An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Louis' grandson, Philip, becomes king of Spain.

It was a weighty question whether Louis should permit his grandson to accept this hazardous honor. Should Philip become king of Spain, Louis and his family would control all of southwestern Europe from Holland to Sicily, as well as a great part of North and South America. This would mean the establishment of an empire more powerful than that of Charles V. It was clear that the disinherited emperor and the ever watchful William of Orange, now king of England, would never permit this unprecedented extension of French influence. They had already shown themselves ready to make great sacrifices in order to check far less serious aggressions on the part of the French king. Nevertheless, family pride and personal ambition led Louis criminally to risk the welfare of his country. He accepted the will and informed the Spanish ambassador at the French court that he might salute Philip V as his new king. The leading French newspaper of the time boldly proclaimed that the Pyrenees were no more.

The War of the Spanish Succession.

King William soon succeeded in forming a new Grand Alliance (1701) in which Louis' old enemies, England, Holland, and the emperor, were the most important members. William himself died just as hostilities were beginning, but the long War of the Spanish Succession was carried on vigorously by the great English general, the duke of Marlborough, and the Austrian commander, Eugene of Savoy. The conflict was even more general than the Thirty Years' War; even in America there was fighting between French and English colonists, which passes in American histories under the name of Queen Anne's War. All the more important battles went against the French, and after ten years of war, which was rapidly ruining the country by the destruction of its people and its wealth, Louis was willing to consider some compromise, and after long discussion a peace was arranged in 1713.

The Treaty of Utrecht, 1713.

The Treaty of Utrecht changed the map of Europe as no previous treaty had done, not even that of Westphalia. Each of the chief combatants got its share of the Spanish booty over which they had been fighting. The Bourbon Philip V was permitted to retain Spain and its colonies on condition that the Spanish and French crowns should never rest on the same head. To Austria fell the Spanish Netherlands, hereafter called the Austrian Netherlands, which continued to form a barrier between Holland and France. Holland received certain fortresses to make its position still more secure. The Spanish possessions in Italy, i.e., Naples and Milan, were also given to Austria, and in this way Austria got the hold on Italy which it retained until 1866. England acquired from France, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Hudson Bay region, and so began the expulsion of the French from North America. Besides these American provinces she received the island of Minorca with its fortress, and the rock and fortress of Gibraltar, which still gives her command of the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean.

The development of international law.

The period of Louis XIV is remarkable for the development of international law. The incessant wars, the great alliances embracing several powers, and the prolonged peace negotiations, such as those which preceded the treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht, made increasingly clear the need of well-defined rules governing independent states in their relations with one another both in peace and in war. It was of the utmost importance to determine, for instance, the rights of ambassadors and of the vessels of neutral powers not engaged in the war, and what should be considered fair conduct in warfare and in the treatment of prisoners.

Grotius' War and Peace.

The first great systematic treatise on international law was published by Grotius in 1625, when the horrors of the Thirty Years' War were impressing men's minds with the necessity of finding some other means than war of settling disputes between nations. Grotius' War and Peace was followed, in Louis XIV's time, by Pufendorf's On the Law of Nature and Nations (1672). While the rules laid down by these and later writers on international law have by no means put an end to war, they have prevented many conflicts by settling certain questions and by increasing the ways in which nations may come to an understanding with one another through their ambassadors without recourse to arms.