Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle

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Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 1748. Between March and November 1748 all the belligerents in the War of the Austrian Succession met to negotiate a settlement. The British and French put together an agreement that they persuaded their respective allies to sign. There had been no clear victor in the war and the peace merely acknowledged the status quo. Prussia had made a separate peace with Austria in 1745, but her conquest of Austrian Silesia was recognized at Aix-la-Chapelle. Don Philip of Spain was granted the dukedom of Parma, and Anglo-Spanish trade disputes were adjudicated.

Aix-La-Chapelle, Treaty of (18 October 1748). Also called the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, this treaty ended the War of Austrian Succession (1740–1748), which in Britain's North American colonies was known as King George'S War (1744–1748). The signatories were Great Britain, France, the Habsburg Empire, the United Provinces of the Low Countries (Netherlands), Prussia, Spain, Modena, Genoa, and Sardinia. The treaty basically returned the world situation to the status quo of 1744, with Prussia keeping the former Austrian province of Silesia and France regaining the fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. This greatly surprised the New England colonists, who had put forth a major effort in 1745 to capture the fort for the British Empire. This disappointment damaged relations between London and the New England colonists. The treaty settled nothing with regard to British and French colonial and commercial rivalries in North America, particularly in the regions along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and provided only a respite before the more significant French and Indian War (1754–1763), which was known as the Seven Years' War in Europe. Aix-la-Chapelle was a part of France when the treaty was signed there; it is now known as Aachen, Germany.

Bibliography

Lodge, Richard. Studies in Eighteenth-Century Diplomacy, 1740–1748. London: J. Murray, 1930.

Phillips, Charles L., and Alan Axelrod. "Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle." In Encyclopedia of Historical Treaties and Alliances. Volume 1. New York: Facts on File, 2001.

Sosin, Jack M. "Louisbourg and the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748." William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., 14 (October 1957): 516–535.

—Daniel K. Blewett

There were three Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle. Although "Aix-la-Chapelle" is the now rarely used French name of the German city of Aachen, the name Treaty of Aachen is rarely used.

• Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (812), Byzantine recognition of the Carolingian empire
• Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), ending the War of Devolution
• Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), ending the War of the Austrian Succession.

See also

• Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle

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