Siege of Namur ( 1695 ) " " The Siege of Namur , 2 July – 1 September 1695 , was the second siege of the city of Namur in the Nine Years ' War . The Allied forces of the Grand Alliance retook the city from the French , who had captured it in the first siege in 1692 . The recapture of Namur has been called the most important event in the Nine Years ' War . Background . The French captured the city of Namur in the first siege in 1692 , under the command of the Duc de Luxembourg , with King Louis XIV of France present . Namur ' s defensive works had been designed by Menno van Coehoorn , who oversaw the citadel ' s defence during the first siege . His French counterpart , Vauban improved the defensive works significantly after the city was taken . Given its strategic position at the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse rivers , the Citadel of Namur became the most strategically important fortress in the Spanish Netherlands . Siege . As France was on the defensive , the Allied army of the Grand Alliance under the command of King William III of England and Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria , governor of the Spanish Netherlands , laid siege to the city beginning on 2 July 1695 . By 3 July , they had invested the city . Menno van Coehoorn , in a reversal of roles , directed the siege works against the city . By 18 July , Allied forces had overcome the outer fortifications that Vauban had built . Five battalion s of English and Dutch troops launched an assault on the Brussels Gate of Namur . The general assault began on 3 August , and the Duc de Boufflers , the French commander , offered the surrender of the city . The offer was accepted , and the following day as part of the terms of surrender a six day truce was granted to attend to the wounded and withdraw to the citadel . The truce was guaranteed by an exchange of high - ranking officers as hostages ; after the six days had expired , the hostages returned to their camps and the siege of the citadel was renewed . The Duke of Villeroi made an attempt to draw the attackers away from Namur by bombing the militarily unimportant target of Brussels , with the goal only of causing destruction to the city . The bombardment lasted from 13 – 15 August , and did not divert any Allied troops from the siege of Namur . Villeroi ' s army later attempted to lift the Allied siege of Namur , but it was blocked in the field by an army under the Prince of Vaudemont . After a further month of resistance , Boufflers surrendered the citadel to the besieging army on 1 September , having lost 8000 of his 13 , 000 men . The Allies lost 12 , 000 men . William had Boufflers detained , as Boufflers had violated the terms of surrender and treated Allied prisoners of war poorly after battles at Deinze and Dixmuide . English , Scottish , Irish and Welsh Regiments at the siege . Fourteen regiments from England , Scotland , Ireland and Wales bear " Namur 1695 " as a Battle honour including the Grenadier Guards , the Coldstream Guards , the Scots Guards , The Royal Scots , The King ' s Own Scottish Borderers , The Royal Irish Regiment , The Welch Fusiliers , the Queen ' s Royal Surreys , the East Yorkshire Regiment , the West Yorkshire Regiment the King ' s Own Royal Regiment , the King ' s Own Royal Border Regiment the Sunderland Fusiliers and the Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers . Other regiments taking part included the Bedfordshire Regiment In " Tristram Shandy " . In Laurence Sterne ' s novel " Tristram Shandy " , Tristram ' s uncle Toby injured his groin at the Siege of Namur . A major subplot of the novel involves his obsession with the siege and reenacting battles from the war with his trusty sidekick , Corporal Trim . He builds a complete replica of the battle in his garden , which he shows to his fiancée Widow Wadman , who keeps trying to find out how serious his groin injury is before committing to marry him , but who is always fobbed off with increasingly elaborate accounts of the siege . The siege and Toby ' s reconstruction of it are featured in the film version of the novel , " A Cock and Bull Story " ( 2006 ) . References . city