The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) Read online

  15 November

  Admiral Leake relieves Gibraltar

  28 November

  Allies capture Landau

  20 December

  Allies take Trarbach

  1705

  20 March

  Second relief of Gibraltar by Leake

  5 May

  Death of Emperor Leopold I of Austria. Emperor Joseph I succeeds his father

  10 June

  French capture Huy

  11 July

  Allies re-take Huy

  18 July

  French defeated in battle at Elixheim

  18 August

  Abortive allied attempt to attack the French at the Yssche stream

  22 August

  Allied forces land in eastern Spain

  6 September

  Allies capture Leau

  14 October

  Barcelona captured by allies. Carlos III proclaimed.

  December

  Allies occupy Valencia

  1706

  6 January

  French capture Nice

  3 April

  French besiege Barcelona

  22 May

  Barcelona relieved of French siege by a naval squadron

  23 May

  French defeated at battle of Ramillies

  28 May

  French abandon Brussels

  17 June

  Antwerp taken by allies

  23 June

  Allies occupy Cartagena

  27 June

  Anglo-Portuguese army enters Madrid

  9 July

  Ostend captured by allies.

  Peace proposal tentatively made by Louis XIV

  4 August

  Allies evacuate Madrid

  22 August

  Menin captured by allies

  7 September

  French defeated at the battle of Turin

  8 September

  Alicante captured by allies

  13 September

  Majorca and Ibiza occupied by Anglo-Dutch forces

  24 September

  Charles XII of Sweden invades Saxony

  11 November

  Franco-Spanish forces re-take Cartagena

  1707

  1 January

  King Pedro II of Portugal dies, succeeded by John V

  13 February

  France and Austria agree to de-militarise northern Italy

  25 April

  Allies defeated at Almanza in Spain

  22 May

  Lines of Stollhofen on the Rhine stormed by the French.

  Marshal Villars raids southern Germany

  July

  Imperial troops occupy Naples

  22 August

  Allied attempt to take Toulon fails

  4 October

  Ciudad Rodrigo captured from Portuguese

  14 November

  Lerida captured by French and Spanish forces

  1708

  16 April

  Allies surrender Alicante

  30 April

  Imperial troops under von Starhemberg arrive in Catalonia

  May

  Jacobite invasion of Scotland fails

  5 July

  French capture Bruges

  7 July

  French seize Ghent

  11 July

  French defeated at the battle of Oudenarde

  August

  Confidential peace negotiations opened

  11 August

  Sardinia occupied by the allies

  29 August

  Minorca captured by the allies

  August–

  December

  Allied siege of Lille

  28 September

  French defeat at battle of Wynendael

  18 November

  Denia capitulates to French forces

  9 December

  Citadel of Lille captured by allies

  1709

  2 January

  Allies recapture Ghent and Bruges

  February

  Charles XII attacks Russia

  9 April

  Louis XIV declares intention to remove troops from Spain

  7 May

  Allies defeated at battle of Caya/Val Gudina in Portugal

  May

  Louis XIV agrees allied terms for peace, apart from one clause

  July

  Charles XII defeated at Poltava in Russia

  3 September

  Tournai captured by allies

  11 September

  Battle of Malplaquet

  20 October

  Mons taken by the allies

  29 October

  First Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty agreed

  1710

  25 June

  Allies capture Douai

  27 July

  Allied victory at battle of Almenara

  20 August

  Allied victory at battle of Saragossa

  28 August

  Bethune captured by the allies

  September

  Carlos III enters Madrid

  29 September

  Allies capture St Venant

  8 November

  Aire taken by the allies

  9 December

  British army defeated at Brihuega.

  Philip V re-enters Madrid

  10 December

  Franco-Spanish success at battle of Villaviciosa

  1711

  25 January

  Gerona captured by Franco-Spanish forces

  14 April

  Death of the Dauphin of France

  17 April

  Death of Emperor Joseph, succeeded by his brother Archduke Charles (Carlos III/Charles VI)

  7 August

  Lines of Non Plus Ultra breached by Marlborough

  14 September

  Capture of Bouchain by the allies

  22 September

  Archduke Charles leaves Barcelona – elected as Emperor Charles VI

  8 October

  Preliminary Articles for Peace agreed between France and Great Britain

  31 December

  O.S.)

  Marlborough dismissed by Queen Anne

  1712

  12 January

  Congress for a peace opened at Utrecht

  8 February

  Death of the Duc de Bourgogne

  21 May

  Restraining Orders issued to the Duke of Ormonde

  4 July

  Le Quesnoy captured by the allies

  16 July

  British troops removed from active operations

  24 July

  Allied troops defeated at Denain by the French

  30 July

  French capture Marchiennes

  2 August

  Allies fail to capture Landrecies

  8 September

  French re-capture Douai

  2 October

  Hostilities suspended in Spain

  3 October

  Le Quesnoy re-taken by the French

  19 October

  French re-capture Bouchain

  2 November

  Philip V renounces any claim to the French throne

  3 November

  Hostilities suspended in Portugal

  1713

  30 January

  Second Anglo-Dutch Barrier Treaty agreed

  11 April

  Treaty of Utrecht agreed between France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia and Savoy

  May

  French re-capture Landau

  26 June

  Holland concludes Treaty of Utrecht

  9 July

  Barcelona declares support for King Carlos III

  13 July

  Anglo-Spanish Treaty agreed

  1714

  6 March

  Treaty of Rastadt agreed between France and Austria

  26 June

  Treaty agreed between Holland and Spain

  1 August

  Death of Queen Anne, accession of King George I

  18 Se
ptember

  Treaty of Baden agreed between France and the Austrian Empire.

  Barcelona taken by Franco-Spanish forces under Berwick

  1715

  6 February

  Treaty agreed between Spain and Portugal

  1 September

  Death of Louis XIV, succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV (as a minor)

  15 November

  Barrier Treaty agreed between Holland, France and Austria

  Map 1: Spain in the early eighteenth century.

  Chapter 1

  This is the King of Spain

  ‘He lingered till November 1700.’1

  In November 1659, long before the ill-health of an invalid king in Madrid became the matter for international concern, peace had come to the warring nations of France and Spain with the conclusion of the Treaty of the Pyrenees; this welcome event coincided with an agreement for the marriage of the young French King, Louis XIV, and the Spanish Infanta Maria-Theresa, the eldest daughter of King Philip IV. The details of both the treaty and the marriage were confirmed and ratified at Toulouse and Madrid at the end of the same month. As a part of the marriage settlement. Maria-Theresa renounced any claim she or any children she bore might have to succeed to the Spanish throne, receiving in recognition of this renunciation a dowry set at the fabulous sum of 500,000 gold crowns, all to be paid within eighteen months of the date of the marriage. The royal couple were married on 9 June 1660, at Bayonne close to the Franco-Spanish border. Within twelve months, Louis XIV was sounding opinion in Madrid whether the renunciation of the succession to the throne was valid, and in particular that any child or grandchild of Maria-Theresa might, despite the explicit terms of the marriage settlement, be eligible. Philip IV proved incapable of paying the huge dowry for his daughter, which might well have been expected, and this gave Louis XIV the excuse he needed to embark on a course of territorial aggrandisement at the expense of Spain. It also could be argued, just, that the failure to pay the money made the renunciations in the marriage settlement ineligible, but this was a weak and highly debateable point, as the renunciations had not been dependent upon actual payment of the huge dowry. The seeds of future trouble had, however, been sown.

  An heir to the Spanish throne was born to Philip IV and his Austrian-born second wife Marie-Ann, on 6 November 1661, and was named Carlos, a sickly and weak child from the start who was not expected to live all that long. Louis XIV, meanwhile, embarked on a war to seize Spanish territory in the Low Countries, claiming his wife’s ‘rights’ and unpaid dowry in the matter as rather spurious justification for his aggression. The king also concluded a confidential treaty with Emperor Leopold I of Austria who, like Louis XIV, was a grandson of Philip III of Spain. They would divide the Spanish inheritance and empire should, as widely anticipated, the young Spanish king, who had succeeded his father in 1665 at the tender age of four, not live long or be survived by an heir of his own. In effect, the treaty terms allowed for the emperor to succeed to the Spanish throne, together with the Spanish-held territories in Italy and the Indies, while Louis XIV would gain the southern Netherlands for France. In this way, the French king had no fear of renewed Habsburg encirclement such as had been achieved by Emperor Charles V many years before; he would, however, have gained extensive new territories in Flanders, Brabant, Guelders and Luxembourg. Understandably, Spanish opinion in the matter was not taken into account, and the whole arrangement was spoiled when Carlos II lived on much longer than had been thought likely. Diplomatic tensions, and intermittent wars waged by Louis XIV in order to expand his territories on the north-eastern borders of France, complicated the scene, and in growing concern the emperor sought the aid of England and Holland, the Maritime Powers as they were known, to counterbalance growing French power and influence.

  William of Orange, the Dutch Stadtholder, replaced James II as King of England in 1688, becoming by Act of Parliament William III and ruling with his wife Mary, the elder daughter of the exiled king. The following year, England and Holland agreed to guarantee that Emperor Leopold should succeed Carlos II if he had no heir. The emperor’s position was strengthened by the marriage in that same year of his sister-in-law, Maria Ana of Neuburg, to the feeble Spanish king, but ruinously expensive war came to western Europe in 1689, which trundled aimlessly on and was only brought to a tired end with the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. In the process, an apparently neat solution to the tricky problem of the succession had been devised by Louis XIV and his old opponent, William III, without, it should be said once again, consulting the Spanish nobility or their people on a matter of such importance to them. A Partition Treaty, one element of the negotiations to bring an end to the Nine Years War, was agreed between France, Holland and England in September 1698, and provided that the young son of the Elector of Bavaria, Joseph-Ferdinand Wittelsbach, should succeed to the throne in Madrid once Carlos was in his grave. The electoral prince was the grandson of Emperor Leopold I, who would be expected to set aside his own claim and that of his immediate family, as would Louis XIV and his own son and three grandsons. Joseph-Ferdinand was, in effect, a neutral choice, being the grandson of Carlos II’s younger sister, Margareta-Theresa, who had been the first wife of Emperor Leopold. In this way, by putting Joseph-Ferdinand on the throne once it became vacant it was intended that neither Imperial Austria or France would gain too great an accretion of power.

  The French king’s eldest son, the Dauphin, born of Carlos II’s older half-sister Maria-Theresa, would receive Sicily, Naples and certain Italian territories, and Archduke Charles of Austria, the emperor’s younger son by his second wife, would get Luxembourg and the Milanese region in northern Italy, as compensation for any disappointed hopes they may have. England and Holland would have better trading rights in the wide Spanish Empire of the Indies; the French king wrote to the Comte de Tallard, his ambassador in London:

  I have examined with great attention all the problems that one could foresee either by suspending the negotiations with the King of England or concluding them. The first seems to me to be the greater [danger]. In breaking with that Prince we should indirectly decide to force him to enter relations with Bavaria, and the other princes of the Empire … it would be easy for him to draw out their ideas and treaties could be signed during his stay in Holland.2

  Louis XIV wanted no more wars with powerful coalitions, the experience of the hard years between 1688 to 1697 had made him wary, and in any case his treasury would probably not bear renewed conflict. ‘When one begins a war’ he added ‘one does not know the finish.’ By this treaty of partition, judiciously arrived at but without reference to the Spanish king and nobility, England and Holland also hoped to avert complications which could arise from whatever Carlos II might do about the inheritance. In this way, a new king acceptable to both Versailles and Vienna, and to the Maritime Powers, would be on the throne, and the Spanish Empire would be divided on terms which might in a favourable light be seen as being equitable between the rival parties.

  Emperor Leopold was ill at ease when he learned of what was intended, recalling his earlier agreement with William III, and believing that far too much was being given away without reference to him. Equally unhappy were the Spanish nobility, whose firm intent was that the empire should not be divided at all, certainly not at the wish of foreign rulers more concerned with their own interests than those of Spain. Accordingly, on 14 November 1698, Carlos II signed and declared a new will, leaving the throne to young Joseph-Ferdinand of Bavaria on his death, together with the Spanish Empire in its entirety. This declaration had a logic that defied argument and plainly had legitimacy, certainly more so than what had been proposed under the recently concluded Partition Treaty. A sensible and workable solution, it seemed, had been reached by the Spanish monarch without reference to the opinions of the other powers in western Europe.

  All might yet have been well, for despite the emperor’s ill-feeling over the issue it seemed unlikely that he could over-turn the will, either by negotiati
on of by force, and Austria, with many distractions in eastern Europe, would not go to war over the issue without the active participation of firm allies. Then fate intervened dramatically, and the young Bavarian prince, heir now to the vast Spanish Empire, suddenly caught smallpox while visiting the Spanish Netherlands where his father was governor-general, and died on 6 February 1699. Dark suspicions were raised at this unexpected and curious turn of events, perhaps so fortunate for Austrian hopes of gaining the throne in Madrid, but nothing could be proved, and there it was. A convenient solution to a thorny problem had now passed by, and the whole matter was again alive and would soon trouble Europe for another fifteen years.

  Once more Louis XIV and William III were active over the question, and a second Partition Treaty, agreed on 11 June 1699, named the young Archduke Charles of Austria, second son of the emperor, as heir to the throne, as long as Spain was never to be united with the Empire. The Dauphin of France would receive Sicily, Naples and the Milanese as recompense for setting aside his own claim. Typically, Emperor Leopold, despite the glittering offer for his young son, was still reluctant to agree, concerned at such a growth in French power and influence in Italy, and he perversely refused to ratify the new treaty, England, France and Holland doing so alone on 25 March 1700, No amount of persuasion by England and Holland would move him, as his mind was set on gaining territories in Italy. ‘Our condition would be very wretched if we were to give France what she asks.’3 In this respect Leopold might be thought that he had played his hand high and that he lost equally high, for the terms were patently generous to Austria, which for the moment was not in conflict with the Ottoman Turks, and the prospect of war with France loomed as a result of his stubborn stand, but all that was yet to be seen with any clarity. The French king was alert to the danger, and he noted that an offer that had been made to his distant cousin Duke Victor-Amadeus II of Savoy, to transfer certain territories around Nice on the border with France and receive in their place the Duchy of Milan, had not been accepted. The duke could also advance a claim to the throne in Madrid based on his grandmother, the Spanish Infanta Catherina Michelle having been the daughter of King Philip II of Spain, and whose dowry was, just like that of Marie-Theresa, never paid. Victor-Amadeus appeared to be playing for time, that was his nature, and although the French offer had advantages for Savoy he was, like the emperor, perhaps aiming for higher stakes, ‘There is reason to believe,’ Louis XIV wrote, ‘that the Duke of Savoy, seeing himself the immediate successor to the Archduke [Charles] will lie up with the Emperor to obtain execution of the testament and the favour of the Emperor as soon as my grandchildren will have abandoned the new right that they could obtain from the testament.’4