The Austrian Netherlands was a province of Austria and a state of the Holy Roman Empire that existed in the Low Countries from 1714 to 1797, with Brussels serving as its capital. Austria acquired the region from Spain at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, with the Spanish Netherlands being ceded to the Habsburgs. The Austrian Netherlands consisted of western Belgium and greater Luxembourg, and it was separated from Austria by swathes of German and French territory; from 1714 to 1781, Dutch troops were stationed in the southern frontier fortresses of the Austrian Netherlands as a result of the "Barrier Treaty". In 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the French First Republic annexed the Austrian Netherlands after defeating the Austrians at the Battle of Sprimont, and the Austrian Netherlands was formally ceded to France in 1797 under the Treaty of Campo Formio.
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