THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION ar0sC um the death without male heirs of Charles II. (q.v.). King of Spain. of the Ilouse of Hapsburg, November 1, 1700. The nearest natural heir to the throne was of the royal Bourbon line of France, Charles's elder sister having married Louis XIV.; but. to prevent any possible union of the two crowns, a solemn renunciation had been exacted both from Louis and his Queen, for them selves and their heirs. Failing the Bourbons. the next heirs were the descendants of the young er sister of Charles, who had married the Ger man Emperor Leopold I., ruler of the Austrian realm, and from whom no renunciation had been exacted: and the only issue being a daughter, who had married the Elector of Bavaria, and borne a son. Joseph Ferdinand. this prince was during his lifetime regarded both by Charles II. and the Spanish people as the rightful heir. As he died in 1690, the question of succession was reopened. Louis XIV. claimed the throne for himself, as the son of Philip oldest sister. being, however, again legally barred here by an other solemn renunciatioll. The Emperor Leo pold maintained that the Bourbons had by these two renunciations lost all rights of succession, and he claimed the throne as the son of Philip IV.'s younger sister. (See genealogical table, The Hapsburg Family, under HAPSBURG.) Leo pold handed over his claim to his second son, the Archduke Charles. The Austrian party at first preponderated in Spain; but Louis succeed ed in undermining the Austrian influence, and his grandson, Philip of Anjou, was declared the heir (October 2, 1700). On the death of King Charles, Philip appeared in Spain and was rec ognized as monarch. The Emperor Leopold at once took up arms and sent an army into Italy under Prince Eugene, who defeated the French general Villeroi at Chiari on September 1, 1701. William 11L, regarding the union of France and Spain under the Bourbons as a menace to the naval interests of England and Holland, and stirred up by the action of Louis XIV. in recog nizing the Pretender, James Edward Stuart, de termined to revive the Grand Alliance against France, and entered into a coalition with Austria and her allies in the German Empire, including Prussia. Savoy, Bavaria, and some of the other German States joined the Bourbons. William's policy was continued by Queen Anne, who suc ceeded to the English throne in March, 1702, and immediately declared war.
In 1702 Churchill (the future Marlborough), at the head of an English-Duteh-German army, made a.victo•ious advance against the French in the Spanish Netherlands: while a German army under the _Margrave of Baden crossed the Rhine and encountered Villars, who proved too powerful for him. In Italy, Prince Eu gene. after taking Villeroi prisoner at Cremona (January, 1702), was 'checked by Vendome. In 1703 Marlborough gained fresh successes and the Duke of Savoy joined the Grand Alliance. The first great blow was struck on August 13, 1704, when the combined Austrian-German-British army under 3-larlbo•ough and Prince Eugene to tally defeated the French and the Bavarians under Tallard at Blenheim (q.v.). A few days before Gibraltar had fallen into the hands of the English. The campaigns of Marlborough in
Germany and of Eugene in Italy in 1705. while successful, were not very important. In 1706 Marlborough suddenly attacked the French and Bavarians under Villeroi at Ramillies (q.v.), and routed them with great slaughter. The victory of Eugene over Marlin at Turin in the same year shattered the French power in Italy.
In the meanwhile in 1704 the Archduke Charles landed at Lisbon with a British and Dutch army and invaded Spain. In the follow ing year the Earl of Peterborough and Sir Clowdisley Shovel] landed with a small body of troops in Catalonia. Then, attacked from both east and west, the Bourbon forces were beaten and driven across the Pyrenees. After the de parture of Peterborough, however, the Bourbon commander. the Duke of Berwick (q.v.), made head against his antagonists. and by his victory at Almanza (April 25, 1707) he recovered the whole of Spain except Catalonia. In the Nether lands Marlborough and Prince Eugene fell upon VendOme's army at Ondenarde (1708) and in flicted upon it a severe defeat. The capture of Lille, Ghent, and Bruges followed. France now began to show symptoms of exhaustion, and made overtures of peace, but the demands of the allies were of so exorbitant a character that Louis XIV. preferred to continue the war. The French under Villars suffered another great de feat in September, 1700, at the of Marl borough and Prince Eugene at Malplaquet (q.v.). The death of the Emperor, Joseph I., the suc cessor of Leopold 1. (April 17, 1711), and the ac cession in the Austrian dominions and in the German Empire of his brother. Charles VI., came to the rescue of France. for England be came immediately lukewarm in support of a cause the success of which would result in the union of Austria and Spain; and the English Tories having come into power, England con cluded an armistice with France in 1712. Prince Eugene still carried on the war, aided by Holland, but was compelled to give way ; and in the following spring (1713) Holland, Prussia, and Savoy joined England as parties to the Peace of Utrecht (q.v.). The Emperor Charles VI. found himself forced to conclude a treaty of peace at Itastatt, March 7, 1714, and later on the more formal treaty of Baden (in Aargau), Sep tember 7, 1714, ended the struggle, leaving Philip in possession of the Spanish throne, but with the provision that the crowns of France and Spain should never be united in the same per son, while Austria obtained the Spanish Nether lands, the former Duchy of Milan. Naples, and Sardinia. Sicily was awarded to Savoy, which exchanged it for Sardinia. Gibraltar and Mi norca were ceded to England. which acquired Arcadia from France. The conflict waged between the English and French in America as part of the War of the Spanish Succession is known as Queen Anne's War.
Consult: Stanhope (Lord Mahon), History of the War of the Sueeession in Spain (London, 1836) ; Coxe, Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon (ib., 1S13) ; Von Noorden, Europii-ische Geschiohte irm 1Sten Jahrhundert, `Der spanische Erbfolgekrieg" (Dusseldorf, 1874-S3), perhaps the best work on the subject. See Louts XIV.