Charles VI

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Charles VI (Holy Roman Empire) (1685–1740; ruled 1711–1740), Holy Roman emperor and ruler of the Habsburg Monarchy. Charles VI's greatest claim to historical fame is his role as father to Maria Theresa (ruled 1740–1780), one of the great rulers of the eighteenth century. Historians often point to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a document that guaranteed the succession of his daughter to the traditionally male Habsburg inheritance, as the issue that dominated his reign. This document had its roots in 1703 when Leopold I (ruled 1658–1705), Charles's father, wished to regulate the order of succession if his two sons, Charles and Joseph (ruled 1705–1711 as Joseph I), should have no male issue. In the early agreements, Joseph's female heirs were to succeed to Habsburg authority, but in 1713 Charles changed that to provide for the succession of his own daughters. By 1720 Charles had embarked on an extensive campaign to secure recognition for his daughter's succession first from his own crownlands and then from the European powers generally. He achieved that recognition, but upon his death Prussia, Bavaria, and France renounced their commitment to it. This renunciation was followed by the War of the Austrian Succession, which would, after considerable suffering, enhance the Europe-wide fame of and respect for Maria Theresa.

In his younger years, Charles had his own wars to fight. When the Spanish King Charles II died in 1700, Louis XIV of France laid claim to the Spanish throne, a prospect that frightened other great powers, already experienced in struggles against the ambitions of the Sun King. In the ensuing War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the allied powers opposed to Louis (Britain, Austria, Holland, Prussia) adopted Charles as their candidate for the Spanish throne. Charles achieved some success in Catalonia, but, when his brother died in 1711, and he became ruler of the Habsburg possessions, the British and Dutch insisted that he abandon his claim to Spain, and he did so. He oversaw the Austrian role in bringing the War of the Spanish Succession to a close.

Politically Charles fits into the group of late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century monarchs who understood that success of the state depended upon administrative centralization and economic advancement. He was not a thoroughgoing reformer in the stamp of Louis XIV or Peter the Great of Russia, but he did introduce changes that he believed would enhance the development of his state. In Silesia and Bohemia cloth production increased, and he aided the city of Linz in reviving its woolen mills. In 1717 the first cotton plant opened in the town of Schwechat, near Vienna, and in 1718 Charles approved the establishment of a porcelain factory modeled on the Meissen plant that had opened in Dresden just a few years earlier.

To assist these and other establishments, Charles built new roads connecting some of the Habsburg cities, including those from Vienna to Prague and Vienna to Brno. Probably the most famous was the road over the Semmering Pass, which connected the Austrian heartland to Italy. In addition, he declared as free ports Fiume and Trieste, the principal Habsburg cities on the Adriatic Sea, in hopes that they could compete successfully with Venice for Adriatic and eventually Mediterranean trade. His most famous venture was the incorporation of the Ostend Company in his Belgian lands, which was designed to compete with the British and the Dutch for trade in East Africa and in the East and West Indies. This company enjoyed a few years of success until, under considerable pressure from the British and the Dutch, it was changed into a bank in the 1730s.

Charles was less aggressive in war and diplomacy, with the notable exception of his pursuit of recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. Still, in 1716–1718 his armies, under the brilliant leadership of Europe's foremost military commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, crushed the armies of the Ottoman Empire and in 1718 imposed upon the Turks the Peace of Passarowitz (Pozerevac), which ceded to the monarchy the mighty fortress of Belgrade at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and its surrounding countryside. This acquisition left Austria poised to advance far into the Balkans, but the backwardness of the area gave Charles and his advisers pause. From 1717 to 1737 the government invested considerable resources to develop Belgrade and the area north of the fortress, called the Banat, but the yields were disappointing, as were additional Habsburg efforts in the Banat in the 1760s and 1770s.

Charles's reign ended in disappointment. Austria entered another war against the Turks in 1737, this time not to win territory for itself but to curb the Balkan ambitions of its ally, Russia. Although the Ottomans were not formidable opponents, poor leadership, logistical problems, and missed opportunities led to the Austrian cession of Belgrade and the lands south of the Danube to the Ottomans. Charles hoped, however, that his success in securing recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction would atone for this defeat by guaranteeing the peaceful accession of his daughter. That accession, however, was far from peaceful.

Bibliography

Henderson, Nicholas. Prince Eugen of Savoy. New York, 1964. Reprint, New York and London, 2002.

Ingrao, Charles. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–1815. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 2002.

Wangermann, Ernst. The Austrian Achievement, 1700–1800. New York, 1973.

—KARL A. ROIDER