Louis Takes French Agreement To Heart

Finally, the Great Peace slowed down the continental expansion of the British colonies and facilitated that of New France. As de Callière had hoped, despite one or two conflicts, the agreement was maintained in the following years and consolidated the vast network of alliances between French and Indians, a network that would be maintained until the conquest of New France by the British in 1760. Fleury sent his highest general, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Duke of Belle-Isle, the Marshal of Belle-Isle, the grandson of Fouquet, the famous disgraced financial controller of Louis XIV, as ambassador to the Reichstag of Frankfurt, with instructions to avoid a war by supporting the candidacy of the Elector of Bavaria to the Austrian throne. Instead, the Marshals, who hated the Austrians, made a deal to ally with the Prussians against Austria and the war began. [40] The French and Bavarian armies quickly conquered Linz and besieged Prague. On April 10, 1741, in the Battle of Molwitz, Friedrich won a great victory over the Austrians. On May 18, Fleury set up a new alliance that united France, Prussia, Spain and Bavaria, then Poland and Sardinia. However, in 1742, the balance of the war against France was changed. Born in Germany, British King George II, who was also Elector of Hanover, entered the war on the Austrian side and personally took the lead of his soldiers who were fighting in Germany against the French. Maria Theresia`s Hungarian army reconquered Linz and invaded Bavaria as far as Munich. In June, Friedrich von Prussia withdrew from the alliance with France after receiving the Silesian crown from the Austrians.

Belleville had to leave Prague, with a loss of eight thousand men. For seven years, France faced a costly war with ever-changing alliances. Orry, the Superintendent of French Finance, was forced to reinstate the highly unpopular Dixieme tax to finance the war. Cardinal de Fleury no longer witnessed the end of the conflict; He died on 29 Jan. 1743, and Louis reigned alone. [41] The decision to hold the peace conference in the Dutch Republic was dictated in part by the central role of the Dutch Republic and William III in the coalition, but it was also an acceptable proposal for Louis XIV, as many Dutch leaders had little interest in continuing the war after they had moved away from their territories. A peace conference in the Republic, even if it did not take place in the political heart of the Republic, in The Hague, would offer French diplomats a better chance of exploiting the divisions between the holder-led war party and the peace party within the Republic. Another way of doing that the situation of the Nijmegen Peace Conference was different from that of Westphalia is that in Nijmegen it was decided to make Catholics and Protestants live and work together in one city.

In the end, events on the battlefield and the skilful exploitation of divisions within the Republic and the coalition had a greater impact. Some great successes of the French armies in the Spanish Netherlands – with the capture of Ghent and Ypres in the early stages of the 1678 campaign – and the effective neutralization of Great Britain forced the Dutch to collapse. On August 10, 1678, the Dutch signed a separate peace treaty with France (14 STCs 365) and a commercial and maritime treaty (14 STCs 399). . . .