What’s the Grand Alliance?

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The original Grand Alliance was a group of European nations allied against France in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It was known as the “League of Augsburg” until England joined in 1689. The alliance dissolved around 1721 after England’s withdrawal. The Nine Years’ War and the War of the Spanish Succession were fought during this time. The Great Northern War led to the end of the alliance. The Grand Alliance of World War II was a coalition of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

The original Grand Alliance, not to be confused with the Grand Alliance of World War II, was a group of about a dozen European nations allied in the late 17th and early 18th centuries against the expansionist French kingdom under Louis XIV. The alliance was known as the “League of Augsburg” for the first three years of its existence, but when England joined in 1689 the prefix “Grand” was added. England’s withdrawal from the coalition after about thirty years also signaled its dissolution around 1721.

Concern over France’s borders in the mid-1680s led the Holy Roman Empire, which made up much of present-day Germany, to enter into a military alliance with the Germanic kingdoms of Saxony and Bavaria, as well as Spain and Sweden in the 1686. The stated purpose of the original alliance was to restore France’s borders to what was agreed upon in the Treaties of Nijmegen, which were signed in 1679. As a result of these treaties, France had expanded northward and eastward, conquering the Spanish territories in what is now the Netherlands.

It was not long after the alliance was established that open conflict with France began. The Nine Years’ War, also known as the War of the Grand Alliance, began with a preemptive attack by France against the Holy Roman Empire in 1688. The war consisted largely of a series of sieges taking place at various locations on the periphery of the territories outside of France. England entered the fray in 1689, after William of Orange had been crowned king.

In 1697 the Treaty of Ryswick ended the Nine Years’ War. While it did not end in a total victory for either side, France is generally believed to have prevailed over the Grand Alliance. King Louis had to return some territories to Spain, but France’s new eastern border was extended and drawn along the Rhine River, where it continues to be into the 21st century.

There was a general peace in Europe from 1698 to 1700. In 1701, however, the alliance was again embroiled in more than a decade of conflict that would come to be called the War of the Spanish Succession. Fighting broke out after the death of the Spanish king Charles II in 1700. Without direct heirs, the government of Spain passed to Philip, a grandson of Charles II’s half-sister and French king Louis XIV.

Concern about the possible unification of France and Spain as a result of Philip’s affair with King Louis prompted the Grand Alliance to intervene. After thirteen years of fighting, with battles reaching as far abroad as North America, a peace was established and Philip, nicknamed Philip V, was forced to renounce any claim to the French crown, but managed to remain King of Spain.

The alliance finally ended in 1721 following the conclusion of the Great Northern War, a conflict that began concurrently with the War of the Spanish Succession, but lasted nearly a decade longer. The Great Northern War pitted Sweden, no longer part of the Grand Alliance, against its remaining members. It ended with Sweden losing much of her territories in central and northern Europe. After hostilities ended, the Grand Alliance itself broke up for the last time, largely because England withdrew, due to public disapproval of engaging in so many foreign wars.

During World War II, the Grand Alliance was also a nickname given to the coalition of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union that fought against Nazi Germany. The two alliances, despite the centuries between them, share some commonalities. Notably, both formed in response to a growing military threat in northern Europe.




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