Chapter 124: Louis XIV Tries Again
The Dutch invasion and conquest of New Sweden, a side effect of the larger War of the Silesian Succession, would be just one more reason behind the Franco-Dutch War in the 1680s, the Swedes committed to regain their North American possession through force if necessary. Louis XIV himself had been busy attempting to shift political conditions towards him to enable a successful conquest of the Spanish Low Countries and an effective defense against both the Spanish Crown and the Dutch Republic, the latter which now saw a buffer between itself and France as essential to national security. To do so, the French king had targeted Charles II of England and Scotland and Brabantine stadtholder Philip Francis as potential defectors. The former could use French money as a counterbalance against parliamentary power and authority at home while the latter was a Catholic in a majority Calvinist state, reliant on the good graces of the Prince of Orange William III. Neither, however, proved malleable to Louis XIV’s promises of subsidies and political support. This situation would not change after the death of Philip Francis in 1674, with his brother and successor Charles Eugene equally uninterested in separating from the Dutch Republic.
However, the Dutch conquest of New Sweden would begin to alter this stalemate. England had been caught by surprise by Amsterdam’s bold move, the Anglo-Dutch alliance wavering as the former began to worry for the security of its own North American colonies. In this context, Charles II finally acceded to the Sun King’s promises, agreeing to be neutral in a Franco-Dutch conflict in return for subsidies that would allow the Stuart monarch to be less reliant on Westminster and more politically independent. Meanwhile, the Franco-Swedish alliance was renewed, Paris secretly promising to one day help Stockholm regain New Sweden from the Netherlands. At home, Louis XIV quietly began a military buildup. Then, in 1681, he finally found his opportunity when Charles Eugene died, succeeded by his 15 year old Philip Charles. Sensing weakness on the Franco-Dutch border, Louis seized his opportunity and declared war on the Dutch Republic in early 1682 on the basis of occupying the country until the Republic withdrew from New Sweden. John IV Sigismund of Sweden soon declared war followed by other French allies like the Electorate of Cologne and the Prince-Bishopric of Munster. As promised, Charles II and his kingdom stayed out, refusing to aid their historical ally.
In what would be his last war, the 61 year old Louis, Prince of Conde, would join the Sun King himself in leading France’s land forces, planning a swift march through Dutch Flanders and Brabant, its defenses now overseen by a teenager, and into the heart of the Republic. They also hoped to gather Brabantine Catholic support in the process against the Calvinist Dutch. Indeed, the Brabantine army was caught off guard, hopelessly disorganized without the direction of a strong stadtholder. The Dutch army led by the Prince of Orange himself would quickly march southwards. However, that army would be defeated at the Battle of Turnhout, William himself narrowly escaping death and retreating back across the Meuse River. Louis XIV and the main army would pursue the Prince of Orange and his army while smaller contingents in the Brabantine lands besieged its cities and fortresses. Antwerp fell within the year, forcing Philip Charles and his court to flee to Utrecht. While the main French forces swept through Dutch Brabant, a smaller force led by general Francois de Croquy was busy coordinating an offensive from the Republic’s eastern borders with Cologne and Munster’s armies, with a small Swedish force led by John Vasa, the second son of the Swedish king, also marching towards de Croquy’s position.
Depiction of Louis XIV and his army crossing the Meuse
This was the high point of the war for the French and their allies, however, for Dutch naval power quickly demonstrated its might. Although England was not in the picture in this war, Dutch naval power still exceeded that of the French and Swedes even with the latter two combined. Therefore even as Louis XIV chased the Prince of Orange north across the River Meuse, Dutch fleets easily defeated Franco-Swedish ones off the Dutch coast at Schooneveld and Texel. This prevented the French from establishing a naval blockade that could isolate the Republic from its overseas possessions and vessels. Having staved off such a potentially disastrous outcome, the Republic’s navy now went on the offensive. Dutch ships began prowling the coasts of France, preying upon its coastal batteries and launching numerous amphibious landings upon fortifications. They even went after French overseas possessions in the Caribbean and India, although those attempts were less successful. Dutch naval success slowed the French advance in general, allowing the Prince of Orange to reunite the Republic’s scattered forces and slow further French offensives from occupied Brabant. Frisian stadtholder Henry Casimir II [1], meanwhile, successfully held off the Franco-German forces attempting to pierce through the eastern border, defeating the latter at Tolhuis and Bonn throughout 1682 and 1683 despite being outnumbered.
More bad news came as 1683 went on, when Spain entered the war on the Dutch side, its possessions in the Low Countries increasingly precarious in the face of Louis XIV’s success in the war. Quickly joined by the forces of the duchy of Lorraine, Spain looked to cut off French armies in the Low Countries, the Spanish governor in the Low Countries Ottone Enrico del Caretto marching into French Flanders at the head of a large army. Realizing that he could be isolated from Paris completely, the French king ordered a complete withdrawal north of the Meuse River and sent the Prince of Conde to deal with the Spanish. The Prince of Conde managed to break a Spanish siege on Ghent but at the cost of his life when Spanish musketeers fired multiple bullets into him as he personally led a cavalry charge against the besiegers. French morale began to drop as the Dutch began making gains in Brabant, forcing Louis XIV to conduct a campaign of attrition in the region while other French armies were ordered to invade the Spanish Netherlands and Lorraine. The king even had to reinforce French military presence in the Pyrenees as a Spanish force led by the Duke of Escalona unsuccessfully besieged Roussillon. The war quickly descended into a bloody stalemate, with the Prince of Orange and the Dutch gradually making progress in Brabant and the French holding back Spanish-Lorrainian incursions into the French Low Countries and the Rhine region.
Depiction of the Battle of Ghent, the last battle fought by the Louis, the Prince of Conde
Meanwhile, the Swedes coalesced an invasion fleet with the recapture of Fort Christina and the rest of New Sweden in mind. This fleet, led by veteran admiral Henrik Horn, dodged the enemy on the ocean, sailing into the mouth of the Vasa River on September 10th, 1682 and commencing a land invasion of Dutch-controlled Fort Christina, renamed Fort Marja after the Mary, the Princess of Orange and a niece of the English king. After a week, Horn’s men retook the fort, renaming it to its original name. They subsequently took control of the surrounding area and fortified their position while they sent out one of their ships to request further reinforcements. It didn’t take long for news of this covert Swedish landing to reach Anthony Colve, the governor-general of New Netherlands, and he began to prepare efforts to drive out the Swedes. While he gathered a small colonial force to march from the north by land, Commodore Jacob Binckes would be sent by the Republic to box in the Swedish fleet from the sea. Both coordinated attacks would take place in the spring of 1683 with mixed success. Horn, now the governor general of the reconstituted colony of New Sweden, would meet and defeat the Dutch land force at the Battle of the Vasa River, utilizing some of the ships sailing from the bay to bombard the Dutch position and force Colve’s force to retreat. The opposite outcome took place when Binckes trapped the rest of the Swedish fleet in the rest of the bay before sinking most of its ships. Binckes’ men then landed and launched a night assault on Fort Christina, taking it from the Swedes once again. Expelled from their former colonial capital, the Swedes would retreat and construct a fort on the Vasa River called Sigmundborg where they resisted Dutch offensives for the rest of the war with the support of the local Lenape tribe.
By 1685, both sides were becoming more exhausted day by day when Charles II of England died. The childless king was succeeded by his brother James, Duke of York, who would help bring about the end of the Franco-Dutch War. Although he was even more determined to break parliamentary authority than his late brother, James was hardly committed to the neutrality agreed upon with France. After all, the Prince of Orange was his son-in-law while his second daughter, Anne, had married a Danish prince, someone naturally oriented against Sweden. He therefore stepped forward and offered to mediate between the two sides. Louis XIV, although naturally stubborn, saw the writing on the wall and agreed to James’ offer along with the sovereigns of the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden. After many months, the Treaty of Calais was signed in October 1686. The former colony of New Sweden would be returned to Sweden, although the new borders between New Sweden and New Netherlands would remain unresolved and disputed for years to come. In the Low Countries, France would annex the prince-bishopric of Cambresis while the Dutch acquired the right to install garrison in the Spanish Netherlands and the prince-bishoprics of Liege and Stavelot-Malmedy.
Portrait of King James II/VII of England and Scotland by Peter Lely
The war proved that the Dutch Republic was as strong of a land power as it was as a naval power, having fought off Europe’s largest army on multiple fronts while crushing French and Swedish fleets at sea. At the same time, however, the war had financially cost the Dutch. Similarly, the French had financially expended greatly themselves for this war only to have been rebuffed for the most part. The Franco-Dutch rivalry did not yet see a clear winner and it would take a much bigger conflict for that to happen.
[1]: This Henry Casimir II is the son and successor of Henry Casimir I, who lived to 1666 ITTL.
