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Austria The Turkish Wars and the Siege of Vienna
In 1663 rivalries between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs in
Transylvania triggered renewed fighting between the Ottoman
Empire and the Habsburg Empire. The Turkish threat, which
included a prolonged but unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1683,
prompted Poland, Venice, and Russia to join the Habsburg Empire
in repelling the Turks. In 1686 Habsburg forces moved into
central Hungary and captured Buda. By 1687 the Ottoman Empire had
been eliminated as a power in central Hungary. In the late 1690s,
command of the imperial forces was entrusted to Prince Eugene of
Savoy. Under his leadership, Habsburg forces won control of all
but a small portion of Hungary by 1699.
The War of the Spanish Succession
In 1700 the death of Charles II of Spain ended the Spanish
Habsburg line. Spain's steady decline throughout the seventeenth
century had already led to minor armed conflicts aimed at a
realignment of power among European countries, and these
rivalries blossomed into the War of the Spanish Succession
(1701-14). Both Leopold I and King Louis XIV of France, Charles's
two nearest relatives, hoped to establish a junior branch of his
own dynasty in Spain. But neither was willing to rule out the
possibility that a single heir might someday inherit the lands of
both the principal line and its Spanish offshoot. The strong
central government and political institutions of France made the
possible union of Spain and France a far greater threat to other
European countries than the possible union of Spain and the
Habsburg lands in Central Europe. Thus, when the dying Spanish
king named as his heir Louis's son, Philip, Britain and a number
of other European countries rallied to the Habsburg cause.
Despite early victories by the Austro-British alliance, the
allies were unable to install the Austrian Archduke Charles on
the Spanish throne. As the war dragged on, the alliance began to
unravel, especially when, after the death of Leopold's elder son,
Charles became Holy Roman Emperor in 1711. The actual unification
of the Habsburg lines in Charles VI (r. 1711-40) posed a greater
threat to other European powers than did the possible union of
war-weakened France and Spain. Austria's allies made peace with
France in 1713 and signed the Treaty of Utrecht. Because his
former allies negotiated a treaty to protect their own interests,
the settlement Charles received when he finally abandoned the war
in 1714 was meager: the Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium)
and various Italian territories.
Data as of December 1993
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