Prag matic Con firmed. By this treaty the Spanish Bourbon prince Don Carlos was acknowledged as King of Naples and Sicily, and he relinquished to the Em- Sanction peror Charles VI. his fiefs in Northern Italy; while France, Spain and Sardinia confirmed the Pragmatic Sanction, which, as already noticed, the Emperor Charles VI. had framed for the purpose of securing the peaceable succession to his hereditary Austrian territories to his daughter Maria Theresa. War between Russia and In 1735 the Empress Anna of Russia had commenced a war against the Tartars of the Crimea, who were tributary to the Ottoman Porte; and soon afterward she began hostilities against Sultan MAHMOUD, I., the successor of Achmet III., who had been hurled from his throne in Turkey. 1730 by a revolt of the Janizaries. Münnich, the Empress Anna's commander-in-chief, the founder of the Russian military system, reconquered Azov, which the Turks had recovered, and gained brilliant victories by his masterly tactics, capturing Oczakoff in 1737 and Kotzim in 1739, and thus conquering the principality of Moldavia. Mun nich's Victories. Alliance with Defeats. In 1737 Austria took part in the war as an ally of Russia; but, Austria's as Prince Eugene had died April 21, 1736, the Austrian troops had no great general to lead them to victory; and, after a disastrous de- Russia. feat at Krotzka, July 21, 1738, they were forced to a disgraceful retreat, being thus driven from Servia, Bosnia and Wallachia; while Austrian the victorious Turks retook Orsova and besieged Belgrade. The Emperor Charles VI. of Germany was greatly alarmed by the disasters to his arms; and in 1739 the Peace of Belgrade put an end to hostilities between Austria and Turkey, Austria surrendering the fortresses of Belgrade, Sabatz and Orsova to the Turks. Peace was also soon made between Russia and the Porte, Russia retaining Azov and extending her frontier in the Ukraine, but agreeing to keep no fleet in the Black Sea. In the very year of the Peace of Belgrade a colonial and maritime war broke out between Spain and Great Britain. On the death of Queen Caroline, in 1737, Sir Robert Walpole's power in England commenced to decline. Frederick, Prince of Wales, hated his father, and openly supported the "Patriots," or discontented Whigs, who were the avowed enemies of the able Prime Minister who had so long wielded the destinies of Great Britain. The English people were tired of the long peace which they had enjoyed under Walpole's wise administration, and the British mercantile class was resolved upon pushing its contraband trade with Spain's South American colonies. The Treaty of Utrecht had restricted this trade to the traffic in negro slaves and to the yearly visit of but one ship, but a large and steady smuggling trade with these colonies had been carried on for some years. King Philip V. was very hostile to this traffic, and after Peace of Belgrade. War Feeling in England against Spain. Great Britain's Contraband Traffic. Colonial Boundary Jenkins's his accession Spain redoubled her exertions to end it. The Englishmen who were taken captive while engaged in this trade were rigorously punished by imprisonment or by the loss of a nose or an ear, and when they returned home they aroused the indignation of their countrymen by their stories of the cruelties which they had suffered from the Spaniards. The English people considered them martyrs for the freedom of commerce, and Walpole was unable to control the fury which the accounts of these outrages aroused. Besides the privilege claimed by the English of supplying the Disputes. Spanish American colonies with African slaves, and the right claimed by the Spaniards of searching British vessels for contraband goods, the boundaries between the new English colony of Georgia and the Spanish colony of Florida were in dispute. In 1735 Philip V. of Family Spain had strengthened himself by a Family Compact with King Louis Compact. XV., a treaty which bound these two Bourbon kings to unite in an effort to recover Gibraltar for Spain and to harass English commerce by a swarm of French privateers as well as by the French national fleet. In exercising the right to search English vessels upon the high seas for contraband goods, a Spanish captain who found nothing to seize wantonly tore off the ear of the English ship-master Jenkins, and told him to carry it to King George II. with the message that if the Spaniards had caught His Majesty they would have treated him in the same manner. The account of this outrage aroused a storm of inWalpole dignation in England, thus forcing Sir Robert Walpole against his Forced will into war with Spain, which was declared in 1739. The popular joy was expressed in London by the ringing of bells; whereupon Walpole remarked, with wise forethought: "They may ring their bells now. Before long they will be wringing their hands.” Ear. into War with Spain. Spanish Prizes. of Porto Bello. The colonial and maritime war thus commenced was not on the whole either successful or profitable to Great Britain. During the first three Capture months of hostilities the Spaniards took prizes amounting to more than a million dollars. In 1739 a British fleet under Admiral Vernon stormed and captured Porto Bello, a rich Spanish town on the Isthmus of Panama; but in 1740 Admiral Vernon and General Wentworth were repulsed in an assault upon Cartagena, a still more important town on the northern coast of South America. Attack on Cartagena. Anson's Voyage around the Globe In the meantime a British naval expedition under Commodore Anson sailed to the South American waters with the design of attacking the Spanish colonies of Chili and Peru. This expedition crossed the Pacific to China in search of a rich Spanish galleon, which was finally captured, June 9, 1743; after which Anson completed his voyage around the globe, returning to England by way of the Cape of Good Hope, after an absance of almost four years; but the expedition suf fered terrible hardships, and was reduced by scurvy, so that Anson's flag-ship was the only vessel that returned home. Walpole's reluctance to engage in this war had made him very un- Walpole's popular among his countrymen, and his political enemies took ad- Unpopularity. vantage of this feeling to hold him responsible for the ill success of the British in the struggle; but the Prime Minister held his ground firmly for several years longer. The Anglo-Spanish war became merged in that general European contest known as the War of the Austrian Succession, which began in 1740 and lasted eight years, and the details of which will be narrated fully in the next section. SECTION II.-WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION (A. D. 1740-1748.) Sovereigns. THREE of the leading sovereigns of Europe died in 1740-King Deaths of Frederick William I. of Prussia, May 31; the Empress Anna of Russia, October 17; and the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany, October 21. Frederick William I. was succeeded as King of Prussia by his son FREDERICK II., who afterward became so illustrious in history as FREDERICK THE GREAT. Frederick II. was twenty-eight years of age at his accession, and was in vigorous health. He was endowed with great natural abilities, and was destined to become one of the greatest characters of history-a great warrior and a great sovereign. Upon his accession he at once devoted himself with diligence to the government of his kingdom; and his subjects soon perceived that he was as much a king as his father had been, but that he was a more enlightened monarch. He took all branches of the government into his own hands, and administered each according to his own will, asking advice from no one, and requiring his Ministers simply to record his decisions and to execute his orders. His kingdom at once felt the impulse of his vigorous policy. On his accession to the throne he received a well-provided treasury and a powerful, well-organized and strictly-disciplined army. By his abilities as a general and a statesman, Frederick II. raised Prussia to a front rank in the list of nations, thus preparing that great German kingdom for the eventual leadership of Germany. Having no male heirs, the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany had obtained, by great concessions, among which was the cession of the German dukedom of Lorraine to France, the agreement of all the leading European powers to the famous Pragmatic Sanction, by which he left the succession to his hereditary Austrian dominions to his only daughter, MARIA THERESA, Queen of Hungary, wife of Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Frederick the Great of Prussia, A. D. 1740 1786. His Vigorous Policy. Maria Theresa Austrian and the Succes sion. 2303424 Rival Claimants for the Austrian ions. No sooner had the Emperor Charles VI. descended to his grave than a host of claimants appeared for various portions of the hereditary Austrian estates and endeavored to make good their pretensions by force of arms. The Elector of Bavaria, Charles Albert, laid claim to the hereditary states of Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, as a descendant of the eldest daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand II. Frederick Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, King Frederick Augustus II. of Poland, raised claims to Moravia. Frederick II., the young King of Prussia, revived some old pretensions of the House of Hohenzollern to Silesia. Philip V. of Spain cast a longing eye on some of the Italian possessions of the House of Hapsburg. France, regarding the opportunity auspicious for the humiliation of the proud House of Hapsburg, readily violated the Pragmatic Sanction by supporting the claims of the Elector of Bavaria to the Austrian succession, against the judgment of Cardinal Fleury, who desired peace. Great Britain, under Sir Robert Walpole, alone at first espoused the cause of Maria Theresa, furnishing her with large subsidies, and afterward offering her military aid; and Holland and Sardinia finally took up arms in League of her favor. A secret alliance called the League of Nymphenburg was Nymph- concluded between the Kings of France, Spain, Prussia and Sardinia, enburg. and the Electors of Saxony, Bavaria, Cologne and the Palatinate. This contest, which convulsed Europe for eight years, is known as the War of the Austrian Succession, A. D. 1740-1748. First War. Soon after the death of the Emperor Charles VI., Frederick II. of Silesian Prussia made a sudden irruption into Silesia at the head of thirty thousand men. Frederick speedily conquered Silesia, and offered to enter into an alliance with Maria Theresa if she confirmed him in the possession of his new conquest; but the young Queen of Bohemia and Hungary declared her determination to uphold the integrity of her hereditary dominions, and thus gave occasion to the First Silesian War. Battle of On April 10, 1741, hostilities were commenced by the battle of Molwitz, in which the King of Prussia, by the skill and bravery of his two leading generals, Prince Leopold of Dessau and Marshal Schwerin, gained a complete victory over the Austrians, and was thus enabled to hold possession of Silesia. Molvitz. Ivan VI. Before her death in October, 1740, the Empress Anna of Russia of Russia, had appointed her tyrannical favorite, Biron, regent for her grandBiron and Munnich. nephew and successor, the infant IVAN VI., the son of Prince Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick and his wife, Anne of Mecklenburg; but Biron, who during Anna's reign had banished twenty thousand persons to Siberia, was now exiled to the same inhospitable region by FieldMarshal Münnich, through the machinations of the infant Czar's mother, who then became regent. As the party which favored an alliance with Maria Theresa controlled the regent's Ministry, France instigated Sweden to make war on Russia; the party of the Hats, the partisans of France, then prevailing in Sweden over the faction of the Caps, the adherents of Russia. Sweden accordingly concluded an alliance with France, from which she received a subsidy. The Swedish Diet declared war against Russia, August, 1741. The Russians invaded the Swedish province of Finland, defeated the Swedes at Wilmanstrand, September 3, 1741, and took that town by storm. War between Sweden and Russia. A. D. 1741 1762. In the meantime another revolution took place in the palace of St. Elizabeth of Russia, Petersburg. With the support of the French ambassador and a company of the regent's guards, the Princess ELIZABETH, daughter of Peter the Great and Catharine I., caused herself to be proclaimed Empress of all the Russias, consigning the little Czar Ivan VI. to lifelong imprisonment. The Swedes entered into peace negotiations with Elizabeth, but as their pretensions were too extravagant hostilities were renewed. In 1742 the Swedes were driven from all their posts in Finland and retired to Helsingfors, where they were besieged by the Russian army and navy and forced to surrender, thus placing all Finland in the possession of the Russians. By the Peace of Abo,, in July, 1743, Sweden recovered a portion of Finland, but ceded to Russia the remainder of that province, including the towns and fortresses of Nyslott, Frederiksham and Wilmanstrand. Capture of Helsingfors. Peace of Abo. French Invasion of Austria. France having determined to support the cause of the Elector of Bavaria, a powerful French army under the command of Marshal Belleisle marched into Germany, and, after having been joined by the Bavarians and the Saxons, invaded the Archduchy of Austria, captured Linz, menaced Vienna, compelled Maria Theresa to flee from her capital, and then marched into Bohemia and took possession of Prague. The Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria was crowned at Linz as Arch- Emperor duke of Austria, and at Prague as King of Bohemia; and, through the influence of France and Prussia, the German Electoral Princes, in the Diet at Frankfort-on-the-Main, elected him to the imperial throne of Germany with the title of CHARLES VII., in January, 1742. With her infant son Joseph in her arms, Maria Theresa appeared in the Diet of the Hungarian nobles at Pressburg, and sympathetically appealed to them to aid her in her distressed condition. The hearts of the Hungarians were touched, and they unanimously exclaimed: "Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa!" "Let us die for our king, Maria Theresa!" 66 Troops of Croats, Pandours and Slavs, wild and warlike races of Southern Hungary, under the conduct of Khevenhüller and Bärenklau, to the number of one hundred thousand, now flocked to the standard of Charles VII., A. D. 1742 1745. Maria Theresa and the Hunga rian Diet. |
