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The New Cambridge Modern History

Edited by J. O. Lindsay

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521045452

Online ISBN: 9781139055833

Hardback ISBN: 9780521045452

Chapter

CHAPTER IX - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS pp. 191-213

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521045452.011

Cambridge University Press



CHAPTER IX

I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E L A T I O N S

N 1713 and 1714 eleven separate treaties of peace almost brought the

War of the Spanish Succession to an end. They left the E mperor and the

king of Spain still at war, bu t large-scale hostilities were over and m ost

of the belligerents had been able to reach a satisfactory settlement. The

Spanish possessions were divided. Philip V, the grandson of Louis XIV,

was recognised as king of Spain in spite of the disapproval of the Protes-

tant Powers and of the Emperor; but he had to resign his claims to the

throne of France, and he

was

not allowed to inherit the empire of Charles II

in its entirety. Philip V received Spain and Spanish America, bu t the

Netherlands, Milan, Naples, Mantua, Sardinia and the Spanish ports in

Tuscany went to the Emperor Charles VI. Sicily went for a few years to

the duke of Savoy.

In addition many other problems besides the division of the territories

of the Spanish Habsburgs were settled by the peace treaties of 1713-14.

In the treaty concluded between England and France the claim of the

Hanoverians to the throne of England was also recognised. Implicitly

this gave recognition to the theory of civil contract, and this concept was

given further validity by the provisions that the arrangements for the

successions to the thrones of France and of Spain were to be officially

registered by the

Parlement

and by the

Cortes

respectively. The French

diplomats warned their English colleagues that such an attempt to

regulate the succession was not valid in French law ; tha t the right to rule

was derived from God, and that, should the death of the infant French

prince leave the throne vacant, Philip V could not be bound by his

renunciation but must mount the throne to which God had called him;

but they did, at last, accept the provisions in public law which professed

to regulate the succession by man-made agreements.

Another provision of the peace treaties which was to have considerable

influence on international relations during the next thirty years was the

establishment of' bar riers' along the frontiers of France . In the Austrian

Netherlands the Dutch, by the Treaty of November 1715, acquired the

right to garrison Namur, Tournai, Menin, Ypres and other places. In

Italy the duke of Savoy in 1713 gained Exilles, Fenestrelle and som e other

places towards the Alps, and Allesandria, part of Montferrat, Valenza,

Vigevano and other places in the south and east so that he might bar the

way into Italy against France or the way into Liguria against the Austrian

Habsburgs. These advantages were secured partly by the as tute diplomacy

of the duke of Savoy, but this w as made more effective by the support of

191 14 a

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THE OLD REGIME

England. Small districts on the Rh ine were obtained by various German

princes who had supported the Emperor in the recent war. By the treaties

of Ras tadt and Baden in 1714, Brandenburg-Prussia got part of Gelders.

Bavaria recovered th e Palatina te and the elector of Cologne was restored

to his electorate. These German princes might be expected to check any

attem pt at renewed French aggression, but also to act as a counterbalance

to the em peror. Yet they were not strong enough to act independently of

English support

England further benefited from the settlement in that, as a result of the

war, she emerged with additional naval bases tha t were to be of great value

to her trad e. She retained her hold of Gib raltar and Minorca, and her

position in the Mediterranean was further strengthened by the settlement

which gave Naples and Reggio to the Emperor but balanced this by

giving Messina and Palermo to the duke of Savoy. The approaches to

the Mediterranean were protected by the alliance with Portugal which

England had concluded in 1703. In the north, England's position was

strengthened by her connection with Hanover and by her alliance with

Denmark. While England had thus improved her own position, that of

France was weakened by the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht which laid

down tha t the naval base at Dunkirk was to be destroyed, and tha t that of

Mardyk was also to be rendered useless for warlike purposes.

England also benefited very considerably from a series of commercial

treaties which were either concluded as part of the peace settlement or

had already been made to cement alliances during the war. The earliest

and most successful of these treaties was that of 1703 with Portugal.

Agreements with the Low Countries followed in 1709 and 1713 and in

1713 three other treaties were concluded with Savoy, Spain and France.

It is not necessary to see the designs of the 'interloper' as inspiring a

secret English policy, comparable with the secret policies of the regent,

Dubois and Elizabeth Farnese, to admit that even before the advent of

the duke of Newcastle, who was so very sensitive to popular and mer-

cantile opinion, English governments were always eager to express a

political or military success in terms of commercial advantages.

Immediately after the Peace Settlement of Utrecht it seemed as if the

alliances of the European powers would re-form along familiar lines.

Admittedly relations between England and her allies, the Dutch and the

Em peror, had been badly strained by what the allies regarded as England's

desertion of them in 1712, but very soon after the conclusion of the peace

treaties it appeared tha t F rance w as not going to carry out the terms, and

this immediately put new life into the Anglo-Imperial-Dutch alliance.

The terms which Louis XIV seemed determined to evade were those

stipulating the demolition of Dunkirk as a naval base. In face of this

renewed threat England busied herself to reconcile her old allies, who

were at loggerheads over the arrangement tha t the D utch were to garrison

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INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

fortresses in the southern N etherlands w hich, under the Peace Settlement,

had passed to Austria. After some considerable difficulties the differences

between the Emperor, the Dutch and England were overcome and the

Barrier Treaty was concluded in November 1715.

However, by the time th at the Barrier Treaty w as concluded, the whole

international situation had been radically altered by political and personal

changes at the court of Versailles. In September 1715 Lou is XIV died.

His successor was his great-grandson, a delicate child of only five. Ac-

cording to Louis' will the control of France should have been shared

between his bastard son, the duke of Maine, and his legitimate nephew,

the duke of Orleans. Maine was to have had guardiansh ip of the young

Louis XV and comm and of the household troops, and O rleans the title of

regent, but his activities would have been limited by a council having

control of patronage. Orleans would not tolerate this. He won over the

colonels of the household troop s, the princes of the blood, the politicians

and the

parlement

Immediately after Louis XIV's death Orleans claimed

command of the household troops, the right to nominate and dismiss

members of the Council of Regency, and control of patronage. Maine

left the way free by refusing to accept guardianship of the young king

if he could not also command the household troops.

But though Orleans had managed to establish himself as supreme in

France, his position was not strong. Philip V remained an implacable

enemy. Both men were preoccupied with the prob lem of the succession to

the French throne should Louis XV die, and in the eighteenth century,

when it was thought better to have one child who had survived the small-

pox than two who had not yet had the disease, the chances of a sickly

child growing up to manhood were very slight. Philip V had the better

dynastic title to the French throne, and was not unduly embarrassed by

the fact that in the Peace Settlement of 1713 he had renounced this claim.

He was jealous of Orleans who had served bravely in Italy and Spain,

and had gained considerable popularity. There were even fears that

Orleans might have designs on the Crown of Spain, and Philip V was

alarmed by stories tha t the duke, who was among other things an am ateur

chemist, had been responsible for the deaths of the father, mother and

elder brother of Louis XV, and had designs on the lives of the Spanish

Bourbons, though he had renounced his claims to the Spanish throne in

favour of the house of Savoy should Philip die without issue. Before the

death of Louis XIV the rivals had been reconciled, bu t Ph ilip V continued

to brood on his wrongs, and when Louis XIV actually died the Spanish

ambassador at the court of France, Cellamare, was supposed to lodge a

protest and claim the regency for his master. In fact he was taken by

surprise and the protest was not made in 1715, but it was obvious that

Philip V remained an unreconciled enemy, and as those sections of the

French court which disapproved of the regent and sympathised with the

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THE OLD REGIME

bastards of Louis XIV tended to rely on Spain for help, it was imperative

tha t the regent should find some other Power which might be prepared to

give him friendly support.

The regent might seek an understanding with the Emperor, who at that

time was still at w ar with Spain, or he might try to come to an understand-

ing with England . There were peculiar conditions in England which made

it seem more promising to try to come to an understanding with that

country rather than w ith Austria. In 1714 the Hanoverian George had

succeeded Anne. The 1715 elections had returned the Whigs in sufficient

strength to enable them to attack such Tories as Bolingbroke, Ormonde

and Oxford. This Whig policy provoked the Jacobite rising of 1715, and

even though the rising failed and the Hanoverian king and his Whig

ministers remained in power, the Whigs were only a minority, of about

seventy, of the great landed families in alliance with the London merchants.

England was still predominantly agricultural and the rural districts were

largely Tory in sympathy. James II I remained a serious menace, and

there was always the possibility that he might change his faith and so

enormously increase his prospects of success in England. Fro m a French

point of view George I's position seemed sufficiently vulnerable to make it

probable that he might no t rebuff a n overture to establish a closer under-

standing with France.

The originator of this scheme was the Abbe Dubois, formerly tutor to

the due d'Orleans. In 1716 Dubois was sent in disguise to The Hague

to have most secret conversations with Earl Stanhope, then Secretary of

State for the Southern Department and in effect in control of English

foreign policy. Dubois felt that his maste r's whole future hung on the

success of his mission: S tanhope was much less anxious for an agreement.

Dubois was next sent to Hanover to continue the negotiations, but at

first he could make very little headway. He was at a serious disadvantage,

for the point he was really trying to gain was a guarantee from England to

recognise the due d'Orleans as the next heir to the French throne in the

event of the death of Louis XV. He could no t ask for this directly, and

had to content himself with asking for a general guarantee of the whole

settlement achieved at Utrecht.

Stanhope could not agree to Dubois' demands, for at that time the

Dutch had not recognised the duke of Savoy as king of Sicily, and the

Em peror was still theoretically at w ar with the king of Spain. Moreover,

England did not urgently feel the need of a French alliance. The Jacobite

rising of 1715 had failed, although O rleans had w inked at the embarkation

of men and supplies from France, and England's international position

was rather stronger than it had been in 1713: in November 1715 she

had concluded the Barrier Treaty with the Emperor and the Dutch, and

whereas the French ambassador in Spain had failed to reach an under-

standing with Philip V, England, courted by the new Spanish minister

194






Alberoni, had succeeded in 1715 in concluding a commercial treaty with

Spain to overcome a series of minor difficulties which had made the

commercial treaty of 1713 very disappointing in practice.

It was only after September 1716 that the English court became more

eager to come to an agreement with France, and the reason for this change

in temper was the development of events in northern Europe. There the

second Northern War, which had begun in 1700, was still raging, and in

the autumn of 1716 Peter the Great gave signs of becoming a menace to

the interests of Hanover. He quartered his troops in Mecklenburg and, at

the same time, seemed to become less interested in attacking Sweden.

When in 1716 Brandenburg-Prussia joined Russia, it seemed not unlikely

that these powers might prevail on France to join them . George I, as

ruler of Hanover, was eager for Swedish territory on the southern coast of

the Baltic, and was ready to come to an understanding with France because

of tha t court 's traditional influence in Sweden. In 1716 the A nglo-F rench

treaty so eagerly desired by Dubois was concluded, and in January 1717

it was joined by the Dutch.

The value of the alliance to England was great. France had as yet lost

little of the great prestige she had acquired under Louis XIV, her dip-

lomatists were the most experienced and the ablest in Europe, and her

influence with Germany and the northern Powers supplied that in which

England was deficient. The immediate results of the alliance were that

France prevailed on the tsar to withdraw his troops from Mecklenburg,

and on Charles XII of Sweden to recall his envoy Goertz, who had been

suspected of encouraging Jacobite plans in the Hague. The alliance con-

tinued even after the death of the regent in 1723 and the rise to power of

Walpole in 1721. It persisted till the 1730's and during that time English

policy generally directed the action of the alliance. The regent and Dubois

relied on Stanhope even against French opposition, and the duke of Bour-

bon and Fleury were not the men to oppose Walpole and Townshend.

England and France had concluded their alliance in the hope that this

would help to stabilise the international situation an d so reduce the risks

of either George I or the regent finding his precarious position m ade even

more dangerous by the renewal of a general war, or the outbreak of a

serious international crisis involving his par ticular country . But for some

time after the conclusion of the Anglo-French alliance the international

situation remained very unsettled. The main centres of disturbance at this

time were tw o: the Baltic, where Sweden and Russia were still at w ar, and

the Mediterranean, where Spain had been left after 1713 a dissatisfied

Power. From time to time the two theatres of war were combined when a

Spanish statesman tried to gain help for his country's plans by courting

Sweden or even Russia. England's policy was to end the war in the north ,

since, whether Sweden or Russia was victorious, each threatened the

possessions and interests of Hanover . England also wanted to establish

195





THE OLD REGIME

a lasting peace in the Mediterranean so that her merchants might enjoy

their trade with Spain, Italy and the Levant. French policy was inspired

by slightly different purposes . In the Baltic France wished to preserve her

traditional ally, Sweden, and in the Mediterranean she was fairly well

disposed towards Bourbon Spain. But, on the whole, England and France

in the years immediately following their alliance of 1717 managed to

co-operate fairly harmoniously.

The first serious tension developed in the Baltic, where the policy of

Sweden looked for a time as if it might destroy the new Anglo-French

alliance. Swedish foreign policy was directed at this time by Count

Goertz, who had entered the service of Charles XII as recently as 1714.

He wished to make peace with Russia by ceding her the Baltic provinces

she had already captured and he further hoped to revive the traditional

alliance with France. The Hanoverian ambitions of George I to acquire

from Sweden the secularised bishoprics of Bremen and Verden had made

England an enemy. This suspicion of England led Goertz to encourage

Jacobite plo ts. But though English relations with Sweden were bad,

English rela tions with Russia were becoming far less cordial than they had

been in October 1715, when George I as elector of Hanover had actually

concluded an alliance with Peter the Great, agreeing to help him in his

war against Sweden if, in return , he would guarantee the right of Hanover

to Bremen and Verden. The occupation of Mecklenburg by Russian

troops in 1716 had been one reason for George's decision to ally with

France, and Hanoverian policy as well as English became steadily cooler

towards Russia as the building of St Petersburg, the control of Riga and

Reval, the efforts of the tsar to prom ote Russia's trade in the Baltic, and

the realisation that the Russian fleet was a good one, all tended to make

clear that Russia w as a potential m enace in the Baltic. In 1716 and 1717

Peter the Grea t tried ha rd to win France as an ally. It was no wonder that

Stanhope worked steadily to prevent Russia winning too complete a

victory over Sweden when he was virtually in control of English foreign

policy after April 1717.

The second crisis, which soon becam e involved w ith the first, developed

i n the Mediterranean, where the policy of the new queen of Spain threatened

to involve Europe in another general war. Elizabeth Farnese was very

conscious that she was only the second wife of Philip V of Spain. By his

first wife Ph ilip had had two sons, and though one died very early and the

other was to die without issue in 1759 no one would have supposed it

probable that a son of Elizabeth Farnese would ever rule Spain. The

queen was therefore determined to secure for her sons considerable

territories outside Spain. The possessions of her family, the Farnese,

seemed very attractive objectives. A smash and grab raid in Italy was

made easier because the king of Spain was still technically at war with

the Emperor and had not as yet acquiesced in the loss of the territories

196






which had formerly belonged to the Spanish

crown.

Alberoni, the Farnese

envoy whose influence Elizabeth had made predominant in Spain in 1716,

had done what he could to build up Spanish resources. In August 1717

Spain was in a position to send two squadrons to Sardinia and by October

the island had been won from the Emperor. There was a real danger that

this incident would develop in to a full-scale w ar. In August 1717 the

Emperor had gained some successes in his war against the Turks and so

felt more free to devote his attention to the Spanish threat to his posses-

sions in Italy. In England the Whigs were eager to support the Em peror,

even if this meant again sacrificing English commercial interests by de-

claring war on Spain. Even in France, where many mem bers of the

Council of Regency were very reluctant to fight a grandson of Louis XIV,

Dubois was prepared to overcome this reluctance, since he wanted to

secure the recognition of the regent's claims by the Em peror.

In June 1718 Elizabeth Farnese urged Alberoni to make his second

move and send the most powerful Spanish squadron since Lepanto to

attack Sicily, a strong-point obviously indispensable to any Power that

aimed at dominating the western Mediterranean. In prepara tion for this,

Alberoni had exerted all his diplomatic skill to build up a combination

that could be relied on to ham per and distract the forces of his opponen ts.

He encouraged Francis Rakoczi to stir up civil war in Hungary , he urged

the Turks to continue their war against the Emperor, he resumed Spain's

correspondence with the enemies of the regent inside France, he revived

Jacobite intrigues in Holland and he negotiated with both Sweden and

Russia in the hope that they might be prevailed on to accom modate their

differences and both torment the elector of Hanover.

For a time some of these schemes looked quite hopeful. Peter the G reat

had succeeded in concluding a treaty with France in August 1717, and

though on the French side this had been only an empty politeness its

object had been declared to be the restoration of peace in the nor th. In

1718 Sweden and Russia even conducted conversations on the Aaland

Islands to see if peace terms could not be agreed. But Alberoni's g rand

project soon began to disintegrate. In 1717 England arrested the Swedish

envoy in London and the Dutch arrested Goertz

himself. The conversa-

tions on the Aland Islands came to nothing, and finally in December

1718 Charles XII was killed and in March 1719 Goertz was executed.

A Jacobite rising planned for 1719 failed, as did a rising that had been

hoped for in Brittany. In the Mediterranean A lberoni's policy was equally

unsuccessful. In spite of his urgen t advice, the Turks made peace with

the Emperor a t Passarowitz in July 1718, thus leaving Charles VI free to

concentrate on resisting Spanish aggression in Italy. On 7 August 1718

England, France and the Emperor concluded an alliance on the basis of

the English 'plan' for pacifying southern Europe, though this plan had

been rejected by the Emperor in November 1716. This plan aimed at

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THE OLD REGIME

establishing peace on a sure footing by persuading the Emperor to re-

nounce his claim to the Spanish throne if, in return, Philip V would

renounce his claims to what had been Spanish possessions in Italy; this

did not involve the abandonment of the claims of Elizabeth Farnese's

eldest son to Parm a, Piacenza, Tuscany and the Presidios. Savoy was to

give the Emperor Sicily and receive Sardinia in exchange: in return the

Emperor was to confirm the claim of the house of Savoy to the Spanish

throne should the Bourbon line fail. The Emperor was, moreover, to

recognise the respective claims of George I and the regent to the thrones

of England and of

France. In a secret clause Britain and France agreed to

press Spain and Savoy to cede Sicily to the Emperor. This treaty of 1718

nominally included the United Netherlands, and, though the Netherlands

played little real part, the Alliance was known as Quadruple. Fou r days

after this treaty had been signed, the English fleet soundly defeated the

Spaniards off Cape Passaro . In December 1718 Dubois, by revealing the

conspiracy of

the

Spanish ambassador Cellamare, was able to make Spain

appear obviously the aggressor and was thus able to overcome strong

French reluctance to make war on a king who was a Bourbon. A French

army invaded Spain in 1719 and achieved such success that by December

1719 Philip V was ready to discuss peace terms and to dismiss Alberoni.

In January 1720 Philip V, as a result of English pressure, acceded to the

Quadruple A lliance and in June 1720 he again renounced all claims to the

French th ron e. All the outstanding points in dispute were left to be

settled by a congress which was to meet in Cambrai in October, but for

the moment peace had been restored in the south.

In the n orth the crisis was no t so easily resolved, though here, as in the

Mediterranean, the existence of the Anglo-French alliance strengthened

the resources of bo th St James's and Versailles. The death of Charles XII in

December 1718 fundamentally altered the whole situation in the Baltic.

Power in Sweden passed to the aristocracy, which was vigorously anti-

Russian and therefore disposed to listen to the advice proffered by the

English and French diplomats that the tentative negotiations which

Sweden had begun with Russia should be broken off. The re-formation of

a vigorous coalition of Powers against Russia seemed likely to take place

in the near future. In February 1719 the Emperor au thorised a Hanoverian

force to occupy Mecklenburg. But while this was still in the air Russia

too k vigorous action . In July 1719 she invaded Sweden and in September

brok e off the negotiations which had been going on in the Aland Islands.

This only hastened the formation of an anti-Russian coalition. In August

1719 Prussia concluded an agreement with Great Britain. In November

Denmark ended hostilities against Sweden, and in the same month the

Treaty of Stockholm marked an agreement between Sweden and Hanover

by which Sweden ceded Bremen and Verden. In January 1720 another

Treaty of Stockholm signalised the agreement between Sweden and Prussia,

198






Sweden ceding Stettin and part of Pomerania in return for two million

ecus.

In June and July treaties marked the satisfactory conclusion of eight

months' negotiating between Sweden and Denmark, by which Denmark

renounced her claims to Riigen and Wismar and the Swedes their claim

to a share in the Sound dues. An impressive coalition had been built u p

against Russia, but it was not enough to bring about the end of hostilities

in the north. The German princes were very unreliable, Saxony and

Brandenburg tended to turn away from Great Britain and to lean once

more towards the tsar. The Emperor began to be anxious at the prolonged

occupation of Mecklenburg by Hanoverian troops. The English decision

to make use of Norris's squadron in the Baltic only brought failure.

Norris's ships could not pursue Russian craft into the Gulf of Finland,

and they failed to prevent a Russian invasion of Sweden in

1721.

The king

of Sweden was on the point of reopening the separate negotiations with

Russia which had been broken off in 1719. Russia invoked her alliance of

1717 with France and it was French diplomacy which managed to achieve

the Treaty of Nystadt in September 1721, ending at last the North ern

W ar. The Anglo-French alliance had achieved two resounding successes.

In the south the two Powers had forced Spain to abandon her attempt to

overthrow the Utrecht peace settlement. In the nor th they had reconciled

Sweden with her neighbours and had finally ended the war which had been

troubling the Baltic since 1700, thereby ending, for the moment, Swedish

and Russian threats to territories occupied by German princes. The

Emperor retained the territories assigned him at Utrecht; in England,

George I was seated rather more steadily on the throne; in France, the

reins of government were more firmly in the hands of the regent. By

1721 the Anglo-French alliance seemed to have been a success.

Unfortunately the solution of outstanding disputes which in 1721

appeared to be under way nearly foundered; a satisfactory solution was

only reached in 1729.

Trouble developed first in the Congress of Cambrai, which was dis-

cussing the outstanding causes of dispute affecting the south of Europe

and the Empire. Spain and the Emperor both had reason to be still

dissatisfied with England and France . Spain had two main grievances:

the British occupation of Gibraltar and the Emperor's failure to allow a

Spanish prince to occupy the Farnese possessions in Italy . As far back as

Stanhope's visit to Madrid in January 1720, Spain had reclaimed Gib-

raltar. Stanhope had no t been able to give a categorical refusal. Instead

he had promised to return the place within a year, but in January 1721 he

had died. The most that Spain had been able to extract from England had

been a letter from George I promising to make use of the first favourable

opportunity to bring the question before parliament. But this had been

in May 1721 and the favourable opportunity showed no sign of ever

presenting

itself. As for the Spanish claims in Italy, Philip V and his wife

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THE OLD REGIME

saw no practical results accruing from their accession to the Quadruple

Alliance of 1718. In 1719 the Emperor had actually negotiated with

Victor Am adeus to put a P iedmontese candidate on the throne of Tuscany,

and in 1720 Charles VI had been supporting the claims of a Bavarian to

this Grand Duchy. The Emperor had just as little reason to be satisfied.

He knew that the British politicians were deeply divided over the policy

they should pursue towards the empire. Stanhope, Sunderland and Car-

teret had tended to sym pathise with Charles VI and to look favourably on

his attempts to win support for his Pragmatic Sanction. Townshend, the

Hanoverians and King George I disliked any attempt by the Emperor to

win suppo rt for the Pragm atic Sanction, for they saw in this a dangerous

increase in Ro m an Catholic power in Germany. Charles VI, impatient of

having to depend on subsidies from the Maritime Powers, was eager to

increase his own revenue and , with this in mind, decided in December 1722

to make use of his newly acquired territories in the Netherlands by estab-

lishing a trading company to operate from Ostend.

Relations between England and France and the disgruntled Powers of

Spain and the Empire were not improved by the changes in office which

took place in 1723 and 1724. In August 1723 Dubois died, to be followed

four m onths later by the due d'Orleans. This did no t, however, seriously

disturb the good relations which had been established with Great Britain.

The due de Bourbon remained loyal to Britain, and Cardinal Fleury,

less warlike than some of the English ministers, did not at first pursue a

policy independent of Britain when he took over the direction of French

foreign policy in 1726. In fact, he restrained Morville, the Secretary of

State, who would have preferred more independence. In Spain changes of

personalities had a restraining effect, at least for a short time. In January

1724 Philip V abdicated, but the young son who succeeded him had little

time to gather up the reins of policy, still less to guide Spanish diplomacy

in any particu lar d irection, for he died in August 1724. It was the changes

in Britain which had the most marked effect on the development of inter-

national relations. In April 1724 Carteret fell from power and his in-

fluence was replaced by tha t of the duke of Newcastle. Already in October

1723 Britain had passed an act against the Ostend Company and in the

same month had concluded a treaty with Prussia. The advent of New-

castle to power, as Secretary of State for the Southern Department,

intensified this tendency in British policy towards hostility to the Empire.

Already the negotiations which had begun at Cambrai in 1721 had

proved very slow and difficult; in 1724 they became even more delicate.

The Dutch wished to bring the question of the Ostend Com pany before the

congress, and in April 1724 Spain urged Great Britain to press for the

suppression of the Company. French diplomacy m anaged to get the

question evaded, but the Emperor realised his danger and was convinced

tha t no reliance could be pu t on the English and Du tch allies with whom






he had concluded the Quadruple Alliance of 1718. Jus t a t this time

Spain became very sceptical of getting any effective help from England or

France under the Triple Alliance of June 1721. In June 1724 Spain was

pressing for the restitution of Gibraltar, but England and France merely

referred the question to the Congress of Cam brai. Spain was also im-

patient to get effective help in the introduction of Don Carlos into Parma

and Tuscany. His claims had been recognised by the treaty of 1718, bu t

the Emperor had shown no eagerness to see this clause of the treaty made

effective. He was supposed to have advised Antony of Parm a to marry

and produce heirs. A rum our was spread by Bavarian relations of Vio-

lante Beatrix, daughter-in-law of the Gra nd Duke Cosimo II I of Tuscany,

that if the Medici male line in Tuscany should end the Emperor would

send in troops and dispose of Florence and Siena in the interests of the

Bavarians who were, for the moment, on good terms with Vienna. On the

death of Grand Duke Cosimo III in 1723 there were further rumours that

Victor Amadeus of Savoy would marry his daughter Anne Marie. The

situation was becoming more acute, since the new grand duke, Giovanni

Gaston, was unlikely to have any heir and was drinking himself steadily

to death. In January 1724 the Em peror had gone some way towards

placating Spain by giving Don Carlos letters of investiture to Parma and

Tuscany, but he showed no willingness to allow Do n Carlos to take posses-

sion and was

flatly

opposed to the dispatch of Spanish troops to guarantee

his claim to the territories in the event of the death of either the duke or the

grand duke. In June 1724 Spain urged England and France to press the

Emperor to allow Don Carlos to go immediately to Italy, but here again

His Catholic M ajesty could get no satisfaction from his allies of 1721. In

despair and exasperation Spain decided to try the effect of seeking an

agreement with the Emperor.

A secret envoy, Ripperda, was sent to Vienna in November 1724 and

his negotiations began in January 1725. The reconciliation of the Em peror

and Spain was made easier by a snub administered to Spain by France.

In February 1725 the Infanta, who had been in France as the fiancee of

Louis XV, was returned to Spain, and Louis married the Polish Marie

Leszczyriska. By March 1725 a treaty of peace between the Em peror and

the king of Spain was ready for signature. In April followed a treaty of

commerce and in the same month the Emperor agreed that one of his

daughters should marry one of the sons of Elizabeth F arne se .' The wedding

bells of Austria and Spain were the passing bells for England and Fra nce.'

The Congress of Cambrai broke up in confusion.

English opinion, as expressed by Townshend, was resolutely opposed

to returning Gibraltar to Spain, and in September 1725 the Austro-

Spanish alliance was checked by the Alliance of Hanover between E ngland,

France and Prussia. Prussia withdrew in 1726 and resumed her traditiona l

loyalty to the Emperor, but other Powers such as Sweden and Denmark

201





THE OLD REGIME

joined the alliance and by 1727 Europe was organised into two armed

camps. In 1727 Spain declared war, but the Hanoverian alliance was so

imposing that the Emperor showed great reluctance to support his ally.

That a general war was arrested was largely due to the pacific policy of

France, where Fleury had succeeded the duke of Bourbon in 1726. Fleury

managed to mediate between England and the Emperor, and peace

preliminaries were signed at Paris in May 1727. In March 1728 Spain

yielded to diplom atic pressure from France and the M aritime Powers. The

attempt to gain her ends by negotiating directly with the Emperor had

failed, and the extent of this failure was brought home to Spain vividly in

February 1729, when the Emperor refused to give her any assurance on

the proposed marriage alliance between the Spanish Bourbons and the

Habsburgs. Elizabeth Farnese in disgust turned once more to France and

England. English ships which had been seized in the Indies were to be

returned, the siege of Gibraltar w as to be raised and the privileges enjoyed

by English merchants trading in Spain were to be restored. France agreed

that Spain should send 6000 Spanish troops to Italy to guarantee Don

Carlos's succession to Parm a and Tuscany. The Treaty of Seville, signed in

November 1729, was faithfully and effectively observed by England and

France.

The Emperor threatened to invade Tuscany if Spanish troops were

brought in, and the grand duke of Tuscany was not cordial towards the

Spanish claimant, but in 1730 the grand duke was prevailed on to

recognise Don Carlos as his heir and to make public proclamation to this

effect. In January 1731 the duke of Parm a died and the Emperor sent

troops to occupy the duchy as an imperial

fief. Fo r a time the chanceries

were kept in suspense by the widowed duchess, who thought herself to be

pregnant; diplomatic dispatches contained reports of such certain signs

of pregnancy as a craving for chocolate; but in the end the duchess was

proved to have been mistaken. In M arch 1731 Grea t Britain, by the

Treaty of Vienna, recognised the Pragm atic Sanction, which had begun to

occupy a place of paramount importance in the Emperor's diplomacy.

In return Charles VI withdrew his troops from Parma and allowed the

Spanish garrisons to occupy not only Parma but also Tuscany. In July

the grand duke of Tuscany joined the Treaty of Seville. In October 6000

Spanish troops landed at Leghorn. In December they were followed by

Do n C arlos, who in October 1732 formally took over the Duchy of Parma.

Once again it seemed that the peace of Europe had been assured and

guaranteed by the Anglo-French alliance.

In the north -east of Europe from 1721 to the eve of 1733 the peace was

also preserved, except for a few short crises, and here again the credit went

to the Anglo-French alliance. Immediately after the conclusion of the

Peace of Nystadt in 1721 the most urgent crisis was created by the






ambitions of Charles Frederick of Holstein, whose claims to Slesvig

had been disregarded in favour of Denmark in 1720 and whose claims to

the Swedish throne were rather better than those of his aunt Ulrika

(ch. xv). Charles Frederick was supported by Peter the Great, who would

have found a Russian protege on the Swedish throne most useful. This

Russian help became more energetic after May 1725, when Charles

Frederick married the tsar's daughter. This menace to the tranquility of

Sweden and Denm ark declined however after 1727, when Peter's widow

Catherine followed her husband to the grave.

The north-east was more widely disturbed by the com plete oversetting

of the whole European system of existing alliances when Ripperda

achieved a rapprochement between Spain and the Empire in 1725. Even

before this volte-face in Spanish diplomacy, the Emperor, disillusioned

with the treatment he had received from England and France at the

Congress of Cambrai, had cast about to come to some better understand-

ing with Sweden or Russia, or perhaps with both . In an a ttem pt to check

this possible extension of imperial influence England , under the influence

of Townshend, took vigorous action and sent a squadron to the Baltic

under Admiral Mayer in 1726. This commander proved more successful

than the unhappy Norris in 1721. Sweden was much impressed, and in

March 1727 joined the Anglo-French alliance of Hanover. Denm ark

followed in April. The energetic English policy in the Baltic had , however,

one most unfortunate result. Russia, thoroughly alarm ed, and seeing in

the naval demonstration of 1726 another example of the attempt in 1716

to rival her dominant influence in the Baltic, joined the Austro-Spanish

alliance in August 1726. Even after Spain had deserted the Emperor and

returned to an understanding with France and England, Russia remained

the ally of the H absburgs.

In fact the diplomatic development in the period 1713-40, which seems

in the light of later history to have been the most importan t for the future,

was something which escaped contemporary observers until at least 1733.

[

The formative influence was provided no t by the ambitions and audacities

[ of Elizabeth Farnese which, for all the anxiety they caused , did no t achieve

I more than a minor transfer of territory in Italy. W hat was to be far more

\

important for the future of Europe was the emergence of Russia and

; Prussia as Grea t Powers. These two States had been the real victors in the

I Northern W ar, but for the next twenty years neither felt itself in a position

I to pursue an independent policy and to take the diplomatic initiative.

1 After the death of Peter the Great in 1725 Russia had a series of short

[ reigns—Catherine I (1725-7), Peter II (1727-30), Anna (1730-40),

[ Ivan VI (1740-1)—which, together with the characters of her rulers,

I

rendered her incapable of playing a consistently effective part in inter-

| national affairs. Prussia under Frederick William I built up her resources

[ but did not launch out and take the initiative. In the seventeenth century,

203





THE OLD REGIME

when Sweden was menacing all the territories of Nor th Germany, Branden-

burg had inclined towards an anti-French policy, partly because France

was the patron of Sweden and partly because the great elector had been

grievously shocked by the religious intolerance of Louis XIV. In the wars

of 1688-97 and 1702-13 Brandenburg-Prussia had continued this anti-

French policy and had fought on the side of the Emperor, the Dutch and

England. In 1726 Frederick William waveringly joined the Anglo-French

alliance of Hanover, but in 1728 he withdrew and reverted to his alliance

with the Em peror. It was profoundly significant for the later develop-

ment of the German people that Prussia got very little profit from this

period of loyalty to the Em peror. She was snubbed over Mecklenburg in

1733, her interests in Poland were ignored in 1732, and in

1738

her claims

to Jiilich and Berg were disregarded. But in 1732 the potential impor-

tance of both Prussia and Russia was not obvious to contemporary

observers. The importance of Russia was the first to be revealed and this

took place during the War of the Polish Succession.

The diplom atic origins of the War of the Polish Succession went back at

least to the short-lived Austro-Spanish alliance negotiated by Ripperda in

1725.

Fran ce, in an attempt to coun teract the Austro-Spanish treaties of

1725,

had revived her traditional policy of building up an anti-imperial

coalition among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire and had con-

centrated particularly on Bavaria and the Evangelical Union. Friction

between Austria and France had been further increased in 1726 when

Austria had concluded an alliance with Russia, for this constituted a

direct threat to French influence in Sweden and Turkey as well as checking

France's traditional anti-imperial policy. The effect of the Austro-Russian

alliance began to appear in 1727, when Russia felt herself strong enough

to occupy Courland, and in 1728 when Prussia decided to abandon her

association with France and England and return to her traditional loyalty

to Austria. Walpole's general reluctance to see England involved again in

European disputes and his understand ing with the Em peror by the Treaty

of Vienna in 1731 left France isolated in her attempts to dominate affairs

in central and eastern Europe just a t a time when the question c f the

succession in Poland was likely to become acute. In January 1732 France

sustained yet another rebuff when the Diet of the Empire recognised the

Pragm atic Sanction. France countered this by herself concluding a treaty

with Augustus II of Poland in May 1732 and by persuading Bavaria to

enter into an alliance with Poland in July 1732. But though France was

ready to make use of Augustus II to try to shake the control which the

Emperor, in alliance with Russia, was exercising over Poland, the French

had no intention of supporting Augustus's designs for making the Polish

Crow n hereditary in the Wettin family. France hoped to see Stanislas

Leszczyriski, father-in-law of Louis XV, elected when Augustus II died.

4






In September 1732 Austria, Russia and Prussia concluded the Treaty of

Loewenwolde to put a Portuguese prince on the Polish throne, but when

in February 1733 Augustus II died, Austria and Russia agreed to recognise

his son Augustus III . Prussia, left in the cold, allowed Stanislas Lesz-

czyriski to pass through to Poland. France strengthened her position by

a series of treaties concluded in 1733. In September she entered into an

alliance with Sardinia, in November she concluded an alliance with

Bavaria and a treaty by which the Dutch guaranteed to pursue a policy

of neutrality. In November also France concluded with Spain the

Treaty of the Escorial, by which Elizabeth Farnese secured a guarantee

of Parma and Tuscany for Don Carlos, together with whatever other

territories might be conquered in Italy.

England's policy throughout the war was to refuse to be entangled.

At the end of 1734 Walpole could boast to Queen Caroline that though

50,000 men had been killed in Europe in one year, no t one of them was an

Englishman. Twice in that year Walpole had refused to give help to the

Emperor under the 1731 Treaty of Vienna, and in 1735 he was to do so

again. It was feared that the Emperor might denounce the treaty of 1731

and there was an even more serious danger that he would come to an

understanding with France.

In

1735

the war ended, and in Novem ber 1738 another Treaty of Vienna

agreed the terms of a settlement. Augustus III was to be king of Poland

but Stanislas Leszczynski renounced the throne 'voluntarily and for the

sake of peace ', which implied that his election had been legal. As com-

pensation for the loss of Poland Stanislas was given Lorraine and Bar

which on his death were to go to his daughter, the wife of Louis XV.

Spain was rewarded for her decision to support France by the transfer of

Naples and Sicily to Don Carlos, but for the moment this accession of

territory was counterbalanced by the loss of the long-disputed Tuscany

which went to the duke of Lorraine.

It was noticeable that in this war for the first time a Russian army

penetrated deep into Europe, reaching the Neckar. Within four years,

at the end of the Russian war against Turkey in 1739, Fleury uttered a

w arn ing :' Russia in respect of the equilibrium of the north has mounted to

too high a degree of power and its union with the House of Austria is

extremely dangerous.'

1

This comment was the more interesting because

in the war of 1735-9 against Turkey, Russia had not been spectacularly

successful. She had fought in concert with her ally Austria, bu t after some

initial military successes neither Russia nor Austria had been able to win

any decisive victories. In 1736 the Turks had made peace with Persia,

thus freeing their hands to grapple more effectively in the Balkans. In

1737 France had begun to mediate, and the treaties of Belgrade signed

1

Fleury in secret instructions to la Ch ardie, French ambassador to St Petersburg,

quoted in the ambridge Modern

History

(1909), vol. VI, p. 308.

15 20 5 NCM H vii





THE OLD REGIME

in September 1739 marked a decline from the Austrian successes re-

corded in the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718; but still Russia seemed too

powerful.

But the crisis which in 1739-40 engulfed nearly all the European Powers

in war was no t provoked by Russia. Partly it was brought about by the

other newly emerged Great Power, Prussia, but partly it was the result of a

chronic state of friction between England and Spain, which developed

into war in 1739 against the wishes of the responsible statesmen of both

countries.

The war between England and Spain broke out largely because of

disputes over British ships prized in the West Indies because they were

suspected of smuggling. This illicit trade was carried on by interlopers

and had been comm on in Spanish America for many years. The geography

of the West Indies favoured such a trade, for the prevailing winds and

currents m ade it usual for sh ips, whether bound for British colonies on the

Am erican mainland or even hom e to Europe , to pass close to the southern

shores of Hispaniola and Cuba and then to go north through the Bahama

Channel. Between 1670 and 1700 the activities of British and Du tch

smugglers had been tolerated by the Spanish autho rities. After 1713 the

British smugglers found that the reforming energy of the new Bourbon

dynasty in Spain had stiffened the efforts of the Spanish colonial authorities

to check foreign smuggling. The two wars between England and Spain

which broke out in 1718 and 1727 provoked a crop of disputes over ships

illegally prized for smuggling, and until 1731 political relations between

England and Spain were bad and depredations were frequent. But from

1731, when England did effectively help to get Don Carlos into Italy, the

Spanish authorities showed themselves active in checking illegal inter-

ference with British trade. From 1733 to

1735,

while Spain was at war with

the Em peror in support of Stanislas Leszczynski's claims to the Crown of

Poland, English traders in the West Indies were treated with some con-

sideration for fear that England might join in the European war against

Spain. Even after 1735 the English were still well treated because Spain

was so thoroughly angry with France for having concluded a separate

peace treaty with the Em peror. But though the illicit trade of the British

might be tolerated by the Spanish Government for political reasons, it

exasperated the Spanish colonial governors, who saw foreigners blatantly

arriving in a convoy of as many as thirty ships at once to gather salt from

one island, carrying provisions and dry goods very generally, trading so

regularly for Spanish mules that not a day passed without some ship

putting in to a Spanish island for these animals, and on occasion actually

burning a Spanish guard ship. The governors of Spanish colonies found it

difficult to induce men to fit out coastguard ships. The governor of Puerto

Rico was eloquent in his reports of the barbarous conduct of British and

206

i






Dutch smugglers towards Spanish coastguards and of his own difficulties

in 'prevailing' on local men to fit out as privateers. In 1737, however,

the activities of the foreign smugglers were so notorious that the Spanish

colonial governors induced their colonists to fit out a few m ore privateers

and

in

the course

of

the year these took about

a

dozen English ships.

It is noteworthy that in all this dispute over illicit trade there was

no official complaint against the South Sea Com pany. Admittedly the

Company's servants smuggled. The supercargoes and other mem bers of

the crews of the annual ships had smuggled. In 1725 the Prince Frederick

had been accompanied

by a

sloop full

of

additional goods.

In

1730

the

Prince

William had taken in an extra cargo to fill the place left by fuel and

provisions consumed on the voyage. In 1725 the

Royal

George was so

heavily laden that

it

was said she could

not

have used

her

guns

had she

been attacked. This was well known to the Spanish ministers, but they

believed that this smuggling in the annual ships was less than what was

carried on by the servants

of

the Com pany unde r cover of the negro trade.

The Com pany's factors in the Spanish ports were sometimes dangerously

reckless in their illicit trade, and masters of the negro sloops often carried

provisions and liquor or casks of blue paint under the ballast. But the

smuggling by these masters was carefully kep t w ithin bounds by the

Company's agents at Jamaica and, though the Board of Directors itself had

connived a t the false m easurement of two permission ships, the Com pany,

with a representative of the king of Spain among the directors, could not

afford to be indiscreet. The attitude of the Company was that there was

nothing immoral about some private trade, but that nothing should be

taken to the Indies which competed with the official trade

of

the Company

or in such quantities as to irritate the Spanish authorities. Ab out 1737 the

agent of the Company in Jamaica reported that the Spanish authorities

were enforcing new and severe regulations, but the Company's illicit trad e

did not become involved in the diplom atic dispute which this new rigour

produced.

In the autumn of 1737 the merchants of London, B ristol, Liverpool and

other centres of the American trade petitioned parliament for a redress of

their grievances caused by the seizure of

ships

in the West Indies. Th at the

Spanish Government a t this time had no wish to pick a quarrel with Eng-

land was shown by the exceptionally conciliatory answer made when the

British com plaints were officially brought to their notice. It was genuinely

difficult to decide the justice of the claim. Five of the ships reclaimed

would seem

to

have been captured

by

pirates

and not by

regular guarda

costas

at all six had

been involved

in

very suspicious activities, three

had only been attacked and not seized. The conciliatory attitude of the

Spanish Government was clearly revealed in an official opinion given

early in 1738 by the Council of the Indies to the effect tha t 'even if some

suspicion of illicit trade remain, the prevention of illicit trade should

207 15 2





THE OLD REGIME

never make Spanish officials lose sight of the need of good harmony

with the other Powers of Europe'.

1

Unfortunately for the preservation

of this good harmony the conciliatory Spanish answers were not made

in time to prevent further demonstrations of merchants and Walpole's

political opponents in March 1738, when public opinion was further

inflamed by learning that British sailors from ships prized in the Indies

had been in chains in a Cadiz prison, herded with robbers and felons and

fed 'on nothing but bad biscuit and bacalao (salt cod)'.

2

But in spite of the popular clamour the responsible ministers both in

England and Spain did their best to avoid war. The duke of Newcastle

sent a stern note to Spain, but its effect was modified by a separate letter

from Walpole. Walpole was almost certainly behind a proposal that

£200 000 should be paid by the king of Spain in settlement of all the claims

and tha t of this £60 000 would be provided by the British Governm ent. But

to appease the popular outcry a squadron was sent to the Mediterranean

under Adm iral H addock . This irritated the Spanish ministers, who refused

to pay more than £95,000. This lower sum was eventually accepted, but

a new and unexpected difficulty then appeared. The king of Spain wanted

to pay the sum through the South Sea Company, which owed him a regular

sum every year for

the

duty on the negroes imported into

America,

and which

was in the hab it of using this money to pay salaries of Spanish officials or

even ordinary bills. In addition to this regular sum owed by the Company

to the king it had recently been agreed that the Company owed the king

£68,000, being his share in the profits of the annual ship the

Royal aroline

and the difference between the import duty on the negroes paid in new

silver reals and the sale-price of the negroes paid in old silver reals. In

1738 the Company refused to pay the £68,000, much less to advance the

king the balance necessary to m ake u p the £95,000, unless they were given

by Spain satisfactory orders for the restoration of their effects which had

been seized on the outbreak of war in 1718 and 1727. In vain the Spanish

envoy in London took it upon himself to declare that if the Company

refused to pay then the king of Spain would pay the money in some other

way, and the Spanish court issued orders for restoring the Company's

property seized in 1718 and 1727. The governors of the South Sea

Company found four objections to the orders on whose complete ac-

ceptability hung the continua tion of peace. In a last attempt to preserve

the peace Walpole suggested drawing up a new treaty which should contain

no reference to the possibility of annulling the asiento should the South

Sea Company refuse to pay the £95,000 for the king of Spain. The new

convention was concluded in January 1739, but was accompanied by a

Spanish declaration that it had only been signed on condition that the

1

Consulte of 6 May 1738. Seville, Archivo de Indias, Indif. Gen. Legajo. 1597.

1

The complaints of the sailors were carefully examined by the British Consul at Cadiz

in a letter he wrote to the duke of Newcastle 13 May 1738, P.R .O., S.P.F., Sp. 222.

8






South Sea Company paid at least the £68,000 which it admitted to be

owing to the king of Spain.

The Company refused to pay. In M arch 1739 the popular outcry

against Spain was so loud that Admiral Haddock who, in February, had

been ordered to return to England was now ordered to remain where he

was.

Newcastle was moved by fear of the opposition and of public

opinion, Walpole by fear that France intended to act in concert with

Spain. In October 1739 England and Spain were at war.

France's policy was much less friendly than Spain could have wished.

In an attempt to distract Elizabeth Farnese from Italy, Fleury inflamed

the nationalist sentiments of the Spanish ambassador at the court of

Versailles, yet when the crisis became acute he urged Spain to pay the

£95,000 if the British fleet were withdraw n from Gibralta r. In October

1739 a marriage was arranged between the Infant Don Philip and a

French princess, but France refused to enter into a closer alliance with

Spain without commercial concessions in Am erica. In August 1740 a

French fleet was ordered to the West Indies to check British aggression,

but Fleury refused to go on with the negotiations for a political or com-

mercial treaty. But in October 1740 the Em peror Charles VI died; the

Anglo-Spanish War was now caught up in the War of the Austrian

Succession in which France and Spain were to fight against Austr ia. Their

troops were not very successful and in 1743 Spain, though prepared to

treat with Sardinia, was prevented from doing so by Sardinia's concluding

a treaty with M aria Theresa. In intense anger Spain concluded the Treaty

of Fontainebleau with France in October 1743. But this second family

compact was to be no more an enduring principle of Spanish or French

policy than the first in 1733.

The Anglo-Spanish War was extended to m ost of the Powers of Europe

by the action of Prussia after the death of the Emperor Charles VI in

October 1740. Since the death of Frederick William of Prussia in May

1740, England had been trying to persuade the new king of Prussia to

enter an alliance to stir up trouble for France on the Continen t. But

Frederick II had been too astute to be made into a catspaw of English

policy, and with the death of the Emperor the whole situation in central

and eastern Germany and northern Italy altered. Sardinia was preparing

for war to improve her position in north Italy at the expense of the Empire.

The elector of Bavaria was eager to make good his claims to the imperial

throne. Spain was eager to make use of any opportun ity th at might be

presented by imperial weakness in northern Italy to obtain additional

possessions for Do n Philip which she had failed to get in 1735. France

hesitated, first recognising Maria Theresa as heiress of Charles VI, and

then qualifying this action by pointing out that to recognise the Pragmatic

Sanction was not the same thing as to support Maria Theresa's husband

in his candidature for the imperial crown. England was also hes itan t:

209





THE OLD REGIME

some of her ministers favoured a renewal of the alliance with Austria,

others deprecated any further entanglement in the affairs of Europe, and

when in June 1741 it was decided to support Austria, the opponents of

this policy insisted on reopening conversations with Prussia. In the midst

of this confusion Frederick II realised clearly what policy would be most

valuable to Prussia. Abandoning his attempts to recover Berg and Cleves,

in December 1740 he invaded Silesia.

France became involved in the Austro-Prussian struggle largely against

the will of Fleury. The cardinal was growing very old and other statesmen

had the ear of Louis XV. His policy of reaching an understanding with

Austria as a basis for a stable peace in Europe was swept away by the

impetuous anti-Austrian programme of Belleisle and of those other

Frenchm en who still believed in the tradition of an anti-Austrian ' West-

ph ali an ' policy. In December 1740 France entered into tentative negotia-

tions with Frederick only to find that he wanted more than a purely de-

fensive agreement. By June 1741 France had concluded a Prussian

alliance. In July she had agreed to give armed help to Bavaria. In

August she encouraged Sweden to attack Russia (ch. xvm).

Gradually the turmoil of the War of the Austrian Succession and of

Jenk ins' Ea r settled into an uneasy peace. Ever since the end of 1744, when

d'Argenson had become responsible for the direction of foreign affairs in

France, there had been a possibility of ending hostilities. When in 1745

France and Spain won victories in the Netherlands, at Fontenoy, and in

northern Italy, against the Austrians and Sardinians, both the Dutch and

Sardinians began to approach F rance with overtures of peace. Fo r a

time peace negotiations were held up because Maria Theresa still hoped

to recover Silesia by force of arms, but after her troops had been defeated

by Prussia she was prepared to conclude the Treaty of Dresden in December

1745, thus ending the war with Prussia. Still the war in the west dragged

on . In May 1746 a project of peace was actually sent to England by

France, but the death of the king of Spain in July and some victories by

the Austrian and Sardinian forces in northern Italy revived English hopes,

and it was only after France had declared war on the Dutch and inflicted

an unmistakable defeat on English forces in the Austrian Netherlands that

discussions at Aix-la-Chapelle became really serious.

In 1748 France finally concluded peace with England rather than with

Austria, because of the tw o England was thought more likely to fight on

alone than was Austria. The treaty brought no triumph to any Power. The

situation in Spain

was

left much as it had been in 1739, though a change of

ministers gave better prospects of a further explosion being avoided. In

Italy, Parma, Piacenza and Guastilla went to Don Philip while Don

Carlos retained Naples and Sicily. The colonial disputes between England

and France were left unsettled. Cape Breton was exchanged for Madras.

210






In the Empire the title of Emperor went to the husband of M aria Theresa,

but Silesia had been ceded to Frederick I I by the Treaty of Dresden. T he

two Powers which emerged trium phant were Prussia and R ussia. Prussia

had shown the value of her army and the genius of her king. Russia had

heavily defeated Sweden and conquered Finland, which was only re-

covered by Sweden in return for accepting a Russian nominee as heir to

the Swedish thron e. Russia had maintained w hat was in effect a p ro-

tectorate over Poland. Never had she stood so high as at the end of the

war in 1748. One of the most important influences on the future of

Europe was friendliness or hostility between these two Great Pow ers. Very

soon Frederick II was to express a lively fear of Russia and to point out

how dangerous she might becom e.

The reversal of alliances (ch. xix) which startled the diplomats of

Europe in 1756, was largely brought about by the very existence of

Russia as an effective Great Power and was actively manipulated by

Prussia.

In the Seven Years War (ch. xx) one of the chief protagonists was the

king of Prussia, and the peace concluded in 1763 was brought about, at

least partly, by a

coup d etat in Russia. By a curious freak the negotiations

which preceded the peace treaties of 1763 were characterised by an inter-

mingling of Spanish policy with the policies of Prussia, Russia and the

Habsburgs, reminiscent of the dreams of Alberoni o r the theatrical trans-

formation scenes of Ripperda, but in the period 1759-63 the son of Eliza-

beth Farnese was no more able to determine the outcome of negotiations

than his mother had been between 1717 and 1732. In 1763 as in 1718 the

Great Powers were still England, France and the Habsburgs, though there

had now unmistakably been added to their number Russia and Prussia.

In 1759 the military situation on the European mainland was so serious

for England and her Prussian ally that Pitt had to agree to open negotia-

tions for peace. Even Brunswick's victory at M inden in August and

Wolfe's victory at Quebec in September could not outweigh Prussia's

further m ilitary disasters in Novem ber. In December 1759 England and

Prussia approached the representatives of France, Russia and Austria at

the Hague. Peace negotiations went on un til April 1760 but came to

nothing, partly because Choiseul declared his intentions of negotiating

with the help of the good offices of Spain, where Charles II I, the elder son

of Elizabeth Farnese, had succeeded his almost Anglophile half-brother in

1759. Pitt haughtily rejected the Spanish attempt at mediation and the

whole negotiation came to nothing.

The war dragged on during 1760, and though French and Russian

troops won successes in Europe, English forces in America and India

gained Montreal and Arco t and , in January 1761, Pondicherry. When,

in June 1760, the Spanish ambassador at the Court of St James had at-

tempted to get satisfaction from England about various grievances, such

211





THE OLD REGIME

as the illicit cutting of wood at Honduras, Pitt proved very unaccomm odat-

ing, and in January 1761 Grimaldi was sent to Versailles to negotiate a

defensive alliance between France and Spain. Early in 1761 Kaunitz was

advocating a general peace conference and Choiseul had agreed, on

condition that during the conference, and even before, the belligerents

might exchange envoys and carry on negotiations independently of the

congress. From March to June

1761,

while negotiations were going on for

a Franco-Spanish alliance, other negotiations were also going on between

France and England to reach an agreement on peace terms. In June there

was an equal chance of an agreement being reached between England and

France, but in August 1761 the

pacte

de

famille

was concluded between

France and Spain. Spain agreed that if peace had not been concluded

between England and France by 1 May 1762 she would declare war on

England. Louis XV agreed to include Spa in's claims to satisfaction in his

negotiations with England, though this was to have a fatal effect on the

Anglo-French peace talks, even though English policy had become much

less belligerent after the dea th of George II in October 1760 and the entry

of Bute into office in March 1761. In October 1761 Pitt, who wanted to

prosecute the war vigorously, was defeated and left the cabinet, but this

did not prevent England from declaring war on Spain in January 1762.

In the month that England declared war on Spain occurred an event

which brought the end of the war in Europe much nearer. The tsaritsa

Elizabeth died and her heir, Peter

III,

son of Charles Frederick of Holstein-

G ottorp, speedily reversed Russian policy. He was a great admirer of

Frederick of Prussia, and he wanted to be free of the war against Prussia

so that he might assert the claims of his family to the ducal parts of

Slesvig and Holstein and avenge the wrongs which his family had

suffered at the hands of the Oldenburgs. He also had claims to the throne

of Sweden (ch. xv ). In May 1762 the new tsar concluded peace with

Frederick I I; and in the same month Sweden, alarmed lest the tsar might

try to assert his claims to the Swedish throne, also made peace with

Prussia so as to leave herself free for any emergency in the Baltic. In June

1762 the tsar entered into an offensive alliance with Frederick II and in

August Russian troops were helping the Prussians to win the battle of

Reichenbach . In July 1762 the tsar was deposed by his wife Catherine and

shortly afterwards murdered, but though the new tsaritsa withdrew

Russian troops from the campaign she did not break the treaty of May

1762.

In October 1763 Frederick won further victories, but though the

events of 1762 had transformed Prussia's prospects they did no t encourage

Frederick or his English allies enough to make them want to prolong the

war.

In England enthusiasm for the war was at a low ebb even by 1760, by

which time it was thought that England had gained her objectives in

America and India. When the French peace terms under discussion in

212






1761 were divulged by the French a considerable section of public opin ion

regretted their rejection. Bute, opposed to the belligerent policy of Pi tt

was eager to reach an agreement with France and Spain. He had even pu t

pressure on Frederick II to buy peace by a surrender of territory, so that

the temporary improvement in Frederick's situation on the accession of

Peter III to the throne of Russia appeared almost as a defeat for the

policy of Prussia's nominal ally England. For dom estic political reasons

Bute was very eager to m ake peace in the West, and to do so he was

prepared to be more accomm odating than England had been in the Hague

negotiations in 1759-60. Bute no longer insisted on Frederick IPs ad-

herence to the agreement and he was even prepared to consider the

grievances of Spain. In February 1762 M artinique fell to an English

squadron and England was in a favourable position to reopen peace

negotiations. In the same month a Spanish army invaded Portuga l but

made such poor progress that the campaign had little effect on the Anglo-

French negotiations. In September 1762 it was learnt in England that an

English squadron had captured Havana. This produced wild enthusiasm

in England and suddenly revived interest in the war, but Bute, for political

reasons, was determined to reach a settlement. Parliament was postponed

from 8 November till 25 November and Bute was able to present the

House with terms of peace concluded at Fontainebleau on November 3.

In eastern Europe the military success of Frederick II in 1762, combined

with the changed policy of Russia, determined Maria Theresa to seek

peace and in February 1763 Austria and Saxony concluded peace with

Prussia. By the treaty concluded at Paris in 1763 England gained con-

siderable territories in India and in Am erica, bu t by the Treaty of Hubertus-

burg Prussia failed to gain the Saxon terr itory which had been the political

objective of the war. 1763 marked a decline in the prestige of France (but

Bute's policy prevented the influence of England from increasing to a

corresponding extent). Spain, even under the vigorous leadership of

Charles III, still had little influence in the affairs of Europe, but Prussia

emerged from the negotiations an unmistakably Great Power, and Russia

could affect the whole balance of power in eastern and central Europe.

Louis and the origins of the war of the spanish succession.pdf

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