After blundering into the Nine Years War in 1688, it took Louis XIV almost another two years to build the most extensive coalition of opponents he would ever face. Increasingly desperate, the king implemented a variety of strategies and tactics designed to extricate himself from the morass. Following the campaigns of 1691 and 1692 featuring the dramatic royal sieges of Mons and Namur that failed to crack the alliance, the king concluded he must find some way out. In 1693 he raised his largest army ever, created seven new marshals, promoted 126 general officers, and then declared he would personally command in the Low Countries. He established the Royal Order of Saint-Louis to recognize and reward exceptional service and valor. Throughout the campaign he repeatedly reminded his commanders that 1693 had to be viewed as the year of decision.[1]
Still, why call 1693 the year of battles? After all, hardly a campaign had gone by without major battles. The bloody Steinkerque in 1692 reminds us that battles were not rare and occasionally eagerly sought by commanders. Nor was 1693 without its sieges, notably Rosas, Huy, and Charleroi. But this year Louis XIV, his advisors, and his generals sought open field battle with greater intensity than usual. We will consider French moves to engage in four "battles," two that took place and two that did not. The first, had it occurred, would have given the Sun King a chance to lead his army personally in battle. The second, Neerwinden, is the bloody clash which, in some sense, replaced that non-battle but with the king far from the scene. The third is the non-battle enthusiastically sought but then ignominiously avoided by the Dauphin and his counselors in Germany. The fourth, Marsaglia, "gloriously" preserved the French foothold in northern Italy and barely salvaged a campaign that sputtered out inconclusively despite field victories and successful sieges.
