In Europe, France was no longer in peril, as she had been in the period preceding Richelieu; and Louis the Fourteenth's half-century of war was merely a struggle to enlarge his do minions. For a generation the victories of Turenne dazzled Europe; and France annexed some important strips of territory on the east, at the expense of Spain and of the decaying empire. But in the closing period, when the Allies also had found great generals, in the English Marlborough and the Austrian Prince Eugene, even success in the field deserted Louis; and to a comprehensive view his failure was profound. Exhausted France was crushed by taxation to pay the interest of the war debt; while, in attacks upon petty provinces in Europe, she had wasted energies and oppor tunities that might have made her supreme in Asia and America. Within, the economic re forms of the great Colbert were abandoned; and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) drove into exile more than 200,000 of the best citizens of France. The effect corresponded in a measure to the effect upon Spain of the expulsion of the Moriscoes somewhat earlier. The Huguenots had com prised the skilled artisans and the enterprising merchant classes; and their flight added to the terrible economic demoralization and deprived France of all chance at industrial leadership.
To men of the time, however, the failure was partially disguised by the glamor that sur rounded the court of the Grand Monarque. French literature, brilliant and sparkling, was in its first splendid and French intel lectual leadership survived for more than a cen tury. Until after the court of Louis XIV remained the model for every court in Europe; and French thought, French fashions and the French language were the common property of all polite society.
The Treaty of Utrecht (1713), while it left France still one of the three greatest powers, marks her recession from predominance. Spain resigned her territories and claims in Italy and on the Rhine and, except for her decaying colonies, withdrew finally within her own pen insula. England gained Newfoundland and Nova Scotia from France, and in Europe she secured command of the Mediterranean by the conquest of Gibraltar and Minorca. By the same treaty and by the rearrangements that im mediately followed, the old Spanish Nether lands, the duchy of Milan, and the kingdom of Naples and Sicily fell to Austria. The Duke of Savoy (one of the faithful allies against France) acquired Sardinia, with the title of a kingdom for his enlarged state. A little be fore, in 1701, the Elector of Brandenburg had secured the title of king of Prussia. Thus, out of the wars of Louis, at the beginning of the 18th century, arose the two kingdoms, Prussia and Sardinia, which in the latter part of the 19th century were to make modern Germany and modern Italy against the will of modern France.
About 1700, other important changes took place in the map of Europe. For three cen turies, Austria had been one of the chief bul warks of Christendom against Mohammedan ism. In 1683 Vienna had been besieged by the Turks and had been saved only by the arrival of the gallant Sobieski with his Polish chivalry. But thereafter Austria took the offensive. She won back Hungary, and then, step by step, ex tended her domains down the Danube valley and the Illyrian coast. In the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV, the Austrian Hapsburgs, turning away from the Rhine, definitely adopted a Danubian policy and sought to aggrandize themselves by seizing Slav territory from Turkey.
This new policy of Austria gave Louis XIV a freer hand on the Rhine than he otherwise would have had, and so helped on the decline of Holland. In 1640 Dutch vessels carried the commerce of the world,— even the greaterpart of that between England and her colonies. Soon after that date, however, England attacked the Dutch commercial supremacy by navigation laws, and at last by war. Fearful of French conquest, and deserted or timidly defended by Austria, Holland had no choice but to ally herself to her commercial rival. After 1689 in particular (when William of Orange became king of England), Holland followed the lead of England in politics, while that country drew to herself the Dutch carrying trade.
In the north of Europe the former great powers, Sweden and Poland, were declining before the rise of Russia and Prussia. Peter the Great (1689-1725) consolidated the govern ment in Russia, introduced a veneer of Western civilization and started his country on its de liberate march toward distant seas, west, south and east. Peter himself secured the western ((window') by seizing from Sweden the south eastern Baltic provinces. In the middle of the century, the Empress Elizabeth (1741-62) robbed Sweden of the rest of the Baltic coast up through southern Finland. The northern half of Finland remained Sweden's until Alex ander I seized it in the Napoleonic wars; but toward the close of the 18th century, under Catherine II, Russia began her advance along the Black Sea at the expense of Turkey. Under the same ruler occurred the Russian gains in the partitions of Poland,— a story which can be understood only in connection with the rise of Prussia.
For three centuries the Hohenzollern Mar graves of Brandenburg had been patiently add ing scrap by scrap to their realms. Soon after 1600 these dominions lay mainly in three widely separated groups,— Cleves. on the Rhine, Bran denburg on the Elbe and East Prussia beyond the Vistula. The object of Hohenzollern poli tics was to consolidate these provinces by ac quiring intermediate territory. Toward the dose of the Thirty Years' War, Frederick William, the Great Elector, made important headway in this respect and accomplished still more for his country after the close of that struggle by persistently maintaining peace and fostering in dustry. It was his son who in 1701 secured the title of king. The second king of Prussia built up a magnificent. army and reared a son who was to use it magnificently— and treacherously. Frederick II ascended the throne in 1740 and began his long reign of an unjust but profit able war. The Hapsburg realms had just fallen to a woman, and, disregarding solemn treaties in truly Hohenzollern fashion, Fred erick took unscrupulous advantage of the sup nosed weakness of the Archduchess, Maria Theresa. to seize from Austria the rich prov ince of Silesia by surprise, without even the warning of a declaration of war. The hetero geneous Hapsburg realms seemed about to fall to pieces; and Spain, France, Savoy and Ba varia hurried to join Prussia in dismembering the carcass. But England and Holland threw themselves into the stuggle on the Austrian side, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) closed the War of the Austrian Succession without further territorial changes. Frederick kept Silesia, reaching far down into the heart of Germany, and Prussia stood forth as one of the great powers.