The defensive alliance formed in September 1672…

The defensive alliance formed in September 1672 between Denmark, Emperor Leopold I, the Electorate of Brandenburg, and the duchies of Brunswick-Celle, Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Hesse-Cassel had maintained an army of twenty-one thouisand foot and ten thousand five hundred horse, and since May 1673, an additional twelve thousand men and twenty vessels maintained with Dutch subsidies.

Brandenburg is now the second most powerful German state (the most powerful being Austria), and maintains its own standing army of twenty-three thousand men.

The Netherlands had been attacked by the French army in 1672, known as the rampjaar, and the ensuing Franco-Dutch War will only be concluded by the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678.

Louis XIV intends to weaken the anti-French alliance by engaging them on their eastern frontiers: he supports John Sobieski, candidate for the Polish throne; he also supports a contemporary revolt of nobles in Hungary, and aims at binding the Brandenburgian army in a war with Sweden.