Between 1689 and 1697 the British army fought as a member of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV. Despite the military and political significance of the European conflict, this book is the first historical investigation for over a century dealing with the operations of the principal campaigns in the Low Countries. John Childs begins his comprehensive study by exploring the diplomatic origins of the Nine Years' War. Leading on from this political background, the author then focuses on the detailed organisation of the British, Dutch and other allied armies and the conduct of the operations. The specific campaigns are also examined and in particular the author looks at the strategic and tactical role played by the British. This campaign and operational study of the British army will be of interest to both specialist and general military historians, as well as to political historians.

This is a description of how the Nine Years War affected the British Army, both in its actual operations in the theatre of war and in its size, operative capacity and costs. This war brought about radical changes in the sizes and the associated costs of the armies of Britain, France, Austria and the United Provinces in a relatively short period. For example, the size of field armies grew from an average of about 25,000 men during the Thirty Years' War to an average of about 100,000 men in 1695 during the Nine Years War. The costs of sustaining such huge field forces in terms of food, equipment and pay brought Britain and France, in particular, fiscal crisis and a shattered economy respectively, after the peace.

This title explores and illustrates the armies of France, and six countries allied against Louis XIV, in a wide-ranging Continental conflict that ushered in more than a century of European warfare. Formed in 1689, the 'Grand Alliance' or League of Augsburg was a military coalition of the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Britain, Spain and the Duchy of Savoy, to resist Louis XIV's rich, powerful and expansionist France. The first stage of the nine year conflict that followed also coincided with the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' in Britain (1688–91), when the throne passed to the Dutch Protestant leader, William of Orange, the head of a multi-national Dutch, Danish and English army, which finally expelled James II's Jacobite and French forces from Ireland. The long war on the continent was notable for the first widespread use of regimental uniforms and flintlock muskets with bayonets, plus the sophisticated use of siege warfare under the great French engineer, Vauban. The final Treaties of Ryswyck (1697) brought the war to an end and marked Louis XIV's political zenith, and also the ascendancy of both the Dutch and British as first-rate global powers. This fully illustrated title explores the armies which fought the War of the Grand Alliance, examining their strength, organization, uniforms and weapons, and explaining their campaigns and major battles.

An 'invisible giant', the seventeenth-century French army was the largest and hungriest institution of the Bourbon monarchy. Combining social and cultural emphases with more traditional institutional and operational concerns, this book examines the army in depth, studying recruitment, composition, discipline, motivation, selection of officers, leadership, administration, logistics, weaponry, tactics, field warfare and siegecraft. The portrait that emerges differs from what current scholarship might have predicted. Instead of claiming that a 'military revolution' transformed warfare, Lynn stresses evolutionary change. This work also offers surprising insights into absolutism and the relationship between the monarchy and aristocracy. Questioning widely held assumptions about state formation and coercion, Lynn argues that this standing army was primarily devoted to border defence and only rarely to internal repression.

The 'personal rule' of Louis XIV witnessed a massive increase in the size of the French army and an apparent improvement in the quality of its officers, its men and the War Ministry. However, this is the first book to treat the French army under Louis XIV as a living political, social and economic organism, an institution which reflected the dynastic interests and personal concerns of the king and his privileged subjects. The book explains the development of the army between the end of Cardinal Mazarin's ministry and the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, emphasising the awareness of Louis XIV and his ministers of the need to pay careful attention to the condition of the king's officers, and to take account of their military, political, social and cultural aspirations.

Volume 1 of the Sun King's wars and armies goes from his early and turbulent years, from the resounding victory over Spain at Rocroi in 1643, the unstable years of the Fronde civil wars, his seizure of absolute power in 1661, his immediate control of national finances and armed forces, his measures to create the most effective army in Europe, the i

The Military Enlightenment brings to light a radically new narrative both on the Enlightenment and the French armed forces from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Christy Pichichero makes a striking discovery: the Geneva Conventions, post-traumatic stress disorder, the military "band of brothers," and soldierly heroism all found their antecedents in the eighteenth-century French armed forces. Readers of The Military Enlightenment will be startled to learn of the many ways in which French military officers, administrators, and medical personnel advanced ideas of human and political rights, military psychology, and social justice.