On the Rhine in September Tallart took Breisach and in November defeated the comte de Thüngen at Speyerbach and recaptured Landau. By this time the elector had been forced to retreat toward Bavaria. Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, detail of an oil painting after Sir Godfrey Kneller, c. 1685; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Marlborough wanted to attack along the French coast, supported by the English fleet, but this plan was again too unorthodox to win the approval of his allies. Two dynasties claimed the Spanish throne: the French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs; both royal families were closely related to the late King of Spain. Its effects were felt, however, on the Netherlands front, where the absence of German troops made it impossible for Marlborough to achieve anything of note against Vendôme. Marlborough crossed the Meuse to the Rhine and made his way up that river, reaching Mainz at the end of May. In 1710 he had been ready to pay for troops to expel his grandson from Spain; in 1709 he would have been satisfied if Philip could have been allowed to retain Naples and Sicily; in 1706 he asked only that Naples, Sicily, and Milan be retained for his grandson. When the campaigning season opened in 1704, the serious effects of the elector of Bavaria’s delays were not yet apparent, and it looked as if the French and Bavarian threat to Vienna was as dangerous as ever. The Danube River basin and its drainage network. Omissions? With regard to the political organization of their kingdoms, Philip issued the Decretos de Nueva Planta, following the centralizing approach of the Bourbons in France, ending the political autonomy of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon; territories in Spain that had supported the Archduke Charles and up to then had kept their institutions in a framework of loose dynastic union. In Spain, distaste for the treaty was even greater; the courtiers were unified in opposing partition, but were divided on whether the throne should go to a Habsburg or a Bourbon. On December 31, 1711, Marlborough was dismissed from his command. Continued from Part I: https://youtu.be/yNCD9uTiAl0The War of the Spanish Succession was the last, longest, and largest of the wars of Louis XIV. The Italian territories would go to France, while the Archduke would receive the remainder of the Spanish empire. They clashed with the French under the Duc de Villars at the Battle of Malplaquet, the bloodiest battle of the war. The objective of these manœuvres was to prevent the Franco-Bavarian army from advancing on Vienna. Because of the excessive caution of his Dutch allies, Marlborough was not able to make full use of his success. Although Leopold and Louis were both willing to defer their claims to a junior line of the family—Leopold to his younger son, the Archduke Charles, and Louis to the Dauphin's younger son, the Duc d'Anjou—the Bavarian prince remained a far less threatening candidate. Louis of Baden failed to stop the junction of these two armies, and, although Eugene himself had been moved to the Danube front to replace Styrum, it seemed impossible with the forces available that he would be able to stop the French and Bavarian armies from striking at Vienna. Marlborough: War of the Spanish Succession ("Marby," for short), is a wargame of intermediate-to-high complexity, designed by Joseph Miranda, simulating that critical conflict of the early 18th century. In the Low Countries, the Maritime Powers were outnumbered by the French so that there was a serious threat to Holland. Thus, the issue of the inheritance of the Spanish kingdoms—which included not only Spain, but also dominions in Italy, the Low Countries, and the Americas—became quite contentious. Joseph Ferdinand was Leopold I's grandson, but in the female line, so he belonged not to the Habsburg but to the Wittelsbach dynasty. By the end of 1710 Philip V was firmly established in Spain, and imperial forces were again confined to Catalonia. In 1689, however, when William III of England required the Emperor's aid in the War of the Grand Alliance against France, he promised to support the Emperor's claim to the undivided Spanish empire. France gave up various North American colonial possessions, recognizing British sovereignty over Rupert's Land and Newfoundland, and ceding Acadia and its half of Saint Kitts. Villars advanced against his opponents and met them at Malplaquet, southwest of Mons. In 1709, the allies attempted three invasions of France, but two were so minor as to be merely diversionary. The English admiral Sir George Rooke also won an important naval battle, the Battle of Vigo Bay, which resulted in the complete destruction of the Spanish treasure fleet and in the capture of tons of silver. The Dutch were offered a strong “barrier” of fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands, but the English and imperial governments would not consider terms that envisaged the partition of the Spanish empire. Although the allies defeated the French, they lost over twenty thousand men, compared with only ten thousand for their opponents. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia: Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed. On the Spanish front in 1710, Starhemberg won some successes at Almenara in July and at Saragossa in August, and imperial troops were able to occupy Madrid for a second time in September. Marlborough and Eugen faced Tallard, Villeroy and Vendome in the battles of Blenheim, Ramillies and Oudenaarde. Catinat also declined to cross the Adige and engage Eugene’s main army, though this too was inferior in numbers to his own. The most … Other states joined the coalition opposing France and Spain in an attempt to acquire new territories, or to protect existing dominions. In Spain Galway’s Portuguese troops had proved unreliable, and it was decided in 1708 to send them home and replace them with German troops from Italy, released by the imperial successes of 1706–07. The war lasted over a decade, and was marked by the military leadership of notable generals such as the Duc de Villars and the Duke of Berwick for France, the Duke of Marlborough for England, and Prince Eugene of Savoy for the Austrians. Instead, Eugene began his march from Italy to join Marlborough in the Spanish Netherlands. Nowadays this date is remembered as the National Day of Catalonia. This treaty remained a dead letter since Charles II, though not siring an heir, survived the next three decades and only finally weakened during the 1690s. William III of England, however, could not declare war against France, since he did not have the support of the elites who determined policy in both England and the United Provinces. In May 1703 Portugal, therefore, relinquished its uneasy alliance with France and joined the Maritime Powers. Henry St. John, viscount Bolingbroke, oil on canvas by an unknown French artist, c. 1712–14; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Wars of Succession, a 2018 strategy video game developed by AGEod about the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1713) and the Great Northern War (1700–1721), 'most of which focused around the succession of Poland'. This decision was taken without consulting the Spanish, who vehemently objected to the dismemberment of their empire. The war was fought not only in Europe, but also in North America, where the conflict became known to the English colonists as Queen Anne's War. The weakness of France was clearly shown in the peace terms that Louis XIV was now prepared to consider. The Bourbon claim was similarly dubious, being based on a disregard for the acts of renunciation made by the French queens. The stalemate was broken in 1706, as Marlborough drove the French out of most of the Spanish Netherlands, decisively defeating troops under Villeroi in the Battle of Ramillies in May and following up with the conquest of Antwerp and Dunkirk. 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