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5 August, 11:54

What was the result of the war of the spanish succession

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  1. 5 August, 12:54
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    That's a simple question with an exceptionally tricky answer. Almost every combatant made gains and suffered losses. You really have to get out the scales to understand who came out a winner.

    Explanation:

    In Spain, the French House of Bourbon established itself on the throne, but used the revolt of the pro-Habsburg Kingdom of Aragon (including Aragon, Valencia, and Catalonia) as an excuse to push through a series of centralising reforms. One can make a case that the political situation in Catalonia today owes a great deal to the War of Spanish Succession.

    Great Britain enjoyed previously unparalled success in both the war and the peace. It consolidated its position as a first-rate European and global power, made significant territorial (in Canada and Spain, for example) and economic gains, and became 'Great Britain' in a political sense, to go with the geographic sense that it had always been. In 1707 Scotland and England agreed a political union that put an end to an independent Scottish parliament, and relocated the governing of Scotland to London.

    France somehow managed to both lose and win the war. She suffered numerous military defeats on land, shattering the aura of invincibility that she had acquired during the reign of King Louis XIV. She had been invaded by foreign armies, stripped of distant colonial territories, and reduced to the most severe levels of poverty. And yet ... the French prince Philip was confirmed King of Spain, and that's what the whole thing was about anyway. Ostensibly.

    The Dutch, in turn, managed to both win and lose the war. They were part of the Grand Alliance (of Great Britain, the Habsburg/Holy Roman Empire, Portugal, Savoy, etc. etc.) that I would maintain actually won the war, and yet found itself so utterly drained by the effort of the fight that they slipped from first rank power to second, and never recovered.

    Habsburg Austria similarly won but lost. Its candidate for the Spanish throne - Archduke Charles - had significant success in Spain, establishing himself in Madrid in both 1706 and 1710, but from December 1710 the likelihood of his ever being King pretty much disappeared. That said, he did become Holy Roman Emperor after his brother died in 1711. Additionally, the House of Habsburg gained modern-day Belgium, large swathes of Italy, and effectively extinguished the damaging Hungarian revolt. So then, they could be quite happy with their lot too, although they didn't achieve their main objective of Spain and the Indies (and we can debate whether that actually was the main objective of the government in Vienna (I told you it was tricky ...).

    After this you've got all the secondary participants in the war: Savoy, Portugal, Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia, Denmark even ... to cover all that you're going to have to find a well-stocked library and a lot of free time.
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