THE HUMBLING OF FRANCE
We may probably say that no other man has made so great a difference
to the history of the world, by his last will and testament, as did
the King of Spain by that will which left all his monarchy to the
grandson of him who already was so great as to be called the Grand
Monarque. He willed away his vast territories, as it had been a
five-acre field, and his subjects, of many nationalities, as they had
been the sheep or cattle thereon.
And the Grand Monarque, by accepting the gift on behalf of his infant
grandson, united his enemies so that they forgot their own mutual
quarrels and formed a great alliance against him.
But he was very strong. He had a huge army, he had great wealth, and
he had the advantage of being at the centre of the theatre of
conflict, while his foes were on the circumference.
The most formidable in the alliance against him were the English and
the Dutch. William III., husband of Mary, daughter of James II., was
on the English throne. As Protestants and Stuarts, Mary and her
sister Anne, who succeeded in 1702, in some degree conciliated both
parties in England. William III., besides being married to England's
queen, was himself of the English Royal line, being a grandson of
Charles I. An Act of Settlement, as it was called, {110} had been
passed by the English Parliament which should exclude, after Anne's
death, a son born to James II. by a second marriage. This son, a
Catholic, thus excluded, received welcome at the French Court and
became the centre of Jacobite intrigues for the Crown of England. It
was his recognition as King of England by Louis XIV. which determined
William III. to support with all his forces what came to be known as
the Grand Alliance against France. William, however, died suddenly
as the result of an accident before the war really began.
Queen Anne then, came to the throne, and the command of the allied
English and Dutch forces was taken by John Churchill, later Duke of
Marlborough. He proved himself a great general. His first great
victory was in the battle of Blenheim in 1704, followed by that of
Ramillies two years later. The French had received so heavy a
beating that the Grand Monarque sought peace; but the terms offered
did not satisfy the victors.
The war was not restricted to the Netherlands. The little country of
Portugal was in the alliance; so too was, for a while, another small
country, the Duchy of Savoy in the north-west corner of Italy. Later
Savoy went over to the Habsburg party. The Emperor was on the side
of the allies.
Besides the Netherlands, the allies were victorious in Bavaria, in
Italy, and for a moment in Spain itself. The approach of an English
army to Madrid actually forced the king to leave his throne and his
capital; but that advance was not maintained, the allies were
defeated in Spain, and he was re-established. Between English and
French, the war was fought so far from home as Canada--much to the
English advantage in the peace by which it was concluded. But before
Louis would make peace on terms that the allies were willing to
accept, his armies had to suffer further defeat in the {111}
Netherlands at the hands of Marlborough. Oudenarde in 1708 and
Malplaquet in the following year are the places and dates of these
two English victories which were really decisive of the war.
Marlborough's success and the ascendancy which he and his duchess had
gained over the queen, made him many enemies at home. We begin about
this time to hear of the two great political parties, Tories and
Whigs. Marlborough was of the latter party, which was in power till
1710, in which year they lost place to the former. Marlborough was
dismissed from his command in the year following; and with his
dismissal negotiations for peace were renewed.
[Sidenote: Peace of Utrecht]
It was not until 1713 that its terms were finally agreed, in the
Peace of Utrecht; and in the main it gave the allies what they had
fought for. Certain frontier fortress towns were ceded to the
Netherlands by France. Louis, as representing the Habsburg house,
gave up all claim to the Spanish Netherlands. The King of Spain was
recognised as ruler in his own country, but renounced all right to
the French Crown. On the other hand, it was the Peace of Utrecht
that made Austria dominant for many years in Italy. In Canada,
England gained a large territory from the French.
Look where we may on the scene of the great story in this period, we
find great misery everywhere. No sooner had the wars of religion
ceased than there began those wars over the succession to the thrones
of the newly formed or forming nations. It seems that as soon as the
people began to have any sense of nationality, as we say--any feeling
that as a nation they had an existence free and independent of the
others--they at once found themselves faced by the danger of some one
nation, or some one Royal house ruling several nations, becoming so
strong as to take their liberty from them. First were the Habsburgs
{112} and next the power of Spain, then that of France: nor have we
even so by any means come to the end of these wars of succession. We
have to hear of more. The nations could no longer endure the idea of
an empire such as Charlemagne's, with authority over them.
The Emperor, still so-called, had little power: it was scarcely more
than nominal over the German States by which he was elected. About
the date of the Peace of Utrecht, an event took place in those German
States which was to be of much importance in the future. That was
the accession of the Elector--the ruler who had a vote for the
election of the Emperor--of Brandenburg, to the throne of Prussia.
Its import, of course, was not seen at the time, but it was the
beginning of the dominance of Prussia over Germany.
The Emperor, with such power as he might command, had been one of the
allies against Louis, but he had his own troubles on his
north-eastern boundary to occupy his attention. We have before now,
in course of the story, seen a King of Sweden coming down from the
north and fighting in Germany. That was in the days of the great
Gustavus Adolphus, commanding the Protestant forces and dying in the
hour of victory at Lutzen, near Leipsic.
[Sidenote: Charles XII]
Now, in the early years of the eighteenth century, we have another
King of Sweden, Charles XII., fighting in Germany; but it is no
religious war that he is waging. He is fighting in the first place
to maintain his right to his kingdom of Sweden. Kings of Sweden had
at one time or other coveted the throne of Poland. But also more
than one King of Poland had laid claim to the throne of Sweden. And
now, although this claim had been formally renounced, Charles XII.
had no sooner acceded, than Danes (including Norwegians), Poles, and
Russians united to dethrone {113} him. That very remarkable ruler,
Peter the Great, was at this time Tsar.
The young King of Sweden first met and defeated the Danes, next the
Russians, and then marched his victorious troops into Poland, which
he conquered and overran. As a result of his victories he seems to
have gained little, however, beyond the maintenance of his own throne
in Sweden, and, after remaining two years or more in Poland, he set a
king of his own nomination, Leszynska, on its throne, made peace with
his enemies and went back to his own country. Three years later,
however, he was again fighting in Russia, and it was during this
campaign, that his armies pushed into Germany also. In Russia he
finally suffered an overwhelming defeat at Pultowa: this was in 1709,
and one result of that disaster was that his nominee lost the crown
of Poland.
After Pultowa, Charles fled to the Turks, engaged them as his allies
and persuaded them to send an army of invasion into Russia; but after
a short campaign peace was made between Russia and Turkey, and in
1714 Charles returned to his own country. He died four years later;
and thereafter Sweden was no more a great actor in our story. The
power of Russia, on the other hand, continually increased, and within
a few years Russian armies were victoriously overrunning Sweden
itself. The Swedes, nevertheless, preserved their independence, but
were no longer dangerously aggressive to the nations south of the
Baltic.
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