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Home A Period of Foreign Wars, 1689-1714 Part 6 |
Part 6Unfortunately the Bavarian baby died of smallpox. Another treaty was accordingly drawn up (1700), under which the Archduke Charles, the second son of the emperor, was to obtain the bulk of the Spanish inheritance, but the Dauphin of France was to have Naples and Milan (Milan was to be exchanged for Lorraine). It is hardly a matter for surprise that the King of Spain, when he heard of these Partition Treaties, flew into a violent passion, and that his queen smashed some of the furniture in her room. The King of Spain subsequently sickened, and on his deathbed was persuaded to leave all his possessions to Philip, the second son of the Dauphin (1700). Louis XIV, after some hesitation, accepted the will and threw over the treaty. Philip was therefore declared King of Spain. A Bourbon had displaced a Hapsburg, and Louis XIV might well have said-as he is wrongly reported to have said-" Henceforth there are no Pyrenees".Louis XIV's acceptance of the will would not in itself, however, have produced the war, for, after all, it was his second and not his eldest grandson that succeeded. Other actions of the French king made war inevitable- In the first place, he expelled the Dutch from the Barrier Fortresses, which they garrisoned, and substituted French troops, and thus showed his intention of making a further advance in the Netherlands. Secondly, he expressly reserved the rights of Philip to the French throne. Philip's elder brother was delicate and not expected to live long, and Philip might therefore succeed not only to Spain, but to France as well. Thirdly, he showed by his policy that he was attempting to secure for France the commercial concessions which England had obtained for trade with Spanish America. Finally, on James II’s death, in 1701, he recognized James's son-the " Old Pretender" as he is called- as James III, King of England. For Louis XIV, after recognizing William's title at the Peace of Ryswick, to support the Pretender four years later, was the one thing needed to make England as enthusiastic as William for renewed war. The war, therefore, broke out in 1702, but William died before he could take any part in the fighting. To summarize a war which lasted for over ten years, and which was fought in Italy and Germany, in the Netherlands, and in Spain is no easy task. At the opening of the war, England, Holland, Austria, and most of the German States were on one side, and they were joined later by Portugal and Savoy; on the other side were France, Spain, and Bavaria. The great figure in the war, so far as the Allies were concerned, was John Churchill, created Duke of Marlborough. Born in 1650, he had seen service in Holland as a colonel in the French service during Charles II’s reign (Turenne, the French general, is said to have called him "the handsome Englishman". and to have won a bet that Churchill would recover a post with half the number of men who had failed to defend it), had subsequently by his coolness saved the situation at Sedgemoor in that of James II, and had undertaken some very successful operations in the south of Ireland under William III. No can deny either his avarice or his faithlessness. He deserted JamesII twice. He betrayed,it is said, the secret of two expeditions to Louis XIV in William Ill's reign, and in one year was concerned in two plots against him. He was consequently dismissed from his appointments, and he did not recover favour till towards the close of William's career. Yet, though faithless in his political principles, his military friendship with Prince Eugene, the most famous of the other allied generals, and his political friendship with Godolphin, the English minister at home, showed that in his relations with individuals no one could be a more loyal or more admirable colleague. Moreover, he was not only a great general, but a great diplomatist as well-the best of his age, according to Voltaire. Strikingly handsome, with a manner described by a contemporary as irresistible, he needed all his powers of negotiation during each winter, so that he might induce the Allies to furnish him with adequate forces during the following summer. |
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