Qualla: Battle of Tolhuis

Battle of Tolhuis: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Karel Frederik Bombled, Public domain. On the night of June 10, 1672, a farmer named Peters did the French army a favor. He pointed out, in the dark, a shallow place where the Rhine could be crossed near the village of Lobith. The next morning the river that had defended the Dutch Republic since its founding was no longer a defense. Within two days, eighty thousand French troops under the personal command of Louis XIV were on the wrong bank. The Dutch called the year that followed the Rampjaar - the Disaster Year. The people, said one Dutch chronicler, were senseless, the government distraught, the country lost. It all began at a place called Tolhuis, where a Sun King and a helpful farmer changed the map of Europe.

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Image: Karel Frederik Bombled | Public domain

Battle of Tolhuis: The Wrong Assumption

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Frans van der Meulen, Public domain. The regents who ran the Dutch Republic had spent years preparing for the wrong war. They expected, if it came, that the French would invade from the south and waste months besieging Maastricht. Louis XIV's own commanders considered exactly that approach. The king chose otherwise....

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Image: Adam Frans van der Meulen | Public domain

Battle of Tolhuis: Twelve Cannons and Three Companies

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Frans van der Meulen, Public domain. Word reached Arnhem of where the French were. William sent Field Marshal Paul Wurtz with what he could spare - three companies of cavalry and a regiment of Frisian infantry with their guns. Wurtz reached the river on June 12 to find the French army already drawn up in battle orde...

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Image: Adam Frans van der Meulen | Public domain

Battle of Tolhuis: The Maison du Roi Crosses

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sailko, CC BY 2.5. The French regrouped in the shallows and crossed again, in larger formations that broke the river's current and held together. Conde, Louis's commander-in-chief, came across in a barge. The king himself moved up to the bank to be seen by his troops. The Maison du Roi - the gilt-a...

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Image: sailko | CC BY 2.5

Battle of Tolhuis: Longueville's Wine

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Frans van der Meulen, Public domain. Then a young nobleman named Charles Paris d'Orleans, Duke of Longueville, drunk and looking for glory, spurred his horse straight into the surrendering Dutch infantry. He fired his pistols into them, shouting that no man would be spared. The Dutch foot soldiers, who had been lowe...

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Image: Adam Frans van der Meulen | Public domain

Battle of Tolhuis: Rampjaar

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adam Frans van der Meulen, Public domain. The strategic effect of Tolhuis was catastrophic. With the French across the Rhine, the entire IJssel defense line was outflanked overnight. The States of Holland made the wrenching decision to abandon the eastern provinces entirely and to fall back on a final defense built aroun...

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Image: Adam Frans van der Meulen | Public domain