The War of the Austrian Succession is the name given to a series of smaller, connected wars that stemmed from the Prussian invasion of Austria in 1740 and the tensions that led up to it. It included two Austro-Prussian wars (the First Silesian War, 1740-1742, and the Second Silesian War, 1744-1745), an Austro-Saxon War (1741), an Austro-Bavarian War (1741-1745), a Franco-Austrian War (1744-1748), and an Austro-Spanish War (1742-1748). Starting in 1744, the fighting spread to the North American colonies; there it was called King George's War.

Two other wars were connected tangentially: the Swedish-Russian War of 1741-43 came after France encouraged Sweden to attack Russia, Austria's ally. In Britain, the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 fell squarely in the middle of the timeline for the larger European conflict. France hoped that by supporting the rebels they might draw Britain's attention away from involvement outside its own borders.

As a whole, the conflict began in 1740 when Prussia invaded Austrian territory; it quickly spread throughout most of Europe, and lasted until an uneasy peace was reached in 1748. Despite its inconclusive ending, it was important in that it saw the emergence of Prussia as a major European military power; it evolved naturally from the War of the Spanish Succession, and set the stage for the Seven Years War.

Diplomatic origins

For most of the early 18th century, the struggle for domination of trade seemed to be coming out heavily in favour of France. Much of this was a result of France's close ties with Spain; Britain was prohibited from trade with the Spanish colonies after 1729's Treaty of Seville. Tensions erupted into open conflict in 1739, when the British Prime Minister declared war on Spain; this was the War of Jenkins' Ear, and it would last until 1743 at which point it would merge with the War of the Austrian Succession.

The roots of the war lie in the fact that Austria's Emperor Charles VI had no male heir. To compensate, provisions were made for his daughter, Maria Theresa, to inherit the Habsburg empire. It took a considerable amount of diplomatic wrangling, but eventually the Pragmatic Sanction (pragmaticae sanctiones) that ensured her ascension to the throne was accepted by most of the European powers, including France, Austria's long-time enemy.

Beginning in 1737, Austria had been at war with the Ottoman Empire. In 1739, Charles VI's death seemed imminent; fearing (quite rightly) that a larger-scale war was on its way, Austria hastily drew up a peace treaty, ceding Serbia and Little Wallachia to free up its military forces for the impending conflict.

For some time leading up to the war, France had been seeking to weaken the power of the Habsburg monarchy. The death of Charles VI in 1740 proved to be the catalyst. The Pragmatic Sanction was forgotten or else ignored: because Maria Theresa was a woman, a number of people made claims to the throne, saying that she was unsuitable to govern an empire. The French court, smelling blood, supported the three main pretenders: Charles Albert of Bavaria, Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy, and Augustus III of Saxony.

Frederick II, the King of Prussia, offered his support to Maria Theresa's husband, Duke Charles of Lorraine-Tuscany. His vote was conditional, however; in return, Frederick demanded that Austria cede its territory in Silesia to Prussia. Austria rejected the proposal, and Prussia invaded Silesia in December of 1740.

The First Silesian War, 1740-1742

This war saw the first important battle of the greater war. A force of some sixteen thousand Austrian soldiers moved into Silesia from Moravia to repel the invading Prussian force. Led by Frederick the Great himself, the Prussian army was twenty-one thousand strong; their infantry greatly outnumbered that of the Austrian army, though the scales were balanced by the strength of the Austrian cavalry.

On April 10, 1741, the Prussian army advanced toward the Austrian lines; the Prussian cavalry was severely outclassed, and was devastated by the oncoming Austrians, leaving their right flank exposed. The situation looked grim enough that the Prussian field marshal advised Frederick to leave the field (which he did); the infantry stayed, and by sheer dint of numbers managed to force an Austrian retreat.

Austria was pushed out of Silesia entirely at the Battle of Chotusitz in May 1742. A truce was agreed upon shortly thereafter, on June 11; the treaty was signed on July 28 in Berlin, resulting in the cession of most of Silesia and all of the county of Glatz in Bohemia to Prussia.

The Austrian loss contributed to growing suspicion in the rest of Europe that the Habsburg empire had overreached itself and was no longer able to defend all of its territory; this all but made certain that the fighting would spread, as more countries looking for conquests leaped on the bandwagon to attack Austria.

The First Silesian War was a turning point for Prussia's role as a European military power: though Frederick's army had been largely untested before the Battle of Mollowitz, their discipline and strength was such that other countries quickly saw the possible benefits of allying themselves with such a force. France, seeing a common interest in overthrowing the Habsburg monarchy, became such an ally; Bavaria followed suit.

The Austro-Saxon War, 1741

In 1741, an army from Saxony moved into Bohemia, but the Saxons were ill-prepared for a lengthy campaign. Augustus III received little outside support and so the fighting ended quickly. Peace was negotiated only months after the invasion attempt, and the Saxon force withdrew.

The Austro-Bavarian War, 1741-1745

Charles Albert of Bavaria had made a dubious claim to the Austrian throne in 1740. When it wasn't acknowledged, he sent the Bavarian army into upper Austria to take it by force; a secret alliance that existed between France and Spain was expanded to include Bavaria, and by 1742 with French support they had moved into Bohemia, where Charles Albert declared himself Emperor.

With invaders pressing in from all sides, Maria Theresa travelled to Pressburg, where she appealed for aid from the Hungarian nobility. They agreed to help, and a force of light troops was sent to Austria to refresh Maria Theresa's own army, worn out by skirmishes. More support came from Great Britain, by this time extricated from the war with Spain. The combined army was called the Pragmatic Army, after the Pragmatic Sanction.

The Bavarians were expelled from Bohemia and upper Austria, and the Pragmatic Army moved into Bavaria itself. The decisive battle came in June of 1743 in southwest Germany, some seventy miles east of Frankfurt.

The Pragmatic Army was in a difficult position; its supply line along the Rhine River had been cut off by the French force allied with Bavaria. Seeing no recourse but to press forward, the army under the command of King George II pushed into the town of Dettingen; the precise course of events has been lost to history, but the end result was that the French and Bavarian soldiers occupying the town were forced back into the Main River. Many of them drowned as bridges collapsed under the weight of the retreating army; the rest fled.

After the Battle of Dettingen, a greatly weakened Bavaria withdrew from the war entirely. Charles Albert died in 1745.

The Second Silesian War, 1744-1745

In 1744, fearing the growing power of Austria, Frederick the Great re-entered the war with the simultaneous invasion of Bohemia and his former ally, Saxony. The morale of the Prussian army was low; despite its high degree of discipline it saw a great many deserters, as Frederick was unable to keep his men properly supplied with food and weapons. Desperately needing a victory to keep his ambitions afloat, Frederick saw a glimmer of hope in an attack on Hohenfriedburg, where the Austro-Saxon force was camped.

An attack was launched in summer of 1745, an early morning in June. Frederick's force was fifty-nine thousand strong; the Austro-Saxons had sixty thousand, but were sorely unprepared for the attack. Despite their advantage in numbers, the Austro-Saxon army was crushed by Frederick's advance; more than a third of them were killed, and the rest fled for their lives into the forests, where they were too widespread to regroup.

After the Prussian victory in the Battle of Hohenfriedburg, a peace treaty was negotiated and signed; the Treaty of Dresden confirmed Prussia's possession of Silesia for the second time.

The Franco-Austrian War, 1744-1748

Until 1744, France had respected the neutrality of the Austrian Netherlands, mostly as a diplomatic manoeuvre to keep Great Britain from entering the conflict in any role other than a supporting one. Seeing Austrian weakness, however, in 1744 their tactics changed: sweeping across Flanders, Austrian fortresses and towns fell to the French in quick succession.

The Pragmatic Army, seeking to halt the advance, dug in their heels at the hamlet of Fontenoy in 1745. The British field marshal was convinced that French troops would not be able to withstand the combined strength of the British and Austrian forces in an open battle.

He was mistaken. The French army, with an advantage of only six thousand men, soundly defeated the Pragmatic Army; they were pushed off the continent, and forced to retreat to Great Britain; part of the defeat may also have been due to the Jacobite rebellion, as the British segment of the Pragmatic Army had to return to quell the uprising. Another similar battle occurred in 1747 at Lafelt; again the French won convincingly.

The French army was still moving inexorably toward Vienna when Russia, finally disentangled from its war with Sweden and allied with Austria, sent an army from Moscow to the Rhine River in 1748; unfortunately, they arrived too late to be of much practical use, as the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was nearing completion.

The Austro-Spanish War, 1744-1748

This war evolved from the peace that had been reached after the War of the Spanish Succession, wherein Spanish territories in Italy had been ceded to Austria. It was indecisive and saw the territory in question -- parts of northern Italy, and Milan -- change hands a number of times, occupied briefly by one side before being pushed out by the other.

Much to the annoyance of King Philip V of Spain, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that ended the entire series of wars restored the pre-war boundaries, and the effort of invasion came to nothing.

King George's War, 1744-1748

As with most conflicts between France and Britain during the 1700s, the fighting spread to the North American colonies. Most of the conflict here was centred around the French fortified city of Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

War was declared in the colonies in spring of 1744, and it wasn't long before Louisbourg fell under siege from a section of the Royal Navy stationed off Nova Scotia's coast, backed up by land forces from New England. It lasted for six weeks; despite the best efforts of the French defenders to drive off the attackers,the fortress finally fell on June 17.

Stunned by the loss, France amassed an armada of unprecedented size and strength to regain Louisbourg. Led by Duc d'Anville, the armada was struck by one disaster after another, and ended in failure of astounding proportions. D'Anville died shortly after the remains of the fleet limped into the harbour at Chebucto; his second-in-command committed suicide, seeing no hope for success. An invasion of Louisbourg was attempted anyway, but failed; the fleet returned to France, defeated, shortly before the war's end, which ironically enough saw Louisbourg restored to French control.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748

The treaty that was signed in Aachen, Germany to finish off the wars that were still going on was ineffective at best. Rather than negotiating terms that would see to a lasting peace, the delegates chose mostly to restore pre-war boundaries, which resolved nothing.

Silesia was given to Prussia, as both Britain and France tried to gain Frederick's support for the future. The rest of Maria Theresa's Habsburg empire remained intact -- but it had been proven weak. The Low Countries particularly were revealed as too politically fragmented and too far away from their ruler to withstand invasion.

France's expenditures, both military and diplomatic, had achieved nothing. This failure, along with more of the same in the Seven Years War, would eventually lead to its 19th-century economic downfall.

Sources: Bishop, Michael. Battle of Hohenfriedburg (June 4, 1745). Purdue University. http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~mbishop/frames/wars/hohenfriedburg.html Bishop, Michael. Battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741). Purdue University. http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~mbishop/frames/wars/mollwitz.html Bishop, Michael. War of Austrian Succession. Purdue University. http://expert.ics.purdue.edu/~mbishop/frames/wars/austrosuccession.html Ganse, Alexander. War of Austrian Succession, 1741-1748. http://www.zum.de/whkmla/military/18cen/austsucc.html King George's War. http://www.usahistory.info/colonial-wars/King-Georges-War.html The Battle of Dettingen 1743. http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_of_dettingen.htm The Battle of Fontenoy 1745. http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_fontenoy.htm War of the Austrian Succession. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Austrian_Succession War of the Austrian Succession. University of Houston. http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/BritannicaPages/WarAustrianSuccession/WarAustrianSuccession.html War of Jenkins' Ear. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear All pages accessed on 28 July 2004. With many thanks to Albert Herring for having corrected details that were wrong.