Exploring Austria's Historical Ties To Spain: Ownership And Influence

Austria was never owned by Spain. However, the two countries have a shared history.

In the 16th century, the Austrian Habsburgs and the Spanish Habsburgs were separate branches of the same family. The Austrian Habsburgs ruled the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Habsburgs ruled the Spanish Empire.

The Austrian Habsburgs were also involved in the War of the Spanish Succession, which took place from 1701 to 1714. The war was fought over the heir to the Spanish throne. The childless king Charles II of Spain, a Habsburg, had willed all his possessions to a Bourbon prince—a grandson of Louis XIV of France. All those who disliked the idea of a French hegemony in Europe consequently united against the French. The Austrian Habsburgs were among them.

Habsburg Spain and the Spanish Empire

Habsburg Spain refers to the period from 1516 to 1700 when Spain was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg. During this period, Spain was at the zenith of its influence and power, with territories around the world, including modern-day Spain, parts of France, Portugal, and lands outside the Iberian Peninsula, including in the Americas and Asia.

The Habsburg name was not always used by the family members, who often emphasised their more prestigious princely titles. The dynasty was thus long known as the "House of Austria".

The marriage of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1469 resulted in the union of the two main crowns, Castile and Aragon, which eventually led to the de facto unification of Spain. Isabella and Ferdinand were bestowed the title of "Catholic King and Queen" by Pope Alexander VI in 1494.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty and dominated Europe politically and militarily. Under Charles I, Spain colonized big parts of the Americas and established itself as the first modern global empire. Under Philip II, the Spanish empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans. During his reign, Spain reached the height of its influence and power.

The Habsburg years were also a Spanish Golden Age of cultural efflorescence. During this period, Spain produced some of the world's most outstanding writers and painters and influential intellectuals, including Teresa of Ávila, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Miguel de Cervantes, Francisco de Quevedo, Diego Velázquez, El Greco, Domingo de Soto, Francisco Suárez, and Francisco de Vitoria.

The last Spanish Habsburgs were Charles II and Philip IV. Charles II suffered from generations of inbreeding among the Spanish Habsburgs and was physically and mentally incapable of governing. Philip IV was succeeded by his son, Charles III, in 1700, who was the last ruler of Spain of the Habsburg dynasty.

The Austrian Succession

The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict fought between 1740 and 1748, primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italy, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Its pretext was the right of Maria Theresa to succeed her father, Emperor Charles VI, as ruler of the Habsburg monarchy.

The war was sparked by the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740, and the inheritance of the Habsburg monarchy. The 1703 Mutual Pact of Succession provided that if the Habsburgs became extinct in the male line, these possessions would go first to Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia, daughters of Emperor Joseph I, then those of Charles, his younger brother. Since Salic law excluded women from the inheritance, this agreement required approval by the various Habsburg territories and the Imperial Diet.

Charles succeeded Joseph in 1711 and two years later issued the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, which confirmed the principle of female inheritance. However, it also modified the 1703 agreement by placing the rights of his own children first and after his first child Maria Theresa was born in 1717, Charles' internal and external policy was dominated by ensuring her succession ahead of his two nieces.

On 16 December 1740, King Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia, one of the richest Habsburg provinces. His army defeated the Austrians at Mollwitz in April 1741 and overran Silesia. His victory enhanced the suspicion in Europe that the Habsburg dominions were incapable of defending themselves and thus ensured that the war would become general. Within a month France’s Charles-Louis-Auguste Fouquet, comte (later marshal and duc) de Belle-Isle, constructed an alliance with Bavaria and Spain and, later, with Saxony and Prussia against Austria. The Austrian ruler Maria Theresa (daughter of Charles VI) derived her main foreign support from Britain, which feared that, if the French achieved hegemony in Europe, the British commercial and colonial empire would be untenable.

The invasion of Austria and Bohemia by the French and Bavarian forces fell apart for lack of unity of purpose and military capability. Austria temporarily neutralized Prussia by allowing it to retain Silesia in July 1742, drove the French and Bavarians out of Bohemia (1742), and overran Bavaria. Austria’s allies—the British, Hanoverians, and Hessians—defeated the French at the Battle of Dettingen (June 27, 1743) in Bavaria. In September 1743 Savoy joined the Austrians, and the French withdrew toward their own borders. In January 1745 the emperor Charles VII (Charles Albert of Bavaria), who was also chief claimant to the Austrian succession, died. His son Maximilian III Joseph gave up these claims and pledged to support Francis Stephen at the imperial election in return for Austria’s restoration of its conquests to Bavaria. Frederick now feared the growing Austrian power, and he reentered the war. This Second Silesian War was concluded by the Treaty of Dresden in December 1745. It confirmed Prussian possession of Silesia.

The last major French success was Marshal Maurice de Saxe’s conquest of the Austrian Netherlands (1745–46), which followed his great victory at the Battle of Fontenoy on May 11, 1745. From 1746 to 1748 the war dragged on indecisively. The British had withdrawn their army to England to oppose the French-supported efforts of the young pretender, Charles Edward, to win the thrones of Scotland and England for the Stuarts. The financial burden finally pushed the powers to the conference table. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (see Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of) in October 1748 preserved the bulk of the Austrian inheritance for Maria Theresa. Prussia remained in possession of Silesia, however, and none of the colonial or other conflicts between France and Britain was resolved.

The Spanish Netherlands

In 1706, during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Habsburg Netherlands became an Anglo-Dutch condominium for the remainder of the conflict. By the peace treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt in 1713/14 ending the war, the Southern Netherlands returned to the Austrian Habsburg monarchy, forming the Austrian Netherlands.

The Austrian Netherlands

The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) later led to a division of the Low Countries between the Dutch Republic in the north and the Southern Netherlands, which later became Belgium and Luxembourg. The area had been held by the Habsburgs, but was briefly under Bourbon control in the War of the Spanish Succession. Under the Treaty of Rastatt (1714) which ended that war, the remainder of the Spanish Netherlands was ceded to Austria. Administratively, the country was divided into four traditional duchies, three counties and various lordships.

In the 1780s, opposition emerged to the liberal reforms of Emperor Joseph II, which were perceived as an attack on the Catholic Church and the traditional institutions of the Austrian Netherlands. Resistance grew, focused in the autonomous and wealthy Duchy of Brabant and County of Flanders. In the aftermath of rioting and disruption in 1787 known as the Small Revolution, many opponents took refuge in the neighbouring Dutch Republic where they formed a rebel army. Soon after the outbreak of the French and Liège revolutions, the émigré army crossed into the Austrian Netherlands and decisively defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Turnhout on 27 October 1789. The rebels, supported by uprisings across the territory, soon took control over much of the territory and proclaimed independence. Despite the tacit support of Prussia, the independent United Belgian States, established in January 1790, received no foreign recognition and soon became divided along ideological lines. The Vonckists led by Jan Frans Vonck advocated progressive and liberal government, whereas the Statists, led by Hendrik Van der Noot, were staunchly conservative and supported by the Church. The Statists, who had a wider base of support, drove the Vonckists into exile through terror.

By mid-1790, Habsburg Austria ended its war with the Ottoman Empire and prepared to suppress the rebels. The new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, was also a liberal and proposed an amnesty for the rebels. After defeating a Statist army at the Battle of Falmagne (22 September 1790), the territory was soon overrun and the revolution was defeated by December. The Austrian reestablishment was short-lived and the territory was overrun by the French in 1794 (during the War of the First Coalition) after the Battle of Fleurus.

The War of the Spanish Succession

The war was fought on five fronts: the Low Countries, the Rhine, the Danube, northern Italy, and Spain, as well as at sea. It was a war of considerable movement, conducted according to the strategic conception of the 18th century, which advocated manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre to contain an enemy, rather than the Napoleonic strategy of striking at the enemy’s main force regardless of losses.

The war was complex, with many allies on both sides whose interests and ambitions were sometimes in sharp conflict. It was also a war of considerable movement, with large armies of the time (often over 100,000 men) requiring expenditure that was unsustainable for pre-industrial economies.

The war turned in favour of the French in 1703, but the tide turned against them in 1705-06. In 1707, the imperial and Maritime Powers suffered reverses, but in 1708-09, the Allies enjoyed continued successes and the third round of peace negotiations.

In 1710, the fourth round of peace negotiations began, and France gained the initiative. In 1711, conflicts within the alliance led to its collapse, and peace negotiations began in 1712. The war concluded with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, which marked the rise of the power of Britain at the expense of both France and Spain, and the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden in 1714.

Although the French secured control of Spain and its colonies for a grandson of Louis XIV, the Austrians also ended up making significant gains in Western Europe, including the former Spanish Netherlands (now called the Austrian Netherlands, including most of modern Belgium), the Duchy of Milan in Northern Italy, and Naples and Sardinia in Southern Italy.

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