Franco-Dutch War

The Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), often called simply the Dutch War (French: Guerre de Hollande; Dutch: Hollandse Oorlog), was a war fought by France, Sweden, Münster, Cologne and England against the Dutch Republic, which was later joined by the Austrian Habsburg lands, Brandenburg-Prussia and Spain to form a Quadruple Alliance. The war ended with the Treaty of Nijmegen, by which Spain ceded the Franche-Comté and some cities in Flanders and Hainaut to France. The year 1672 in Dutch is often referred to as het Rampjaar, meaning "the year of disaster".

Origins

Until the War of Devolution (1667–68), Louis XIV of France considered the Dutch to be trading rivals, seditious republicans and Protestant heretics – but military allies nevertheless. France and the Republic had been friends and allies for a century (since the 1560s) but the Dutch then signed the Triple Alliance (1668), with England (against whom they had just fought a war) and Sweden in support of Spain, another recent foe. Louis now felt deeply betrayed by the Dutch, and came to regard them as an obstacle to French expansion into the Spanish Netherlands.