War of the Austrian succession

The War of the Austrian Succession () was a European conflict that took place between 1740 and 1748. Fought primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic and Mediterranean, related conflicts included King George's War in North America, the War of Jenkins' Ear, the First Carnatic War and the First and Second Silesian Wars.

Its pretext was the right of Maria Theresa to succeed her father Emperor Charles VI as ruler of the Habsburg monarchy. France, Prussia and Bavaria saw it as an opportunity to challenge Habsburg power, while Maria Theresa was backed by Britain, the Dutch Republic and Hanover, collectively known as the Pragmatic Allies. As the conflict widened, it drew in other participants, among them Spain, Sardinia, Saxony, Sweden and Russia.

Prussia occupied Silesia in 1740 and repulsed Austrian efforts to regain it, although Austria and Sardinia defeated Spanish attempts to regain their territories in Northern Italy. By early 1748, France had conquered most of the Austrian Netherlands but a British naval blockade was crippling their trade and the state was close to bankruptcy. The stalemate led to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) which confirmed Maria Theresa in her titles but failed to resolve underlying tensions between the signatories, many of whom were unhappy with the terms. France achieved minimal gains for vast expenditure, while the Spanish failed to recover Menorca or Gibraltar, ceded to Britain in 1713.

The clearest winner was Prussia, which acquired Silesia from Austria, an outcome that undermined the long-standing Anglo-Austrian Alliance, since Maria Theresa deeply resented Britain's insistence she cede Silesia to make peace and whose main objective became regaining it. The war also demonstrated the vulnerability of Hanover, then held in personal union with the British Crown, while many British politicians felt they had received little benefit from the enormous subsidies paid to Austria. The result was the realignment known as the Diplomatic Revolution, in which Austria and France ended the French–Habsburg rivalry which had dominated European affairs for centuries, while Prussia allied with Great Britain. These changes set the scene for the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756.

Background

The immediate cause of the war was the death in 1740 of Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740) and the inheritance of the Habsburg Monarchy, often collectively referred to as Austria. The 1703 Mutual Pact of Succession provided that if the Habsburgs became extinct in the male line, these possessions would go first to Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia, daughters of Emperor Joseph I, then those of Charles, his younger brother. Since Salic law excluded women from the inheritance, this agreement required approval by the various Habsburg territories and the Imperial Diet.

Charles succeeded Joseph in 1711 and two years later issued the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, which confirmed the principle of female inheritance. However, it also modified the 1703 agreement by placing the rights of his own children first and after his first child Maria Theresa was born in 1717, Charles' internal and external policy was dominated by ensuring her succession ahead of his two nieces. Prior to their respective marriages to Frederick Augustus of Saxony and Charles Albert of Bavaria in 1719, both women were obliged to formally renounce their rights to the inheritance. Charles assumed the rivalry between Saxony and Bavaria would secure his daughter's throne, since neither would be prepared to allow the other to inherit, but instead he gave his two greatest rivals a legitimate claim to the Habsburg lands.

Charles was also seeking to ensure the succession of Maria Theresa not just to her family lands but the titles and powers of the Holy Roman Emperor. Although held by a Habsburg for over 300 years, it was theoretically an elective position which had never been held by a woman and this element turned an internal dynastic dispute into a European one. The problem was exacerbated by tensions within the Holy Roman Empire, caused by dramatic increases in the size and power of Bavaria, Prussia, and Saxony, mirrored by the post-1683 expansion of Habsburg power into lands previously held by the Ottoman Empire. These were the centrifugal forces behind a war that reshaped the traditional European balance of power; the various legal claims were largely pretexts and seen as such.

Bavaria and Saxony refused to be bound by the decision of the Imperial Diet, while in 1738 France agreed to back the 'just claims' of Charles Albert of Bavaria, despite previously accepting the Pragmatic Sanction in 1735. Attempts to offset this involved Austria in the 1733–1735 War of the Polish Succession and the Russo-Turkish War of 1735–1739, and it was weakened by the losses incurred. Compounded by the failure to prepare Maria Theresa for her new role, many European statesmen were sceptical Austria could survive the contest that would follow Charles' death, which finally occurred in October 1740.

Military overview and strategies

The war consisted of four primary theatres, Central Europe, Italy, the Austrian Netherlands and the seas, which can be divided into three separate but connected conflicts. The first involved Prussia and Austria in the Silesian Wars; in the second, Austria and Sardinia defeated Spanish attempts to regain territories in Northern Italy, while the third featured an increasingly global contest between Britain and France. In the end, French conquest of the Austrian Netherlands gave them clear dominance on land, while Britain's victories at sea cemented its place as the dominant naval power.

For much of the eighteenth century, French military strategy focused on potential threats on its eastern and northern borders, which required a strong land army. Its colonies were left to fend for themselves, or given minimal resources, anticipating they would likely be lost anyway. This strategy was driven by a combination of geography, and the superiority of the British navy, which made it difficult for the French navy to provide significant supplies and support to French colonies. The expectation was military victory in Europe would compensate for any colonial losses; in 1748, France recovered possessions like Louisbourg, in return for withdrawing from the Austrian Netherlands.

The British tried to avoid large-scale commitments of troops on the Continent. They sought to offset the disadvantage this created in Europe by allying themselves with one or more Continental powers whose interests were antithetical to those of their enemies, particularly France. In the War of the Austrian Succession, the British were allied with Austria; by the time of the Seven Years' War, they were allied with its enemy, Prussia. In contrast to France, once Britain became engaged in the war, it took advantage of the Royal Navy to expand it into the colonies. The British pursued a dual strategy of naval blockade and bombardment of enemy ports, and also utilized their ability to move troops by sea to the utmost. They would harass enemy shipping and attack enemy outposts, frequently using colonists from nearby British colonies in the effort. This plan worked better in North America than in Europe, but set the stage for the Seven Years' War.

Methods and technologies

European warfare in the early modern period was characterised by the widespread adoption of firearms in combination with more traditional bladed weapons. Eighteenth-century European armies were built around units of massed infantry armed with smoothbore flintlock muskets and bayonets. Cavalrymen were equipped with sabres and pistols or carbines; light cavalry were used principally for reconnaissance, screening and tactical communications, while heavy cavalry were used as tactical reserves and deployed for shock attacks. Smoothbore artillery provided fire support and played the leading role in siege warfare. Strategic warfare in this period centred around control of key fortifications positioned so as to command the surrounding regions and roads, with lengthy sieges a common feature of armed conflict. Decisive field battles were relatively rare, though they played a larger part in Frederick's theory of warfare than was typical among his contemporary rivals.

The War of the Austrian Succession, like most European wars of the eighteenth century, was fought as a so-called cabinet war in which disciplined regular armies were equipped and supplied by the state to conduct warfare on behalf of the sovereign's interests. Occupied enemy territories were regularly taxed and extorted for funds, but large-scale atrocities against civilian populations were rare compared with conflicts in the previous century. Military logistics was the decisive factor in many wars, as armies had grown too large to support themselves on prolonged campaigns by foraging and plunder alone. Military supplies were stored in centralised magazines and distributed by baggage trains that were highly vulnerable to enemy raids. Armies were generally unable to sustain combat operations during winter and normally established winter quarters in the cold season, resuming their campaigns with the return of spring.

Campaign of 1740

Frederick II succeeded his father Frederick William as king of Prussia on 31 May 1740 at the age of 28. Although Prussia had increased in importance over the past few decades, its disparate and scattered territories prevented it wielding significant power, a reality Frederick intended to change. The death of Emperor Charles VI on 20 October 1740 provided him with an ideal opportunity to acquire Silesia but he needed to do so before Augustus of Saxony and Poland could pre-empt him.

With a population of 16 million, Austria had an authorised standing force of 157,000, although financial restraints meant its true size was considerably less than that in 1740. Since they had a much greater area to defend, their army was more of "a sieve" than a shield against foreign invasion. In contrast, the Prussian army was better trained and led than its opponents, while its standing army of 80,000 was disproportionately large, at around 4% of its 2.2 million population. To add to these advantages, in April 1739 Frederick ensured Austria faced war on two fronts when Louis XV of France agreed to attack from the west, while Prussia did so from the north.

In early December 1740, the Prussian army assembled along the Oder river and on 16 December invaded Silesia without a formal declaration of war. Since Austrian military resources were concentrated in Hungary and Italy, they had fewer than 3,000 troops in Silesia, although this increased to 7,000 shortly before the invasion. They held onto the fortresses of Glogau, Breslau, and Brieg, but abandoned the rest of the province and withdrew into Moravia, with both sides taking up winter quarters. In under two weeks Prussia had occupied most of the richest province in the Holy Roman Empire, containing a population of over one million, the commercial centre of Wrocław along with mining, weaving and dyeing industries. However, Frederick underestimated Maria Theresa's determination to reverse her loss, while the retention of Austrian fortresses in Southern Silesia meant a quick victory could not be achieved.

Campaign of 1741

Early in the year, an Austrian army under von Neipperg relieved Neisse

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