Austrian Succession, War of the

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Austrian Succession, War of the

AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE. 1740–1748. Frederick II (the Great), king of Prussia, rejected the Pragmatic Sanction, by which the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI of Austria decreed in 1713 that his territories should pass to his daughter Maria Theresa if he should have no male heir. When in fact Charles died in October 1740 without a male heir, Frederick laid claim to and invaded the Austrian province of Silesia in December 1740. A coalition of France, Spain, Saxony, and Sardinia, each coveting a portion of the Habsburg dominions, supported the Bavarian candidate for election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1741. Maria Theresa looked to Britain, Austria's traditional ally against France, for support. Britain managed to arrange a temporary peace between Austria and Prussia in July 1742, but Britain was drawn into the war because King George II was simultaneously elector of Hanover. Acting nominally in support of his Habsburg ally (but fully aware that France was the principal threat to both Britain and Hanover), George II led an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian force (the "Pragmatic Army") to victory over the French at Dettingen, 27 June 1743, the last time a British king personally led his troops in battle.

The French withdrew from German soil, and Britain formed an alliance with Austria and Sardinia to drive France and Spain from Italy. France, Spain, and Prussia formed a countervailing alliance. The French declaration of war against Britain on 31 March 1744 ended the absurd situation in which hostilities on land and at sea had taken place between powers nominally at peace. France supported the Stuart claimant to the British throne, which touched off the second Jacobite Rebellion ("the '45"), led by the Young Pretender. Although distracted at home, Britain continued to support an Anglo-Dutch-Austrian army in Flanders, led by the king's son, the duke of Cumberland. When Maurice de Saxe, marshal of France, defeated this army at Fontenoy on 11 May 1745, the French gained control of Flanders. By October, Cumberland and his British troops were on their way to Scotland, where on 16 April 1746 they crushed the Jacobites at Culloden. Prussia withdrew from the alliance on 25 December 1745, when Maria Theresa agreed to let Frederick retain Silesia, a bargain that allowed Austria to drive the French and Spanish from northern Italy in 1746.

The European war evolved into a struggle for maritime and colonial supremacy and became interwoven with conflict in India and North America, where it was called King George's War. The so-called War of Jenkins' Ear had already erupted in 1739 over British commercial penetration of Spain's American empire, and the conflict continued in the Caribbean and on the mainland until 1742. Britain's New England colonies captured Louisburg in June 1745, the French took Madras in 1746, and Britain gained control of the seas.

The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 18 October 1748, restored all conquests, including Louisburg, much to the disgust of colonial Americans. Prussia retained Silesia, the Dutch Republic regained its frontier fortresses in Flanders, the Pragmatic Sanction was guaranteed, Francis I (Maria Theresa's consort and coregent) was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and France agreed to expel the Young Pretender.

The war left an unstable situation in its wake and demonstrated how conflict in Europe could expand overseas. The next war involving these European powers would begin in North America and ignite the tinder the war of the Austrian succession had left strewn across Europe. The war is of interest also because many British and American officers who later served in the Revolution underwent their baptism of fire in this conflict.