This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly as received 70-6777 GAEDDERT, Dale Albert, 1938- THE FRANCO-BAVARIAN ALLIANCE DURING THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 History, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan © _ Dale Albert Gaeddert 1970 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE FRANCO-BAVARIAN ALLIANCE DURING THE WAR OF j?HE SPANISH SUCCESSION DISSERTATION Presented In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Dale Albert Gaeddert, B.A.» M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 1969 Approved by Adviser Department of History PREFACE This study has developed out of my work begun in the seminars of Dr. John C. Rule at The Ohio State University. I am grateful for his help in the formulation of this topic and for his assistance in the subsequent research and writing. The manuscript material was gathered in Munich, Germany in the collections of the Bayerlsches Geheimes Staatsarchiv and the Geheimes Hausarchlv. I wish to thank the director of the latter. Dr. Hans Rail, for his aid. Finally I am Indebted to Mrs. Elinor Whitman for reading this manuscript and to my wife, Judith, for typing it. li VITA February 10, 1938 . Born - Newton, Kansas i9 6 0 ............... B. A., Bethel College North Newton, Kansas 1 9 6 3............... M. A., Kansas University Lawrence, Kansas I963-I965 ............ Instructor, Department of History Texas College of Arts and Industries, Kingsville, Texas I965 -I968 ............ Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio I968-I969 ............ Instructor, Department of History University of Nebraska at Qnaha, Omaha, Nebraska FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Early Modern History. Professor John C. Bule French Revolution. .professor John C. Rule Renaissance and Reformation. Professor Harold J. Grimm Medieval. Professor Frank J. Pegues Colonial and Early National. Professor Paul C. Bowers ill TABLE OP CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................... ii VITA ........................................... H i LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS......................... v Chapter I. HAPSBURG AND WITTELSBACH..... .......... I II. BOURBON AND WITTELSBACH...... .......... 24 III. THE FORMATION OP THE FRANCO-BAVARIAN ALLIANCE ............................. 44 IV. JUNCTION OP THE FRANCO-BAVARIAN ARMIES . ?6 V. MAX EMANUEL AND VILLARS .............. 95 VI. 1704— THE YEAR OF DISASTER ....... 11? VII. AFTER BLENHEIM ........................ 140 VIII. THE POLICY OF RESTITUTION .............. l6 l IX. CONCLUSION.............................. I89 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY ............................ 202 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................... 216 iv LIST OP ILLUSTRATION Page 1. Nap of South Germany ........ 2. Map of Spanish Netherlands............... 160 v Chapter I HAPSBURG AND WITTELSBACH This paper is a study of the Franco-Bavarian Alliance in the War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-171^. The European powers had failed ito agree on a candidate to succeed Carlos II of Spain before he died on November 1, 1700. Then Louis XIV accepted the last will of Carlos II, which gave all the Spanish lands to the Bourbon claimant Philip of Anjou, and sent French troops into the Spanish Netherlands and the Milanese to secure Philip's claims. England, the United Provinces, Austria, and the major German states of Prussia, Hanover, and Saxony revived the Grand Alliance in 1702 to oppose what they considered was the extension of French pow;er over the Spanish Empire. France created a count er-cojallt ion of Portugal, Savoy, Cologne, and Bavaria. However, the French coalition j collapsed after the Allies occupied Cologne in 1702, and j Savoy and Portugal switched to the Allied side the next year. Only Bavaria remained a consistent French ally. I contend that France andI Bavaria tried to avoid a i prolonged war over the problem of the Spanish Succession. 1 The French occupied the Spanish lands in 1701 In order to 2 hold these areas until Austria, particularly, was ready to accept the division of the Spanish Inheritance. The French considered Bavaria to be the keystone state if a protracted war were to be avoided. A strong Bavaria blocked a con­ certed Allied attack against the French armies either in the Low Countries, Italy, or In the Rhineland. Not only did Bavaria*s strategic position protect France, but since Prussia and Saxony were the most probable states to desert the Allies, France needed Bavaria's military and diplomatic strength within the Empire. Thus an alliance with Bavaria offered France the best means of breaking the solidarity of the Allied states. In the Partition Treaties of 1 69 8 and 1699 between Louis XIV and William III of England, France had worked for a division of the Spanish Hapsburg's lands: Spain, the Spanish Indies, Naples, Sicily, the Milanese, and the Spanish Netherlands. As the possibility of a peaceful resolution of the Spanish Succession diminished in 1701, France relied upon Franco-Bavarian cooperation in the Empire to make the Allies accept a compromise. This was the best way to force the Allies to enter negotiations in a situation in which France held a strong military position without having first to endure a protracted war. Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria (Max Emanuel as he is called by Bavarian historians) seized upon the advan­ tageousness of his position in 1701-1702. He joined 3 with Prance In order to enlarge Bavarian territories, to make Bavaria a kingdom, and to acquire a part of the Spanish lands, preferably the Spanish Netherlands. This policy was not pretentious; rather, it was commonplace among the leaders of the lesser states in the early 1 7 0 0's. Savoy, for example, had the support of England for similar goals. French policy, also, was within the traditional limits of European diplomacy. Louis XIV did not seek either to gain the entire Spanish Inheritance or to destroy the Empire, but he expected to retain a major part of the Spanish Inheritance. I, also, maintain Max Emanuel's diplomacy represented Bavaria’s attempt to become one of the powers within Germany. He failed in his bid for three reasons. First, he was not the type of leader to resist the ruthless military tactics that the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy, the leaders of the Allied armies, used against Bavaria in 170^. Second, he failed because of an unforeseeable series of French defeats: Blenheim (170^), Ramillies (1706), Turin (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709). The war did not become a stalemate between France and the Allies which would have permitted Bavaria to maintain its strategic position between Austria and France. Instead, France defended Itself against the Allied attempt to force it back, at least, to its boundaries of 16**8. Third, the conflicts over military 4 strategy between Prance and Bavaria In 1703 caused a mutual distrust which contributed to the temporary end of Franco- Bavarian power in Central Europe as of 1704. France fought for ten more years to reconstruct the balance of power that had existed between the Allies and the Franco-Bavarians on the eve of the Battle of Blenheim on August 13. 1704. This study points out the significance of dynastic and personal honor in influencing the formulation of diplomatic policy. Max Emanuel demanded that the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons respect the House of Wittelsbach. In his opinion he had to ally with France in 1701, because Austria had refused to reward him for his military services in the 1 6 8 0's and 1 6 9 0*s by giving him additional titles and territories. The final rebuff to his pride came when Leopold I raised Prussia to the rank of a kingdom in 1701, while refusing to do the same for Bavaria. At the end of the war Louis XIV 1 s sense of dynastic honor was a major reason for the Elector's restitution in Bavaria. When the Allies demanded that France abandon Max Emanuel in 1709- 1710, Louis XIV refused, just as he also declined, in those desperate years for France, to evict Philip V from Spain. Max Emanuel's participation in the War of the Spanish Succession was a return to the policy of his grandfather, Maximilian I, during the Thirty Years War. Maximilian I had made Bavaria a powerful state in the Empire during his long electorship, 1598-1651* He placed the Bavarian Army in the service of the Emperor Ferdinand XI for which he hoped to gain the Hhine and the Upper Palatinates and the title of elector. Maximilian I failed to keep the Rhine Palatinate by the Peace of Westphalia in 16**8; however, he became an elector and made Bavaria the second ranking power behind Austria in South Germany. Ferdinand Marla reversed Maximilian I's policy after the latter*s death in 1651- Instead of a policy of expansion like his father's, Ferdinand Marla, during his electorship, 1 6 5 1-1 6 7 9, pursued the goals of retrenchment within Bavaria and peace abroad. Like other German princes he avoided foreign conflict through a neutrality compact with France. Within Bavaria he consolidated his adminis­ trative authority as a part of his plan to organize Bavarian recovery from the destruction of the Thirty Years War. His wife, the Electress Adelaide of Savoy, played an important part in Bavarian affairs. She changed the somber, formal, Spanish-style court that Maximilian I had kept in Munich to one patterned after the French which she had known in her native Savoy. She persuaded Ferdinand Maria to pursue a pro-French policy over the opposition of his mother, Maria Anna of Austria. The court and govern­ ment, largely through Adelaide's influence, was dominated 1 by French cultural and political attitudes. Max Emanuel had his mother's Savoyard vivaciousness 6 i rather than his father1s Hapsburg solemn righteousness, even though he was, by repeated Hapsburg-Wittelsbach inter­ marriage, more Hapsburg than any other prince outside the 2 immediate Hapsburg family.