War of Spanish Succession

— Jason

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By the turn of the eighteenth century, the Hapsburg Dynasty controlled a world-spanning and had few rivals.  Spain and the Holy Roman Empire were under their control, as well as extensive holdings in Americas, Asia, and the Pacific.  Despite the size of the Hapsburg domain, their power was in a state of decline.  This decline of Hapsburg fortunes came to a head with the War of Spanish Succession.

The Austrian branch of the Hapsburg family was in a relatively secure position: it controlled the title of Holy Roman Emperor and was a major Central European power.  The Thirty Years War, fought between 1618 and 1648, reduced their political control in the German states, even so few other powers in the region could muster the resources available to the Hapsburgs.  Prussia was a growing rival, but still had several decades before it could challenge the Austrians.

The Spanish branch of the Hapsburg Dynasty had been in a steady state of decline since the mid-1600s.  The Dutch had successfully revolted against the Spanish and ejected them from their newly created Republic of the Netherlands in the mid-1600s.  The immense overseas empire also weakened the Spanish Hapsburgs because so many warships, soldiers, and other resources needed to prevent native uprisings and attacks by other European powers who sought to strip away territory.  Additionally, the English and Dutch would ally with each other to attack the Spanish wherever they could.

Just over the Pyrenes, the Bourbon Dynasty of France was also a hostile power that wished to see the Hapsburgs further humbled.  French King Louis XIV had set a foreign policy that was directed against both the Austrians and Spanish.  The Bourbons feared encirclement by hostile Hapsburg powers and thus sought to find allies.  One of the more unusual of these convenient “friends” was the Ottoman Empire.  As the strongest Muslim power in the Near East and Eastern Europe, the Ottomans could provide a much needed distraction if war broke out between France, Austria, and Spain.

Louis XIV managed to perform a strange sort of victory through his grandchildren.  The Sun King ruled France for 72 years, from 1643 – 1715, and fathered an number of sons who predeceased him.  These crown princes in waiting produced their own generation of children while waiting for their father to die.  The grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, of the Sun King had an indelible effect on the world stage.

In 1700, Hapsburg King Charles II of Spain died without having produced any children.  While an Austrian Hapsburg could easily enough have ascended the vacant throne, Louis XIV made the unprecedented move of declaring his grandson, Philip of Anjou, as the rightful king of Spain.  He had a tenuous claim through his great-grandmother.  Adding further insult to this proceeding, Louis declared that France and Spain would unify as a single power under the Bourbons.

Austria was infuriated by these declarations and sought allies from powers that were also hostile to the French.  Britain, Prussia, and the Netherlands all felt that if the unification of France and Spain was allowed to happen, no European power would have to the means to fend it off.  Austria made the argument that their claimant to the throne, Archduke Charles of Austria, was the legitimate king of Spain.  His claim was stronger; he shared a grandfather with the recently deceased Spanish king.  The resulting war broke out in 1701 and spread from the shores of Europe to the Americas and Asia.

Thirteen years of bitter conflict saw the Grand Alliance win multiple battles against the Bourbon forces.  By 1709, members of British Parliament were trying to negotiate a peace treaty with the Bourbons due to the increasing cost of the war.  A further crack amongst the allies occurred in 1711, with the death of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I of Austria.  The Grand Alliance politics realigned once Archduke Charles assumed the Austrian throne to replace his father as Holy Roman Emperor.  

Fearing that a combined Austria and Spain would be just as dangerous a threat as a Bourbon superstate.  Britain, the Netherlands, and Prussia put pressure on both the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons to end the war.  Louis XIV was only too happy to negotiate: he secured the Spanish throne for Philip of Anjou on the condition that France and Spain would never unify.  The Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713 between France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Prussia.  

Emperor Charles initially refused to sign the treaty as he felt that Spain was legitimately his.  It took a further year of fighting alone for the Austrians to officially end the war with the ratification of the Treaty of Rasatt in 1714.  Though the Bourbons came out of the War of Spanish Succession having secured another throne, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would strip the dynasty of its hard-won gains in just a century’s time.