In October 1740, Emperor Charles VI died. In his youth he
had held title as the Archduke Charles, claimant to the Spanish crown and for
whom the Habsburgs waged the War for the Spanish Succession. He left a single
heir, his daughter the Archduchess Maria Theresa.
The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy. Charles VI, however, negotiated with the ruling houses of Europe and the magnates of his monarchy to accept Maria Theresa as his legitimate and rightful heir and the next empress. Having secured domestic recognition of his daughter’s right to succeed him, he also acquired international recognition embodied in the document, the Pragmatic Sanction. It did not work. As soon as he died, the Bavarian and Saxon electors competed for the crown; and King Frederick II of Prussia, newly ascended to the throne, rejected Maria Theresa’s legitimacy and invaded Silesia, wealthiest of the Habsburg territories. France did not enter the war, but a French auxiliary corps was dispatched to central Germany in accordance with the Treaty of Westphalia, “to defend German liberties.”
In 1745 the Quadruple Alliance was officially formed by Britain,
Austria, the Netherlands, and Saxony through the Treaty of Warsaw. With
the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII, the Holy Roman Empire’s
throne again became con- tested. Prussian forces were able to maintain
their position in Silesia and southern Germany, with Austrian forces
unable to oust them. Francis I of Lorraine, the husband of Maria
Theresa, was elected Holy Roman emperor, a move opposed by the Prussians
and the Bavarians. Despite Prussian successes against Austrian forces,
Frederick recognized Francis I’s acquisition of the Habsburg throne in
the Peace of Dresden on December 25, 1745, while it was recognized by
the Austrians that Silesia was a Prussian province. This agreement ended
the Second Silesian War.
In southern Europe the war was characterized by Spanish and Italian
engagements, given Bourbon Spanish attempts to acquire territory in
Italy, particularly Milan, with Italian states divided in terms of their
loyalties. As Austrian forces ousted Spanish forces from northern
Italy, they occupied formerly independent Italian states, most notably
Genoa. In contrast, in northern Europe, British and Dutch forces engaged
French forces in defense of the Austrian Netherlands as well as their
own possessions. With a Swedish-Russian settlement made in 1743, Russian
forces, allied with Austria, marched from Moscow to the Rhine in 1746.
The overwhelmed French and Spanish forces were forced to come to terms
or continue fighting against the enlarged coalition. The Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, signed on October 18, 1748, formally ended the War of
the Austrian Succession. In the end, Prussia was able to retain Silesia
at the expense of Austria, which was the trigger of the whole conflict.
The Spanish royal family decided the war offered an
opportunity to reclaim Milan. Prince Philip of Bourbon, the youngest son of
Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese, needed a crown; and Milan, along with Parma,
suited him. A Spanish army landed in Tuscany-a neutral-and marched north to the
Padana Plain. Then, Philip V asked his son Charles VII of Naples to return the
army he lent him in 1733 to the Neapolitan and Sicilian thrones. Neapolitan
troops marched north to join the Spanish army.
France too required allies. They requested Piedmontese
permission to cross the Alps and march on Milan, but Charles Emmanuel III did
not want to involve his state in this conflict. He realized that, in case of a
French and Spanish victory, Piedmont would be caught between the Bourbons. It
meant the end of any autonomous policy and of any possible dream of expanding
his power in Italy. Moreover, he threatened the approaching Spanish army that
if it entered the Padana Plain, his army would its his route to Milan.
At the same time, Britain perceived the precarious situation
as a threat to the Balance of Power. Piedmont and Austria were alone against
much of Europe, save Russia. London therefore committed its resources to the
Habsburg cause. Charles Emmanuel received a £250,000 annual subsidy to keep his
army on a war footing. Then, a British squadron entered the Mediterranean under
Admiral Matthews, ordered to act in support of Charles Emmanuel. The British
ships entered Naples harbor with some five thousand marines. Charles VII knew
it. He had no fleet and very few men to defend the city because his army had
marched north. So, when Matthews presented an ultimatum: recall all his
regiments with the Spanish army, or the city would be shelled and the marines
landed, Charles VII had little recourse but to accept the terms.
The defection of Naples eased Charles Emmanuel’s army action
against the Spanish in the Padana Plain. Not wanting to face isolation, the
Spanish withdrew through the Papal States along the Adriatic coast. Soon after,
Charles Emmanuel countermarched rapidly to meet a second Spanish army entering
Savoy via France. He won the campaign, but it was clear that the war was
becoming harder to manage.
In 1743 the Spanish threatened Piedmont with two armies.
Charles Emmanuel possessed no more than 42,000 men and could use only half
against each Spanish army. Nonetheless, he crushed Prince Philip’s army,
marching from France, at Casteldelfino. Simultaneously, the Piedmontese with
their Habsburg allies fought and defeated the second army under de Gages at
Camposanto, on the other side of Italy and pressed it to the Neapolitan-Papal
States border on the Adriatic coast, where it sought refuge from the Neapolitan
king.
In the autumn of 1743, Britain joined Piedmont and Austria
in a formal league. The treaty signed in Wörms widened the scope of the
conflict from Europe to Asia, Africa, and America, where it was known as King
George’s War.
The 1744 campaign was hard fought. Unfortunately, Maria
Theresa wanted Naples because, according to the Peace of Utrecht, it should
have remained in Habsburg hands, yet the War of Polish Succession had reversed
that agreement.
Charles Emmanuel warned the Austrian ruler that this would
only increase the strategic dilemma. Why expand the conflict when victory was
not in sight? Regardless of the free advice, she ordered her army to destroy de
Gages’s Spanish army still waiting on the Neapolitan frontier. Charles VII of
Naples, aware of the Austrian menace, declared war and once again united his
troops with his father’s army.
An Austrian army marched south, passing through the Papal
States from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian coast. Charles VII gathered the
Spanish and Neapolitan army and encamped near Velletri, south of Rome. The
Austrians attacked in August and were repulsed with great loss.
The defeat forced the Habsburgs to abandon central Italy in
November. The Neapolitan-Spanish army followed on their heels, arriving in
northern Italy. What a present for Charles Emmanuel, who had his own troubles.
In fact, France officially entered the war in that same
year. A French army united with Prince Philip’s army passed the Alps, defeated
the local Piedmontese resistance, and besieged Cuneo. Charles Emmanuel tried to
relieve the city, but failed. He then directed the militia against the enemy’s
ordnance and supply lines and, thanks to these guerrilla tactics and to Cuneo’s
resistance, the Bourbon armies raised the siege and withdrew to France to take
winter quarters.
In the early days of 1745, Genoa entered the conflict. The
Most Serene Republic sought neutrality, just as Venice had done for the third
time in forty-five years. Unfortunately, while Venice could defend its
neutrality with 40,000 men, Genoa could not; and, moreover, Britain and Austria
promised to give Charles Emmanuel the Marquisate of Finale, a little imperial
fief in Liguria owned by the republic as a feudatory of the empire. Charles
Emmanuel desired it as a port, an additional window to the Mediterranean.
In order to protect its territory, Genoa signed a treaty in
Aranjuez and joined the Bourbon alliance. It was a disaster for Charles
Emmanuel. The Genoese accession to the League provided the Spanish-French army
with an opened route from France through Genoese territory, and now they could
mass the army from France with the army from Naples via Velletri, adding to it
10,000 Genoese troops. This was the real disaster as it increased the powerful
Bourbon army to 90,000 men.
As the war in Flanders continued, Charles Emmanuel received
no support from Austria.
He had a mere 43,000 men. Maneuvering them well to avoid
battle, he lost many fortresses but preserved his army. Despite this, he was
compelled to accept an armistice in December 1745. Fortunately, Prussia
accepted peace terms offered by Austria, allowing Vienna to send 12,000 men to
Italy. It was not an impressive army, but enough to permit Charles Emmanuel to
take the field upon the expiration of the armistice. In the spring 1746 he
attacked and the Bourbons were defeated. Milan was reconquered, Piedmont
liberated, and Genoa overrun by the Austrians. The Piedmontese army occupied
western Liguria and the French and Spanish fled, abandoning the republic.
While Charles Emmanuel prepared an invasion of southern
France, he sent a regiment to support the Corsican revolution against Genoese
rule.
Charles Emmanuel had no troops to stem the invasion. He
scraped together what troops he could find. On July 19, 1747, at Assietta Hill,
30,000 French with artillery attacked 5,400 Piedmontese and 2,000 Austrians. At
sunset, the French had lost 5,800 men and left more than 600 wounded1 to the
victorious defenders. General Count Bricherasio lost only 192 Piedmontese and
27 Austrians; it was clearly a triumph.
Assietta Hill was the last battle of the war on the Italian
front. A peace was signed on October 30, 1748, at Aix-la-Chapelle. 2 Everything
remained as it was before the war, except that Prince Philip of Spain obtained
the duchy of Parma and Charles Emmanuel received from Maria Theresa two West
Lombardy provinces, Vigevano, and Anghiera County, and a part of the territory
of Pavia, setting the Milanese-Piedmontese border along the Ticino river.
