book 3, chapter 3 (volume 3).

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1719. Sardinia ceded to the Duke of Savoy in exchange for Sicily.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1731. The second Treaty of Vienna with England and Holland.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1732-1733. Interference in the election of the King of Poland.

See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1733-1735. The war of the Polish Succession. Cession of Naples and Sicily to Spain, and Lorraine and Bar to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735, and ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1737-1739. Unfortunate war with the Turks, in alliance with Russia. Humiliating peace of Belgrade. Surrender of Belgrade, with Servia, and part of Bosnia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.

AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 (October). Treachery among the Guarantors of the Pragmatic Sanction. The inheritance of Marie Theresa disputed.

"The Emperor Charles VI. ... died on the 20th of October, 1740. His daughter Maria Theresa, the heiress of his dominions with the title of Queen of Hungary, was but twenty-three years of age, without experience or knowledge of business; and her husband Francis, the titular Duke of Lorraine and reigning Grand Duke of Tuscany, deserved the praise of amiable qualities rather than of commanding talents. Her Ministers were timorous, irresolute, and useless: 'I saw them in despair,' writes Mr. Robinson, the British envoy, 'but that very despair was not capable of rendering them bravely desperate.' The treasury was exhausted, the army dispersed, and no General risen to replace Eugene. The succession of Maria Theresa was, indeed, cheerfully acknowledged by her subjects, and seemed to be secured amongst foreign powers by their guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction; but it soon appeared that such guarantees are mere worthless parchments where there is strong temptation to break and only a feeble army to support them. The principal claimant to the succession was the Elector of Bavaria, who maintained that the will of the Emperor Ferdinand the First devised the Austrian states to his daughter, from whom the Elector descended, on failure of male lineage. It appeared that the original will in the archives at Vienna referred to the failure not of the male but of the legitimate issue of his sons; but this document, though ostentatiously displayed to all the Ministers of state and foreign ambassadors, was very far from inducing the Elector to desist from his pretensions. As to the Great Powers--the Court of France, the old ally of the Bavarian family, and mindful of its injuries from the House of Austria, was eager to exalt the first by the depression of the latter. The Bourbons in Spain followed the direction of the Bourbons in France. The King of Poland and the Empress of Russia were more friendly in their expressions than in their designs. An opposite spirit pervaded England and Holland, where motives of honour and of policy combined to support the rights of Maria Theresa. In Germany itself the Elector of Cologne, the Bavarian's brother, warmly espoused his cause: and 'the remaining Electors,' says Chesterfield, 'like electors with us, thought it a proper opportunity of making the most of their votes,--and all at the expense of the helpless and abandoned House of Austria!' The first blow, however, came from Prussia, where the King Frederick William had died a few months before, and been succeeded by his son Frederick the Second; a Prince surnamed the Great by poets."

_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 23 (volume 3)._

"The elector of Bavaria acted in a prompt, honest, and consistent manner. He at once lodged a protest against any disposition of the hereditary estates to the prejudice of his own rights; insisted on the will of Ferdinand I.; and demanded the production of the original text. It was promptly produced. But it was found to convey the succession to the heirs of his daughter, the ancestress of the elector, not, as he contended, on the failure of male heirs, but in the absence of more direct heirs born in wedlock. Maria Theresa could, however, trace her descent through nearer male heirs, and had, therefore, a superior title. Charles Albert was in any event only one of several claimants. The King of Spain, a Bourbon, presented himself as the heir of the Hapsburg emperor Charles V. The King of Sardinia alleged an ancient marriage contract, from which he derived a right to the duchy of Milan. Even August of Saxony claimed territory by virtue of an antiquated title, which, it was pretended, the renunciation of his wife could not affect. All these were, however, mere vultures compared to the eagle [Frederick of Prussia] which was soon to descend upon its prey."

_H. Tuttle, History of Prussia, 1740-1745, chapter 2._

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AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740 (October-November). The War of the Succession. Conduct of Frederick the Great as explained by himself.

"This Pragmatic Sanction had been guarantied by France, England, Holland, Sardinia, Saxony, and the Roman empire; nay by the late King Frederic William [of Prussia] also, on condition that the court of Vienna would secure to him the succession of Juliers and Berg. The emperor promised him the eventual succession, and did not fulfil his engagements; by which the King of Prussia, his successor, was freed from this guarantee, to which his father, the late king, had pledged himself, conditionally. ... Frederic I., when he erected Prussia into a kingdom, had, by that vain grandeur, planted the scion of ambition in the bosom of his posterity; which, soon or late, must fructify. The monarchy he had left to his descendants was, if I may be permitted the expression, a kind of hermaphrodite, which was rather more an electorate than a kingdom. Fame was to be acquired by determining the nature of this being: and this sensation certainly was one of those which strengthened so many motives, conspiring to engage the king in grand enterprises. If the acquisition of the dutchy of Berg had not even met with almost insurmountable impediments, it was in itself so small that the possession would add little grandeur to the house of Brandenbourg. These reflections occasioned the king to turn his views toward the house of Austria, the succession of which would become matter of litigation, at the death of the emperor, when the throne of the Cæsars should be vacant. That event must be favourable to the distinguished part which the king had to act in Germany, by the various claims of the houses of Saxony and Bavaria to these states; by the number of candidates which might canvass for the Imperial crown; and by the projects of the court of Versailles, which, on such an occasion, must naturally profit by the troubles that the death of Charles VI. could not fail to excite. This accident did not long keep the world in expectation. The emperor ended his days at the palace La Favorite, on the 26th [20th] day of October, 1740. The news arrived at Rheinsberg when the king was ill of a fever. ... He immediately resolved to reclaim the principalities of Silesia; the rights of his house to which [long dormant, the claim dating back to a certain covenant of heritage-brotherhood with the duke of Liegnitz, in 1537, which the emperor of that day caused to be annulled by the States of Bohemia] were incontestable: and he prepared, at the same time, to support these pretensions, if necessary, by arms. This project accomplished all his political views; it afforded the means of acquiring reputation, of augmenting the power of the state, and of terminating what related to the litigious succession of the dutchy of Berg. ...The state of the court of Vienna, after the death of the emperor, was deplorable. The finances were in disorder; the army was ruined and discouraged by ill success in its wars with the Turks; the ministry disunited, and a youthful unexperienced princess at the head of the government, who was to defend the succession from all claimants. The result was that the government could not appear formidable. It was besides impossible that the king should be destitute of allies. ... The war which he might undertake in Silesia was the only offensive war that could be favoured by the situation of his states, for it would be carried on upon his frontiers, and the Oder would always furnish him with a sure communication. ... Add to these reasons, an army fit to march, a treasury ready prepared, and, perhaps, the ambition of acquiring renown. Such were the causes of the war which the king declared against Maria Theresa of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia."

_Frederick II. (Frederick the Great), History of My Own Times: Posthumous Works (translated by Holcroft),