A history of England

by Charles Oman

He was succeeded by a coalition of all the Whig factions, under the nominal premiership of Lord Wilmington, the greatest nonentity in the whole cabinet. The real chiefs of the new ministry were Lord Carteret, an able diplomatist with a vast knowledge of European politics, and the two Pelhams—Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, and Henry, his younger brother. These two kinsmen were a pair of busy and ambitious mediocrities, who stuck like limpets to office. They had been reared in Walpole's school, understood all his arts of management and corruption, and had served under him to the last, though for a year or more they had been quietly intriguing for his fall, in order that they might succeed to his power.

The "War of the Austrian Succession."

The Carteret-Pelham ministry had to face a much larger problem in European politics than the mere struggle with Spain. During the last year the whole continent had been set ablaze by the "War of the Austrian Succession." In 1740 died the Emperor Charles VI., the Archduke Charles who had been a claimant for the Spanish throne in the days before the peace of Utrecht. He was the last male of the house of Hapsburg, and his death opened a question somewhat resembling that of the Spanish succession in 1702. Charles had determined that his broad dominions—the Austrian archduchies, the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, the Austrian Netherlands, and the duchies of Milan and Parma in Italy—should pass in a body to his daughter Maria Theresa. He chose to ignore the fact that his own elder brother, Joseph I., had left two daughters, who on any principle of hereditary succession had a better claim to the Hapsburg inheritance than their younger cousin. The elder princess Maria Amelia was the wife of Charles, the reigning Elector of Bavaria. Charles VI. spent the last twenty years of his life in arranging for his daughter's quiet succession. He drew up an instrument called the "Pragmatic Sanction," by which she was recognized as his heiress, and got it ratified by the estates of the various principalities of his realm. He also induced most of the powers of Europe at one time and another to guarantee this settlement; England, France, Spain, Prussia, and Russia had all been brought to assent to it by concessions of some sort. Only the Elector of Bavaria, the prince whose rights were infringed by the "Pragmatic Sanction," had consistently refused to accept any compensation for abandoning his wife's claims.

Frederic II. seizes Silesia.

But when Charles died in 1740, it was seen how little the promises of most of the European powers were worth. The accession to the Hapsburg heritage of a young princess with a doubtful title was too great an opportunity to be lost by the greedy neighbours of Austria. When Charles of Bavaria laid claim to his uncle's dominions, and presented himself as a candidate for the imperial throne, he got prompt assistance from many quarters. The first to stir was Frederic II., the able and unscrupulous King of Prussia. Frederic had some ancient claims to certain parts of the duchy of Silesia. He had also a devouring ambition and the best-disciplined army in Europe, an army which his eccentric father Frederic William had spent a whole lifetime in organizing. Without any formal declaration of war, Frederic II. threw himself on Silesia and swept out of it the armies which Maria Theresa hastily sent against him (1741).

France and Spain join the Elector of Bavaria.

Then France and Spain threw in their lot with the Elector of Bavaria. Lewis XV. had his eye on the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands, while the old Philip V. wanted the duchies of Parma and Milan for his younger son. Thus beset by France, Spain, Prussia, and Bavaria, it seemed certain that Maria Theresa must succumb. Her rival Charles was chosen Emperor by a majority of the electors, and it seemed as if the imperial sceptre was about to pass from the house of Hapsburg. The Austrian Netherlands, Silesia, Bohemia, and the Milanese were all invaded at once, and the armies of Maria Theresa could not make head at so many points against the numerical superiority of their foes. The only ally to whom she could look for aid was England, who was already the open enemy of Spain, and who could not tolerate the conquest of the Netherlands by France.

Policy of Carteret.—England joins Maria Theresa.

An appeal for aid to this quarter met with a ready response. George II. was anxious to help the Queen of Hungary because he disliked his nephew Frederic II., and did not wish to see a Bavarian Emperor. Carteret, the leading spirit in the ministry, was even more eager for the fight. He was a far-sighted man who had realized the fact that England must inevitably come into collision with France from their rivalry in trade and colonization, and he therefore held that France's enemies were our friends. It was his wish to see England embark boldly in the strife, and send a large army to Germany to aid the Austrians. If France were involved in an exhausting continental war, he held that she would be unable at the same time to keep up a maritime struggle with England. Accordingly, the ministry promised the Austrians a large subsidy, took 16,000 Hanoverian troops into British pay, and sent all the available strength of the national army to Germany. George II., who was burning for the fray, placed himself at the head of the Anglo-Hanoverian forces and moved rapidly down to the Main, to attack the flank of the French army which was invading Austria.