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War of the Austrian Succession

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Wednesday, 29th April 2009

  This seems to be the forgotten war of the 18th century. What exactly do we know about it and how significant was it in European political and diplomatic history?

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  Posted by Mikestone8 (U13249270) on Thursday, 30th April 2009

  Mostly, it signalled the arrival of Prussia (and Frederick the Great in particular) as a major power. His grab of Silesia moved his kingdom up in to the first rank of the powers.
  
  The big effect on diplomatic history was to trigger the Franco-Austrian alliance, as Austria, fixated on recovering Silesia, sought a deal with her traditional enemy. This led on to the Seven Years War, so that Europe, and particularly Germany, was a battleground for most of the generation from 1740-1763. Not quite a second Thirty Years War, but near enough.

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  Posted by RSS_643_IKWIG (U13662597) on Thursday, 30th April 2009

  Thursday. 30th April, 2009. 13:49BST
  Re. 'Vizzer aka U_numbers'
  NB. The real issues surrounding any war in history are sometimes; 'lost to time'. There was however; one issue which caused problems for all concerned with the 'War of the Austrian Succession'; then and in the future. That was the STAR FORT. In 'design and capability'; in defending a local population against 'the other' it was unmatched. Somebody wanted it at an end; which was what Tim Bell probably understood at Kingston Polytechnic, School of Art.

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  Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Thursday, 30th April 2009

  A couple of trivia points for your next pub quiz:
  
  It was the last war in which a British army was defeated in battle by the French (Fontenoy 1745)
  
  Two years earlier George II had become the last British king to lead his army into battle (Dettingen 1743)
  
  
  

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  Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Thursday, 30th April 2009

  Yorktown in 1781 was a joint American-French victory in which almost as many French (10,800) took part as Americans (11,100) and French participation certainly tipped the balance against Cornwallis' much smaller (about 9000)defending force.
  
  There may not have been a pitched battle but the Duke of York's Flanders campaign of 1793 must rank as amongst the more disastrous of British military history. Sir John Moore's fighting retreat from Spain in 1808-9 against Napoleon's and Soult's forces, although in the best tradition of the British Army which learned to perfect them and bearing a marked similiarity to the later retreat from France and the Low Countries in 1940, was still a retreat. Although Corunna, like Dunkirk, achieved its objective of evacuating the bulk of British forces it could hardly be accounted a victory.

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