War of the Grand Alliance

GRAND ALLIANCE, WAR OF THE (alternatively called the War of the League of Augsburg), the third' of the great aggressive wars waged by Louis XIV. of France against Spain, the Empire, Great Britain, Holland and other states. The two earlier wars, which are redeemed from oblivion by the fact that in them three great captains, Turenne, Conde and Montecucculi, played leading parts, are described in the article DUTCH WARS. In the third war the leading figures are : Henri de Montmorency Boutteville, duke of Luxemburg, the former aide-de-camp of Conde and heir to his daring method of warfare ; William of Orange, who had fought against both Conde and Luxemburg in the earlier wars, and was now king of England ; Vauban, the founder of the sciences of fortification and siegecraft, and Catinat, the follower of Turenne's cautious and systematic strategy, who was the first commoner to receive high command in the army of Louis XIV. But as soldiers, these men—except Vauban—are over shadowed by the great figures of the preceding generation, and except for a half-dozen outstanding episodes, the war of 1689-97 was an affair of positions and chess-board manoeuvres.

It was within these years that the art and practice of war be gan to crystallize into the form called "linear" in its strategic and tactical aspect, and "cabinet-war" in its political and moral aspect. In the Dutch wars, and in the minor wars that pre ceded the formation of the League of Augsburg, there were still survivals of the loose organization, violence and wasteful bar barity typical of the Thirty Years' War; and even in the War of the Grand Alliance (in its earlier years) occasional brutalities and devastations showed that the old spirit died hard. But out rages that would have been borne in dumb misery in the old days now provoked loud indignation, and when the fierce Louvois disappeared from the scene it became generally understood that barbarity was impolitic, not only as alienating popular sym pathies, but also as rendering operations a physical impossibility for want of supplies.

Character of the War.

Thus in i 700, so far from terrorizing the country people into submission, armies systematically con ciliated them by paying cash and bringing trade into the country. Formerly, wars had been fought to compel a people to abjure their faith or to change sides in some personal or dynastic quarrel. But since 1648 this had no longer been the case. The Peace of Westphalia established the general relationship of kings, priests and peoples on a basis that was not really shaken until the French Revolution, and in the intervening 14o years the peoples at large, except at the highest and gravest moments (as in Germany in 1689, France in 1709 and Prussia in 1757) held aloof from active participation in politics and war. This was the beginning of the theory that war was an affair of the regular forces only, and that intervention in it by the civil population was a punishable offence. Thus wars became the business of the professional soldiers in the king's own service, and the scarcity and costliness of these soldiers combined with the purely political character of the quarrels that arose to reduce a campaign from an "intense and passionate drama" to a humdrum affair, to which only rarely a few men of genius imparted some degree of vigour, and which in the main was an attempt to gain small ends by a small expenditure of force and with the minimum of risk. As between a prince and his sub jects there were still quarrels that stirred the average man—the Dragonnades, for instance, or the English Revolution—but foreign wars were "a stronger form of diplomatic notes," as Clausewitz name "Grand Alliance" is applied to the coalition against Louis XIV. begun by the League of Augsburg. This coalition not only waged the war dealt with in the present article, but (with only slight modifications and with practically unbroken continuity) the war of the SPANISH SUCCESSION (q.v.) that followed.

called them, and were waged with the object of adding a codicil to the treaty of peace that had closed the last incident.

Other causes contributed to stifle the former vigour of war. Campaigns were no longer conducted by armies of ten to thirty thousand men. Large regular armies had come into fashion, and, as Guibert points out, instead of small armies charged with grand operations we find grand armies charged with small operations. The average general, under the prevailing conditions of supply and armament, was not equal to the task of commanding such armies. Any real concentration of the great forces that Louis XIV. had created was therefore out of the question, and the field armies split into six or eight independent fractions, each charged with operations on a particular theatre of war. From such a policy nothing remotely resembling the overthrow of a great power could be expected to be gained. The one tangible asset, in view of future peace negotiations, was therefore a fortress, and it was on the preservation or capture of fortresses that operations in all these wars chiefly turned. The idea of the decisive battle for its own sake, as a settlement of the quarrel, was far distant ; for, strictly speaking, there was no quarrel, and to use up highly trained and exceedingly expensive soldiers in gaining by brute force an advantage that might equally well be obtained by chicanery was regarded as foolish.

The fortress was, moreover, of immediate as well as contingent value to a state at war. A century of constant warfare had im poverished middle Europe, and armies had to spread over a large area if they desired to "live on the country." This was dangerous in the face of the enemy (cf. the Peninsular War), and it was also uneconomical. The only way to prevent the country people from sending their produce into the fortresses for safety was to announce beforehand that cash would be paid, at a high rate, for whatever the army needed. But even promises rarely brought this about, and to live at all, whether on supplies brought up from the home country and stored in magazines (which had to be guarded) or on local resources, an army had as a rule to main tain or to capture a large fortress. Sieges, therefore, and limited manoeuvres are the features of this form of war, wherein armies progressed not with the giant strides of Napoleonic war, but in a succession of short hops from one foothold to the next. The general character of the war being borne in mind, nine-tenths of its marches and manoeuvres can be almost "taken as read"; the remaining tenth, the exceptional and abnormal part of it, alone possesses an interest for modern readers.

In

pursuance of a new aggressive policy in Germany, Louis XIV. sent his troops, as a diplomatic menace rather than for conquest, into that country in the autumn of 1688. Some of their raiding parties plundered the country as far south as Augsburg, for the political intent of their advance suggested terrorism rather than conciliation as the best method. The League of Augsburg at once took up the challenge, and the addition of new members (Treaty of Vienna, May 1689) converted it into the "Grand Alliance" of Spain, Holland, Sweden, Savoy and certain Italian states, Great Britain, the emperor, the elector of Brandenburg, etc.

"Those who condemned the king for raising up so many enemies, admired him for having so fully prepared to defend himself and even to forestall them," says Voltaire. Louvois had in fact completed the work of organizing the French army on a regular and permanent basis, and had made it not merely the best, but also by far the most numerous in Europe, for Louis disposed in 1688 of no fewer than 375,00o soldiers and 6o,000 sailors. The infantry was uniformed and drilled, and the socket bayonet and the flint-lock musket had been introduced. The only relic of the old armament was the pike, which was retained for one-quarter of the foot, though it had been discarded by the Imperialists in the course of the Turkish wars described below. The first artillery regiment was created in 1684, to replace the former semi-civilian organization by a body of artillerymen susceptible of uniform training and amenable to discipline and orders.

Devastation of the Palatinate, 1689.

In 1689 Louis had six armies on foot. That in Germany, which had executed the raid of the previous autumn, was not in a position to resist the prin cipal army of the coalition so far from support. Louvois therefore ordered it to lay waste the Palatinate, and the devastation of the country around Heidelberg, Mannheim, Spires, Oppenheim and Worms was pitilessly and methodically carried into effect in Jan uary and February. There had been devastations in previous wars, even the high-minded Turenne had used the argument of fire and sword to terrify a population or a prince, while the whole story of the last ten years of the great war had been one of incendiary armies leaving traces of their passage that it took a century to remove. But here the devastation was a purely mili tary measure, executed systematically over a given strategic front for no other purpose than to delay the advance of the enemy's army. It differed from the method of Turenne or Cromwell in that the sufferers were not those people whom it was the purpose of the war to reduce to submission, but others who had no in terest in the quarrel. It differed from Wellington's laying waste of Portugal in i 8 i o in that it was not done for the defence of the Palatinate against a national enemy, but because the Palatinate was where it was. The feudal theory that every subject of a prince at war was an armed vassal, and therefore an enemy of the prince's enemy, had in practice been obsolete for two centuries past ; by 1690 the organization of war, its causes, its methods and its instruments had passed out of touch with the people at large, and it had become thoroughly understood that the army alone was concerned with the army's business. Thus it was that this devastation excited universal reprobation, and that in the words of a modern French writer, the "idea of Germany came to birth in the flames of the Palatinate." As a military measure even, it was unprofitable ; for it became impossible for Marshal Duras, the French commander, to hold out on the east side of the middle Rhine, and he could think of nothing better to do than to go farther south and to ravage Baden and the Breisgau, which was not even a military necessity. The grand army of the Allies, coming farther north, was practically unopposed. Charles of Lorraine and the elector of Bavaria— lately comrades in the Turkish war (see below)—invested Mainz, the elector of Brandenburg, Bonn. Mainz, valiantly defended by Nicolas du Ble, marquis d'Uxelles, had to surrender on Sept. 8. The governor of Bonn, baron d'Asfeld, not in the least intimidated by the bombardment, held out till the army that had taken Mainz reinforced the elector of Brandenburg, and then, rejecting the hard terms of surrender offered him by the latter, he fell in resist ing a last assault on Oct. i 2. Only 85o men out of his 6,000 were left to surrender on the i6th, and the duke of Lorraine, less truculent than the elector, escorted them safely to Thionville. Boufflers, with another of Louis's armies, operated from Luxem burg (captured by the French in 1684 and since held) towards the Rhine, but was unable to relieve either Mainz or Bonn.

In the Low Countries the French marshal d'Humieres, being in superior force, had obtained special permission to offer battle to the Allies. Leaving the garrison of Lille and Tournay to amuse the Spaniards, he hurried from Maubeuge to oppose the Dutch. Coming upon their army (commanded by the prince of Waldeck) in position behind the river Heure, with an advanced post in the little walled town of Walcourt, he flung his advanced guard against the bridge and fortifications of this place to clear the way for his deployment beyond the river Heure (Aug. 2 7) . After wasting a thousand brave men in this attempt, to whose repulse a British regiment, the Coldstream Guards, contributed, he drew back. For a few days the two armies remained face to face, can nonading one another at intervals, but no further fighting occurred. Humieres returned to the region of the Scheldt fortresses, and Waldeck to Brussels. For the others of Louis's six armies the year's campaign passed off quite uneventfully.

The War in Ireland, 1689-1691.

Simultaneously with these operations, the Jacobite cause was being fought to an issue in Ire land. War began early in 1689 with desultory engagements be tween the Orangemen of the north and the Irish regular army, most of which the earl of Tyrconnel had induced to declare for King James. The northern struggle after a time condensed itself into the defence of Derry and Enniskillen. The siege of the former place, begun by James himself and carried on by the French general Rosen, lasted cos days. In marked contrast to the sieges of the continent, this was resisted by the townsmen them selves, under the leadership of the clergyman George Walker. But the relieving force (consisting of two frigates, a supply ship and a force under Major-general Percy Kirke) was dilatory, and it was not until the defenders were in the last extremity that Kirke actually broke through the blockade (July 31). Enniskillen was less closely invested, and its inhabitants, organized by Col. Wolseley and other officers sent by Kirke, actually kept the open field and defeated the Jacobites at Newton Butler (July 31). A few days later the Jacobite army withdrew from the north. But it was long before an adequate army could be sent over from England to deal with it. Marshal Schomberg (q.v.), one of the most distinguished soldiers of the time, who had been expelled from the French service as a Huguenot, was indeed sent over in August, but the army he brought, some io,000 strong, was corn posed of raw recruits, and when it was assembled in camp at Dundalk to be trained for its work, it was quickly ruined by an epidemic of fever. But James failed to take advantage of his opportunity to renew the war in the north, and the relics of Schomberg's army wintered in security, covered by the Ennis killen troops. In the spring of 169o, however, more troops, this time experienced regiments from Holland, Denmark and Branden burg, were sent, and in June, Schoenberg in Ireland and Major general Scravemore in Chester having thoroughly organized and equipped the field army, King William assumed the command himself. Five days after his arrival he began his advance from Loughbrickland near Newry, and on July i he engaged James's main army on the river Boyne, close to Drogheda. Schomberg was killed and William himself wounded, but the Irish army was routed.

No stand was made by the defeated party either in the Dublin or in the Waterford district. Lauzun, the commander of the French auxiliary corps in James's army, and Tyrconnel both discountenanced any attempt to defend Limerick, where the Jacobite forces had reassembled; but Patrick Sarsfield (earl of Lucan), as the spokesman of the younger and more ardent of the Irish officers, pleaded for its retention. He was left, therefore, to hold Limerick, while Tyrconnel and Lauzun moved northward into Galway. Here, as in the north, the quarrel enlisted the active sympathies of the people against the invader, and Sarsfield not only surprised and destroyed the artillery train of William's army, but repulsed every assault made on the walls that Lauzun had said "could be battered down by rotten apples." William gave up the siege on Aug. 3o. The failure was, however, com pensated in a measure by the arrival in Ireland of an expedition under Lord Marlborough, which captured Cork and Kinsale, and next year (1691) the Jacobite cause was finally crushed by William's general Ginckell in the battle of Aughrim in Galway (July 12), in which St. Ruth, the French commander, was killed and the Jacobite army dissipated. Ginckell, following up his vic tory, besieged Limerick afresh. Tyrconnel died of apoplexy while organizing the defence, and this time the town was invested by sea as well as by land. After six weeks' resistance the defenders offered to capitulate, and with the signing of the treaty of Limerick on Oct. I, the Irish war came to an end. Sarsfield and the most energetic of King James's supporters retired to France and were there formed into the famous "Irish brigade." Fleurus, 1690.—The campaign of 1690 on the continent of Europe is marked by two battles, one of which, Luxemburg's vic tory of Fleurus (q.v.) belongs to the category of the world's great battles. The conditions in which it was fought, however, were in closer accord with the general spirit of the war than was the decision that arose out of them. Luxemburg had a powerful enemy in Louvois, and he had consequently been allotted only an insignificant part in the first campaign. But after the disasters of 1689 Louis re-arranged the commands on the north-east fron tier so as to allow Humieres, Luxemburg and Bouffiers to combine for united action. "I will take care that Louvois plays fair," Louis said to the duke when he gave him his letters of service. Though apparently Luxemburg was not authorized to order such a combination himself, as senior officer he would automatically take command if it came about. The whole force available was probably close on Ioo,000, but not half of these were present at the decisive battle, though Luxemburg certainly practised the utmost "economy of force" as this was understood in those days (see also NEERWINDEN) . On the remaining theatres of war, the dauphin, assisted by the duc de Lorge, held the middle Rhine, and Catinat the Alps, while other forces were in Roussillon, etc., as before. Catinat's operations are briefly described below. Those of the others need no description, for though the Allies formed a plan for a grand concentric advance on Paris, the preliminaries to this advance were so numerous and so closely interdependent that on the most favourable estimate the winter would necessarily find the Allied armies many leagues short of Paris. In fact, the Rhine offensive collapsed when Charles of Lorraine died (April 17), and the reconquest of his lost duchy ceased to be a direct object of the war.

Luxemburg began operations by drawing in from the Sambre country, where he had hitherto been stationed, to the Scheldt and "eating up" the country between Oudenarde and Ghent in the face of a Spanish army concentrated at the latter place (May 15–June 12) . He then left Humieres with a containing force in the Scheldt region and hurried back to the Sambre to interpose between the Allied army under Waldeck and the fortress of Dinant which Waldeck was credited with the intention of be sieging. His march from Tournay to Gerpinnes was counted a model of skill—the locus classicus for the maxim that ruled till the advent of Napoleon—"march always in the order in which you encamp, or purpose to encamp, or fight." For four days the army mai ched across country in close order, covered in all direc tions by reconnoitring cavalry and advanced, flank and rear guards. Under these conditions eleven miles a day was practically forced marching, and on arriving at Jeumont-sur-Sambre the army was given three days' rest. Then followed a few leisurely marches in the direction of Charleroi, during which a detachment of Boufflers's army came in, and the cavalry explored the country to the north. On news of the enemy's army being at Trazegnies, Luxemburg hurried across a ford of the Sambre above Charleroi, but this proved to be a detachment only, and soon information came in that Waldeck was encamped near Fleurus. Luxemburg knew that the enemy was marking time till the troops of Liege and the Brandenburgers from the Rhine were near enough to co operate in the Dinant enterprise, and he determined to fight a battle at once. He moved to Velaine, and thence, on July 1, forward to Fleurus, there winning one of the most brilliant vic tories in the history of the Royal army. But Luxemburg was not allowed to pursue his advantage. Thus Waldeck reformed his army in peace at Brussels, where William III. of England soon afterwards assumed command of the Allied forces in the Nether lands, and Luxemburg and the other marshals stood fast for the rest of the campaign, being forbidden to advance until Catinat in Italy—should have won a battle.

Staffarda.

In this quarter the armed neutrality of the duke of Savoy had long disquieted the French court. In consequence, a French army under Catinat had for some time been maintained on the Alpine frontier, and in the summer of 1690 Louis XIV. sent an ultimatum to Victor Amadeus to compel him to take one side or the other actively and openly. The result was that Victor Emmanuel threw in his lot with the Allies and obtained help from the Spaniards and Austrians in the Milanese. Catinat thereupon advanced into Piedmont, and won, principally by virtue of his own watchfulness and the high efficiency of his troops, the important victory of Staffarda (Aug. 18, 169o). This did not, however, enable him to overrun Piedmont, and as the duke was soon reinforced, he had to be content with the methodical conquest of a few frontier districts. On the side of Spain, a small French army under the duc de Noailles passed into Catalonia and there lived at the enemy's expense for the duration of the campaign.

In these theatres of war, and on the Rhine, where the dis union of the German princes prevented vigorous action, the fol lowing year, 1691, was uneventful. But in the Netherlands there were a siege, a war of manoeuvres, and a cavalry combat, each in its way somewhat remarkable. The siege was that of Mons, which, like many sieges in the previous wars, was conducted with much pomp by Louis XIV. himself, with Boufflers and Vauban under him. On its surrender (April 8), Louis returned to Ver sailles and divided his army between Boufflers and Luxemburg, the former of whom departed to the Meuse. There he attempted by bombardment to enforce the surrender of Liege, but had to de sist when the elector of Brandenburg threatened Dinant. The principal armies on either side faced one another under the com mand respectively of William III. and of Luxemburg. The Allies were first concentrated to the south of Namur, and Luxemburg hurried thither, but neither party found any tempting oppor tunity for battle, and when the cavalry had consumed all the forage available in the district, the two armies edged away grad ually towards Flanders. The war of manoeuvre continued, with a slight advantage on Luxemburg's side, until September, when William returned to England, leaving Waldeck in command of the Allied army, with orders to distribute it in winter quarters amongst the garrison towns. This gave the momentary oppor tunity for which Luxemburg had been watching, and at Leuze (Sept. 2o) he fell upon the cavalry of Waldeck's rearguard and drove it back in disorder with heavy losses until the pursuit was checked by the Allied infantry.

In 1692' the Rhine campaign was no more decisive than before, although Lorge made a successful raid into Wurttemberg in Sep tember and foraged his cavalry in German territory till the ap proach of winter. The Spanish campaign was unimportant, but on the Alpine side the Allies under the duke of Savoy drove back Catinat into Dauphine, which they ravaged with fire and sword. But the French peasantry were quicker to take arms than the Germans, and, inspired by the local gentry—amongst whom figured the heroine, Philis de la Tour du Pin (1645-1708), daugh ter of the marquis de la Charce—they beset every road with such success that the small regular army of the invaders was power less. Brought practically to a standstill, the Allies soon con sumed the provisions that could be gathered in, and then, fearing lest the snow should close the passes behind them, retreated.

Siege of Namur, 1692.

In the Low Countries the campaign as before began with a great siege. Louis and Vauban invested Namur on May 26. The place was defended by the prince de Brabancon and Coehoorn (q.v.), Vauban's rival in the science of fortification. Luxemburg, with a small army, manoeuvred to cover the siege against William III.'s army at Louvain. The place f ell on June after a very few days of Vauban's "regular" attack, but the citadel held out until the 23rd. Then, as before, Louis returned to Versailles, giving injunctions to Luxemburg to "preserve the strong places and the country, while opposing the enemy's enterprises and subsisting the army at his expense." This negative policy, contrary to expectation, led to a hard-fought battle. William, as a ruse, announced his intention of retaking Namur, but set his army in motion for Flanders and the sea-coast fortresses held by the French. Luxemburg, warned in time, hur ried towards the Scheldt, and the two armies were soon face to face again, Luxemburg about Steenkirk, William in front of Hal. William then formed the plan of surprising Luxemburg's right wing before it could be supported by the rest of his army, relying chiefly on false information that a detected spy at his headquarters was forced to send, to mislead the French. But Luxemburg, al though ill in bed when William's advance was reported, shook off his initial apathy, and, enabled by his outpost reports to divine his opponent's plan, met it (Aug. 3) by a swift concentration of his army, against which the Allies, whose advance and deployment had been mismanaged, were powerless (see STEENKIRK). In this almost accidental battle both sides suffered enormous losses, and neither attempted to bring about, or even to risk, a second resultless trial of strength. Only after the armies had broken up into their winter quarters was an abortive attempt on Charleroi made, by Boufflers, at Louis' orders.

In

1693, the culminating point of the war was reached. It began with a winter enterprise that at least indicated the died in July 1691.

few days before this the great naval reverse of La Hogue put an end to the projects of invading England hitherto entertained at Versailles.

aggressive spirit of the French generals. The grand army in the Netherlands this year numbered i 20,000, to oppose whom William III. had only some 40,000 at hand. But after reviewing this large force at Gembloux, Louis was driven to break it up, in order to send 30,00o under the dauphin to Germany, where Lorge had captured Heidelberg and seemed able, if reinforced, to overrun south Germany. But the imperial general Prince Louis of Baden took up a position near Heilbronn so strong that the dauphin and Lorge did not venture to attack him. Thus King Louis sacrificed a reality to a dream, and for the third time lost the opportunity, for which he always longed, of commanding in chief in a great battle. He himself, to judge by his letter to Monsieur on June 8, regarded his action as a sacrifice of personal dreams to tangible realities. And, before the event falsified predictions, there was much to be said for the course he took, which accorded better with the prevailing system of war than a Fleurus or a Neerwinden. In this system of war the rival armies, as armies, were almost in a state of equilibrium, and more was to be expected from an army dealing with something dissimilar to itself—a fortress or a patch of land or a convoy—than from its collision with another army of equal force.

Neerwinden and

Marsaglia.—Thus Luxemburg obtained his last and greatest opportunity. He was still superior in numbers, but William at Louvain had the advantage of position. The former, given more latitude by his master this year, threatened Liege, drew William over to its defence and then advanced to attack him. The Allies, however, retired to a strongly entrenched position around Neerwinden in which they were attacked by Luxemburg on July 29. The long and doubtful battle ended in a brilliant victory for Luxemburg, but his exhausted army could not pursue far; William was as unshaken and determined as ever; and the campaign closed, not with a treaty of peace, but with a few manoeuvres which, by inducing William to believe in an attack on Ath, enabled Luxemburg to besiege and capture Char leroi (October).

Neerwinden was not the only French victory of the year. Catinat, advancing to the relief of Pinerolo (Pignerol), which the duke of Savoy was besieging, took up a position north of the village of Marsaglia (q.v.). Here on Oct. 4 the duke of Savoy attacked him front to front. But the greatly superior regimental efficiency of the French, and Catinat's minute attention to details in arraying them, gave the newly created marshal a victory that was a not unworthy pendant to Neerwinden. The Piedmontese and their allies lost, it is said, io,000 killed, wounded and prisoners, as against Catinat's 1,800. But here, too, the results were trifling, and this year of victory is remembered chiefly as the year in which "people perished of want to the accompaniment of Te Dennis." In 1694 (late in the season owing to the prevailing distress and famine) Louis opened a fresh campaign in the Netherlands. The armies were larger and more ineffective than ever, and William offered no further opportunities to his formidable opponent. In September, after inducing William to desist from his intention of besieging Dunkirk by appearing on his flank with a mass of cavalry, which had ridden from the Meuse, loom., in four days, Luxemburg gave up his command. He died on Jan. 4, and with him the tradition of the Conde school of warfare disappeared from Europe. In Catalonia de Noailles gained some success.

In 1695 William found Marshal Villeroi a far less formidable opponent than Luxemburg had been, and easily succeeded in keeping him in Flanders while a corps of the Allies invested Namur. Coehoorn directed the siege-works, and, as in 1692, but with sides reversed, the defenders were progressively dislodged, the citadel itself being stormed by the "British grenadiers," as the song commemorates, on Aug. 3o.

By 1696 necessity had compelled Louis to renounce his vague and indefinite offensive policy, and he now frankly restricted his efforts to the maintenance of what he had won in the preceding campaigns. In this new policy he met with much success. His marshals held their various spheres of operations without allow ing the Allies to inflict any material injury, and also preserved French soil from the burden of their own maintenance. In this, as before, they were powerfully assisted by the disunion and divided counsels of their heterogeneous enemies. In Piedmont, Catinat crowned his work by making peace and alliance with the duke of Savoy. The last campaign was in 1697. Catinat and Vauban besieged Ath. This siege was perhaps the most regular and methodical of the great engineer's career. It lasted 23 days and cost the assailants only 5o men. King William did not stir from his entrenched position at Brussels. Lastly, in Aug. 1697, Vendome, Noailles' successor, captured Barcelona. The peace of Ryswijk, signed on Oct. 3o, closed this war by practically restor ing the status quo ante; but neither the ambitions of Louis nor the Grand Alliance that opposed them ceased to have force, and three years later the struggle began anew (see SPANISH Svc