War of the Spanish Succession

War of the Spanish Succession, war fought from 1701 to 1714 by the Grand Alliance, consisting originally of England, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Austria, and later, Portugal, against a coalition of France, Spain, and a number of small Italian and German principalities. The ostensible issue of the war was a conflict over the legitimacy of the succession of Philip, duke of Anjou (Philip V of Spain), the grandson of Louis XIV, king of France, to the Spanish crown in November 1700. Underlying this conflict was a more momentous issue. As Philip's accession made possible an enormous increase in the power of France, it threatened to overthrow the balance of power in Europe established by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), ending hostilities between France, on the one hand, and England, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Savoy, and several German states, on the other. England thereupon determined to crush the power of Louis XIV and took the lead in forming a coalition against France. The War of the Spanish Succession was thus a part of a continuing struggle among the powers for political and military hegemony and territorial aggrandizement. See also Queen Anne's War.

The war was fought on land and sea. The principal arenas of land warfare were Italy, the Netherlands, and the German states; the chief naval operations, which, on the whole, were of secondary significance, took place in Mediterranean waters. The war opened with the invasion of Italy by an Austrian army under Eugene, prince of Savoy. After a number of initial defeats, the French achieved an advantage that they maintained for a number of years in that theater of operations. A more important series of engagements was fought in the Netherlands, where in 1703 the English commander, John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, at the head of an Anglo-Dutch-German army, reduced the strongholds of the French. In 1704 Marlborough and Eugene, who had joined forces, won a notable victory over a French-Bavarian army in the celebrated Battle of Blenheim in Bavaria, forcing the French to retire from the German states. Also in 1704 the English captured Gibraltar by a combined naval and land operation. As a result of another defeat sustained by the French in 1706 in a battle with Marlborough at the Belgian village of Ramillies-Offus, they were forced to withdraw from the Netherlands. In the same year they were driven out of Italy.

An Anglo-Portuguese army that invaded Spain in 1707, however, was routed by a French-Spanish force at the Battle of Almansa, and Philip V's supporters retained control of most of the country. In the north, the victory of Marlborough and Eugene at the Battle of Oudenaarde (1708) led Louis XIV to sue for peace. The negotiations that followed broke down when Louis refused to join the Grand Alliance in warfare against his grandson, and the war continued. Marlborough and Eugene defeated the French in 1709 in the bloodiest battle of the war at the French village of Malplaquet. Further defeats of the French led, in 1710, to a renewal of the peace negotiations, which again broke down over the issue of French participation in the war against Spain.

The death without an heir of the emperor Joseph I, head of the house of Austria, in 1711 and the accession to the imperial throne of Charles VI, who was also a claimant to the Spanish throne, altered European political relationships to the advantage of France. The British, fearing that victory over France would now result in the predominance of the house of Austria in European affairs, dissolved the Grand Alliance. Its members conducted separate peace negotiations with the French, resulting in various pacts that are collectively known as the Peace of Utrecht.

As the peace terms granted recognition to Louis's grandson as the king of Spain, they were, in effect, a repudiation of the claims of Charles VI, and Charles elected to continue the war against France and Spain. In the fighting that ensued, France won a number of easy victories, which led to the negotiation in 1714 of the Treaty of Rastatt and Baden. By the terms of this compact, Austria concluded peace with France, but not with Spain, and gained possession of the Spanish Netherlands and various Italian principalities. The earlier Treaty of Ryswick, with its controversial clause regarding the established church, was the basis for the new agreement and thus, in effect, was reratified.