Hague Grand Alliance

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The Hague Grand Alliance was concluded in The Hague on September 7, 1701 and was a broad alliance against Louis XIV during the War of the Spanish Succession .

At the beginning of the Spanish War of Succession, Emperor Leopold I sought the support of the Netherlands and England . These negotiations were promoted by the victories of Eugene of Savoy in the northern Italian theater of war.

The alliance was initially concluded between the Emperor, England and the Netherlands, to which the Prussian King joined on December 30, 1701 . Since 1703 the empire as a whole as well as numerous imperial estates such as Kurbrandenburg , Braunschweig , Hessen-Kassel , Mecklenburg-Schwerin , the Franconian , the Swabian , the Lower Rhine-Westphalian and the Upper Rhine imperial circle joined. Also Savoie after it had switched sides, and Portugal were added.

The official goal was to keep the peace. But the alliance took the imperial side in the dispute over the successor to Charles II . France was not granted any rights over Spain. The allies wanted to support each other in possible warlike actions. The military operations should be coordinated among themselves. The Spanish Netherlands should be particularly protected, also with a view to the free Netherlands and the Duchy of Milan to protect the Habsburg possessions in Italy.

On the side of France were among others Spa Bavaria and Spa Cologne . In the first few years the alliance achieved great military successes. A turning point for the alliance came after the death of Emperor Joseph I , when the Habsburg aspirant to the throne in Spain as Charles VI. also became emperor. This meant that an Austrian hegemony was to be feared instead of a French one. In addition, there was widespread war fatigue in England . Therefore England left the alliance in 1713 and made peace with France.

literature

  • Katja Frehland-Wildeboer: Loyal friends? The Alliance in Europe, 1714-1914 (= Studies on International History , Volume 25). Oldenbourg, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-486-59652-6 , p. 30f. (Revised dissertation University of Heidelberg 2007, 478 pages).
  • Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 , p. 482.