The War of the Austrian Succession

Just two years after the peace of Vienna (1738), the death without male heirs of Emperor Charles VI (1685-1740) was at the origin of a new war of succession. Indeed, if Charles had already designated Francis of Lorraine (1708-1763), husband of his daughter Maria Theresa (1717-1780), as the new emperor, as successor to the hereditary dominions of the house of Habsburg which encompassed Austria, Bohemia and Hungary he was much more controversial. With the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Charles had in fact changed the law of succession, favouring the direct lineage, even if it was female, of his daughter Maria Theresa. At his death, the Elector of Saxony and the Duke of Bavaria, the husbands of the two daughters of the elder brother of Charles VI and the previous Emperor Joseph I (1678-1711), claimed the Habsburg territories, with the support of France, Spain, Prussia and Sardinia. At the same time, they supported the election to the imperial throne of Duke Charles Albert of Bavaria. After eight years of military confrontations and complicated diplomatic negotiations, the Peace of Aachen (1748) recognized Maria Theresa and her husband Francis in the succession of the Habsburg domains to the imperial throne. Emerging Prussia obtained the rich region of Silesia, while the second son of Philip V of Spain was recognized as Duke of Parma and Piacenza with the name of Philip I.