A Sketch of Policy

A Sketch of Policy France and the Southern Netherlands during the War of the Austrian Succession Pieterjan Schepens Promotor: prof. dr. René Vermeir Commissarissen: dr. Klaas Van Gelder en drs. Michiel Van Dam Masterproef voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte voor het behalen van de graad van Master in de Geschiedenis Academiejaar 2014-2015 Content Note on terminology ................................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction: Peace without victory? ....................................................................................................... 5 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................... 7 The War of the Austrian Succession ..................................................................................................... 11 The current state of research ................................................................................................................. 16 Natural Borders and French expansionism ........................................................................................ 16 French anti-expansionism .................................................................................................................. 18 Dynastic prestige ............................................................................................................................... 22 Constraints by the international system ............................................................................................. 23 Incompetence..................................................................................................................................... 27 Exhaustion ......................................................................................................................................... 30 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 33 The Southern Netherlands and France’s memoranda writers ................................................................ 35 The road to war in the Southern Netherlands .................................................................................... 35 Preparing the invasion ....................................................................................................................... 42 France invades the Southern Netherlands ......................................................................................... 48 Winning a European war ................................................................................................................... 55 The death of the Emperor .................................................................................................................. 64 France victorious ............................................................................................................................... 74 Clouds in the sky ............................................................................................................................... 89 Modération, désintéressement, and peace ......................................................................................... 97 Ligonier ........................................................................................................................................... 109 Aix-la-Chapelle ............................................................................................................................... 121 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 130 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 136 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 137 Samenvatting in het Nederlands .......................................................................................................... 140 2 3 Note on terminology The Early Modern period is something of a minefield when it comes to unambiguously referring to countries and regions. I have followed historiographical convention as much as possible, and my nomenclature will be self-evident in most instances. In some cases it requires an additional word of explanation. I use ‘Southern Netherlands’ to designate that part of the Low Countries that was directly ruled by the Emperor Charles VI in 1740. For most of the eighteenth century, the most convenient term to designate this political entity would be ‘Austrian Netherlands’, but in the context of the War of the Austrian Succession it is less confusing to use the more geographical ‘Southern Netherlands’. Contemporaries referred to this region in French as ‘les Pays-Bas’ or as ‘la Flandre’. I have only kept these terms in quotations. When referring to the wider geographical region encompassing the ‘Austrian Netherlands’, the prince-bishopric of Liège and even French Flanders, I have used ‘Southern Low Countries’. To designate the Northern Netherlands, I have used ‘United Provinces’ and ‘Dutch Republic’, and occasionally, when it could do without ambiguity, ‘the Republic’. In the eighteenth century this state was often referred to as ‘Holland’ or even ‘the States-General’. In contemporary sources, Maria Theresa is referred to as the ‘Queen of Hungary’, as this was her highest remaining title. I have nevertheless used ‘Austria’ to refer to her monarchy. Contemporaries continued to refer to the ‘House of Austria’. Moreover, there is little cause for confusion: when speaking about the geography of the country we now call Austria, the eighteenth century would have used ‘Lower Austria’ and ‘Upper Austria’, as well as Tyrol or Carinthia. I occasionally refer to the ‘Habsburgs’ as well, even though the Habsburg dynasty technically died with Charles VI, and Maria Theresa’s children belonged to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. ‘Germany’ was a geographical expression. In France, it roughly meant ‘across the Rhine and north of the Alps’. I have used it when appropriate. 4 Introduction: Peace without victory? To a patriotic Frenchman in the early spring of 1748, a look at the map of Europe must have been a gratifying experience. French fortunes during the ‘War of 1741’ had waxed and waned, but there could be no doubt now that France’s northern border had never been more secure. Gone were the dark days of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, when the enemies of the King had penetrated France as far as Lille; gone were the days when the treaties of Ryswick and Utrecht had taken away the French monarchy’s northernmost possessions, the fruit of several decades of warfare against the Spanish. France had nothing to fear from that quarter now: the armies of King Louis XV marched freely through the Southern Netherlands on their way to garrison the formidable Dutch fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom or to open the trenches before the walls of Maastricht. Frenchmen – and most Europeans with them – could entertain good hopes that the war which had started eight years earlier would soon be over. Within earshot of the guns pounding the walls of Maastricht, representatives of Europe’s foremost powers had convened in the Free Imperial City of Aachen – known as Aix-la-Chapelle to contemporary Englishmen – and were now busy negotiating a treaty of peace. To an observer of European politics there could have been little doubt that France would abandon most of its conquests if it did not want to rule out a lasting peace– or find yet another ‘Grand Alliance’ assailing its frontiers. But France might very well compensate itself for its efforts with a few fortresses along its northern border, if only to erase the losses of less than half a century before, and Marshal Vauban’s pré carré restore to its original condition – that ring of fortresses protecting the North of the kingdom from the sea to the Alps. At the end of April, the representatives of Louis XV and George II concluded a preliminary treaty. The people of France burst out in celebration at the news of the peace; but the joy made place for bewilderment as the actual content of the preliminaries spread. The King of France had forsaken annexation of even a single square inch of territory. Soon Frenchmen took to complaining that they spent eight years fighting a ‘war for the King of Prussia’ and turned ‘bête comme la paix’ – as foolish as the peace – into a proverb. If they had been privy to the actual negotiations, their astonishment would have been greater still: their 5 King had not even tried to gain any territorial compensation. Why would Versailles throw away its triumph? This question, which troubled most contemporary observers, has not ceased to plague historians. All sorts of theories explaining this remarkable renunciation have been advanced – but all them come from historians primarily interested in another subject of research, whether a traditional history of the war or a theoretical analysis of international relations; a biography of Louis XV or a reconstruction of the negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle. French policy towards the Southern Netherlands during the War of the Austrian Succession has never been studied in its own right. It may seem a limited subject in a vast war, but there is a need for it. First, because

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