Succession Wars is the general name given to contests which took place in Europe during the 18th century on the extinction of certain dynasties or ruling houses. Four such wars are usually enumerated—that of the Spanish succession (1701–13), of the Polish succession (1733–38), of the Austrian succession (1740–48), and of the Bavarian succession (1777–79). The first and third alone are of sufficient general historical interest to be noticed here.
(1) WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. Charles II., king of Spain, having died without direct descendants in November 1700, claims were raised to the vacant throne by the husbands of his two sisters, Louis XIV. of France, who had married the elder, and the Emperor Leopold I., who had married the younger. Both these monarchs were also themselves grandsons of Philip III. of Spain; but neither desired the Spanish crown for his own head. Louis put forward his grandson Philip of Anjou; whilst Leopold advocated the claims of his second son, the Archduke Charles. The Electoral prince Joseph of Bavaria, grandson of the Emperor Leopold, was the heir originally designated in King Charles's will, but he died in the beginning of 1699. Both Louis XIV. and his wife had nine years before solemnly renounced the crown of Spain for themselves and their heirs; nevertheless, after Joseph of Bavaria died the agent of Louis XIV. induced Charles of Spain to nominate Philip of Anjou as his successor. Three months after the Spanish monarch's death the French prince entered Madrid, and was crowned as Philip V.; and his accession was at first recognised by all the European powers except the emperor. Louis, however, soon provoked the United Netherlands and England, and they joined Austria for the purpose of armed opposition to France.
Hostilities were begun by Prince Eugene in Italy in 1701; and in the following year the conflict raged not only in Italy but also in the Netherlands and in Swabia. At first the allies were victorious all along the line: Marlborough took the fortresses on the Meuse and overran the electorate of Cologne; and the Landgrave of Baden had the good fortune to drive back the most redoubtable of the French commanders, Villars, who had crossed the Rhine from Alsace. But the aspect of things was altered in 1703 by Villars, in conjunction with the Elector of Bavaria, penetrating as far as the Tyrol and capturing Passau, whilst the imperialists in Italy were more than held in check by Vendôme. But in the campaign of 1704 Marlborough and Eugene, acting in concert, inflicted a crushing defeat upon their opponents at Blenheim (q.v.) and drove them back into France. Two years later the forces of Louis were compelled to withdraw from the Netherlands owing to Marlborough's great victory of Ramillies and his capture of the principal Flemish towns. At the same time Eugene and his relative the Duke of Savoy routed the French near Turin and swept them out of North Italy. Meanwhile the war had extended to the Iberian peninsula. The king of Portugal declared for the allies, and Archduke Charles made himself master of Catalonia, and even for a time held possession of Madrid. The English captured Gibraltar in 1704; but they and the Portuguese sustained a severe defeat from the Duke of Berwick (commanding the French forces) at Almanza in 1707. In this latter year Louis, feeling the severity of the strain, opened negotiations for a settlement. But the allies, having the upper hand, thought to humble him yet more, and the war went on.
An attempt of Vendôme and the Duke of Burgundy to reconquer the Spanish Netherlands in 1708 was frustrated by Marlborough and Eugene, who routed them at Oudenarde; and in the next year they defeated at Malplaquet the hitherto invincible Villars. Yet just when the fortunes of Louis seemed to be at their worst, circumstances intervened in his favour. In England the Whigs were supplanted by the Tories, who voted for peace; and in Austria the Emperor Leopold died, and was succeeded by the Archduke Charles. Accordingly the war languished, and, Philip V. having pledged himself that the crowns of Spain and France should not be united, all the allies, except the emperor, signed the treaty of Utrecht (q.v.) on 11th April 1713. The emperor, too, was brought to terms after Villars had overrun the Palatinate and Baden, and he signed peace at Rastatt (7th March 1714), whereby he acknowledged Philip as king of Spain, and became himself the ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia.
See Mahon, History of the War of the Succession in Spain (1832); Colonel the Hon. Arthur Parnell, The War of Succession in Spain (1888); Courcy, La Coalition de 1701 contre la France (2 vols. Paris, 1886); Von Norden, Der Spanische Erbfolgekrieg (3 vols. Düsseldorf, 1870–82); Arneth, Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (3 vols. Vienna, 1858); and the articles EUGENE, MARLBOROUGH, PETERBOROUGH, VILLARS, &c. in this work.
(2) WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION. The Emperor Charles VI. died in 1740, leaving his hereditary dominions—Bohemia, Hungary, and the archduchy of Austria—to his daughter Maria Theresa. She was at once beset by enemies, eager to profit from the presumed weakness of a feminine ruler. The Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, who had refused his signature to the Pragmatic Sanction (q.v.), demanded the imperial crown as the descendant of the Emperor Ferdinand I., and he was backed up by France and Spain. Augustus of Saxony and Poland advanced his claim as being the husband of the eldest daughter of the Emperor Joseph I. Frederick the Great of Prussia seized the opportunity to wrest Silesia, which he greatly coveted, from the crown of Austria. The Bavarians and the French (under Belleisle) invaded Bohemia, and crowned the elector king of that country at Prague on 19th December 1741. About two months later he assumed the imperial crown at Frankfort-on-Main; yet on the very next day his own capital (Munich) was occupied by the Austrian general Khevenhüller, who, assisted by the high-spirited Hungarians, had advanced up the Danube, and now speedily overran Bavaria. A few months later the empress-queen bought off her most dangerous antagonist, Frederick, by giving up to him Silesia. At this time, too, Augustus of Saxony, who had at first made common cause with the French and the Bavarians, withdrew from the contest and made peace with Maria Theresa. In the end of 1742 the Austrians were forced out of Bavaria and the French evacuated Bohemia. The English, who from the first paid a substantial subsidy to Austria, took up arms on her behalf in this same year, and in 1743 defeated the French at Dettingen in Bavaria. In this year the Austrians repossessed themselves of the Elector Charles Albert's dominions. Saxony now joined the allies and took the field against his former associates. On the other hand, Frederick renewed hostilities and invaded Bohemia; but after a short interval he was once more willing to make peace. About this juncture Charles Albert died, and his son and successor abandoned his father's pretensions to Maria Theresa's dominions. This left France to carry on the struggle alone. But whilst Austria had the better of the war in Italy, Marshal Saxe captured several of the Flemish fortresses, won the victories of Fontenoy (1745), Rocoux (1746), and Lawfeldt (1747), and reduced the Austrian (formerly Spanish) Netherlands. Peace was at length concluded at Aix-la-Chapelle on 18th October 1748, things remaining pretty much in statu quo, except that Frederick was allowed to retain Silesia.
See Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresias (10 vols. Vienna, 1863-79); and MARIA THERESA, SAXE, &c.