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Military History Companion:

War of the Austrian Succession

Austrian Succession, War of the (1740-8), a loosely related and indecisive series of struggles involving the leading European states. Though extending overseas, to the West Indies, North America, and the Indian subcontinent, it was fought mainly in central Europe, the Italian peninsula and, latterly, the southern Netherlands. Fought between two loose and frequently changing alliances, it was as much a series of manoeuvres by the diplomats as operations by the armies, and was remarkable principally for Prussia's emergence as a leading military power. It settled little, and the peace settlement in 1748 was widely seen as merely a truce, which it soon proved to be.

The struggle took its name from the failure of Charles VI, ruler of the Habsburg monarchy and Holy Roman Emperor (1711-40), to father a male heir. A woman could not be elected to the position of emperor, which had been in Habsburg hands since the 15th century and was now seen in Vienna as hereditary. The succession of Charles VI's elder surviving daughter Maria Theresa to the family possessions (principally the Austrian provinces, the Bohemian crown lands, and the kingdom of Hungary, together with the outlying territories of the duchy of Milan and the Austrian (southern) Netherlands) was provided for by a family agreement, the so-called Pragmatic Sanction. During the 1720s and 1730s Charles VI had secured wide-ranging domestic and international support for this arrangement. Two middle-sized German states, Bavaria and Saxony, had their own claims to the Habsburg inheritance, but when Charles VI died suddenly in October 1740 the military challenge to Maria Theresa came from the unexpected quarter of Prussia, now ruled by the young and ambitious Frederick ‘the Great’.

Until May 1740 Prussia, the lands of which consisted of three distinct, thinly populated, and economically backward blocks of territory stretched out across half of northern Europe, from the Rhineland in the west to the Niemen far to the east, had been ruled by Frederick William I. Chiefly remembered for his oddities, above all his famous regiment of tall grenadiers (who were paraded through the king's bedchamber when he was ill, apparently making him feel much better) and for the brutal treatment of his son and successor, he had created a state to be feared on the unpromising foundations he had inherited. Frederick William I had built up the Hohenzollern army to the impressive strength of 80, 000 men and created an administrative and military infrastructure to support it, yet conscious of the vulnerability of his exposed possessions he had pursued a peaceful and pro-Habsburg policy.

His son by contrast believed that Prussia's destiny required territorial expansion, to secure the resources to make it a major power, and Charles VI's death provided an ideal opportunity. Maria Theresa's inheritance was ramshackle and extremely vulnerable: she lacked competent generals and political advisers, her finances were in chaos, while the army had been defeated both in the Rhineland during the War of the Polish Succession (1733-5) and more seriously in the south in a conflict with the Ottoman empire, fought in alliance with Russia (1737-9). Within a fortnight of Maria Theresa's accession, Frederick determined to invade populous and economically advanced Silesia, part of the Bohemian lands and connected by a thin strip of territory to the central Hohenzollern province of Brandenburg.

The invasion was launched on 16 December 1740. Within six weeks the Prussian army had overrun and occupied most of Silesia. In spring 1741 an attempted Austrian counter-attack was defeated at the battle of Mollwitz (10 April), a fortuitous success for Frederick but one with enormous political repercussions. The victory gained by the Prussian infantry encouraged the formation of a European alliance against Maria Theresa. Bavaria and Saxony joined to pursue their own claims to the Habsburg inheritance, while both the ambitious northern Italian power of Savoy-Piedmont and Spain took up the struggle against Austria in Italy. For a generation the queen of Spain, Philip V's second wife the ambitious Elizabeth Farnese, had been seeking Italian principalities for her sons by her first marriage, and the war of the 1740s was a continuation of this quest. Finally and most importantly France, the leading continental power, joined the anti-Habsburg alliance which emerged in the course of 1741.

The war of the Austrian Succession, 1740-8: operations 1740-2. (Click to enlarge)
The war of the Austrian Succession, 1740-8: operations 1740-2.
(Click to enlarge)


Until that summer France had been preoccupied with her Bourbon ally Spain's struggle with Britain which had begun in 1739, the famous ‘War of Jenkins's Ear’. This had its origins in the confrontation between the rising British empire and the extensive and alluring Spanish possessions, particularly in the western hemisphere. British efforts to expand trade with Spain's colonies, in defiance of trade regulations, led to a series of clashes and, in an increasingly belligerent atmosphere, to war over the alleged cutting off of Capt Jenkins's ear by a Spanish coastguard. In 1739-41 France's octogenarian leading minister, Cardinal Fleury, was unofficially aiding Madrid and regarded full-scale war with Britain as inevitable. Franco-Spanish intervention in the continental struggle with Maria Theresa led to the colonial war becoming very much a secondary issue: particularly when Britain, in the following year, began to support her traditional ally Austria. This ensured that fighting in the Anglo-Spanish war was much reduced in intensity after 1742, when both sides came to concentrate resources on the conflict within Europe.

French intervention was championed at Louis XV's court by the Maréchal-Duc de Belle-Isle, who supplanted Fleury's pacific influence and led a French army on a dramatic but militarily unproductive invasion of the Habsburg monarchy in 1741, occupying the Bohemian capital, Prague. Frederick, conscious of his own limited resources, which were rapidly being exhausted and which, he believed, forced him to fight ‘short and lively’ wars, began increasingly to think of peace. Already in possession of large parts of Silesia, he was able to exploit Maria Theresa's vulnerability, which had been increased by the emergence of the anti-Austrian coalition and by the election of the Bavarian candidate as the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII. In the following year Prussia abandoned her allies. By the Treaty of Berlin (July 1742) Frederick secured Habsburg acceptance of his gain of Silesia and left the war. The struggle now entered a particularly indecisive phase, with few battles, much manoeuvring by the armies which led nowhere, and futile diplomacy which accompanied and often undermined the military operations. Its middle years witnessed an Austrian recovery brought about by the leadership of Maria Theresa, and to a lesser extent by London's financial and diplomatic support, which led to George II being the last British king to appear in person on a battlefield, at Dettingen on 27 June 1743.

The war of the Austrian Succession, 1740-8: operations 1743-8. (Click to enlarge)
The war of the Austrian Succession, 1740-8: operations 1743-8.
(Click to enlarge)


In the following year both Britain and France formally entered the conflict as principals: until then they had simply fought as auxiliaries. The war consequently became more of a purely Anglo-French struggle. During the first half of 1744 Frederick, ever watchful and anxious lest the Austrian recovery should mean that he would have to defend his gain of Silesia, moved towards re-entering the conflict, and this he duly did in August when he invaded Bohemia. The campaign which followed was notably unsuccessful: his winter retreat was little short of a disaster. In 1745 the king won notable victories at Hohenfriedberg (4 June) and Soor (29 September), in the process establishing his own reputation as a commander. At the end of 1745 the veteran Prussian general Dessau won a stunning victory over the Saxons (now the allies of Vienna) at Kesseldorf (15 December), one of the conflict's very few decisive battles, and this forced Austria to come to terms. Prussia now abandoned the war, and her allies, for a second time, securing possession of Silesia by the Peace of Dresden, signed on Christmas Day 1745. This marked the real end of the struggle over the Austrian succession, especially since Charles VII had died in the previous January and his successor had quickly concluded a settlement with Austria, by which he had secured the return of his Bavarian lands, hitherto occupied by Habsburg troops.

In 1745-6 British attention was diverted by the final Jacobite rising, led by Charles Edward Stuart, the ‘Young Pretender’, who quickly proved to be an even less able leader than his father. Despite this his army reached Derby before turning back, and the Hanoverian government was forced to undertake large-scale military operations within the British Isles, involving the recall of line regiments from the continent. Only with the final defeat of the uprising at Culloden could London's attention return to the continental war, in which it now fought in partnership with the Dutch Republic. The European struggle was very different in nature. In 1746-8 fighting only took place in the Italian peninsula, where the existing stalemate lasted for the remainder of the war, and in the Low Countries. On France's northern border the French commander Maurice de Saxe, one of the Polish King Augustus ‘the Strong’'s numerous illegitimate offspring, won an impressive series of victories. His successes at Fontenoy, Roucoux (11 October 1746), and Laufeldt (2 July 1747) led to the overrunning of the Dutch Republic during 1747, and contributed to the coming of peace. No such decisive advantage was apparent beyond Europe, where the French capture of Madras (September 1746), the sole event of importance in some small-scale fighting in the Indian subcontinent, effectively cancelled out the British success at Louisbourg. This great fortress on Cape Breton Island in the Gulf of St Lawrence had been taken by a British combined operation in June 1745, in what was probably the most remarkable victory of the entire conflict.

Negotiations had begun among the war-weary participants at Breda in October 1746, and were subsequently continued at Aix-la-Chapelle. They were dominated, to a great extent, by Britain (now in partnership with the Dutch Republic) and France, who in the end imposed their terms on the other belligerents. The most surprising feature of the final settlement, which was not signed until October and November 1748, was that the considerable military advantage within Europe gained by Saxe for France was not reflected in the actual terms, which largely restored the territorial status quo, except in the Italian peninsula. There, Farnese's son Don Philip was given the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, while Savoy-Piedmont made some minor gains. The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle provided an international guarantee for Prussia's possession of Silesia, to which Frederick attached considerable significance.

This was the one truly significant outcome of the war. Prussia was now clearly the equal of Austria in Germany and central Europe, and a struggle for supremacy which would not be settled until 1866, on the field of Königgrätz, was inaugurated. In all other respects the War of the Austrian Succession was indecisive. With hindsight it marked the international eclipse of the Dutch Republic, while the failure of ‘the Forty-five’ marked the end of the Jacobite threat to the Hanoverian succession. Beyond Europe it was at most a pause—and in North America not even that—in the Anglo-French struggle for empire, while within Europe the Habsburgs were unreconciled to the loss of Silesia and with it their traditional dominance within Germany. Preparations for the next conflict began almost before the ink on the peace settlement was dry. When it came, it was a conflict on a wholly new scale: the Seven Years War of 1756-63.

Bibliography

  • Anderson, M. S., The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748 (London, 1995).
  • Browning, Reed, The War of the Austrian Succession (New York and Stroud, 1993).
  • Showalter, Dennis E., The Wars of Frederick the Great (London, 1996)

— Hamish Scott

 
 
US Military Dictionary: War of the Austrian Succession

(1740-48) a series of conflicts arising from the death of Charles VI, the Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Hapsburg lands. His daughter the Archduchess Maria Theresa succeeded him but there were counterclaimants. Fighting began when King Frederick II of Prussia invaded the Austrian-controlled province of Silesia in 1744. Other European powers were involved in complicated alliances, in which the New World colonies were occasionally viewed as possible prizes for a victor. The conflict ended in 1748 with the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which restored the status quo ante.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: War of the Austrian Succession

(1740 – 48) Group of related wars that took place after the death (1740) of Emperor Charles VI. At issue was the right of Charles's daughter Maria Theresa to inherit the Habsburg lands. The war began when Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740. His victory suggested that the Habsburg dominions were incapable of defending themselves, prompting other countries to enter the fray. The conflict was ended by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

For more information on War of the Austrian Succession, visit Britannica.com.

 
German Literature Companion: War of the Austrian Succession, The

War of the Austrian Succession, The, see Öster-reichischer Erbfolgekrieg.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: War of the Austrian Succession,
1740–48, general European war.

Causes of the War

The war broke out when, on the strength of the pragmatic sanction of 1713, the Austrian archduchess Maria Theresa succeeded her father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, as ruler of the Hapsburg lands. The elector of Bavaria, Charles Albert, advanced counterclaims to the succession while Philip V of Spain and Augustus III of Poland and Saxony advanced weak claims of their own. Frederick II of Prussia, on even less tenable grounds claimed part of the province of Silesia.

First Silesian War

Frederick II began the war by invading and rapidly occupying Silesia. His cynical offer of support to Maria Theresa if she would cede the province was rejected. Victorious at Mollwitz (1741), Frederick obtained the alliance of France, Spain, Bavaria, and Saxony. Charles Albert of Bavaria, who was promised the imperial election, advanced on Vienna. In Oct., 1741, however, Prussia agreed to a truce in exchange for most of Silesia. This armistice was soon broken but gave the Austrians an opportunity to regroup their forces. The French were unwilling to permit the Bavarians too much power and ordered them to attack Bohemia, which was relatively unimportant, instead of Vienna. Joined by France and Saxony, Bavaria took Prague (Nov., 1741), and Charles Albert was elected emperor as Charles VII.

Meanwhile, Maria Theresa had obtained full support from the Hungarian diet and the promise of aid from Great Britain, which had been at war with Spain since 1739 (see Jenkins's Ear, War of). Early in 1742 Austrian troops overran Bavaria and laid siege to Prague, and in July, Maria Theresa made peace with Prussia by ceding most of Silesia (Treaty of Berlin). Thus ended this conflict, often called the First Silesian War. Saxony also made peace and joined Austria as an ally in 1743. The epic retreat from Prague of the French under Marshal Belle-Isle (winter, 1742–43) was followed by the victory of George II of Britain over the French at Dettingen (1743).

Second Silesian War

In 1744 Frederick II, fearing the rising power of Austria, started the Second Silesian War by invading Bohemia; he was soon expelled by Austrian and Saxon forces. On the death (1745) of Emperor Charles VII, Bavaria, once more overrun by Austrian troops, was forced out of the war. These Austrian successes were balanced by the great French victory (1745) of Fontenoy, where Maurice de Saxe defeated the British. Anxious for peace, George II concluded (1745) the Convention of Hanover with Frederick II, who promised to support the imperial candidacy of Maria Theresa's husband (shortly afterward elected as Francis I) in return for her cession of Silesia guaranteed by Europe. Defeated at Hohenfriedberg and at Kesselsdorf, Maria Theresa accepted the compromise in the Treaty of Dresden with Prussia (Dec., 1745).

The war continued in N Italy, in the Low Countries, in North America (see French and Indian Wars), and in India. The chief belligerents (Austria, Britain, Holland, and Sardinia on the one side, France and Spain on the other) grew weary of the conflict. Although Maria Theresa secured (1748) the alliance of Russia, the other nations were determined to restore peace, and late in 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (see Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 2) was signed. Prussia gained Silesia and thus emerged as a major European power; the Hapsburgs thenceforth looked to the east for resources to develop their state.

Bibliography

See biography by E. Crankshaw, Maria Theresa (1970); C. A. Macartney, Maria Theresa and the House of Austria (1969).


 
History 1450-1789: War of the Austrian Succession

On 20 October 1740 the death of the last male Habsburg, the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI (ruled 1711–1740), precipitated a major European war for the succession both to his territories and to the elected position of emperor. The lands over which Charles had ruled consisted of the Austrian duchies, the kingdom of Bohemia (including Silesia and Moravia), the kingdom of Hungary, the duchy of Milan, and the ten provinces of the southern Netherlands. Over the course of his reign he had sought political guarantees from the territorial princes of the empire and the other great powers that they would uphold the Pragmatic Sanction (an edict he had first promulgated in 1713) and ensure that the succession to the Habsburg lands would pass to his daughter Maria Theresa (b. 1717) in the absence of a son. There were, though, two rival claimants for Charles's inheritance, the daughters of his elder brother, the emperor Joseph I (ruled 1705–1711): Maria Josepha, married in 1719 to Crown Prince Augustus of Saxony, and Maria Amalia, who married Crown Prince Karl Albert of Bavaria in 1722. Despite the renunciations of all claims to the Habsburg inheritance made by the two archduchesses, this did not stop the Saxons and the Bavarians from intriguing throughout the 1720s and 1730s to secure some or all of the lands upon Charles VI's eventual death. Moreover, the last three years of Charles's reign made a dismemberment of the Habsburg Monarchy all the more likely thanks to a massive increase in the state debt during an unsuccessful and demoralizing war against the Ottoman Empire, which had revealed to the rest of Europe serious deficiencies in the Habsburg military machine.

The War of the Austrian Succession was precipitated in December 1740 by the invasion of Silesia by Frederick II ("the Great") of Brandenburg-Prussia (ruled 1740–1786), who had himself succeeded to his throne only six months earlier on the death of his father, Frederick William I (ruled 1713–1740). Unlike Frederick William, the new Prussian monarch had little respect for imperial law and institutions if they stood in the way of securing his territories; and while Frederick's claims on Silesia had more justification than has sometimes been conceded, nevertheless it was an act that caused alarm across Europe. Following the invasion and Prussia's defeat of the Austrians at Mollwitz in April 1741, Maria Theresa's stubborn refusal to negotiate with Frederick almost cost her the rest of her lands: between May and September 1741 a coalition was assembled consisting of France, Spain, Prussia, Bavaria, and Saxony that intended to seize large parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. Maria Theresa's truce with Frederick II, the Convention of Klein-Schnellendorf in October 1741, came too late to prevent a Franco-Bavarian occupation of Bohemia the following month; and this was followed in January 1742 by the election of Karl Albert (elector of Bavaria since 1726) as the new Holy Roman emperor. However, at the same time that Karl Albert was acclaimed as Charles VII, Maria Theresa's army, consisting in large part of loyal Hungarians, turned the tide, capturing Munich, the new emperor's ducal capital, after liberating Upper Austria from Bavarian control. This was followed in June by the provisional peace of Breslau between Prussia and Maria Theresa, and the final expulsion of the French from Bohemia in December that year.

From then on, the war took on wider European and even global dimensions, as Britain-Hanover and France, ostensibly still neutral, confronted each other in western Germany and at sea. In 1743 the French were almost completely forced out of the empire, and in March and April 1744 Louis XV (ruled 1715–1774) formalized hostilities by declaring war first on Great Britain and then on Austria. For the previous four years Britain and Spain had already been at war over trade with the Spanish American empire. In Europe, Spain, for its part, had been trying to divest Maria Theresa of Lombardy in northern Italy since 1741, but faced the opposition of Charles Emmanuel III, king of Sardinia and ruler of Piedmont (ruled 1729–1773), and warfare in northern Italy remained indecisive throughout the period up to 1746. In spite of renewed Prussian hostilities toward Austria, when Frederick II signed a full alliance with France in June, the 1744 campaigns in the Low Countries and the empire were also inconclusive.

The death of Charles VII in January 1745 changed the political picture dramatically. Max Joseph, his successor as elector of Bavaria, aware of the impossibility of the Bavarian position, promised to vote for Maria Theresa's husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, grand duke of Tuscany, to be the next emperor, which he accordingly became in October. But the military tide had not by any means turned, for French arms were proving dangerously triumphant in the Netherlands. On 11 May 1745 Maurice de Saxe, marshal of France, defeated the combined Anglo-Austrian-Dutch army at Fontenoy, and went on to capture a string of fortresses in Flanders stretching nearly as far as Antwerp by the end of the year. This was not least because the British contingent under the duke of Cumberland had been withdrawn to deal with the Jacobite rising in Scotland which was threatening to overcome the Hanoverian government of Cumberland's father George II (ruled 1727–1760). They were not to return in force to the continent until well into the following year. Meanwhile, Prussia forced Austria to sign the treaty of Dresden in December 1745, on broadly similar terms to that of Breslau three years earlier.

Nevertheless, Austrian fortunes still showed few signs of improving. Although Charles-Emmanuel largely succeeded in recovering and protecting his own territories and those of Maria Theresa in Italy during 1746, the advantages continued to go France's way in the Netherlands: in February, Saxe captured Brussels, while the following year saw him drive along the River Scheldt and into the Dutch Republic, capturing in September 1747 the seemingly impregnable fortress of Berg-op-Zoom. By now, however, a degree of exhaustion was setting in on all sides, symbolized by Saxe's pyrrhic victory over Cumberland at Lawfeld in July 1747. Warfare in the Caribbean had proved largely uneventful, while the British colonial authorities in Massachusetts back in June 1745 had succeeded with the help of the Royal Navy in capturing the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, which Louis XV wanted back but could not regain by military and naval means. This was offset by the French capture of Madras from the British in September 1746, the only notable action in India.

The Peace of Aix-La-Chapelle of October–November 1748, which marked the end of the war, preserved most of the inheritance of Charles VI for Maria Theresa: she had formally conceded Silesia to Prussia in the December 1745 treaty of Dresden, and she now had to give up the western third of the duchy of Milan to Sardinia, and the duchies of Parma and Guastalla to Don Philip, half-brother of the Spanish king Ferdinand VI (ruled 1746–1759). But the price France paid for the return of Louisbourg and for Austrian concessions to the Spanish Bourbons was high: Louis XV returned to Austria all his conquests in the Netherlands, to the irritation of French public opnion. Aix-La-Chapelle was more of a truce than a definitive treaty, for even in Italy the creation of stability required another round of agreements in 1752. There was still plenty of unfinished business left over from the years 1739–1740, most notably Maria Theresa's personal refusal to reconcile herself to the loss of Silesia, and the persistent friction between the British on the one hand, and the French and Spanish Bourbons on the other over colonial matters in the Americas and India. Further conflict was both likely and imminent.

Bibliography

Anderson, M. S. The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740– 1748. London, 1995.

Browning, Reed. The War of the Austrian Succession. New York, 1993.

Mc Lynn, F. J. France and the Jacobite Rising of 1745. Edinburgh, 1981.

Scott, H. M., and Derek Mc Kay. The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648–1815. London, 1983. Chaps. 4–6.

—GUY ROWLANDS

 
Wikipedia: War of the Austrian Succession
~War of the Austrian Succession~
Fontenoy.jpg
The Battle of Fontenoy by Édouard Detaille. Oil on canvas.
Date December 16 1740October 18 1748
Location Europe, North America and India
Casus
belli
Rejection of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 after the accession of Maria Theresa of Austria
Result Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
Combatants
Flag of Prussia Prussia
Flag of France France
Flag of Spain Spain
Flag of Bavaria Bavaria
Flag of Two Sicilies Naples and Sicily
Flag of Sweden Sweden (17411743)
Flag of Austrian Empire Austria
Flag of the United Kingdom Great Britain
Flag of Province of Hanover Hanover
Flag of the Netherlands Dutch Republic
Flag of Saxony Saxony
Flag of Sardinia Kingdom of Sardinia
Flag of Russia Russia
Commanders
Flag of Prussia Frederick II
Flag of Prussia Leopold I
Flag of Prussia Leopold II
Flag of France Maurice de Saxe
Flag of France François-Marie de Broglie
Flag of Bavaria Charles VII
Flag of Sweden Charles Emil Lewenhaupt
Flag of Austrian Empire Ludwig Khevenhüller
Flag of Austrian Empire Charles Alexander
Flag of the United Kingdom George II
Flag of Sardinia Charles Emmanuel III

The War of the Austrian Succession (174048), also known as King George's War in North America, involved almost all the major European powers, but caused only minor exchanges of territory. The war began under the pretext that Maria Theresa of Austria was ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg throne, because Salic law precluded royal inheritance by a woman.

By December 1741 nearly all the powers of Europe were involved in the struggle, but the most enduring military historical interest and importance of the war lies in the struggle of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchs for the region of Silesia.

Southwest Germany, the Low Countries and Italy were, as usual, the battle-ground trampled by the armies of France and Austria. The habitual and constant allies of France and Prussia were the same Hapsburg relations in Spain and the Kingdom of Bavaria as had been teaming up for many issues and conflicts since the Thirty years' war and to an extent, long before.

Various other powers joined them at intervals, but what became the surprise was the quality of the Prussian forces which were a professional army, not a gaggle of mercenary companies as had been typical theretofore. Even Gustavus Adolphus, whom some credit with the invention of modern warfare method of combined arms had used mercenaries in large measure. Permanent professional armies, then as now, were expensive.

Austria was supported almost as a matter of course by Great Britain and by the United Provinces, the traditional enemies of France, as throughout the Second Hundred Years' War. Of Austria's intermittent allies, the Kingdom of Sardinia and Saxony were the most important.

The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

Salic Succession

In 1740, Maria Theresa attempted to succeed her father as Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, and Duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. The plan was for her to succeed to the hereditary Habsburg domains, and her husband, Francis I, Duke of Lorraine, to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. The complications involved in a female Habsburg ruler had been long foreseen, and Charles VI had persuaded most of the states of Germany to agree to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.

Problems began when King Frederick II of Prussia, having not himself agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction, invaded Silesia on 16 December 1740, using a variety of minor unsettled dynastic territorial claims as a pretext. Maria Theresa, as a woman, was perceived as weak, and some other princes (such as Charles Albert of Bavaria) alleged his own claim to the crown of Maria Theresa as someone who as a male with a clear genealogical basis, could inherit directly the elected dignities of the Holy Roman Emperor.

Frederick Invades Silesia: 1740

Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria
Enlarge
Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria

Prussia in 1740 was a small and thoroughly organized emerging international power. While the only recent war experience of its army had been in the desultory War of the Polish Succession (Rhine campaign of 17331735), it therefore had a uninspiring reputation and was counted as one of the larger of very many minor armies of Europe of which there were a plenitude in the German states.

Only few, and those counted as dreamers, thought that it could rival the modern forces of Austria and France. But King Frederick William I had drilled it to a perfection previously unknown, and the Prussian infantry soldier was so well-trained and well-equipped that he could fire five shots to an Austrian's three. Prussian cavalry and artillery were comparatively less efficient, but they were of somewhat better quality as well, for Prussia had contended with the excellent cavalry of Poland to its east and had felt the lash of the Swede's artillery in the early to middle seventeenth century.

The initial advantage of Frederick's army was that undisturbed by wars, it had developed the professional standing-army concept to full maturity and effect. This was telling in the early going while the Austrians had to wait for drafts to complete the field forces, Prussian regiments took the field at once, and thus Frederick was able to overrun Silesia almost unopposed.

In any event, his army had massed quietly along the Oder River during early December, and on 16 December 1740, without declaration of war, it crossed the frontier into Silesia. The extant forces available to the local Austrian generals could do no more than garrison a few fortresses, and they necessarily fell back to the mountain frontier of Bohemia and Moravia with only a small remnant of their available forces left in the garrisons.

On their new territory, the organized Prussian army was soon able to go into winter quarters, holding all Silesia and investing the strong places of Glogau, Brieg and Neisse. In effect, in one step, Prussia had doubled its population and made huge gains in its industrial productivity for the minor cost of fair treatment of the people in the occupied territory—an atypical factor and effect in a day when relatively undisciplined mercenary forces (typically gangs of thugs in quasi uniforms organised under a "captain" or "colonel" who had little interest in protecting the populace, and every interest in accommodating his men's desires) were the rule rather than the exception with their habitual rapine, looting, and abuse of the various populations around themselves — which were generally forced to provide quarters.

Nationalism as we know it today, was not a factor but an evolving concept just coming into its early years. Prussia benefited greatly from the apolitical nature of the society of the time, as the masses in central Germany would correspondingly suffer as the contending armies rampaged through their plains yet again.

Silesian Campaign of 1741

In February 1741 the Austrians collected a field army under Count Neipperg and made preparations to re-conquer Silesia. While the Austrian garrisons in Neisse and Brieg continued to hold out against Prussian forces, Glogau was stormed on the night of 9 March 1741. The Prussian besiegers under Prince Leopold (the younger) of Anhalt-Dessau executed their task in one hour with a mathematical precision which excited universal admiration. However, the Austrian army in Moravia took to the field at a time when Frederick's cantonments were dispersed over all Upper Silesia. Consolidating the army proved a difficult task for the ground was deep in snow; before it could be completed, Neisse was relieved and the Prussians cut off from their own country by the march of Neipperg from Neisse on Brieg. A few days of slow manoeuvring between the two armies ended in the Battle of Mollwitz (10 April 1741), the first pitched battle fought by Frederick and his army. The Austrians routed the Prussian right wing of cavalry, but Frederick's infantry held and won the battle.

Frederick himself was absent after the battle. He had fought in the cavalry mêlée, but when the battle seemed lost, he had been persuaded by Field Marshal Schwerin to ride away. Schwerin thus, like Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy, remained behind to win the victory, and the king narrowly escaped being captured by wandering Austrian hussars.

In the aftermath of the battle the Prussians secured Brieg, and Neipperg fell back to Neisse, where he maintained himself and engaged in a series of manoeuvres during the summer. Europe recognized the emergence of a new military power, and France sent Marshal Belle-Isle to Frederick's camp to negotiate an alliance, causing the "Silesian adventure" to become the War of the Austrian Succession. The Elector of Bavaria's candidacy for the imperial dignity was to be supported by a French "auxiliary" army, and other French forces were sent to observe Hanover. Saxony was already watched by a Prussian army under Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, the "old Dessauer", who had trained the Prussian army to its present perfection.

During the Russo-Swedish War, 1741-1743, the task of Sweden was to prevent Russia from attacking Prussia, but her troops were defeated, on 3 September 1741, at Villmanstrand by a greatly superior Russian army. In 1742 another great defeat was sustained by the Franco-Prussian alliance in the capitulation of Helsinki to the Russians. In central Italy an army of Neapolitans and Spaniards was collected for the purpose of conquering the Milanese.

Allies in Bohemia

The French duly joined the Bavarian Elector's forces on the Danube and advanced towards Vienna, but the objective was suddenly changed, and after many countermarches the anti-Austrian allies advanced, in three widely-separated corps, on Prague. A French corps moved via Amberg and Pilsen. The Elector marched on Budweis, and the Saxons (who had now joined the allies) invaded Bohemia by the Elbe valley. The Austrians could at first offer little resistance, but before long a considerable force intervened at Tábor between the Danube and the allies, and Neipperg was now on the march from Neisse to join in the campaign. He had made with Frederick the curious agreement of Klein Schnellendorf (9 October 1741), by which Neisse was surrendered after a mock siege, and the Austrians undertook to leave Frederick unmolested in return for his releasing Neipperg's army for service elsewhere. At the same time the Hungarians, moved to enthusiasm by the personal appeal of Maria Theresa, had put into the field a levée en masse, or "insurrection", which furnished the regular army with an invaluable force of light troops. A fresh army was collected under Field Marshal Khevenhüller at Vienna, and the Austrians planned an offensive winter campaign against the Franco-Bavarian forces in Bohemia and the small Bavarian army that remained on the Danube to defend the electorate.

The French in the meantime had stormed Prague on 26 November 1741, the Grand-Duke Francis, consort of Maria Theresa, who commanded the Austrians in Bohemia, moving too slowly to save the fortress. The Elector of Bavaria, who now styled himself Archduke of Austria, was crowned King of Bohemia (9 December 1741) and elected to the imperial throne as Charles VII (24 January 1742), but no active measures were undertaken.

In Bohemia the month of December was occupied in mere skirmishes. On the Danube, Khevenhüller, the best general in the Austrian service, advanced on 27 December, swiftly drove back the allies, shut them up in Linz, and pressed on into Bavaria. Munich itself surrendered to the Austrians on the coronation day of Charles VII.

At the close of this first act of the campaign the French, under the old Marshal de Broglie, maintained a precarious foothold in central Bohemia, menaced by the main army of the Austrians, and Khevenhüller was ranging unopposed in Bavaria, while Frederick, in pursuance of his secret obligations, lay inactive in Silesia. In Italy the allied Neapolitans and Spaniards had advanced towards Modena, the duke of which state had allied himself with them, but the vigilant Austrian commander, Count Traun had out-marched them, captured Modena, and forced the duke to make a separate peace.

Campaign of 1742

Frederick had hoped by the truce to secure Silesia, for which alone he was fighting. But with the successes of Khevenhüller and the enthusiastic "insurrection" of Hungary, Maria Theresa's opposition became firmer, and she divulged the provisions of the truce, in order to compromise Frederick with his allies. The war recommenced. Frederick had not rested on his laurels. In the uneventful summer campaign of 1741 he had found time to begin that reorganization of his cavalry which was before long to make it even more efficient than his infantry. The Emperor Charles VII, whose territories were overrun by the Austrians, asked him to create a diversion by invading Moravia. In December 1741, therefore, Schwerin had crossed the border and captured Olomouc. Glatz also was invested, and the Prussian army was concentrated about Olomouc in January 1742. A combined plan of operations was made by the French, Saxons and Prussians for the rescue of Linz. But Linz soon fell. Broglie on the Vltava, weakened by the departure of the Bavarians to oppose Khevenhüller, and of the Saxons to join forces with Frederick, was in no condition to take the offensive, and large forces under Prince Charles of Lorraine lay in his front from Budweis to Jihlava (Iglau). Frederick's march was made towards Iglau in the first place. Brno was invested about the same time (February), but the direction of the march was changed, and instead of moving against Prince Charles, Frederick pushed on southwards by Znojmo and Mikulov. The extreme outposts of the Prussians appeared before Vienna. But Frederick's advance was a mere foray, and Prince Charles, leaving a screen of troops in front of Broglie, marched to cut off the Prussians from Silesia, while the Hungarian levies poured into Upper Silesia by the Jablunka Pass. The Saxons, discontented and demoralized, soon marched off to their own country, and Frederick with his Prussians fell back by Svitavy and Litomysl to Kutná Hora in Bohemia, where he was in touch with Broglie on the one hand and (Glatz having now surrendered) with Silesia on the other. No defence of Olomouc was attempted, and the small Prussian corps remaining in Moravia fell back towards Upper Silesia.

Prince Charles, in pursuit of the king, marched by Jihlava and Teutsch (Deutsch) Brod on Kutna Hora, and on 17 May was fought the battle of Chotusice, in which after a severe struggle the king was victorious. His cavalry on this occasion retrieved its previous failure, and its conduct gave an earnest of its future glory not only by its charges on the battlefield, but by its vigorous pursuit of the defeated Austrians. Almost at the same time Broglie fell upon a part of the Austrians left on the Vltava and won a small, but morally and politically important, success in the action of Sahay, near Budweis (24 May 1742). Frederick did not propose another combined movement. His victory and that of Broglie disposed Maria Theresa to cede Silesia in order to make good her position elsewhere, and the separate peace between Prussia and Austria, signed at Breslau on 11 June, closed the First Silesian War. The War of the Austrian Succession continued.

French at Prague

The return of Prince Charles, released by the Peace of Breslau, put an end to Broglie's offensive. The prince pushed back the French posts everywhere, and his army converged upon Prague, where, towards the end of June 1742, the French were to all intents and purposes surrounded. Broglie had made the best resistance possible with his inferior forces, and still displayed great activity, but his position was one of great peril. The French government realized at last that it had given its general inadequate forces. The French army on the lower Rhine, hitherto in observation of Hanover and other possibly hostile states, was hurried into Franconia. Prince Charles at once raised the siege of Prague (14 September), called up Khevenhüller with the greater part of the Austrian army on the Danube, and marched towards Amberg to meet the new opponent.

Marshal Maillebois, the French commander, then manoeuvred from Amberg towards the Eger valley, to make contact with Broglie. Marshal Belle-Isle, the political head of French affairs in Germany and a very capable general, had accompanied Broglie throughout, and it seems that Belle-Isle and Broglie believed that Maillebois' mission was to regain a permanent foothold for the army in Bohemia. Maillebois, on the contrary, conceived that his work was simply to disengage the army of Broglie from its dangerous position, and to cover its retreat. His operations were no more than a demonstration, and had so little effect that Broglie was sent for in haste to take over the command from him, Belle-Isle at the same time taking over charge of the army at Prague.

Broglie's command was now on the Danube, east of Regensburg, and the imperial (chiefly Bavarian) army of Charles VII under Seckendorf aided him to clear Bavaria of the Austrians. This was effected with ease, for Khevenhüller and most of his troops had gone to Bohemia. Prince Charles and Khevenhüller now took post between Linz and Passau, leaving a strong force to deal with Belle-Isle in Prague. This, under Prince Lobkowitz, was little superior in numbers or quality to the troops under Belle-Isle, under whom served Saxe and the best of the younger French generals, but its light cavalry swept the country clear of provisions. The French were quickly on the verge of starvation, winter had come, and the marshal resolved to retreat. On the night of 16 December 1742, the army left Prague to be defended by a small garrison under de Chevert, and took the route of Eger. The retreat (December 16-26) was accounted a triumph of generalship, but the weather made it painful and costly. The brave Chevert displayed such confidence that the Austrians were glad to allow him freedom to join the main army. The cause of the new emperor was now sustained only in the valley of the Danube, where Broglie and Seckendorf opposed Prince Charles and Khevenhüller, who were soon joined by the force lately opposing Belle-Isle.

In Italy, Traun held his own with ease against the Spaniards and Neapolitans. Naples was forced by a British squadron to withdraw her troops for home defence, and Spain, now too weak to advance in the Po valley, sent a second army to Italy via France. Sardinia had allied herself with Austria, and at the same time neither state was at war with France, and this led to curious complications, combats being fought in the Isère valley between the troops of Sardinia and of Spain, in which the French took no part.

Campaign of 1743

1743 opened disastrously for the emperor. The French and Bavarian armies were not working well together, and Broglie and Seckendorf had actually quarrelled. No connected resistance was offered to the converging march of Prince Charles's army along the Danube, Khevenhüller from Salzburg towards southern Bavaria, and Prince Lobkowitz from Bohemia towards the Naab. The Bavarians suffered a severe reverse near Braunau (9 May 1743), and now an Anglo-allied army commanded by King George II, which had been formed on the lower Rhine on the withdrawal of Maillebois, was advancing southward to the Main and Neckar country. A French army, under Marshal Noailles, was being collected on the middle Rhine to deal with this new force. But Broglie was now in full retreat, and the strong places of Bavaria surrendered one after the other to Prince Charles. The French and Bavarians had been driven almost to the Rhine when Noailles and the king came to battle. George, completely outmaneuvered by his veteran antagonist, was in a position of the greatest danger between Aschaffenburg and Hanau in the defile formed by the Spessart Hills and the river Main. Noailles blocked the outlet and had posts all around, but the allied troops forced their way through and inflicted heavy losses on the French, and the Battle of Dettingen is justly reckoned as a notable victory of British arms (June 27).

Broglie, worn out by age and exertions, was soon replaced by Marshal Coigny. Both Broglie and Noailles were now on the strict defensive behind the Rhine. Not a single French soldier remained in Germany, and Prince Charles prepared to force the passage of the great river in the Breisgau while the king of Britain moved forward via Mainz to co-operate by drawing upon himself the attention of both the French marshals. The Anglo-allied army took Worms, but after several unsuccessful attempts to cross, Prince Charles went into winter quarters. The king followed his example, drawing in his troops to the northward, to deal, if necessary, with the army which the French were collecting on the frontier of the Southern Netherlands. Austria, Britain, Holland and Sardinia were now allied. Saxony changed sides, and Sweden and Russia neutralized each other (Peace of Åbo, August 1743). Frederick was still quiescent. France, Spain and Bavaria actively continued the struggle against Maria Theresa.

In Italy, the Spaniards on the Panaro had achieved a Pyrrhic victory over Traun at Campo Santo (8 February 1743), but the next six months were wasted in inaction, and Lobkowitz, joining Traun with reinforcements from Germany, drove back the enemy to Rimini. The Spanish-Piedmontese war in the Alps continued without much result, the only incident of note being the Battle of Casteldelfino won by Charles Emmanuel of Sardinia in person.

Campaign of 1744

With 1744 began the Second Silesian War. Frederick of Prussia, disquieted by the universal success of the Austrians, secretly concluded a fresh alliance with Louis XV of France. France had posed hitherto as an auxiliary, its officers in Germany had worn the Bavarian cockade, and only with Britain was it officially at war. France now declared war direct upon Austria and Sardinia (April 1744). A corps was assembled at Dunkirk to support the cause of James Stuart in Great Britain, and Louis XV in person, with 90,000 men, prepared to invade the Austrian Netherlands, and took Menin and Ypres. His presumed opponent was the allied army previously under King George II and now composed of British, Dutch, Germans and Austrians. On the Rhine, Coigny was up against Prince Charles, and a fresh army under the Prince de Conti was to assist the Spaniards in Piedmont and Lombardy. This plan was, however, at once dislocated by the advance of Charles, who, assisted by the veteran Traun, skilfully manoeuvred his army over the Rhine near Philippsburg (July 1), captured the lines of Weissenburg, and cut off the French marshal from Alsace. Coigny, however, cut his way through the enemy at Weissenburg and posted himself near Strasbourg. Louis XV now abandoned the invasion of the Southern Netherlands, and his army moved down to take a decisive part in the war in Alsace and Lorraine. At the same time Frederick crossed the Austrian frontier (August).

The attention and resources of Austria were fully occupied, and the Prussians were almost unopposed. One column passed through Saxony, another through Lusatia, while a third advanced from Silesia. Prague, the objective, was reached on 2 September. Six days later the Austrian garrison was compelled to surrender, and the Prussians advanced to Budweis. Maria Theresa once again rose to the emergency, a new "insurrection" took the field in Hungary, and a corps of regulars was assembled to cover Vienna, while the diplomats won over Saxony to the Austrian side. Prince Charles withdrew from Alsace, unmolested by the French, who had been thrown into confusion by the sudden and dangerous illness of Louis XV at Metz. Only Seckendorf with the Bavarians pursued him. No move was made by the French, and Frederick thus found himself isolated and exposed to the combined attack of the Austrians and Saxons. Marshal Traun, summoned from the Rhine, held the king in check in Bohemia, the Hungarian irregulars inflicted numerous minor reverses on the Prussians, and finally Prince Charles arrived with the main army. The campaign resembled that of 1742: the Prussian retreat was closely watched, and the rearguard pressed hard. Prague fell, and Frederick, completely outmanoeuvred by the united forces of Prince Charles and Traun, retreated to Silesia with heavy losses. At the same time, the Austrians gained no foothold in Silesia itself. On the Rhine, Louis XV, now recovered, had besieged and taken Freiburg, after which the forces left in the north were reinforced and besieged the strong places of Southern Netherlands. There was also a slight war of manoeuvre on the middle Rhine.

In 1744 the Italian war became serious. A grandiose plan of campaign was formed, and the French and Spanish generals at the front were hampered by the orders of their respective governments. The object was to unite the army in Dauphiné with that on the lower Po. The support of Genoa allowed a road into central Italy. But Lobkowitz had already taken the offensive and driven back the Spanish army of the Count de Gages towards the Neapolitan frontier, so the King of Naples had to assist the Spaniards. A combined army was formed at Velletri, and defeated Lobkowitz there on 11 August. The crisis past, Lobkowitz then went to Piedmont to assist the king against Conti, the King of Naples returned home, and de Gages followed the Austrians with a weak force. The war in the Alps and the Apennines was keenly contested. Villefranche and Montalban were stormed by Conti on 20 April, a desperate fight took place at Peyre-Longue on 18 July, and the King of Sardinia was defeated in a great battle at Madonna dell'Olmo (September 30) near Coni (