princes, the Pope, and William of Orange were quite unwilling to grant these demands. For the Dutch in particular, Louis's control of Cologne and Liège would be strategically unacceptable, for with these territories in French hands
28919-458: The Truce of Ratisbon into a permanent settlement. However, a French ultimatum issued in 1687 failed to gain the desired assurances from the Emperor whose victories in the east made the Germans less anxious to compromise in the west. Another testing point concerned the pro-French Archbishop-Elector, Maximilian Henry , and the question of his succession in the state of Cologne . The territory of
29158-434: The Turkish threat and crushed Imre Thököly 's revolt in Hungary; while in the west and north, William of Orange was fast becoming the leader of a coalition of Protestant states, anxious to join with the Emperor and Spain, and end the hegemony of France. Louis wanted a short defensive war, yet by crossing the Rhine that summer he began a long war of attrition; a war framed by interests of the state, its defensible frontiers, and
29397-527: The Turks, gave his secret support. The League of Augsburg had little military power – the Empire and its Allies in the form of the Holy League were still busy fighting the Ottoman Turks in Hungary. Many of the petty princes were reluctant to act due to the fear of French retaliation. Nevertheless, Louis XIV watched with apprehension Leopold I's advances against the Ottomans . Habsburg victories along
29636-640: The Youngest and Vice-Admiral Philips van Almonde . Louis XIV had considered William's invasion as a declaration of war between France and the Dutch Republic (officially declared on 26 November); but he did little to stop the invasion – his main concern was the Rhineland. Moreover, French diplomats had calculated that William's action would plunge England into a protracted civil war that would either absorb Dutch resources or draw England closer to France. However, after his forces landed unhindered at Torbay on 5 November ( O.S ), many welcomed William with open arms, and
29875-493: The aims of which were no less than to force France back to her borders as they were at the end of the Franco-Spanish War (1659), thus depriving Louis XIV of all his gains since his personal rule began. This meant for the Emperor and the German princes the reconquest of Lorraine, Strasbourg, parts of Alsace, and some Rhineland fortresses. Leopold I had tried to disentangle himself from the Turkish war to concentrate on
30114-506: The archbishopric lay along the left bank of the Rhine and included three fortresses of the river-line: Bonn , Rheinberg , and Kaiserswerth , excluding the free-city of Cologne itself. Moreover, the archbishop was also prince-bishop of Liège , the small state astride the strategic highway of the river Meuse . When the Elector died on 3 June, Louis XIV pressed for the pro-French Bishop of Strasbourg, Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg , to succeed him. The Emperor, however, favoured Joseph Clement ,
30353-458: The army, government and other institutions had proved increasingly unpopular with his mainly Protestant subjects. His open Catholicism and his dealings with Catholic France had also strained relations between England and the Dutch Republic, but because his daughter Mary was the Protestant heir to the English throne, her husband William of Orange had been reluctant to act against James II for fear it would ruin her succession prospects. Yet if England
30592-416: The ascendancy in the Dutch Republic and finally lay the groundwork for his long-sought alliance against France. Although James II had permitted the Huguenots to settle in England, he had enjoyed an amicable relationship with his fellow Catholic Louis XIV since James realised the importance of the friendship for his own Catholicising measures at home against the suspicions of the Protestant majority. However,
30831-487: The authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine , Provence and East Burgundy were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France. West Frankish kings were initially elected by the secular and ecclesiastical magnates, but the regular coronation of the eldest son of the reigning king during his father's lifetime established the principle of male primogeniture , which became codified in
31070-612: The balance of power in Europe. Marshal Duras , Vauban, and 30,000 men – all under the nominal command of the Dauphin – besieged the Elector of Trier's fortress of Philippsburg on 27 September 1688. After a vigorous defence it fell on 30 October. Louis XIV's army proceeded to take Mannheim , which capitulated on 11 November, shortly followed by Frankenthal . Other towns fell without resistance, including Oppenheim , Worms , Bingen , Kaiserslautern , Heidelberg , Speyer and, above all,
31309-421: The bay. The only incident of note was a French attack on the outpost of Fort Albany in 1709. The Hudson's Bay Company was unhappy that Ryswick had not returned its territories, and it successfully lobbied for their return in the negotiations that ended this war. The colonial military technology used in North America was not as developed as in Europe. Only a few colonial settlements had stone fortifications at
31548-474: The best Imperial general, and commander-in-chief, Charles V, Duke of Lorraine . Charles V cleared away the French threat on Frankfurt and opened trenches around Mainz on 22/23 July. After a bloody two months siege, the Marquis of Huxelles finally yielded the town on 8 September. Meanwhile, on the lower Rhine stood the Elector of Brandenburg who, aided by the celebrated Dutch engineer Menno van Coehoorn , besieged Kaiserswerth. Kaiserswerth fell on 26 June before
31787-407: The brother of Max Emanuel , Elector of Bavaria . With neither candidate able to secure the necessary two-thirds of the vote of the canons of the cathedral chapter , the matter was referred to Rome . There was no prospect of the Pope, already in deep conflict with Louis, favouring the French candidate, and on 26 August he awarded the election to Clement. On 6 September, Leopold I's forces under
32026-567: The century of war were enormous, particularly owing to the plague (the Black Death , usually considered an outbreak of bubonic plague ), which arrived from Italy in 1348, spreading rapidly up the Rhône valley and thence across most of the country: it is estimated that a population of some 18–20 million in modern-day France at the time of the 1328 hearth tax returns had been reduced 150 years later by 50 percent or more. The Renaissance era
32265-412: The citadel of Turin) to guarantee communications between Pinerolo and Casale. French demands on Victor Amadeus, and their determination to prevent the Duke from achieving his dynastic aims, were nothing less than an attack on Savoyard independence, convincing the Duke that he had to stand up to French aggression. The Elector of Bavaria consented to add his name to the Grand Alliance on 4 May 1690, while
32504-407: The cities, towns, villages and châteaux intended for destruction. On 2 March 1689, Count of Tessé torched Heidelberg; on 8 March Montclar levelled Mannheim. Oppenheim and Worms were finally destroyed on 31 May, followed by Speyer on 1 June, and Bingen on 4 June. In all, French troops burnt over 20 substantial towns as well as numerous villages and remaining medieval castles. The Imperial Diet of
32743-429: The coalition in the Spanish Netherlands for the first three years of the war. The Duke of Lorraine also joined the Alliance at the same time as England, while the King of Spain (who had been at war with France since April) and the Duke of Savoy signed in June 1690. The Allies had offered Victor Amadeus handsome terms to join the Grand Alliance, including the return of Casale to Mantua (he hoped it would revert to him upon
32982-511: The coast. To the north, the conflict held a strong economic component in addition to territorial disputes. Newfoundland was the site of a British colony at St. John's and a French colony at Plaisance , with both sides also holding a number of smaller permanent settlements. The island also had many seasonal settlements used by fishermen from Europe. These colonists numbered fewer than 2,000 English and 1,000 French permanent settlers (and many more seasonal visitors), who competed with one another for
33221-692: The colonial empires of Great Britain, France, and Spain; it took place during the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain . In the United States, it is regarded as a standalone conflict under this name. Elsewhere it is usually viewed as the American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession . It is also known as the Third Indian War . In France it was known as the Second Intercolonial War . The war broke out in 1701 and
33460-434: The coming struggle, but the French invasion of the Rhineland had encouraged the Turks to stiffen their terms for peace and make demands the Emperor could not conceivably accept. Leopold I's decision to side with the coalition (against the opposition of many of his advisers) was, therefore, a decision to intervene in the west while continuing to fight the Ottomans in the Balkans. Although the Emperor's immediate concerns were for
33699-407: The commerce provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht. They attempted to prevent English trade with remote Indigenous communities, and they erected Fort Niagara in Iroquois territory. French settlements continued to grow on the Gulf Coast, with the settlement of New Orleans in 1718 and other (unsuccessful) attempts to expand into Spanish-controlled Texas and Florida . French trading networks penetrated
33938-460: The conduct of the Catholic King of France made them look more anxiously at James II , now the Catholic King of England. Many in The Hague believed that James II was closer to his cousin Louis XIV than to his son-in-law and nephew William, which engendered suspicion and, in turn, hostility between Louis and William. Louis's seemingly endless territorial claims, coupled with his persecution of Protestants, enabled William of Orange and his party to gain
34177-431: The continent along the waterways feeding the Gulf of Mexico, renewing conflicts with both the British and the Spanish. Trading networks established in the Mississippi River watershed, including the Ohio River valley, also brought the French into more contact with British trading networks and colonial settlements that crossed the Appalachian Mountains. Conflicting claims over that territory eventually led to war in 1754, when
34416-463: The continuing problems with French finance and a complete breakdown in the supply chain prevented Catinat's push into Piedmont. However, in Catalonia the fighting proved more eventful. On 27 May Marshal Noailles, supported by French warships, soundly defeated the Marquis of Escalona 's Spanish forces at the Battle of Torroella on the banks of the river Ter ; the French proceeded to take Palamós on 10 June, Gerona on 29 June, and Hostalric , opening
34655-438: The country, repealing the Edict of Nantes in 1685. It is estimated that anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000 Protestants fled France during the wave of persecution that followed the repeal, (following " Huguenots " beginning a hundred and fifty years earlier until the end of the 18th century) costing the country a great many intellectuals, artisans, and other valuable people. Persecution extended to unorthodox Roman Catholics like
34894-413: The creation of the Grand Alliance, headed by William of Orange . In September 1688 Louis led an army across the Rhine to seize additional territories beyond it. This move was designed to extend his influence and pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims. However, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and German princes supported the Dutch in opposing French aims, while
35133-514: The crown unrivalled power in senior ecclesiastical appointments, France was deeply affected by the Protestant Reformation 's attempt to break the hegemony of Catholic Europe. A growing urban-based Protestant minority (later dubbed Huguenots ) faced ever harsher repression under the rule of Francis I's son King Henry II . After Henry II's death in a joust, the country was ruled by his widow Catherine de' Medici and her sons Francis II , Charles IX and Henry III . Renewed Catholic reaction headed by
35372-416: The death of both king and cardinal, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) secured universal acceptance of Germany's political and religious fragmentation, but the Regency of Anne of Austria and her minister Cardinal Mazarin experienced a civil uprising known as the Fronde (1648–1653) which expanded into a Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659) . The Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) formalised France's seizure (1642) of
35611-408: The death of the childless Duke of Mantua ) and of Pinerolo to himself. His adhesion to the Allied cause would facilitate the invasion of France through Dauphiné and Provence , where the naval base of Toulon lay. In contrast Louis XIV had embarked on a policy of overt military intimidation to retain Savoy in the French orbit, and had envisaged the military occupation of parts of Piedmont (including
35850-430: The defensive. The initiative in northern Italy now passed to the Allies who, as early as August, had 45,000 men (on paper) in the region, enabling them to regain Carmagnola in October. Louis XIV offered peace terms in December, but anticipating military superiority for the following campaign Amadeus was not prepared to negotiate seriously. After the sudden death of the influential Louvois in July 1691 Louis XIV had assumed
36089-421: The disputed County of Montbéliard , lying between Franche-Comté and Alsace, had been separated from the Duchy of Württemberg , and by August, Louis XIV had secured the whole of Alsace with the exception of Strasbourg . The Chamber of Reunion of Metz soon laid claims to land around the Three Bishoprics of Metz, Toul and Verdun and most of the Spanish Duchy of Luxembourg . The fortress of Luxembourg City itself
36328-432: The effects of the war, and it was ceded to Britain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris following the Seven Years' War. Indigenous peoples who had been resettled along the Atlantic coast chafed under British rule, as did those allied to the British in this war. This discontentment flared into the 1715 Yamasee War that posed a major threat to South Carolina's viability. The loss of population in the Spanish territories contributed to
36567-423: The empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia , the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Charles the Bald was also crowned King of Lotharingia after the death of Lothair II in 869, but in the Treaty of Meerssen (870) was forced to cede much of Lotharingia to his brothers, retaining
36806-442: The end of July, but a number of its ships foundered on the rocky shores near the mouth of the Saint Lawrence in the fog. More than 700 troops were lost, and Walker called off the expedition. In the meantime, Nicholson had departed for Montreal overland but had only reached Lake George when word reached him of Walker's disaster, and he also turned back. In this expedition, the Iroquois provided several hundred warriors to fight with
37045-402: The end of the Hundred Years' War: Prior to the French Revolution , the Catholic Church was the official state religion of the Kingdom of France. France was traditionally considered the Church's eldest daughter (French: Fille aînée de l'Église ), and the King of France always maintained close links to the Pope, receiving the title Most Christian Majesty from the Pope in 1464. However,
37284-411: The expedition describes a war council in which the expedition decided against making an attack. Father Sébastien Rale was widely suspected of inciting the Norridgewock community against the New Englanders, and Massachusetts Governor Joseph Dudley put a price on his head. In the winter of 1705, Massachusetts dispatched 275 militiamen under the command of Colonel Winthrop Hilton to seize Rale and sack
37523-532: The expedition was going to fail. After this failure, Nicholson and Schuyler traveled to London accompanied by King Hendrick and other sachems to arouse interest in the North American frontier war. The Indigenous delegation caused a sensation in London, and Queen Anne granted them an audience. Nicholson and Schuyler were successful in their endeavor: the queen gave support for Nicholson's successful capture of Port Royal in 1710. With that success under his belt, Nicholson again returned to England and gained support for
37762-484: The expense of the Choctaw , Timucua, and Apalachee. Throughout the war, New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy thwarted New England expansion into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine . In 1703, Michel Leneuf de la Vallière de Beaubassin commanded a few French Canadians and 500 Indigenous peoples of the Wabanaki Confederacy, and they led attacks against New England settlements from Wells to Falmouth ( Portland, Maine ) in
38001-399: The fate of their predecessors: after an intermittent power struggle between the two dynasties, the accession in 987 of Hugh Capet , Duke of France and Count of Paris, established the Capetian dynasty on the throne. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon , it was to rule France for more than 800 years. The old order left the new dynasty in immediate control of little beyond
38240-535: The field in good order, and both sides claimed victory: the French because they repulsed the assault; the Allies because they had saved Liège from the same fate as Namur. However, due to the nature of late 17th-century warfare the battle, like Fleurus before it, produced little of consequence. ( See below ). While French arms had proved successful at Namur the proposed descent on England was a failure. James II believed that there would be considerable support for his cause once he had established himself on English soil, but
38479-467: The fisheries of the Grand Banks , which were also harvested by fishermen from Acadia (then encompassing all of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick ) and Massachusetts. The borders and boundaries remained uncertain between Acadia and New England despite battles along the border throughout King William's War . New France defined the border of Acadia as the Kennebec River in southern Maine . There were Catholic missions at Norridgewock and Penobscot and
38718-418: The formulation of policy. Before British forces could effectively take part in the war, the English army had to be reorganised. James' commander-in-chief Louis de Duras, Earl of Feversham , had disbanded the English army in December 1688 so it had to be effectively rebuilt from scratch. Hendrik Trajectinus, Count of Solms and other Dutch officers and officials were appointed by William III in key positions in
38957-551: The frontier; but William did aim to secure his new position in Britain. By seeking refuge in France and subsequently invading Ireland, James II had given William III the ideal instrument to convince the English parliament that entry into a major European war was unavoidable. With the support of Parliament, William III and Mary II declared war on 17 May (O.S.); they then passed the Trade with France Act 1688 (1 Will. & Mar. c. 34), which prohibited all English trade and commerce with France, effective 24 August. This Anglo-Dutch alignment
39196-403: The great fortress of Montmélian remained in ducal hands; while to the south in Piedmont, Nicolas Catinat led 12,000 men and soundly defeated Victor Amadeus at the Battle of Staffarda on 18 August. Catinat immediately took Saluzzo , followed by Savigliano , Fossano , and Susa , but lacking sufficient troops, and with sickness rife within his army, Catinat was obliged to withdraw back across
39435-422: The height of his power, sought to impose religious unity in France and to solidify and expand his frontiers. He had already won personal glory by conquering new territory, but he was no longer willing to pursue an open-ended militarist policy of the kind that he had undertaken in 1672. Instead, he would rely upon France's clear military superiority to achieve specific strategic objectives along his borders. Proclaimed
39674-579: The indispensable director of Allied diplomatic and military strategy, and he derived additional authority from his enhanced status as king of England – even the Emperor Leopold ... recognized his leadership. William's English subjects played subordinate or even minor roles in diplomatic and military affairs, having a major share only in the direction of the war at sea. Parliament and the nation had to provide money, men and ships, and William had found it expedient to explain his intentions ... but this did not mean that Parliament or even ministers assisted in
39913-418: The initial reforms, Louis Philippe was little different from his predecessors. The old nobility was replaced by urban bourgeoisie, and the working class was excluded from voting. Louis Philippe appointed notable bourgeois as Prime Minister , like banker Casimir Périer , academic François Guizot , general Jean-de-Dieu Soult , and thus obtained the nickname of "Citizen King" ( Roi-Citoyen ). The July Monarchy
40152-402: The interior of the continent to the west of the Appalachians and south of the Great Lakes . This area was dominated by numerous historic Indigenous communities, although French and English traders had penetrated it. Spanish missionaries in La Florida had established a network of missions in an effort to convert the Indigenous to Roman Catholicism and focus their labor. The Spanish population
40391-400: The interior, creating tension among all three powers. France and Spain, allies in this conflict, had been on opposite sides of the recently ended Nine Years' War . Conflicting territorial claims between Carolina and Florida south of the Savannah River were overlaid by animosity over religious divisions between the Roman Catholic colonists of New Spain and the Protestant English colonists along
40630-407: The intolerant practices of the Catholic Habsburgs. The Elector of Brandenburg answered the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by promulgating the Edict of Potsdam , which invited the fleeing Huguenots to Brandenburg . However, there were motivations other than religious adherence that disabused him and other German princes of his allegiance to France. Louis XIV had pretensions in the Palatinate in
40869-428: The key fortress of Mainz . After Coblenz failed to surrender Boufflers put it under heavy bombardment, but it did not fall to the French. Louis XIV now mastered the Rhine south of Mainz to the Swiss border, but although the attacks kept the Turks fighting in the east, the impact on Leopold I and the German states had the opposite effect of what had been intended. The League of Augsburg was not strong enough to meet
41108-501: The late 17th century by Louis XIV . The resulting exodus of Huguenots from the Kingdom of France created a brain drain , as many of them had occupied important places in society. Jews have a documented presence in France since at least the early Middle Ages . The Kingdom of France was a center of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, producing influential Jewish scholars such as Rashi and even hosting theological debates between Jews and Christians. Widespread persecution began in
41347-455: The latter by Admiral Walker in the aftermath of the disaster at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. In 1712, Britain and France declared an armistice, and a final peace agreement was signed the following year. Under terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht , Britain gained Acadia (which they renamed Nova Scotia ), sovereignty over Newfoundland , the Hudson Bay region, and the Caribbean island of St. Kitts . France recognized British suzerainty over
41586-465: The leader of anti-French forces in the Holy Roman Empire and Catholic Europe. Both wanted to act, but effective opposition in 1681–1682 was out of the question since Amsterdam 's burghers wanted no further conflict with France, and both were fully aware of the current weaknesses of Spain and the empire, whose important German princes from Mainz , Trier , Cologne , Saxony , Bavaria and (significantly) Frederick William I of Brandenburg remained in
41825-501: The local Choctaw, Chickasaw, Natchez people , and other communities. English colonial traders and explorers from Carolina had established a substantial trading network across the southeastern part of the continent that extended all the way to the Mississippi. Its leaders had little respect for the Spanish in Florida, but they understood the threat posed by the French arrival on the coast. Both Carolina governor Joseph Blake and his successor James Moore articulated visions of expansion to
42064-402: The major population centers. Spanish Florida was defended by a few hundred regular troops; Spanish policy was to pacify the Indigenous peoples in their territory and not to provide them with weapons. Florida held an estimated 8,000 Indigenous peoples before the war, but this was reduced to 200 after English colonist raids made early in the war. Prominent French and English colonists understood at
42303-418: The mid 15th century. What is now eastern France (Lorraine, Arelat) was not part of Western Francia to begin with and was only incorporated into the kingdom during the early modern period . Territories inherited from Western Francia: Acquisitions during the 13th to 14th centuries: Acquisitions from the Plantagenet kings of England with the French victory in the Hundred Years' War 1453 Acquisitions after
42542-413: The middle Seine and adjacent territories, while powerful territorial lords such as the 10th- and 11th-century counts of Blois accumulated large domains of their own through marriage and through private arrangements with lesser nobles for protection and support. The area around the lower Seine became a source of particular concern when Duke William of Normandy took possession of the Kingdom of England by
42781-485: The minister, John Williams, who tried for years without success to ransom his daughter Eunice. She became fully assimilated, marrying a Mohawk man. Likewise in August 1704, there was a raid in Marlborough (in the part of town to later become Westborough ), from which captives were also taken to Caughnawaga. There was an active slave trade of the captive colonists during these years, and communities raised funds to ransom their citizens from Indigenous captivity. For instance
43020-485: The monarch expanded his absolute power in an administrative system, known as the Ancien Régime , complicated by historic and regional irregularities in taxation, legal, judicial, and ecclesiastic divisions, and local prerogatives. Religiously, France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots , which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion (1562–1598). The Wars of Religion crippled France, but triumph over Spain and
43259-405: The name of Charles X . Charles X was a strong reactionary who supported the ultra-royalists and the Catholic Church . Under his reign, the censorship of newspapers was reinforced, the Anti-Sacrilege Act passed, and compensations to Émigrés were increased. However, the reign also witnessed the French intervention in the Greek Revolution in favour of the Greek rebels, and the first phase of
43498-442: The name of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Charlotte , and threatened further annexations of the Rhineland. Thus, Frederick-William, spurning his French subsidies, ended his alliance with France and reached agreements with William of Orange, the Emperor and King Charles XI of Sweden , the last of which by temporarily putting aside their differences over Pomerania . The flight of the Huguenots in southern France caused outright war in
43737-535: The necessary territory in the Reunions , a strategy that combined legalism, arrogance and aggression. The Treaties of Nijmegen (1678) and the earlier Peace of Westphalia (1648) provided Louis XIV with the justification for the Reunions. These treaties had awarded France territorial gains, but owing to the vagaries of their language (as with most treaties of the time) they were notoriously imprecise and self-contradictory, and never specified exact boundary lines. That imprecision often led to differing interpretations of
43976-424: The new Imperial commander on the Rhine, Prince Louis of Baden , provided a strong defence and prevented further French gains. In the Low Countries, the French took Huy and on 23 July, Luxembourg found William's army near the villages of Neerwinden and Landen. The ensuing engagement on 29 July was a close and costly encounter but French forces, whose cavalry once again showed their superiority, prevailed. William
44215-564: The nominally conquered Acadians. They resisted repeated British demands to swear oaths to the British crown, and eventually this sparked an exodus by the Acadians to Île-Royale and Île-Saint-Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island ). By the 1740s, French leaders such as Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre orchestrated a guerrilla war with their Mi'kmaq allies against British attempts to expand Protestant settlements in peninsular Nova Scotia. Friction also persisted between France and Britain over Acadia's borders. The boundaries were unclear as laid out by
44454-406: The northern Italian theatre was very active. Villefranche fell to French forces on 20 March, followed by Nice on 1 April, forestalling any chance of an Allied invasion of France along the coast. Meanwhile, to the north, in the Duchy of Savoy, the Marquis of La Hoguette took Montmélian (the region's last remaining stronghold) on 22 December – a major loss for the Grand Alliance. However, by comparison
44693-441: The number of French Protestants ( Huguenots ) steadily swelled to 10 percent of the population, or roughly 1.8 million people. The ensuring French Wars of Religion , and particularly the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , decimated the Huguenot community; Protestants declined to seven to eight percent of the kingdom's population by the end of the 16th century. The Edict of Nantes brought decades of respite until its revocation in
44932-403: The other European states that a general war, which he had sought to avoid, became inevitable. His fortresses covered his frontiers but also projected French power. Only two statesmen might hope to oppose Louis XIV. One was William of Orange, the stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic, the natural leader of Protestant opposition, and the other was Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I ,
45171-452: The pay of France. Ever since Leopold I's intervention in the Franco-Dutch War, Louis XIV considered him his most dangerous enemy, although there was little reason to fear him. Leopold I was weak and was in grave danger along his Hungarian borders, where the Ottoman Turks were threatening to overrun all of Central Europe from the south. Louis had encouraged and assisted the Ottoman drive against Leopold I's Habsburg lands and he assured
45410-418: The population as a result of disease and the last war, but they still posed a potent threat to outlying settlements. The Hudson Bay territories (also known as Prince Rupert's Land ) were not significantly fought over in this war. They had been a scene of much dispute by competing French and English companies starting in the 1680s, but the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick left France in control of all but one outpost on
45649-429: The powerful dukes of Guise culminated in a massacre of Huguenots (1572), starting the first of the French Wars of Religion , during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant and Catholic forces. Opposed to absolute monarchy, the Huguenot Monarchomachs theorized during this time the right of rebellion and the legitimacy of tyrannicide . The Wars of Religion culminated in
45888-414: The pro-French mood in Amsterdam. At Ratisbon in 1684, France had been in a position to impose its will on Europe; however, after 1685, its dominant military and diplomatic position began to deteriorate. One of the main factors for the diminution was Louis XIV's revocation of the Edict of Nantes , which caused the dispersal of France's Protestant community. As many as 200,000 Huguenots fled to England,
46127-489: The queen. The plan involved an overland assault on Montreal via Lake Champlain and a sea-based assault by naval forces against Quebec . The land expedition reached the southern end of Lake Champlain, but it was called off when the promised naval support never materialized for the attack on Quebec. (Those forces were diverted to support Portugal .) The Iroquois had made vague promises of support for this effort, but successfully delayed sending support until it seemed clear that
46366-415: The rear of the Allied forces in a minor action near Leuze . Now that the defence of the Spanish Netherlands depended almost wholly on the Allies William III insisted on replacing its Spanish governor, the Marquis of Gastañaga , with the Elector of Bavaria, thus overcoming delays in getting decisions from Madrid. In 1691 there was little significant fighting in the Catalan and Rhineland fronts. In contrast,
46605-433: The rising had been largely suppressed, although pockets of resistance continued in the Highlands until early 1692. At the same time, William III assumed command of government troops in Ireland and gained an important success at The Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, before victory at Beachy Head gave the French temporary control of the English Channel . James returned to France to urge an immediate invasion of England, but
46844-444: The route to Barcelona. With the Spanish King threatening to make a separate peace with France unless the Allies came to his assistance, William III prepared the Anglo-Dutch fleet for action. Part of the fleet under Admiral Berkeley would remain in the north, first leading the disastrous amphibious assault on Brest on 18 June, before bombarding French coastal defences at Dieppe , Saint-Malo , Le Havre , and Calais . The remainder of
47083-414: The severe hardships of 1693 continuing through to the summer of 1694 France was unable to expend the same level of energy and finance for the forthcoming campaign. The crisis reshaped French strategy, forcing commanders to redraft plans to fit the dictates of fiscal shortfalls. In the background, Louis XIV's agents were working hard diplomatically to unhinge the coalition but the Emperor, who had secured with
47322-407: The signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (but maintained the status of Great Power until the Napoleonic Wars and the Independence of Spanish America ). France lost its superpower status after Napoleon 's defeat against the British , Prussians and Russians in 1815 . Following the French Revolution , which began in 1789, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but
47561-399: The south and west at the expense of French and Spanish interests. Iberville had approached the Spanish in January 1702 before the war broke out in Europe, recommending that the Apalachee warriors be armed and sent against the English colonists and their allies. The Spanish organized an expedition under Francisco Romo de Uriza; it left Pensacola, Florida in August for the trading centers of
47800-433: The south to the Province of Massachusetts Bay in the north, with additional colonial settlements or trading outposts on Newfoundland and at Hudson Bay . The total population of the English colonies was about 250,000, with Virginia and New England dominating. The colonists were concentrated along the coast, with small settlements inland, sometimes reaching as far as the Appalachian Mountains . Colonists knew little of
48039-442: The southern English colonies, including those that saw little military activity. Virginia , Maryland , and Pennsylvania to a lesser extent, were hit hard by the cost of shipping their export products (primarily tobacco ) to European markets, and they also suffered because of several particularly bad harvests. South Carolina accumulated a significant debt burden to finance military operations. The French did not fully comply with
48278-552: The start of the war, such as St. Augustine, Florida , Boston , Quebec City , and St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador , although Port Royal's fortifications were completed early in the war. Some villages and settlements were protected by wooden palisades , but many had little more than fortified wooden houses with gun ports through which defenders could fire, and overhanging second floors from which they might fire down on attackers trying to break in below. Europeans and colonists were typically armed with smooth-bore muskets that had
48517-415: The subsequent Glorious Revolution brought a rapid end to James II's reign. On 13 February 1689 (O.S.) William of Orange became King William III of England – reigning jointly with his wife Mary – and bound together the fortunes of England and the Dutch Republic. Yet few people in England suspected that William had sought the crown for himself or that his aim was to bring England into the war against France on
48756-530: The text and resulted in long disputes over frontier zones, where one side might gain a town or area and its "dependencies", but it was often unclear what the dependencies were. The machinery needed to determine the territorial ambiguities was already in place through the medium of the parlements at Metz (technically, the only Chamber of Reunion ), Besançon and a superior court at Breisach , dealing respectively with Lorraine , Franche-Comté and Alsace . The courts usually found in Louis XIV's favour. By 1680,
48995-410: The threat, but on 22 October 1688 the powerful German princes, including the Elector of Brandenburg , John George III, Elector of Saxony , Ernest Augustus of Hanover , and Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel , reached an agreement in Magdeburg that mobilised the forces of north Germany. Meanwhile, the Emperor recalled the Bavarian, Swabian , and Franconian troops under the Elector of Bavaria from
49234-430: The throne would end up recreating the grand multi-national Empire of Charles V ; of the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and the Spanish territories in Italy, which would also grossly upset the power balance. However, the rest of Europe would not stand for his ambitions in Spain, and so the long War of the Spanish Succession began (1701–1714), a mere three years after the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697, a.k.a. "War of
49473-402: The town of St. Augustine, Florida in the Siege of St. Augustine (1702) . The English were unable to take the main fortress and withdrew when a Spanish fleet arrived from Havana . In 1706, Carolina successfully repulsed an attack on Charles Town by a combined Spanish and French amphibious force sent from Havana. The Apalachee and Timucua of Spanish Florida were virtually wiped out in
49712-480: The town on 10 October which, together with the earlier prizes of Mons, Namur and Huy, provided the French with a new and impressive forward line of defence. In northern Italy, meanwhile, Catinat marched on Rivoli (with reinforcements from the Rhine and Catalan fronts), forcing the Duke of Savoy to abandon the siege and bombardment of Pinerolo (25 September – 1 October) before withdrawing to protect his rear. The resultant Battle of Marsaglia on 4 October 1693 ended in
49951-430: The treaty, which even the French had never formally described. France insisted that only the Acadian peninsula was included in the treaty (modern Nova Scotia except Cape Breton Island) and that they retained the rights to modern New Brunswick . The disputes over Acadia flared into open conflict during King George's War in the 1740s and were not resolved until the British conquest of all French North American territories in
50190-405: The turn of the 18th century that control of the Mississippi River would have a significant role in future development and trade, and each developed visionary plans to thwart the other's activities. French Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville had developed a "Project sur la Caroline" in the aftermath of the previous war which called for establishing relationships with Indigenous peoples in
50429-401: The various Napoleonic Wars . Following the French Revolution (1789–99) and the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1814), the monarchy was restored when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the House of Bourbon in 1814. However the deposed Emperor Napoleon I returned triumphantly to Paris from his exile in Elba and ruled France for a short period known as
50668-458: The village. The priest was warned in time, however, and escaped into the woods with his papers, but the militia burned the village and church. French and Wabanaki Confederacy continued making raids in northern Massachusetts in 1705, against which the New England colonists were unable to mount an effective defense. The raids happened too quickly for defensive forces to organize, and reprisal raids usually found tribal camps and settlements empty. There
50907-442: The war were severe in Newfoundland, with the fishing fleets significantly reduced. The British fishing fleet began to recover immediately after the peace was finalized, and they attempted to prevent Spanish ships from fishing in Newfoundland waters, as they previously had. However, many Spanish ships were simply reflagged with English straw owners to evade British controls. The British capture of Acadia had long-term consequences for
51146-418: The way for France to undertake the long Italian Wars (1494–1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. French efforts to gain dominance resulted only in the increased power of the House of Habsburg . Barely were the Italian Wars over, when France was plunged into a domestic crisis with far-reaching consequences. Despite the conclusion of a Concordat between France and the Papacy (1516), granting
51385-412: The west under Humières' successor – and Louis XIV's greatest general of the period – Marshal Luxembourg . On 1 July Luxembourg secured a clear tactical victory over Waldeck at the Battle of Fleurus ; but his success produced little benefit – Louis XIV's concerns for the dauphin on the Rhine (where Marshal de Lorge now held actual command) overrode strategic necessity in the other theatres and forestalled
51624-464: The will of King Charles, which left the entire Spanish Empire to Louis's grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou , (1683–1746). Essentially, Spain was to become a perpetual ally and even obedient satellite of France, ruled by a king who would carry out orders from Versailles. Realizing how this would upset the balance of power, the other European rulers were outraged. However, most of the alternatives were equally undesirable. For example, putting another Habsburg on
51863-479: The winter of 1691/92 the French devised a grand plan to gain the ascendancy over their enemies – a design for the invasion of England in one more effort to support James II in his attempts to regain his kingdoms; and a simultaneous assault on Namur in the Spanish Netherlands. The French hoped that Namur's seizure might inspire the Dutch to make peace, but if not, its capture would nevertheless be an important pawn at any future negotiations. With 60,000 men (protected by
52102-418: The winter of 1705, Plaisance's French governor Daniel d'Auger de Subercase retaliated, leading a combined French and Mi'kmaq expedition that destroyed several English settlements and unsuccessfully besieged Fort William at St. John's . The French and their Indigenous allies continued to harass the English throughout the summer and did damages to the English establishments claimed at £188,000. The English sent
52341-424: Was a lull in the raiding while leaders from New France and New England negotiated the exchange of prisoners, with only limited success. Raids by Indigenous peoples persisted until the end of the war, sometimes with French participation. In May 1707, Governor Dudley organized an expedition to take Port Royal led by John March . However, 1,600 men failed to take the fort by siege , and a follow-up expedition in August
52580-478: Was a powder keg ready to explode. On the eve of the French Revolution of July 1789, France was in a profound institutional and financial crisis, but the ideas of the Enlightenment had begun to permeate the educated classes of society. On September 3, 1791, the absolute monarchy which had governed France for 948 years was forced to limit its power and become a provisional constitutional monarchy. However, this too would not last very long and on September 21, 1792,
52819-520: Was also repulsed. In response, the French developed an ambitious plan to raid most of the New Hampshire settlements on the Piscataqua River . However, much of the Indigenous support needed never materialized, and the Massachusetts town of Haverhill was raided instead. In 1709, New France governor Philippe de Rigaud Vaudreuil reported that two-thirds of the fields north of Boston were untended because of French and Indigenous raids. French–Indigenous war parties were returning without prisoners because
53058-412: Was backed by the majority Catholic population. His supporters were known as " Jacobites ", and the war in Ireland was accompanied by a rising in Scotland ; for James, the main objective was to retake England and thus he viewed both Scotland and Ireland as strategic dead ends. On the other hand, Louis saw them as an opportunity to divert British resources from the Low Countries, a difference in aims that
53297-414: Was beset by corruption scandals and financial crisis. The opposition of the King was composed of Legitimists , supporting the Count of Chambord , Bourbon claimant to the throne, and of Bonapartists and Republicans , who fought against royalty and supported the principles of democracy. The King tried to suppress the opposition with censorship, but when the Campagne des banquets ("Banquets' Campaign")
53536-427: Was however able to quickly replace his losses, while Luxembourg's infantry was so battered that he had to refrain from besieging Liège, the city that had been the main objective for the French that year. To still make something of the campaign Louis ordered Luxembourg and Vauban to take Charleroi, the last Spanish stronghold on the sambre, sandwiched between the French fortifications of Mons and Namur. The French captured
53775-507: Was in the security interests of their own state. The invasion fleet consisted of 463 ships and 40,000 men on board, roughly twice the size of the Spanish Armada , with 49 warships, 76 transports carrying soldiers and 120 for the five thousand horses required by the cavalry and supply train. For propaganda purposes, English admiral Arthur Herbert was nominally put in command, but in reality operational control remained with Lieutenant-Admiral Cornelis Evertsen
54014-428: Was left to itself the situation could become desperate for the Dutch Republic: Louis XIV might intervene and so make James II his vassal; or James, wishing to distract his subjects, might even join with Louis in a repetition of the attack made on the Dutch Republic in 1672 . By the end of 1687, therefore, William had envisaged intervention, and by early 1688 he had secretly begun to make active preparations. The birth of
54253-775: Was never adequately resolved. James' Catholic deputy, the Earl of Tyrconnell , had raised an Army of around 36,000, although many were poorly equipped and it was almost impossible to feed, pay and supply so many. Although they quickly occupied much of Ireland, including largely Protestant Ulster , they were unable to capture the key northern port of Derry and were forced to retreat at the end of July. In August, Williamite general Schomberg landed in Belfast Lough with 15,000 reinforcements, but logistics failures meant his army stalled at Dundalk and suffered heavily from sickness and desertion. The Scottish Jacobites suffered heavy losses in securing victory at Killiecrankie in July 1689, including their leader Viscount Dundee . By May 1690
54492-454: Was not a religious war ), but the Maritime Powers were also keen for peace. Talks were hampered, however, by Louis' reluctance to cede his earlier gains (at least those made in the Reunions) and, in his deference to the principle of the divine right of kings, his unwillingness to recognise William III's claim to the English throne. For his part William was intensely suspicious of the Sun King and his supposed designs for universal monarchy. Over
54731-425: Was noted for the emergence of powerful centralized institutions, as well as a flourishing culture (much of it imported from Italy ). The kings built a strong fiscal system, which heightened the power of the king to raise armies that overawed the local nobility. In Paris especially there emerged strong traditions in literature, art and music. The prevailing style was classical . The Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts
54970-437: Was outnumbered. Lacking sufficient supplies to mount an attack, Luxembourg was unable to prevent the Allies from capturing Dixmude, and on 27 September 1694 the Allies under the Duke of Holstein-Plön recaptured Huy , an essential preliminary to future operations against Namur. Elsewhere, de Lorge marched and manoeuvred against Baden on the Rhine with undramatic results before the campaign petered out in October; while in Italy,
55209-498: Was primarily a conflict between French, Spanish and English colonists for control of the North American continent while the War of the Spanish Succession was being fought in Europe. Each side was allied with various Indigenous communities. It was fought on four fronts: The Treaty of Utrecht ended the war in 1713, following a preliminary peace in 1712. France ceded the territories of Hudson Bay , Acadia, and Newfoundland to Britain while retaining Cape Breton Island and other islands in
55448-400: Was ratified on July 13, 1713, by eight representatives of some of the communities of the Wabanaki Confederacy; however, it included language asserting British sovereignty over their territory. Over the next year, other Abenaki tribal leaders also signed the treaty, but no Mi'kmaq ever signed it or any other treaty until 1726. The loss of Newfoundland and Acadia restricted the French presence on
55687-407: Was relatively small (about 1,500), and the Indigenous population to whom they ministered has been estimated at 20,000. French explorers had located the mouth of the Mississippi River , and they established a small colonial presence at Fort Maurepas near Biloxi, Mississippi , in 1699. From there, they began to build trade routes into the interior, establishing friendly relations with the Choctaw ,
55926-412: Was repressed in February 1848, riots and seditions erupted in Paris and later all France, resulting in the February Revolution . The National Guard refused to repress the rebellion, resulting in Louis Philippe abdicating and fleeing to England. On 24 February 1848, the monarchy was abolished and the Second Republic was proclaimed. Despite later attempts to re-establish the Kingdom in the 1870s, during
56165-591: Was signed into law by Francis I in 1539. Largely the work of Chancellor Guillaume Poyet , it dealt with a number of government, judicial and ecclesiastical matters. Articles 110 and 111, the most famous, called for the use of the French language in all legal acts, notarised contracts and official legislation. After the Hundred Years' War, Charles VIII of France signed three additional treaties with Henry VII of England , Emperor Maximilian I , and Ferdinand II of Aragon respectively at Étaples (1492), Senlis (1493) and Barcelona (1493). These three treaties cleared
56404-409: Was the basis for the Grand Alliance , ratified on 20 December by William III representing England, Anthonie Heinsius and Treasurer Jacob Hop representing the Dutch Republic, and Königsegg and Stratman representing Emperor Leopold I. Like the Dutch the English were not preoccupied with territorial gains on the Continent, but were deeply concerned with limiting the power of France to defend against
56643-423: Was the dominant power in Europe, aided by the diplomacy of Cardinal Richelieu's successor as the King's chief minister, (1642–61) Cardinal Jules Mazarin , (1602–1661). Cardinal Mazarin oversaw the creation of a French Royal Navy that rivalled England's , expanding it from 25 ships to almost 200. The size of the French Royal Army was also considerably increased. Renewed wars (the War of Devolution , 1667–1668 and
56882-422: Was then blockaded with the intention of it becoming part of his defensible frontier. On 30 September 1681, French troops also seized Strasbourg and its outpost, Kehl , on the right bank of the Rhine, a bridge that Holy Roman Empire ("imperial") troops had regularly exploited during the latter stages of the Dutch War. By forcibly taking the imperial city, the French now controlled two of the three bridgeheads over
57121-413: Was untenable, the Allies abandoned Dauphiné in mid-September, leaving behind seventy villages and châteaux burned and pillaged. The attack on Dauphiné had required Noailles give up troops to bolster Catinat, condemning him to a passive campaign in Catalonia; but on the Rhine the French gained the upper hand. De Lorge devoted much of his effort imposing contributions in Swabia and up to Franconia. In October
#378621