Augsburg Alliance

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The Augsburg Alliance , also known as the Augsburger Liga , was a defensive alliance of several European powers against the ambitions of the French King Louis XIV. It was concluded on July 9, 1686 between Emperor Leopold I , King Charles II of Spain , King Charles XI. of Sweden , Elector Maximilian II. Emanuel of Bavaria and the members of the Franconian and Upper Rhine Imperial Circle - in the form of an extended district association .

history

The Augsburg Alliance was originally planned for three years and envisaged the establishment of a strong federal army against the territorial claims of the French King Louis XIV on areas on the left bank of the Rhine. The Sun King, who had become the most powerful ruler in Europe, had been pursuing an expansion ( reunions policy ) with the term politique des Réunions since 1679 , which aimed at the unification of all territories with the motherland that were ever connected to France or to which France made claims.

The initiator of the Augsburg Alliance was the Habsburg Emperor Leopold I, who was forced to deploy a large part of his military forces there because of the Turkish threat on the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire . The alliance was supposed to put a stop to further French expansion in the west of the empire. The contracting powers made a binding commitment to ensure compliance with the Peace of Westphalia , the Peace of Nijmegen and the Armistice of Regensburg concluded on August 15, 1684 between France and the Emperor and Empire . In Regensburg , in addition to the ceasefire, it had been agreed that the parts and cities of the empire annexed by France should initially be left to him for 20 years if France would suspend its reunion policy against the empire by then.

The Reich alliance supplemented the mutual assistance pact of March 22, 1686 that had previously been concluded between Leopold I and the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg .

In 1689, the Augsburg Alliance was expanded to form the Grand Alliance of Vienna with the accession of England and the Netherlands - represented in personal union by Wilhelm von Oranien-Nassau . As governor of the Netherlands, he had already had negative experiences with the French and saw himself now as King William III of England. also faced with French rivalry in the colonies of North America .

The necessity of the Augsburg Alliance became apparent when Louis XIV, despite a waiver clause in the marriage contract of his sister-in-law Elisabeth Charlotte von Orléans, after the death of the childless Palatinate Elector Karl. II. Hereditary claims on the Palatinate. This led to the Nine Years' War in 1688 (also called War of the Palatinate Succession ). With the peace of Rijswijk in 1697 this dispute ended.

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