War of the Spanish Succession
When the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, died in November 1700 bequeathing his entire empire to Louis XIV's grandson Philip of Anjou, Louis accepted the will and declared Philip V of Spain — effectively threatening to unite the resources of France and Spain into a single dynastic bloc dominating Western Europe. England, the Dutch Republic, Austria, and most German princes formed the Grand Alliance and declared war in 1701. French armies, initially dominant, suffered a series of catastrophic defeats at the hands of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy: Blenheim (1704) destroyed an entire Franco-Bavarian army of 56,000, Ramillies (1706) overran the Spanish Netherlands in a single afternoon, and Oudenarde (1708) left France itself open to invasion. By 1709 a combination of military reverses, the catastrophic winter frost that destroyed the harvest, and a debt burden approaching 2 billion livres had brought France to the edge of collapse, and Louis XIV made the extraordinary gesture of appealing directly to his people for support. The war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), leaving France financially exhausted and strategically weakened.
- Year: 1701 CE
- Category: Military
