War of the Reunions The War of the Reunions ( 1683 – 84 ) was a short conflict between France and Spain and its allies . It was fueled by the long - running desire of Louis XIV to conquer new lands , many of them comprising part of the Spanish Netherlands , along France ' s northern and eastern borders . The war was , in some sense , a continuation of the territorial and dynastic aims of Louis XIV as manifested in the War of Devolution and the Franco – Dutch War . Background . The treaties ending the War of Devolution ( the Treaty of Aix - la - Chapelle [ 1668 ] ) and the Franco – Dutch War ( the Treaty of Nijmegen [ 1678 ] ) , as well as the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 ( which ended the Thirty Years War ) , ceded a number of towns to France . By tradition , when a town changed hands so did the surrounding rural areas , which provided it with food and other such supplies . Often , the borders of these dependent regions were ill - defined . Thus Louis and his court , beginning in 1670 , introduced several Chambers of Reunion that would investigate whether France had been granted all the territory it had been owed . The Chambers of Reunion , loyal to the king , ruled after a review of conflicting medieval documents that a number of outlying areas should be awarded to France . These territories generally consisted of small towns and villages , and for the most part Louis ' s annexations went unopposed . The territory seized mainly came from the Spanish Netherlands and the western parts of the Holy Roman Empire , especially Alsace . Two of these territories seized by Louis as part of the Reunions were Strasbourg and Luxembourg . Officially , Strasbourg was intended to remain a neutral and independent city . However , this left large rural lands under Louis ' s control that were unprotected by major garrison towns , because Louis ' advisors believed that as long as Strasbourg remained " independent " Alsace would never be secure from attack . Indeed , the bridge over the Rhine at Strasbourg had been used repeatedly by the Imperial ( Holy Roman Empire ) forces . Three times during the recent Franco - Dutch War Strasbourg had served as a gateway for Imperial invasions into Alsace . Thus , Strasbourg endangered Louis ' s newly annexed territories in Alsace , just as the great fortress of Luxembourg dominated the other regions Louis had annexed from the Spanish Netherlands . In 1681 Strasbourg , then a " so - called " independent " city in Holy Roman Empire , was annexed after Louis surrounded the city with overwhelming force . Louis marched into the city on 30 September 1681 . Louis also ordered Marshal Louis - François Boufflers to surround and begin an artillery and mortar barrage of Luxembourg . The summer of 1683 was the peak of War of the Holy League , in which the eastern flank of the Holy Roman Empire went under the greatest ever offensive by Ottoman Empire . This war on the eastern front of the Holy Roman Empire , broke the momentum of Louis ' confrontation with the Empire over Luxembourg . Louis decided that it would be impolitic for him to attack another Christian kingdom while that kingdom were under attack from the infidel Turk . Accordingly in March 1682 , Louis ordered a halt to the bombardment of Luxembourg and withdrew his troops . On 12 September 1683 , combined Imperial and German troops defeated the Turks right under the walls of Vienna . This was the high - water mark of Turkish expansion . The defeat before the walls of Vienna was a crucial turning point for Europe . The mistique and prestige of the Ottoman Turks was broken in the eyes of Europe . Turkey would never again be on the offensive in Europe and would be on the defensive until the downfall of the Ottomans in 1908 . War . As the Ottoman threat stalled before Vienna , the Hapsburgs were able to turn their attentions to the west . Luxembourg ' s resistance to the demands of the French Reunion claims and their refusal to fall to the French army caused war to break out . The Spain declared war on France on 26 October 1683 . A French army under the Duke of Humières surrounded the town of Courtrai on the night of 3 – 4 November 1683 . The fortress at Courtrai fell on 6 November 1683 . Humières , then , advanced on Dixmude which surrendered without a fight on 10 November 1683 . A French army under Marshal François - Joseph , Créqui bombarded Luxembourg with 3 , 000 to 4 , 000 mortar shells between 22 – 26 December 1683 and the withdrew from the city . However , the real siege of Luxembourg began the next spring when assisted by his technical expert on siege warfare , Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban , Louis once again surrounded the large fortress at Luxembourg on 29 April 1684 . The fortress was defended by 2 , 500 men and they fought on against the French army until 3 June 1684 when they surrendered . Spanish forces in the Netherlands , backed by the Holy Roman Empire , continued to fight the French until a final treaty in the war was reached at Treaty of Ratisbon on 15 August 1684 . The Treaty of Ratisbon was really just a truce and , thus , France continued to hold all the territory she had taken during the war , including Strasbourg and Luxembourg . France ' s subsequent actions taken after the war were intended merely to make the truce into a real permanent treaty . Despite its relative brevity , the War of the Reunions developed a reputation for being an especially bloody conflict . Louis XIV and his military advisors designed a campaign of violent reprisals in an effort to influence public opinion , with the aim of pressuring enemy officials to surrender . During one battle Louvois ordered the comte de Montal to burn twenty villages near Charleroi because the Spanish previously destroyed two barns on the outskirts of two French villages , and he insisted that not a single house should remain standing in the twenty villages . The Republic of Genoa had a long standing relationship with Spain . Indeed , Genoese bankers and financial houses — the Centurioni , the Palavicini and the Vivaldi families — had since the sixteenth century been loaning money to the Spanish government . However , Genoese involvement in the recent war between Spain and France had been rather limited — allowing the Spanish to recruit mercenary soldiers on Genoese territory and building some galleys for the Spanish navy . However , even this limited involvement was too much for the French to bear . As a punishment for these indescretions and for allowing the Spanish troops to use the port at Genoa , a French fleet under the command of Abraham Duquesne sailed from France ' s great Mediterranean naval base of Toulon to Genoa on 5 May 1684 and began a bombardment of Genoa on 17 May 1684 . The bombardment of Genoa lasted for the next 12 days in May 1684 with the exception of a reprieve lasting from 22 May until 25 May 1684 to allow for negotiations on a peace to be conducted . When these negotiqtions broke fown the bombardment resumed and continued until 28 May 1684 . In all , the French showered 13 , 300 bombs on Genoa , destroying about two - thirds of the city . Peace and treaty . While Louis refused to send aid to the Empire and even dispatched envoys to secretly encourage the Ottomans , contemporary accounts indicate that it would be unseemly for him to continue fighting the Empire on its western border . Thus , Louis agreed to the Truce of Ratisbon , guaranteeing twenty years of peace between France and the Empire and asking his first cousin , Charles II of England , to arbitrate the disputed border claims . Aftermath of war . The War of the Reunions , like its immediate continental predecessors , failed to resolve the festering conflict between the French Bourbon Dynasty and the Spanish and Austrian branches of the Habsburg Dynasty . This brief though brutal conflict was one of the precursors to the lengthier Nine Years ' War .