The War of the Austrian Succession (16 December 1740-18 October 1748) was a war fought over the question of Maria Theresa's succession to the Habsburg monarchy in Austria. After the death of Karl VI of Germany, it was argued that Salic law disqualified Maria Theresa, a woman, from inheriting the throne, and Prussia and France both sought to enforce Salic law to prevent Habsburg expansion. Great Britain and the United Provinces, traditional enemies of France, decided to side with the Holy Roman Empire, and war broke out when Prussia invaded the disputed Austrian-held region of Silesia. King Frederick the Great of Prussia succeeded in occupying Silesia and invading Bohemia, and he assisted Emperor Charles VII of Bavaria with holding off an Austrian invasion. On 11 June 1742, Prussia signed a separate peace with Austria after defeating them at Chotusitz, and Austria lost Silesia to the Prussians. Charles VII became the new Holy Roman Emperor, but Prussia's exit from the war and a lack of coordination between the French and Bavarian armies led to a string of Austrian victories, culminating in a defeat at Simbach in 1743. That same year, King George II of Great Britain personally oversaw a victory over the French at Dettingen in the last occasion in which a British monarch commanded troops in battle. However, Spain succeeded in grabbing territories in Italy while Austria was distracted by the French and, from 1744, the Prussian menace, and the Spanish defeated the British at sea during the War of Jenkins' Ear. In 1745, Prussia again made peace with the Allies, and the war was resolved by the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle. Prussia's control over Silesia was confirmed, Spain gained Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla in Italy, and France briefly gained the Austrian Netherlands, but Maria Theresa was confirmed as ruler of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary (with her husband Francis of Lorraine becoming Emperor), and she regained Flanders from France. The war would leave the Silesian question unresolved, and the Seven Years' War broke out just eight years later.
Background[]
By the 1730s Western and Central Europe had not seen a large-scale war for decades. There had not, however, been peace - minor skirmishes were a regular occurrence.
Earlier European conflicts had stemmed from dynastic disputes. Notably, during the War of the Spanish Succession, these familial arguments had provided the pretext for a tussle for supremacy. It seemed that any excuse for conflict would suffice. In 1739, Britain and Spain had fought in the Caribbean in the "War of Jenkins' Ear", sparked after a Spanish coastguard allegedly cut off the ear of Robert Jenkins, an English merchant sea captain he accused of piracy. In the interim, Prussia's Frederick William I had been modernizing his forces, ready to stake his own claim to military ascendancy.
History[]
The "Pragmatic Sanction", pushed through by Emperor Charles VI in 1713, stated that, in the absence of a male heir, a daughter might succeed to the Habsburg monarchy. It was no coincidence that the emperor had just sugh a daughter. When he died in 1739, the Habsburgs' allies accepted Maria Theresa as ruler of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary without demur, but their enemies found a deep and principled objection to the idea that royal power might be imparted down the female line.
Frederick II promptly dispatched his Prussian forces into Habsburg Silesia, in present-day southwestern Poland. His father, Frederick William I, had drilled his soldiers relentlessly for years, inculcating iron discipline to produce a powerful military machine that was ready for action at any time. Marginal till now, Prussia was to gain respect and fear, not just as a military power, but as a militaristic one. Its army was ready to march onto the European stage.
Widening war[]
Crossing the Oder in December 1740, Prussian armies took the area almost unopposed. Caught unawares, Austrian forces retreated into fortresses or withdrew into Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic). Europe looked on, amazed at the speed and efficiency of the Prussian conquest. But slowly Austria marshalled its resistance, Maria Theresa turning out to be an adept war leader. In April 1741, the Battle of Mollwitz, in present-day Poland, was a close Prussian victory. That December, still undefeated, but feeling the pressure, Frederick II allied with France, agreeing to support the Bavarian elector, Charles Albert, as the next emperor. The War of the Austrian Succession was under way.
The fighting moved to Bohemia, with Frederick's forces pushing southward, while the French marched into Prague from the west. The city fell in November 1741, and Charles Albert was placed on the Bohemian throne by his allies. In February 1742, he was elected the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII. He had hardly been crowned, though, when Bohemia was overwhelmed by Maria Theresa's men, and the new emperor fled. The conflict escalated. Any enemy of France being Britain's friend, King George II had enlisted in the "Pragmatic Army" (a league of states who supported the Pragmatic Sanction). Battle rejoined in New England and Canada between France and Britain and their Native American allies; there was war in India too, where Britain and France had colonies. Britain was also at war with Spain in the Caribbean, and in the Mediterranean the widening war was taking in the little states and duchies of Italy. But although Maria Theresa had ceded most of Silesia to Prussia in 1742 as part of the Peace of Breslau, the situation deteriorated for the anti-Habsburg allies.
Prussian tactics[]
King George II led the British attack at the Battle of Dettingen in Germany in June 1743. The allies were victorious despite haviing their line of retreat cut off during the "Mousetrap", a trap laid by the Duc de Noailles. Both France and Prussia rallied in 1744. Frederick II reopened hostilities in Silesia after Austria had tried to reclaim the region. In June 1745, he won a tactical victory at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, in present-day Poland, approaching the enemy in "oblique order" - focusing his attack on one flank while at the same time presenting a solid front. This left the enemy with no room to adjust their positions or regroup. Frederick not only won his reputation here for tactical genius, but also the title, "Frederick the Great". Another triumph followed at Soor, in the present-day Czech Republic, in September. In December Leopold I won at Kesselsdorf in Germany.
With events swinging against the Pragmatic cause, Britain's growing difficulties were seen as opportunities by longstanding foes. Ireland's soldiers of fortune, the "Wild Geese", led teh vital cavalry charge when the French triumphed at Fontenoy, in present-day Belgium, in May 1745. That same year, supporters of Charles Edward Stuart, or "Bonnie Prince Charlie", tried to place him on the throne. In July he landed in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, and marched south with an army from the Highlands. The troops made it as far as Derby before turning back, disillusioned at the lack of English support. Prince Charlie fled to France after the defeat at Culloden, Scotland in April 1746.
French occupation[]
From France's perspective, 1745 had been successful in distracting Britain from the "real" war. Marshal Maurice de Saxe's French forces won at the battle of Rocoux, outside Liege, in October 1746, triumphing again at Lauffeld in July 1747. France now occupied the whole of the Austrian Netherlands, threatening the United Provinces to the north. With the Dutch town of Maastricht besieged by French troops for the second time in less than a century, negotiation sbegan, leading to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Aftermath[]
For all the years of bloodshed, not a great deal had changed. Prussia gained the most: its possession of Silesia - and its status as a military power - were confirmed.
Frederick the Great felt that his father's past efforts - and his own - in rebuilding Prussia as a soldier-state had been amply vindicated. He continued his reforms with renewed zeal. Prussia was ruled as though it were an arm of the military, becoming a byword for regimentation and discipline.
The surrender of Silesia apart, Austria had emerged unscathed, and Maria Theresa held on to her throne. That left unfinished business at the heart of Europe. Austria and Prussia were to be at the center of another far-reaching conflict with the start of the Seven Years' War.
In the months after Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland exacted cruel retribution in the Highlands, using terror tactics to quell the population. The traditional rights of the chiefs were formally rescinded. Weapons had to be handed in and the trappings of the clan system were outlawed; wearing tartan plaids or kilts became a crime. Having escaped from Scotland in disguise, Charles Edward Stuart spent the rest of his life in exile. When he died in 1788, the Jacobite dream died with him.