The Nine Years War, which lasted from 1688 to 1697, is one of the least remembered conflicts in which the British army took part. The fighting was mostly concentrated in the area known then as the Spanish Netherlands – equating approximately to modern Belgium and Luxembourg – and the Rhineland. It was the first time that large-scale British – or English – armies had been deployed to the Continent in a sustained campaign since the Hundred Years War, two and a half centuries earlier. Clashes also took place at sea and in the Caribbean and North America, where the conflict was known as King William’s War.
Britain fought as part of a ‘Grand Alliance’ with the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, the Dutch Republic, Savoy (in north-west Italy), and several German states. The common enemy was the overweeningly ambitious Louis XIV of France, whose territorial designs threatened the balance of power in Western Europe.
The reasons why the war has never captured the popular imagination are not far to seek. It did not culminate in a clear-cut victory – there was no dramatic ‘Agincourt’ or ‘Waterloo’ moment. The Peace of Ryswick (Rijswijk), which brought an end to hostilities, was in effect a truce. Four years later, the European powers were to clash once again over the future of the Spanish dominions. In the War of the Spanish Succession, British forces were led by one of the country’s most outstanding generals of all time: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. By contrast, William III, who determined British strategy throughout the Nine Years War, lacked the operational flair and glamour of the great Captain-General who triumphed at Blenheim in 1704.
Smelling the past