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The War of the Quadruple Alliance was a "cabinet war" fought between the Spanish Empire and the "Quadruple Alliance" of Great Britain, France, the United Provinces, and the Holy Roman Empire from 1718 to 1720 in the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession. The war was caused by Spain's attempts to reconquer Sardinia and Sicily, which had been lost during the Spanish succession war, and, while Spain failed to reconquer its lost territories, the war resulted in Austria exchanging Sardinia for Savoyard Sicily.

History[]

The 1713 Peace of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, allowed for the House of Bourbon to rule over Spain under the condition that the French and Spanish Bourbons never form a dynastic union, and that Spain would cede the Spanish Netherlands and the Duchy of Milan to the Holy Roman Empire and Sardinia to the Duchy of Savoy. In 1716, Britain and France formed an alliance to oversee the implementation of the Treaty of Utrecht, and they were joined by the Dutch in 1717 to form the "Triple Alliance". However, Spanish chief minister Giulio Alberoni sought to reclaim Sardinia and Sicily from the weak Duchy of Savoy, feeling confident in this venture due to both Savoy and Austria's lack of significant navies.

In August 1717, the Spanish Army landed on Sardinia and reoccupied the island, taking advantage of Austria's distraction by the Ottoman Turks and the bankruptcy of France and the Netherlands. In June 1718, the British Royal Navy was sent into the Mediterranean as a diplomatic crisis brewed. The Spanish ignored this, landing 30,000 troops on Sicily in July 1718. That same month, Austria made peace with the Turks and joined the Triple Alliance in forming an anti-Spanish "Quadruple Alliance".

The Spanish took Palermo on 7 July 1718, and Jean Francois de Bette besieged Messina while Jose Carrillo de Albornoz occupied the rest of the island. In August 1718, the British Royal Navy moved in, and, when the Spanish Navy fired on Admiral George Byng's fleet, the British used the incident as a casus belli and annihilated the Spanish expedition fleet at the Battle of Cape Passaro, isolating the Spanish army on Sicily. Shortly after, a small Austrian army assembled at Naples landed on Sicily, but they were limited to a small bridgehead at Milazzo after a defeat there in October. France joined the war in December 1718 after Alberoni was caught attempting to place King Felipe V of Spain as regent over the young King Louis XV of France, and the Dutch would later join the war in August 1719.

In April 1719, the Jacobite exile James FitzJames led a French army into Spain's Basque Country and captured San Sebastian before entering northern Catalonia. Spain responded by sending an expedition of 1,000 troops to invade Brittany, landing at Vannes but withdrawing after finding little support from the populace. In May 1719, the French captured Pensacola in Spanish Florida, forestalling a Spanish attack on British Georgia; while the Spanish recaptured Pensacola, the town once again fell to the French and was destroyed. In June 1719, the Austrians defeated the Spanish at the Battle of Francavilla in Sicily, and Messina was recaptured in October and Palermo besieged. At the same time, the Spanish-backed Jacobite rising of 1719 was quelled in Scotland and England following the Battle of Glen Shiel. The Royal Navy retaliated by capturing and destroying the Spanish port of Vigo in October 1719, preventing the Spanish from supporting the Jacobite rebellions. In February 1720, a 1,200-strong Spanish expedition from Cuba plundered the Bahamas before the Nassau militia evicted them.

In December 1719, King Felipe dismissed Alberoni as his chief minister and made peace with the Allies at the Hague in October 1720, relinquishing all territory captured in the war. France returned Florida and the occupied territories of northern Spain to the Spanish in exchange for commercial benefits, and Victor Amadeus II of Savoy was forced to accept the trade of Savoyard-occupied Sicily for Austrian-ruled Sardinia. The Franco-British alliance, a rarity in the 18th century, lasted until 1731, when Cardinal Fleury realigned France away from Britain and signed the "Bourbon Compact" with Spain, renewing France and Britain's natural hostility.

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