War of the Grand Alliance Changed Europe's Borders

War of the Grand Alliance, also called War of the League of Augsburg, (1689–97), the third major war of Louis XIV of France, in which his expansionist plans were blocked by an alliance led by England, the United Provinces of the Netherlands, and the Austrian Habsburgs. The deeper issue underlying the war was the balance of power between the rival Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties. There was general uncertainty in Europe over the succession to the Spanish throne because that country's Habsburg ruler, the epileptic and partly insane king Charles II, was unable to produce heirs. Upon Charles's anticipated demise, the inheritance would have to be through the female line, and through marriage alliances the Bourbons of France could justly contest for the succession with the Austrian Habsburgs, headed by the Holy Roman emperor Leopold I. The aggressive foreign policy Louis displayed in the War of the Grand Alliance was thus a form of jockeying for position in anticipation of the death of the last male heir of the Spanish Habsburg line.