On 11 April 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed between most participants in the War of the Spanish Succession: Spain and France against Great Britain, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic.

Louis XIV's advanced age and the sickly state of his infant heir fed the hope that France, too, could face a succession crisis and be driven to seek peace at any cost.

He could attempt to force the Rhine and seize certain strongpoints on the right bank, extracting tribute and materiel from the south German states to sustain his army and pressure the Emperor; a further push east into Bavaria would allow him to restore the Elector Maximilian, France's ally and client, to his throne.

Less ambitiously, keeping to the left bank, Villars could subject the Electoral Palatinate to French occupation and compel it to contribute to France's war effort.

[2] Throughout the campaign, Villars would employ repeated feints along these axes to mask his intentions from Eugene and keep the Imperials bottled up behind the Lines of Ettlingen, unable to interfere with his siege operations.

[4] Seizing Speyer as a position from which to interdict any westward sally from Eugene, Villars detached the Marquis de Bezons to invest Landau on 24 June.

[7] Villars left a screening force along Ettlingen and departed for Kehl via Strasbourg, where he took command of the siege works and invested Freiburg on the night of 30 September–1 October.