Rampjaar

In Dutch history, the year 1672 was known as the rampjaar, the "disaster year." That year, following the outbreak of the Franco-Dutch War and the Third Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch Republic was simultaneously attacked by England, France, and the prince-bishops Bernhard von Galen, bishop of Münster, and Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, archbishop of Cologne. The invading armies quickly defeated the Dutch States Army and conquered part of the Republic.

A famous Dutch saying coined that year describes the Dutch people redeloos, its government radeloos, and the country reddeloos: irrational, desperate, and beyond rescue, respectively. Fed up with reduced military spending, the cities of the remaining coastal provinces of Holland, Zealand and Frisia underwent a political transition: the city governments were taken over by Orangists, opposed to the republican regime of the Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, soon ending the First Stadtholderless Period.

Despite the initial shock and successful invasion of the eastern Dutch Republic, the English, French and German forces were eventually driven back. The English were defeated by the navy under Michiel de Ruyter in 1674, resulting in the Treaty of Westminster and eventually leading to the Glorious Revolution. The French were pushed back with the help of the Spanish forces in the Spanish Netherlands, though some Spanish cities were ceded to France. The conflict eventually ended with the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678-9.

...
Wikipedia