Using a combination of aggression, annexation, and quasi-legal means, he then set about extending his gains to strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the to War of the Reunions. The Truce of Ratisbon guaranteed these new borders for twenty years, but concerns among European Protestant states over French expansion and anti-Protestant policies led to the creation of the Grand Alliance, headed by William of Orange.
In September Louis led an army across the Rhine to seize additional territories beyond it. This move was designed to extend his influence and pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims. Over the next few years, fighting focused around the Spanish Netherlands , the Rhineland , the Duchy of Savoy , and Catalonia. Although engagements generally favoured Louis' armies, neither side was able to gain a significant advantage, and by the main belligerents were financially exhausted, making them keen to negotiate a settlement.
Under the terms of the Peace of Ryswick , French control over the entirety of Alsace was officially recognized, but Lorraine and gains on the right bank of the Rhine were relinquished and restored to their rulers. Louis XIV also recognised William III as the rightful king of England, while the Dutch acquired barrier fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their borders and were granted a favorable commercial treaty.
However, both sides viewed the peace as only a pause in hostilities, since it failed to resolve who would succeed the ailing and childless Charles II of Spain as ruler of the Spanish Empire, a question that had dominated European politics for over 30 years. This would lead to the War of the Spanish Succession in In the years following the Franco-Dutch War β78 , Louis XIV of France, now at the height of his power, sought to impose religious unity in France and to solidify and expand his frontiers.
He had already won personal glory by conquering new territory, but he was no longer willing to pursue an open-ended militarist policy of the kind that he had undertaken in Instead, he would rely upon France's clear military superiority to achieve specific strategic objectives along his borders. Proclaimed the "Sun King", a more mature Louis, conscious that he had failed to achieve decisive results against the Dutch, had turned from conquest to security by using threats, rather than open war, to intimidate his neighbours into submission.
