Treaty of Rijswijk

The Treaty of Rijswijk, signed in 1697 near The Hague in the Dutch Republic, brought an end to the Nine Years' War, also known as the War of the League of Augsburg. The conflict had pitted King Louis XIV of France against a broad coalition including England, the Dutch Republic, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire, formed to resist French expansion across Europe.

Years of indecisive and exhausting warfare, fought in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, Spain, and overseas, drained the combatants and pushed them toward compromise. Under the terms of the settlement, Louis XIV agreed to return most of the territories France had seized during the war, restoring numerous conquered towns and lands to Spain and the Empire, though France retained Alsace and Strasbourg.

By the treaty Louis XIV also recognized William III as the lawful king of England, abandoning support for the exiled Stuart claimant. Rijswijk restored a measure of balance to Europe but settled little permanently. Within a few years the unresolved question of the Spanish succession plunged the continent into the far larger War of the Spanish Succession, beginning in 1701.