war of the spanish succession

 

He retained the Spanish overseas empire, but ceded the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to Austria; Sicily and parts of the Milanese to Savoy; and Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain. The Dutch were less interested than ever in prosecuting the war. Catinat, now in charge of the German front, was uncertain whether to mass the French forces on the Lauter or the Ill River, and Louis William successfully besieged and captured Landau in September. Instead, from Mainz he pushed southeast across the Main River, up the valley of the Neckar, across the watershed between the Neckar and the Danube, and by the middle of June joined forces with Louis of Baden just north of Ulm. In Italy Eugene pushed the French from the Oglio River as far west as the Adda River, thus relieving some of the pressure on Savoy, where Turin was under siege by the French. They clashed with the French under the Duc de Villars at the Battle of Malplaquet, the bloodiest battle of the war. In Spain the imperial forces and their allies also achieved successes in 1705–06. Maximilian II Emanuel now openly declared for France and captured Ulm. Next year, although Marlborough captured Bonn and drove the Elector of Cologne into exile, he failed in his efforts to capture Antwerp, and the French were successful in Germany. The Dauphin, being next in the French line of succession as well, was a problematic choice: Had he inherited both the French and the Spanish realms, he would have control of a vast empire that would have threatened the European balance of power. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. Marlborough, in the meantime, remained in the Low Countries, where he was caught up in capturing an endless succession of fortresses. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) has been described as ‘the first world war of modern times’ with major campaigns fought in Spain, Italy, Germany, Italy as well as at sea. With the Peace of Utrecht, the wars to prevent French hegemony that had dominated the seventeenth century were over for the time being. Charles XII of Sweden had established himself in Saxony in September 1706, and there was a serious danger that where the elector of Bavaria and French troops had failed in their attack on Vienna, Charles might succeed. They insisted that Louis XIV should obtain the surrender of the Spanish throne by Philip and that, if Philip refused, Louis should agree to use force to expel him. Marlborough’s force was then large enough for him to detach Louis of Baden to besiege Ingolstadt, the one strong point on the Danube east of Donauworth held by the Bavarians, and which was a serious threat to communications with Vienna. The War of the Spanish Succession, fought between 1701 and 1714 to decide who should inherit the Spanish throne, was a conflict on an unprecedented scale, stretching across most of western Europe, the high seas and the Americas. The War of the Spanish Succession: The Battle of Oudenarde July 11th 1708 (Part 1) Opening Moves The battlefield devoid of troops. In the precarious lifetime of Charles II, French influences at the Spanish court were heavily counterbalanced in the field of international politics by the attitude of the Maritime Powers—England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands. At sea an English expedition under Adm. Sir George Rooke against Cádiz (August–September 1702) was a failure, but Rooke managed in October to destroy the Spanish silver fleet that had taken refuge in Vigo harbour. THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION including Spain's distant cousins, Partition treaties and wills, Europe takes sides, Fortunes of war, Peace proposals, Royal deaths, Treaties of Utrecht and Baden England and France soon ratified the Treaty of London, 1700 (the Second Partition Treaty), assigning the Spanish throne to the Archduke Charles. Even some English statesmen, including Townshend, Sidney Godolphin, earl of Godolphin, and Marlborough, were prepared to consider allowing Philip V to retain part of the Spanish possessions. Marie-Thérèse explicitly renounced her claim to the Spanish succession upon her marriage to the French king, as her aunt Anne had done on the occasion of her marriage to Louis XIII. In September Villars withdrew in good order to the west of the Rhine after some of his troops had been diverted to the Provence front. The war was fought mostly in Europe but included Queen Anne's War in North America. The Spanish Succession was a major crisis in European politics. Two dynasties claimed the Spanish throne: the French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs; both royal families were closely related to the late King of Spain. The young Bavarian prince abruptly died of smallpox in 1699, reopening the issue of the Spanish succession. There were two main theaters of the war in Europe: Spain and West-Central Europe (especially the Low Countries). The Dutch were offered a strong “barrier” of fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, but the English and imperial governments would not consider terms that envisaged the partition of the Spanish empire. John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, at the Battle of Blenheim, 1704; from a tapestry at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England. On the Spanish front in 1710, Starhemberg won some successes at Almenara in July and at Saragossa in August, and imperial troops were able to occupy Madrid for a second time in September. Other states joined the coalition opposing France and Spain in an attempt to acquire new territories, or to protect existing dominions. In the Low Countries, the Maritime Powers were outnumbered by the French so that there was a serious threat to Holland. The Nine Years' War (1688–1697), often called the War of the Grand Alliance or the War of the League of Augsburg, was a conflict between France and a European coalition which mainly included the Holy Roman Empire (led by the Habsburg Monarchy), the Dutch Republic, England, Spain, Savoy and Portugal.It was fought in Europe and the surrounding seas, in North America, and in India. The 1702 campaign on the Rhine opened uneventfully, but the end of the summer saw a development that was in the next year to become one of the most important operations of the war. Armed conflict began slowly, as Austrian forces under Prince Eugene of Savoy invaded the Duchy of Milan, one of the Spanish territories in Italy, prompting French intervention. 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