HY 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 46: Enlightened Absolutism, Potsdam Giants, Cultural Capital
30 May 2018
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I.War and the Balance of Power, 1661-1715
A. The wars of Louis XIV to 1697
1. For Louis, glory at home was to be achieved by military victories abroad
2. Objectives
a. Lessen any threat to France by the Habsburg powers (Spain, Spanish Netherlands, and
the Holy Roman Empire)
b. Promote the dynastic interests of his own family
3. 1667-1668: attacked the Spanish Netherlands
4. 1672: attacked Holland and William of Orange
. Treaty of Nijmegen (1678-1679)
5. Captured Strasbourg (1681), Luxembourg (1684), and Cologne (1688)
. Pushed across the Rhine and burned the middle Rhineland
6. William of Orange organized the League of Augsburg
. Holland, England, Spain, Sweden, Bavaria, Saxony, the Rhine Palatinate, and Austrian
Habsburgs
a. The Nine Years'War (1689-1697)
i. Fought mostly in the Low Countries
ii. 1697: Peace of Ryswick
iii. Louis returned most territory except Strasbourg and parts of
Alsace
iv. Treaty recognized William of Orange as king of England
B. The War of the Spanish Succession
1. Preserving a "balance of power"
. Designed to prevent any one country from assuming too much power
a. An operative principle of foreign policy until 1914
b. England, United Provinces, Prussia, and Austria as the main proponents
c. Louis sought a French claim to the throne of Spain
. Controlling the Spanish empire in the New World, Italy, the Netherlands,
and the Philippines
2. Who would succeed to the Spanish throne?
. Louis married eldest daughter of Philip IV of Spain
a. Philip's youngest daughter married Leopold I of Austria
b. Charles II left his possessions to Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou (the
will was secret)
. Philip was to renounce his claim to the French throne
i. Keeping the Spanish empire intact
c. Charles II dies, Philip V (r. 1700-1746) proclaimed the king of Spain
d. Louis XIV rushed his troops into the Spanish Netherlands
3. War
. England, the United Provinces, Austria, and Prussia against France, Bavaria, and Spain
a. French defeat at Blenheim (1704)
b. English navy captured Gibraltar and Minorca
c. 1709: France on the verge of defeat
C. The Treaty of Utrecht
1. Terms were reasonably fair to all sides
. Philip V remained on the throne of Spain and retained his colonial empire
a. Louis agreed that France and Spain would never unite under the same ruler
b. Austria gained territories in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy
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