How to avoid the Dutch War of 1672-1678

Personaly I believe that the moment the Dutch Republic soured up its relationship with France, by proving to be an unreliable partner, the war with France was unavoidable. Since Charles II was a bit of a Francophile and the English still had some unfinished business with the Dutch after the secon Ang;o-Dutch war, it is extremely likely they join France. And Cologne and Münster were almost French puppets (ok, bit of an exageration, they were at least very Pro-France and Anti-Dutch), so good chance they would join. I do believe you can keep Sweden out of the war though. In my opinion the conflict of France was caused by the rich merchants of the Netherlands who had the regents in their pockets (or sometimes were the regents).

basicly the only way to avoid it, is to keep France a Dutch ally. So one way would be a surviving Willem II.
 
There's the old cliché of insufficient investment by the regents in the military and fortresses drawing out a military attack, but I'm not sure how much of that matters to France. French expansionism would've had that happen regardless, it can't be countered by internal Dutch changes. To best way to prevent the war from breaking out in 1672 is to make the Triple Alliance of 1668 keep on functioning as it did to contain the French (although who knows how long it'd hold). That means keeping England on the side of the anti-French alliance. Sadly, I don't know enough about Restoration England to figure out a way to make that happen.
 
Thanks for the input.
I do like to see how the war can be avoided, or better to avoid Louis XiV feeling betrailed, without a Willem II surviving the small pox.
 
Thanks for the input.
I do like to see how the war can be avoided, or better to avoid Louis XiV feeling betrailed, without a Willem II surviving the small pox.
Well, the problem is is that the Dutch goverment basicly treated an ally badly. If the Dutch government (Johan de Witt) simply makes a deal with France to divide the Southern Netherlands or whatever, they can keep France a friendly nation. The problem is that the Dutch merchant absolutely did not care one bit about anything except their profit, so it would mean de Wit not listening to them, somehow.
 
When did the Dutch betray their erstwhile French ally?
The war of devolution, Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands after his wife's dad The king of Spain died without paying Louis the wedding dowry, a dowry coincidently made very high by the French since if the Spain paid it Louis wife forfeited her claim in Spain.

Fearing a border with france the Dutch along with the English and swedes formed a pact, forcing France to except a small peace or face intervention. Louis backed down and only got small towns and castles along his border with the Spanish Netherlands.

Since the dowry was not paid, it meant that Louis descendent had a claim on the Spanish crown, which they successfully gained after Louis XIV's wife's younger brother died.
 
The war of devolution, Louis XIV invaded the Spanish Netherlands after his wife's dad The king of Spain died without paying Louis the wedding dowry, a dowry coincidently made very high by the French since if the Spain paid it Louis wife forfeited her claim in Spain.

Fearing a border with france the Dutch along with the English and swedes formed a pact, forcing France to except a small peace or face intervention. Louis backed down and only got small towns and castles along his border with the Spanish Netherlands.

Since the dowry was not paid, it meant that Louis descendent had a claim on the Spanish crown, which they successfully gained after Louis XIV's wife's younger brother died.

Correct, and to add on the above. Louis XIV was formost in search of "Glory".
The diplomatic opposition against Louis XIV, which was organized by Johan de Witt deprived Louis XIV of his "Glory". Since Johan de Witt was the genius of this opposition the grunt of Louis become also personel.

The French military campaign in the Spanish Netherlands was well planned and prepared, the invasion went nearly as a clock work. As a bonus an other French army invaded Loraine, were the French amry nearly was welcomed as liberators, as acording to contemporare accaounts.
Louis XIV did offer a parttition to Johan de Witt how ever this was not even fraction of the earlier partittion plans form the 30ties.
The Dutch Republic showed extremly poor performance on land against the troops of the Prince Bishop of Munster, which invade the Dutch Republic, in concert whit the 2nd Angl-Dutch war.
 
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