The Wars of Louis XIV (AP European History)

hey there students today's lecture is going to be on the Wars of louis xiv and speaking of wars and fighting and all that quick shout out to the fencing team at Flowery Branch High School in Atlanta Georgia very glad to have visited your school and have gotten a really cool t-shirt so thank you mrs. Eno's class as we look at the Wars of louis xiv we first have to consider the presence for the first time in early modern Europe of standing armies the absolutist tended to build up these large standing armies looey built up a standing army of over 400,000 men which was unprecedented and what we have here is that Louie is really trying to turn France into a permanent war making state as opposed to before this when largely monarchs would declare war and then raise an army now of course this is going to increase the amount of warfare in Europe because if you've got an army this size you're going to use it you're going to be more likely to try to employ it in battle to try to achieve your personal and dynastic and national aims and louie's wars had a dramatic effect on the balance of power at the turn of the 18th century in Europe before this the Habsburgs dominated Europe if you look at this map from the age of the Reformation you see Habsburgs in Austria in Spain and the Holy Roman Empire in southern Italy in the Netherlands here a Habsburg their Habsburg everywhere a Habsburg and louie's wars are going to decrease the influence that the Habsburgs had on the balance of power in Europe now when we look at louis xiv wars there are four the war of devolution the dutch war the nine years war and the war of the Spanish Succession and two of these Wars I'm going to especially emphasize these being the Dutch war and the war of the Spanish Succession so his objectives when Louis the 14 went to war he sought to do four things he sought to conquer new territory he wanted to achieve French dominance in Europe he wanted to weaken rivals and of course he wanted personal glory the fourth of these is the most controversial now of course Voltaire the Enlightenment historian and writer said he did not separate his own glory from the advantage of France every king who loves glory loves the public good so while some people would fault Louie for his ambition and his vainglorious personal motives Voltaire saw this as well Louie is advancing France through advancing himself that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive aims to make Louie look great and to make France look great but again that's a subject of controversy and discussion among historians now the targets of Louie's wars were almost universally the Habsburgs and the Dutch that he was looking at these two powers that he wanted France to replace the first Louie's wars was the war of devolution in which Louie gained territories in the Spanish Netherlands today known as Belgium and French Comte I think that I got that right working on my friends French pronunciations even though it is a written test but I know people are watching in Europe so hopefully did slaughter that too much and during this war when Louie is fighting against the Dutch he negotiates the secret treaty of Dover with the English and Scottish monarch charles ii and in this secret treaty of Dover they are going to double-team the Dutch Charles who had money problems was going to get money from Louie in return for his naval resources that the British really had the only Navy in Europe at the time that could rival the Dutch naval power so Charles get some money and Louie gets a navy to help him in this war and then we get to the franco-dutch war this is the war between Louie and the Dutch Republic lasted from 1670 to to 1678 now keep in mind that this is louis xiv the king of the largest most powerful unified state of france versus the dutch republic which was at the time really just a conglomeration really a confederation of different provinces which i've made a video about which you're welcome to watch but this is a very large unified state versus a very small fragmented confederation and at first this warrant didn't go very well for the dutch at all the first year of this war 1672 in the netherlands was known as rom PR which was the disaster year the year of disaster thank you so much Lisa for helping me with my Dutch pronunciation and as you can see here in this painting which I had the privilege of seeing when I was in the Netherlands last summer the Dutch had a very striking change of leadership one of the people you see here is Johan - vet who had been the primary minister of the government and he and his brother were brutally executed and their remains were displayed upside-down for everyone to see now ironically Davitt has a statue right there near the in den ha near the Parliament building in the Netherlands which is incredibly interesting to me there are a couple of statues of people who were executed right there in the Capitol and so part of this Dutch change in leadership was the appointment of William the third the Prince of orange as stad holder of Holland Zeeland Utrecht held Erland and / ISIL and the Dutch had just gone through a stab holder 'less period and the stand holder was a very complex leadership position kind of the rug that ties the room together the glue that holds the whole thing together this was a civil and military leader in kind of a controversial position because there were people especially in Holland who didn't want this filled but this emergency necessitated the reappointment of the stab holder so William the third is going to direct the war against louis xiv which is really a war for the very survival of the dutch republic and knowing that he can't meet louie on the battlefield he can't match louie man-for-man or army for army or anything like that it's flood time and the dutch employ really what is a natural resource that the netherlands kind of like the new orleans of europe a lot of it is below sea level a lot of people in the Netherlands actually live on reclaimed land land that was initially below sea level and underwater and in I read that Dutch engineers actually went to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and what you see happened here is the Dutch are going to flood their country intentionally in order to save it from Louie the old Dutch water line is let loose and you know they are flooding farms houses possibly even cities but the thing is that the alternative is Louie taking over the Dutch Republic so drastic times call for drastic measures and the Dutch also had naval superiority under the leadership of Admiral mikheil new router let me try that again Michiel do to router thanks again Lisa and this guy is a legend in the Dutch Republic he looks a little like Peter the Great which I think that that is a great way to gauge how legendary somebody was in history right but Admiral de router is a hero that anybody in the Netherlands who's educated in history knows who this guy is the yeah the rigging I think oh wow this is like mastering commander like Mike we want ship and the result of this war was that Louie did gain cities from the Spanish Netherlands but he did not conquer the Dutch Republic and the Dutch Republic began a period of decline this marks the end of the Dutch Golden Age that although the Dutch were able to survive they were no longer able to thrive after this because of the massive debts that they had to take on in order to fight the most powerful monarch in Europe but then there's a game changer in the aftermath of the franco-dutch war we have the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England and what happens here is that William the 3rd and Mary the second are invited to rule in England that King James the second is run off the throne and now we see that William the 3rd yes he should look familiar the stabbed holder of the Dutch Republic and now he is also the king of England William the third and Mary the second were both grandchildren of Charles the first the English and Scottish monarch so want lots of lots of inbreeding in these stories about the Wars of louis xiv we'll get to more of that later and so when this happens what we see is an Anglo Dutch alliance against louis xiv that louis xiv can no longer count on the english navy he's got to then have the english navy against him and the british join this grand alliance i'll use these interchangeably because it's during this time that you know england scotland will actually join a few years after this so sorry for those of you in the UK i'm interchanging but i'm interchanging by design because britain does not really exist yet at this time so Britain Austria Prussia the Dutch Republic Portugal and Savoy unite against louis xiv and louise not very happy about this but he keeps fighting anyway the nine years war doesn't go so well for Louie you can see that the French Navy is being burned here and you know Louie is having to basically fight against the combined forces of Europe and this brings us to the climax of the whole thing the war of the Spanish Succession Louie's last longest and largest most important war and so important I'm going to address it in a follow-up to this video so click to keep on watching and I look forward continuing with you in just a bit thanks for watching so far

Channel: Tom Richey

Views: 112,238

Rating: 4.8964577 out of 5

Keywords: Louis XIV Wars, Wars of Louis XIV, Louis XIV, Louis XIV AP Euro, Franco-Dutch War, AP European History, Tom Richey AP Euro, Tom Richey, AP Euro

Id: yNCD9uTiAl0

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2016