War of the Quadruple Alliance
War of the Quadruple Alliance | |
---|---|
Part of Bahamas | |
Result | Treaty of The Hague |
Territorial changes |
Austria cedes Sardinia to Savoy Savoy cedes Sicily to Austria |
Great Britain
France
Austria
Dutch Republic
George Byng
Duke of Berwick
Claude de Mercy
José de Albornoz
Antonio Gaztañeta
George Camocke
The War of the Quadruple Alliance [a] was fought from 1718 to 1720 by Spain, and the Quadruple Alliance, a coalition between Britain, France, Austria, and the Dutch Republic.[b] Caused by Spanish attempts to recover territories in Italy ceded in the 1713 Peace of Utrecht, most of the fighting took place in Sicily and Spain, with minor engagements in North America and Northern Europe. Spain also supported the Jacobite rising of 1719 in Scotland in an effort to divert British naval resources.
Spain recaptured Sardinia in 1717 from Habsburg Austria, followed by a landing in Sicily in July 1718. On 2 August, the Quadruple Alliance was formed and on 11th, the Royal Navy defeated a Spanish fleet at Cape Passaro. This meant their troops in Sicily could not be resupplied or reinforced, and Austrian land forces eventually retook the island. In October 1719, a British naval force sacked the Spanish port of Vigo.
The 1720 Treaty of The Hague restored the position prior to 1717, but with Savoy and Austria exchanging Sardinia and Sicily.
Background
Under the 1713
Utrecht specified Spain could never be unified with either France or Austria, and under its terms Philip gave up any future claim to the French throne. However, a series of deaths in the French royal family between 1713 and 1715 made him heir presumptive to the five year old Louis XV, and he now cast doubts on this renunciation. Emperor Charles VI also refused to accept this principle, as well as delaying implementation of the Barrier Treaty in the newly acquired Austrian Netherlands, an objective for which the Dutch Republic had effectively bankrupted themselves. Concerned by these moves, Britain and France agreed the 1716 Anglo-French alliance to enforce these terms, then formed the Triple Alliance with the Dutch in January 1717.[3]
Its key principles were to ensure Charles and Philip reconfirmed the withdrawal of their claims to the thrones of Spain and France. In return for this, Savoy and Austria would exchange Sicily and Sardinia. Spain saw little benefit in this and decided to seize the opportunity to recover territorial losses agreed at Utrecht. As neither Savoy nor Austria possessed significant navies, the most obvious targets were the islands of Sardinia and Sicily, an ambition that aligned with the Italian dynastic claims of Elizabeth Farnese.[4]
In August 1717, Spanish forces landed on Sardinia and by November had re-established control of the island. They met little opposition; Austria was engaged in the 1716–1718 Austro-Turkish War, while France and the Netherlands needed peace to rebuild their shattered economies.[5] Attempts to resolve the situation through diplomacy failed and in June 1718, a British naval force arrived in the Western Mediterranean as a preventive measure.[6] Emboldened by their success in Sardinia, in July 1718 the Spanish landed 30,000 men on Sicily but the strategic position had now changed. Austria signed the July 1718 Treaty of Passarowitz with the Ottoman Empire, and on 2 August, joined Britain, France, and the Dutch in the Quadruple Alliance, which gave its name to the war that followed.[7]
War
Outbreak
The Spanish took
In 1718, Cardinal Alberoni began plotting to replace the
San Sebastián
The Duc d'Orléans ordered a French army under the
Sicily
In Sicily, the Austrians started a new offensive under Count Claude Florimond de Mercy. They first suffered a defeat in the Battle of Francavilla (20 June 1719). But the Spanish were cut off from their homeland by the British fleet and it was just a matter of time before their resistance would crumble. Mercy was then victorious in the second Battle of Milazzo, took Messina in October and besieged Palermo.
Invasion of Britain
In early 1719 the Irish exile, the
Vigo
In retaliation for this attack, the British government prepared to launch a raid on the Spanish coast. An expedition was assembled at
North America
The French captured the Spanish settlement of Pensacola in Florida in May 1719, pre-empting a Spanish attack on South Carolina. While Spanish forces retook the town in August 1719, it fell to the French again towards the end of the year and they destroyed the town before withdrawing.
In February 1720 a 1,200 strong Spanish force set out from
Peace
Displeased with his kingdom's military performance, Philip dismissed Alberoni in December 1719, and made peace with the allies with the
In the treaty, Philip was forced to relinquish all territory captured in the war. However, his third surviving son's right to the
France returned Pensacola and the remaining conquests in the north of Spain in exchange for commercial benefits. Included in the terms of this treaty,
Legacy
The war provided a unique example during the eighteenth century when Britain and France were on the same side. It came during a period between 1716 and 1731 when
See also
- Triple Alliance (1717)
- Peace of Vienna (1725)
Footnotes
- ^ Dutch: Oorlog van de Quadruple Alliantie, French: Guerre de la Quadruple-Alliance, German: Krieg der Quadrupelallianz, Italian: Guerra della Quadruplice Alleanza
- ^ Not to be confused with the Quadruple Alliance (1815)
- ^ Formerly Philip of Anjou, and a member of the French House of Bourbon
References
- ^ Storrs, Ronald (2 December 2016). "The Spanish Monarchy in the Mediterranean Theater". Yale University Blog. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
- ^ Solano 2011, pp. 237–238.
- ^ Lesaffer, Randall. "The 18th-century Antecedents of the Concert of Europe I: The Triple Alliance of 1717". Oxford Public International Law. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
- ^ Lesaffer, Randall. "The 18th-century Antecedents of the Concert of Europe I: The Quadruple Alliance of 1718". Oxford Public International Law. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
- ^ Szechi 1994, pp. 93–95.
- ^ Simms 2007, p. 135.
- ^ Tucker 2009, p. 724.
- ^ Oates 2019, p. 140.
- ^ Oates 2019, p. 142.
- ^ Oates pp. 143–144
- ^ Dhondt 2017, pp. 97–130.
Sources
- Dhondt, Frederik (2017). "Arrestez et pillez contre toute sorte de droit': Trade and the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720)" (PDF). Legatio: The Journal for Renaissance and Early Modern Diplomatic Studies. 1.
- Lesaffer, Randall. "The 18th-century Antecedents of the Concert of Europe I: The Triple Alliance of 1717". Oxford Public International Law.
- Lesaffer, Randall. "The 18th-century Antecedents of the Concert of Europe I: The Quadruple Alliance of 1718". Oxford Public International Law.
- Oates, Jonathon D (2019). The Last Armada: Britain and the War of the Quadruple Alliance, 1718–1720. Helion and Company.
- Simms, Brendan (2007). Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783. Penguin. ISBN 978-0140289848.
- Solano, Ana Crespa (2011). Rommelse, Gijs; Onnekink, David (eds.). A Change of Ideology in Imperial Spain? in Ideology and Foreign Policy in Early Modern Europe (1650–1750). Routledge. ISBN 978-1409419136.
- Storrs, Ronald (2 December 2016). "The Spanish Monarchy in the Mediterranean Theater". Yale University Blog.
- Szechi, Daniel (1994). The Jacobites: Britain and Europe, 1688–1788. Manchester University Press. ISBN 0719037743.
- Tucker, Spencer, C (2009). A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East 6V: A Global Chronology of Conflict [6 volumes]: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1851096671.)
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