Post by lordroel on Dec 3, 2017 14:54:49 GMT
The Southern Theatre
When Joseph, Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Habsburg lands, heard of Augustus II of Saxony’s surrender to Charles XII of Sweden at Altranstädt, he realised this meant that Charles was now free to meddle in the affairs of the Silesian Lutherans as he had been threatening for several years.
The war over the succession of the Spanish crown, started by his father, Leopold, had not been going well. While the Habsburgs had been able to gain superiority in Italy, with Joseph’s brother, another Charles and the contestant for the throne of Spain, being named King of Naples, the fighting in Spain had not been going well. The Bourbon armies under the Duke of Orléans released by the end of fighting in the Italian peninsula had gone to the Iberian peninsula where they combined with the forces of the Duke of Berwick. In a few short months they had managed to undo the gains of the British, Dutch and Portuguese armies which had been making significant gains against Philip of Anjou, currently king of Spain.
Recognising that the only way to win in Spain was to get the armies of Berwick and Orléans to leave, Joseph knew he finally had to commit to the Maritime Power’s desire to launch a major attack in southern France. To do that, however, he needed to make sure that Charles XII would not expand his interest beyond Silesia and also decide to help the Hungarian rebels, many of whom were Protestants. Joseph decided to play on Austria and Poland’s mutual enmity with the Ottoman Empire and proposed mutual defense pact when the Turks decided to try and regain their lost territories. In return, Sweden and Poland would help with the renewed assault on France. Stanisław of Poland, seeing war with the Ottomans as imminent due to conflict between the Crimean Khanate and the Cossack Hetmanate, urged Charles XII to accept this offer.
Charles XII, however, had been away at war for almost eight years now and was eager to return home after taking care of Russia and start the process of integrating his new dominions into the Swedish Empire. Because Dutch designs on the Spanish Netherlands conflicted with British and Habsburg economic and strategic interests, Joseph was able to convince the Maritime Powers that trade to the Baltic through Sweden would allow them to evade the Danish Sound Tolls. The lesser tolls would still be welcomed by the Swedish treasury, and the Dutch would not need as many economic concessions in the Spanish Netherlands.
By October of 1707, Polish and Cossack cavalry have joined Savoyard and Austrian armies in an attack on southern France. The Duchy of Savoy and Nice are regained from French control and the summer’s failed attack on Toulon is repeated, this time successfully, and the armies advance steadily toward the Rhône. The Duke of Orléans and his armies are also called back from Spain to counter this new offensive and this allows British, Dutch and new Austrian troops to once again retake the Aragonese territories they had lost to the Duke of Orléans.
The Duke of Berwick, whose armies had been recalled from the Iberian peninsula to help the Elector of Bavaria fight along the Rhine after the initial defeat of Allied forces in Aragon, end up fighting in Flanders under the Duke of Vendôme as more and more Swedish regiments were showing up to help the British and Dutch armies. The tactical and strategic lessons learned from defeating the numerically superior Russians and Saxons even in the harsh northern winters are put to good use by the Swedish commander in the Low Countries, Georg Lydecker. In spite of uprisings in Ghent and Bruges which tried to switch sides, the whole of the Spanish Netherlands are under Allied control by December of 1708 and new attempts to invade France directly via the Moselle and from the Rhine were bearing fruit, especially when joined by Austrian, Polish and Cossack forces marching from the Duchy of Savoy up the Rhône.
In March of 1709, Louis XIV sends Pierre Rouillé to negotiate with the Alliance at Moerdijk, and offers up a partition of Spanish lands. While the Dutch are willing to accept the offer, Habsburg dynastic intransigence and British support dooms any deal and the talks collapse with no result at the end of April. France had suffered a particularly harsh winter with widespread crop failures and famines exacerbated by the British naval blockade of grain imports, so in May, Louis XIV sends his foreign minister the Marquis of Torcy to the negotiators in The Hague, hoping to reduce the demands given to Rouillé. On the 27th of May, the Allies presented Torcy with 41 demands which included an entire transfer of the Spanish realms from Philip V to Charles, the brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, who would be crowned Charles III. Louis XIV was willing to accede to all of the demands except for those regarding Philip and Spain so he publicly rejected the demands. What the allies do not realize is that Louis XIV no longer holds and control over his grandson and would not have been able to induce him into giving up the Spanish throne in any case.
Believing that Louis XIV is merely stalling for time, the British command prepares for renewed activity on all French fronts to try and bring them back to the negotiating table. Due to the harshness of the previous winter and the scarcity of stores and provisions, Marlborough had initially recoiled from a full-scale invasion of France in preference to a conservative policy of siege warfare, but the outstanding success of the Swedish tactics in Flanders and Alsace had convinced him otherwise. In short order the Allied force takes Tournai, Ypres, Mons and Lille in the north of France and Strasbourg in Alsace. On September the 11th, the Allied armies attack the main French army at Malplaquet, believing that it’s destruction will force Louis XIV to surrender. Villars has been given a freehand to do what he wants and the French defense is vigorous and losses were significant on both sides but the combination of the new Swedish tactics and the addition of a second army that had been ravaging the French Southeast for a year meant that the French could only lose.
Louis XIV is forced to recognise the Habsburg Archduke Charles as King Charles II, legitimate rule of the Spanish territories and calls for Philip to step down and return to France by Christmas. Philip, of course, refuses to do so in spite of his increasingly dire situation. The Dutch insist that Louis XIV take responsibility for driving Philp from Spain, but that is flatly refused. Louis XIV had already recalled much of his army from Spain to promote the peace process, and he was even willing to pay a large subsidy to assist the Allied campaign in the peninsula. But he would not send French troops to depose his grandson while his enemies watched from afar.
Without French military support over the last year and a half, British, Dutch, Austrian and Portuguese armies have gotten ever closer to Madrid, and Charles III enters the city on the 20th of December, 1709 and is officially crowned on Christmas Day.
Nice to see it back.
