Italy

In 1702 the war in northern Italy was in its second year. After Austria's initial success Louis XIV sent Marshal Vendôme to command the Bourbon army, and with greatly superior numbers he began to dominate and pin back his opponent. Although Prince Eugene held the French at the Battle of Luzzara on 15 August, the AustriansThe Archduchy of Austria was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. With its capital at Vienna, the archduchy was centered at the Empire's southeastern periphery. The archduchy's history as an imperial state ended with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. It was replaced with the Lower and Upper Austria crown lands of the Austrian Empire.Austrians had lost much of what they gained in the first campaign, and the Bourbons were still firmly in control of the Duchy of Milan. In June 1703 Eugene returned to Vienna to preside over the Court War Council (Hofkriegsrat) and set about reorganizing the Imperial armies, leaving Guido Starhemberg to oppose Vendôme. Vendôme had been ordered to link with the Elector of Bavaria for the thrust into the Tyrol, but he made little progress towards this goal, due in part to rumours that Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, was about to defect to the Grand Alliance. Louis XIV had failed to satisfy Amadeus' claims on the Duchy of Milan, and the latter had taken umbrage at France's limited financial aid. Moreover, reasoned the Duke, if French power was established in Italy his territory would be surrounded by lands ruled from Versailles. Fearing that he would become little more than a French vassal, Amadeus secured himself behind the walls of his capital, Turin, and declared war on FranceThe Kingdom of France is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe since the High Middle Ages. It was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. Colonial conflicts with Great Britain led to the loss of much of its North American holdings by 1763. The Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic.France on 24 October. Won over by a combination of subsidies and territorial concessions, he signed a formal treaty with the Emperor on 8 November.

Duchy of Savoy. Victor Amadeus II's lands c. 1700 comprised the Duchy of Savoy, the Principality of Piedmont, the Duchy of Aosta, the County of Nice, and the tiny Principality of Oneglia

With the Duke of Savoy's desertion Piedmont-Savoy became an important goal for the French, who now aimed to isolate Victor Amadeus and Starhemberg from the Austrians to the east and secure communications between France and Milan. By the beginning of 1704 Marshal Tessé had taken the Duchy of Savoy (except Montmélian), and La Feuillade captured Susa in June. Moving into Piedmont from the east Vendôme captured Vercelli in July, Ivrea in September, and invested Verrua in October. By the time Verrua fell in April 1705, La Feuillade had occupied the County of Nice, including Nice itself (though its citadel did not fall till January 1706), before threatening Turin. For the Allies, attention was also drawn towards Vienna, for in May 1705 Joseph I succeeded Leopold I as Holy RomanThe Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. From the accession of Otto I in 962 until the twelfth century, the Empire was the most powerful monarchy in Europe. The empire reached the apex of territorial expansion and power in the mid-thirteenth century, but overextending led to partial collapse.Holy Roman Emperor. Joseph I pursued his father's anti-Bourbon policy with great enthusiasm and he was initially keen to carry the war into Alsace and Lorraine, but after the Franco-Bavarian advance had been stemmed at Blenheim he began to reassess his priorities. Although the Emperor recognised the importance to the German princes of a strong Reichsbarriere, he could not place their interests above Habsburg dynastic objectives in other theatres. Replacing Spanish with Austrian rule in Italy – and thereby securing the Monarchy's south-west flank – became Joseph I's priority. For now, though, Philip V still controlled all of Spain's Italian realms, and Bourbon armies were once again making progress in the north of the peninsula.

Portrait of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, during the siege of Turin, by Maria Giovanna Clementi

On 16 August 1705, Vendôme defeated Eugene at the Battle of Cassano on the Adda. On 19 April 1706, the French commander defeated Count Reventlow at the Battle of Calcinato, and drove the Austrians back into the mountains around Lake Garda; shortly after, La Feuillade began the siege of Turin. The French victories had prevented the Austrians marching to aid Savoy, but as in the Spanish Netherlands the year would prove decisive for the Grand Alliance. By mid-May Eugene's army, newly reinforced with German auxiliaries (secured by Marlborough and financed by the Maritime Powers), had grown to 50,000 men. Thus strengthened, the Austrian commander was at last able to outflank French defences on the Adige, and in mid-July he descended south across the river Po. In response to the disaster at Ramillies, Vendôme was at this point ordered to the Low Countries; the Duke of Orléans and Marshal Marsin took command in his place, and though they shadowed the Allied army as it marched west up the Po valley, they declined to intercept it. Unchallenged, Eugene joined with Victor Amadeus and his small force in late August, and on 7 September they decisively defeated the Bourbon army at the Battle of Turin. With Marsin mortally wounded, Orléans retreated west, leaving the Count of Medavy isolated on the Adige far to the east. Although Medavy defeated an Imperial corps at the Battle of Castiglione on 8 September, he prudently distributed his army around the fortresses still under Bourbon control.

Eugene's victory had given him effective control of the whole Po valley. Although the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice remained in Bourbon hands, Victor Amadeus eventually took possession of most of the territories promised him in the 1703 treaty with the Emperor. However, the Allied victories in 1706 had failed to dampen the growing animosity within the Grand Alliance as EnglishThe Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from about 927, when it emerged from various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Viking invasions of the 9th century upset the balance of power between the English kingdoms, and native Anglo-Saxon life in general. The English lands were unified in the 10th century in a reconquest completed by King Æthelstan in 927.English and DutchThe Dutch Republic was a confederation that existed from 1579, during the Dutch Revolt, to 1795. It was a predecessor state of the Netherlands and the first fully independent Dutch nation state. Although the state was small and contained only around 1.5 million inhabitants, it controlled a worldwide network of seafaring trade routes. The income from this trade allowed the Dutch Republic to compete militarily against much larger countries. It amassed a huge fleet of 2,000 ships, initially larger than the fleets of England and France combined.Dutch ministers blamed Joseph I for refusing to end the war in Hungary. Rákóczi's uprising was diverting vital Austrian resources from the fight with Louis XIV, and there were also fears the Ottoman TurksThe Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The Ottoman Empire's defeat and the occupation of part of its territory by the Allied Powers in the aftermath of World War I resulted in its partitioning and the loss of its Middle Eastern territories.Ottoman Turks would take advantage to renew hostilities against the Emperor. Conversely, the Maritime Powers' sympathetic stance towards the rebellion's leader and co-religionist remained a source of bitterness in Vienna. To compound their disagreements, Joseph I signed the Convention of Milan on 13 March 1707, by which terms Louis XIV surrendered northern Italy in exchange for the safe passage of Medavy's army back to France. For the Austrians, the agreement assured their full uncontested possession of the Duchy of Milan and the Duchy of Mantua, but it also enabled Joseph I to pursue his dynastic interests in southern Italy, and in May Count Daun, with about 10,000 men, moved south to the Kingdom of Naples. The city of Naples surrendered without resistance and Gaeta fell after a siege on 30 September. Austria was now the predominant power in Italy, and Charles III was proclaimed King of Naples.

By taking the Duchy of Milan and securing the Spanish realms in Italy, the Austrian Habsburgs had fulfilled their major war objective. Nevertheless, the Neapolitan campaign had been undertaken in the face of opposition from the Maritime Powers, who instead had favoured a diversionary attack on southern France. To assuage his allies Eugene, together with the Duke of Savoy, agreed to attack Toulon in July 1707, but the attempt proved ineffectual and Marshal Tessé thwarted all attacks. The Allies withdrew in August, though not before acquiring some advantage: the French squadron in the harbour had been permanently put out of action during the battle, leaving the Anglo-Dutch fleet uncontested in the Mediterranean. On the diplomatic front that year the Allies also had to contend with King Charles XII of Sweden, whose war against Russia and Saxony-Poland threatened to spill over into the War of the Spanish Succession. Charles XII had invaded Saxony in 1706, but the King had also threatened to interfere in Silesia on behalf of the Emperor's Protestant subjects, and there were fears that he might be inclined to assist the largely Protestant rebels in Hungary. However, once Joseph I had yielded enough concessions and signed the Treaty of Altranstädt on 31 August 1707, Charles XII turned his back on Germany in September, and headed east to Russia and to his eventual defeat at the Battle of Poltava.

The overwhelming strength of Joseph I in Italy had served to emphasise the ongoing tensions between Imperial and Papal suzerainty: in the Duchy of Parma (which the papacy had deemed a fief of the Holy See, but which Joseph I deemed a fief of the Empire), as well as in the Duchy of Milan, Pope Clement XI forbade the collection of Imperial taxes on the church. To gain leverage, the Austrians seized the disputed town of Comacchio in May 1708, before Daun overran large parts of the Papal States. The Pope raised an army of 25,000 men under Marsigli but he soon capitulated, and in return for Joseph I submitting the disputes over Parma and Comacchio to a cardinal's commission, Clement XI recognised Archduke Charles as King Charles III of SpainThe Spanish Empire was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predecessor states between 1492 and 1976. One of the largest empires in history, it was the first to usher the European Age of Discovery and achieve a global scale, controlling vast territory. It was one of the most powerful empires of the early modern period, reaching its maximum extent in the 18th century.Spain. In the mean time, fighting continued along the French-Savoy border as the Duke of Savoy sought his own 'Barrier' against future French incursion, and in July he launched a campaign towards Briançon, capturing Exilles and Fenestrelle. These raids were repeated in subsequent years of the war, but Austrian and Savoyard commanders could not overcome the difficulties in launching a full-scale attack over the Alps, and the Emperor showed little enthusiasm for liberating the Duke's occupied transalpine territories of Nice and Savoy.

• Outline War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1715)
  

  HISTORIC BATTLES

  War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1715)

  The War of the Spanish Succession was a major European conflict of the early 18th century, triggered by the death in 1700 of the last Habsburg King of Spain, the infirm and childless Charles II. View Historic Battle »

  Background of the war: In the late 1690s the declining health of King Charles II of Spain brought to a head the problem of his succession, a problem which had underlain much of European diplomacy for several decades.

  Causes of the war: Uppermost in the minds of the Spanish ministers was the need to preserve their empire intact and put it in hands powerful enough to guarantee that integrity.

  Prelude: The news that Louis XIV had accepted Charles II's will and that the Second Partition Treaty was dead was a personal blow to William III, who had concluded that Philip V would be nothing more than a French puppet.

  Leadership, strategy and contending forces: To England, Spain itself was not the central issue, but the potential growth of French power and its capacity to dominate Europe was seen as the primary danger to England's interests at home and abroad.

  Aftermath: With Germany and Italy providing the buffer with France, the Austrian Habsburgs had maintained what was crucial to their security and interests.

   

  Campaigns: 1702–08

  Low Countries, Rhine and Danube: The first aim of the Anglo-Dutch army in the Low Countries was to take possession of the Meuse and Lower Rhine fortresses handed to the Bourbons by Joseph Clemens, and clear the French under Marshal Boufflers from threatening the Dutch border.

  Italy: In 1702 the war in northern Italy was in its second year. After Austria's initial success Louis XIV sent Marshal Vendôme to command the Bourbon army, and with greatly superior numbers he began to dominate and pin back his opponent.

  Spain and Portugal: For King Peter II of Portugal, whose country's economy depended on oceanic trade with the Americas, the demonstration of Allied naval dominance in the Atlantic played a decisive part in persuading him to abandon his nominal alliance with France and Spain.

   

  Campaigns: 1709–14

  The Hague: From the start of the war the Dutch priority had been to secure their Barrier fortress system as stipulated – though unspecified – in the Grand Alliance treaty; they also had concerns on their eastern German border.

  Grand Alliance falters: Believing that Louis XIV was only stalling for time in order to recuperate his army, the ministry in London prepared to act vigorously on all fronts in 1709, hoping to draw the French back to the negotiating table.

  Preliminary peace talks: As early as August 1710 the Tories had initiated secret talks with the French, seeking mutual ground whereon Great Britain and France could dictate peace to the rest of Europe.

  Peace of Utrecht and the final campaigns: The congress at Utrecht convened on 29 January 1712.

RESOURCES
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "War of the Spanish Succession", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.