At the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession he was made supreme commander of the Prussian troops in the Netherlands.In 1703 he besieged Rheinberg and Geldern, and later Lille and Tournai.
The applicants were Kleve and the "We-4"-cities (Kamp-Lintfort, Moers, Neukirchen and Rheinberg), but the concept of separate universities was discarded.