Géostrategie et poids de guerre à la fin du règne de Louis XIV

This chapter looks at the considerable geostrategic and geopolitical problems Louis XIV was faced with as a result of his acceptance of the vacant Spanish throne for his grandson Philippe, duke of Anjou in November 1700. In the Nine Years War (1688-97) French forces had largely been fighting alone, and for the vast majority of the time they were not operating much beyond France's borders. But in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) for several years French forces were stretched deep into Bavaria and into the Milanese, they were operating right up against the Dutch border, and in the period after 1704 there was a sizable French military presence in the Iberian peninsula. The logistical problems this geostrategic overstretch entailed were of a magnitude Louis XIV's France had not previously experienced, and the costs of not only assembling the materiel but also the foreign exchange for these forces serving abroad was crippling for the French state.