War of the Spanish Succession
- Period
- 1701–1714
- Sides
- Grand Alliance vs Bourbon France & Spain
- Battles
- 45
The War of the Spanish Succession, 1701 to 1714, was a European great power conflict. The death of Charles II of Spain in November 1700 without children led to a succession crisis between Philip of Anjou, whose claim was supported by his grandfather, Louis XIV of France, and Archduke Charles of Austria, backed by the Grand Alliance. Related conflicts include the Great Northern War and Queen Anne's War in North America.
Sources: Wikipedia — War of the Spanish Succession · CC BY-SA 4.0
Battles 45
1701
Battle of Carpi
The Battle of Carpi was a series of engagements in the summer of 1701, and the first battle of the War of the Spanish Succession that took place on 9 July 1701 between France and Austria. It was a minor skirmish that the French commander decided was not worth fighting, but his soldiers were displeased at his decision to retreat, and he was subsequently replaced.
1701
Battle of Chiari
The Battle of Chiari was fought on 1 September 1701 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement was part of Prince Eugene of Savoy's campaign to seize the Spanish controlled Duchy of Milan in the Italian peninsula, and had followed his victory over Marshal Catinat at the Battle of Carpi in July. Marshal Villeroi replaced Catinat as commander of the Franco–Spanish–Savoyard forces in the theatre, carrying with him orders from King Louis XIV to push the Imperialists out of Italy.
1702
Battle of Vigo Bay
The Battle of Vigo Bay, also known as the Battle of Rande or sometimes as the Battle of Redondela Bay, was a naval engagement fought on 23 October 1702 during the opening years of the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement followed an Anglo-Dutch attempt to capture the Spanish port of Cádiz in September in an effort to secure a naval base in the Iberian Peninsula. From this station the Allies had hoped to conduct operations in the western Mediterranean Sea, particularly against the French at Toulon.
1702
Battle of Cremona
The Battle of Cremona took place on the night of 31 January to 1 February 1702, during the War of the Spanish Succession, between a French force under Maréchal Villeroi and an Imperial/Austrian army led by Prince Eugene of Savoy.
1702
Battle of Luzzara
The Battle of Luzzara took place in Lombardy on 15 August 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession, between a combined French and Savoyard army under Louis Joseph, duc de Vendôme, and an Imperial force under Prince Eugene.
1702
Battle of Friedlingen
The Battle of Friedlingen took place on 14 October 1702, during the War of the Spanish Succession. Most of the fighting centred around Friedlingen, now a suburb of Weil am Rhein, on the current border between Baden-Württemberg in Germany, and Switzerland. A French force under Villars defeated an Imperial army commanded by Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden.
1702
Battle of Cádiz (1702)
The Battle of Cádiz was an attempt by English and Dutch forces to seize the southern Spanish port of Cádiz in 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The Andalusian port of Cádiz served as the centre of Spanish trade with its American colonies. As such, the port's capture would not only help to sever Spain's links with her empire in the Americas, but it would also provide the Allies with a strategically important base from which the English and Dutch navies could control the western Mediterranean Sea.
1703
First Battle of Höchstädt
The First Battle of Höchstädt took place on 20 September 1703 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Fought near Höchstädt an der Donau in Bavaria, a combined Franco-Bavarian force under Claude Louis Hector de Villars defeated an Imperial army led by Hermann Otto II of Limburg Stirum.
1703
Battle of Ekeren
The Battle of Ekeren, which took place on 30 June 1703, was a battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. A Bourbon army of around 24,000 men, consisting of troops from France, Spain and Cologne, surrounded a smaller Dutch force of 12,000 men, which however managed to break out and retire to safety.
1703
Siege of Kehl (1703)
The 1703 siege of Kehl was a military action of the War of the Spanish Succession, in which French and Spanish forces under the command of the Duc de Villars captured the fortress of the Holy Roman Empire at Kehl, opposite Strasbourg on the Rhine River. Siege operations began on 20 February 1703, following Villars's early departure from winter quarters. The fortress, defended by 3,500 troops of Louis William, the Margrave of Baden-Baden, capitulated on 10 March.
1703
Battle of Speyerbach
The Battle of Speyerbach took place on 15 November 1703 during the War of the Spanish Succession, near Speyer in the Rhineland-Palatinate. A French army commanded by Camille de Tallard defeated an Allied force under Frederick of Hesse.
1704
Battle of Blenheim
The Battle of Blenheim fought on 13 August [O.S. 2 August] 1704, was a major battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. The overwhelming Allied victory ensured the safety of Vienna from the Franco-Bavarian army, thus preventing the collapse of the reconstituted Grand Alliance.
1704
Battle of Schellenberg
The Battle of Schellenberg took place on 2 July 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement was part of the Duke of Marlborough's campaign to save the Habsburg capital of Vienna from a threatened advance by King Louis XIV's Franco-Bavarian forces ranged in southern Germany. Marlborough had commenced his 250-mile (400 km) march from Bedburg, near Cologne, on 8 May; within five weeks he had linked his forces with those of the Margrave of Baden, before continuing on to the river Danube. Once in southern Germany, the Allies' task was to induce Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, to abandon his allegiance to Louis XIV and rejoin the Grand Alliance; but to force the issue, the Allies first needed to secure a fortified bridgehead and magazine on the Danube, through which their supplies could cross to the south of the river into the heart of the Elector's lands. For this purpose, Marlborough selected the town of Donauwörth.
1704
Capture of Gibraltar
The capture of Gibraltar by Anglo-Dutch forces of the Grand Alliance occurred between 1 and 4 August 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Since the beginning of the war the Alliance had been looking for a harbour in the Iberian Peninsula to control the Strait of Gibraltar and facilitate naval operations against the French fleet in the western Mediterranean Sea. An attempt to seize Cádiz had ended in failure in September 1702, but following the Alliance fleet's successful raid in Vigo Bay in October that year, the combined fleets of the "Maritime Powers", the Netherlands and England, had emerged as the dominant naval force in the region. This strength helped persuade King Peter II of Portugal to sever his alliance with France and Bourbon-controlled Spain, and ally himself with the Grand Alliance in 1703 as the Alliance fleets could campaign in the Mediterranean using access to the port of Lisbon and conduct operations in support of the Austrian Habsburg candidate to the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, known to his supporters as Charles III of Spain.
1704
Battle of Málaga (1704)
The Battle of Málaga, also known as the Battle of Vélez-Málaga, was a major fleet action which took place during the War of the Spanish Succession between an Anglo-Dutch fleet and a Franco-Spanish naval force on 24 August 1704. Both sides fought an intense engagement before the Anglo-Dutch fleet withdrew the next day. The French subsequently returned to Toulon, transforming the battle from a tactical stalemate into a strategic defeat, as they would not put out to sea again for the duration of the conflict. Occurring soon after the Anglo-Dutch capture of Gibraltar a few weeks prior, the battle served as one of the numerous engagements which took place for control over the settlement during the war.
1704–1705
Twelfth siege of Gibraltar
The twelfth siege of Gibraltar was fought between September 1704 and May 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession. It followed the capture in August 1704 of the fortified town of Gibraltar, at the southern tip of Spain, by an Anglo–Dutch naval force led by Sir George Rooke and Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt. The members of the Grand Alliance, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands, Pro-Habsburg Spain, Portugal and Savoy, had allied to prevent the unification of the French and Spanish thrones by supporting the claim of the Habsburg pretender Archduke Charles VI of Austria as Charles III of Spain. They were opposed by the rival claimant, the Bourbon Philip, Duke of Anjou, ruling as Philip V of Spain, and his patron and ally, Louis XIV of France. The war began in northern Europe and was largely contained there until 1703, when Portugal joined the confederate powers. From then, English naval attentions were focused on mounting a campaign in the Mediterranean to distract the French navy and disrupt French and Bourbon Spanish shipping or capture a port for use as a naval base. The capture of Gibraltar was the outcome of that initial stage of the Mediterranean campaign.
1705
Battle of Cassano (1705)
The Battle of Cassano took place on 16 August 1705, during the War of the Spanish Succession, near Cassano d'Adda, in Lombardy, Italy. It was fought between a French army commanded by the duc de Vendôme, and an Imperial force under Prince Eugene of Savoy.
1705
Siege of Barcelona (1705)
The siege of Barcelona took place between 14 September and 19 October 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession when a multinational Grand Alliance army led by Lord Peterborough, supporting the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne, captured the city of Barcelona from its Spanish Bourbonic defenders, most of whom then joined the Habsburg army.
1705
Battle of Elixheim
At the Battle of Elixheim, 18 July 1705, also known as the Passage of the Lines of Brabant during the War of the Spanish Succession, the Anglo-Dutch forces of the Grand Alliance, under the Duke of Marlborough and Field Marshal Ouwerkerk, successfully broke through the French Lines of Brabant. These lines were an arc of defensive fieldworks stretching in a seventy-mile arc from Antwerp to Namur. Although the Allies were unable to bring about a decisive battle, the breaking and subsequent razing of the lines would prove critical to the Allied victory at Ramillies the next year.
1705
Battle of Montjuïc (1705)
The Battle of Montjuïc took place between 13 and 17 September 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession. In the War of the Spanish Succession, a multinational force of the Second Grand Alliance, which supported Archduke Charles of Austria the Habsburg pretender to the Spanish throne, under the command of English general Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of Peterborough landed on the Catalan coast on August 22, 1705, intending to capture Barcelona. However, the force first had to take possession of Montjuïc Castle which defended the city. The Spanish and Neapolitan defenders were commanded by Francisco de Velasco
1705–1706
Siege of Nice (1705)
The siege of Nice took place between 15 March 1705 and 4 January 1706 as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. It pitched the forces of Louis XIV of France against those of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy – the latter were led by the marquis of Caraglio.
1705
Siege of Badajoz (1705)
The siege of Badajoz was a siege of the Spanish city of Badajoz in June and October 1705 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Both the June and October phases was conducted by an Anglo-Dutch force under Henri de Massue, Earl of Galway and François Nicolas Fagel on their advance into south-west Spain. However, the besiegers were forced to withdraw when cavalry reinforcements were sent by marshal René de Froulay de Tessé. The siege was renewed in October, but Galway lost an arm and Fagel again withdrew, meaning that the French were able to withdraw with all their guns. This failure caused Fagel to ask for his recall to the Netherlands.
1706
Battle of Ramillies
The Battle of Ramillies, fought on 23 May 1706, was a battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. For the Grand Alliance – Austria, England, and the Dutch Republic – the battle had followed an indecisive campaign against the Bourbon armies of King Louis XIV of France in 1705. Although the Allies had captured Barcelona that year, they had been forced to abandon their campaign on the Moselle, had stalled in the Spanish Netherlands and suffered defeat in northern Italy. Yet despite his opponents' setbacks Louis XIV wanted peace, but on reasonable terms. Because of this, as well as to maintain their momentum, the French and their allies took the offensive in 1706.
1706
Siege of Turin
The Siege of Turin, June to September 1706, took place during the War of the Spanish Succession. A French army led by Louis de la Feuillade besieged the Savoyard capital of Turin, whose relief by Prince Eugene of Savoy has been called the most brilliant campaign of the war in Italy. The siege is also famous for the death of Piedmontese hero Pietro Micca.
1706
Battle of Calcinato
The Battle of Calcinato took place near Calcinato in Lombardy, Italy on 19 April 1706 during the War of the Spanish Succession. A combined French-Spanish army led by the duc de Vendôme defeated an Imperial force under Graf von Reventlow.
1706
Siege of Barcelona (1706)
The siege of Barcelona took place between 3 and 27 April 1706 during the War of the Spanish Succession when a Franco-Spanish army laid siege to Barcelona in an attempt to recapture the city following its fall to an English-led Allied army the previous year. After the Earl of Peterborough entered Valencia in triumph in January 1706, Barcelona was left vulnerable. This led the French to change the plans of attacking Valencia and try to besiege Barcelona instead, while the city was blocked from the seaside by the Count of Toulouse. The Spanish forces were led by Philip V, while René de Froulay, Comte de Tessé was placed in charge of the French land forces during the siege.
1707
Battle of Almansa
The Battle of Almansa took place on 25 April 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession. It was fought between an army loyal to Philip V of Spain, Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne, and one supporting his Habsburg rival, Archduke Charles of Austria. The result was a decisive Bourbon victory that reclaimed most of eastern Spain for Philip.
1707
Siege of Toulon (1707)
The siege of Toulon took place between 29 July and 21 August 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession, when a combined Savoyard-Imperial army supported by a British naval force, attacked the French base at Toulon.
1707
Battle at The Lizard
The Battle at The Lizard took place on 21 October 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession near Lizard Point, Cornwall between two French squadrons under René Duguay-Trouin and Claude de Forbin and a British convoy protected by a squadron under Commodore Richard Edwards. Duguay-Trouin and Forbin were two of the most successful French naval commanders and they caused much damage to the British merchant fleet.
1707
Action of 2 May 1707
The action of 2 May 1707, also known as Beachy Head, was a naval battle of the War of the Spanish Succession in which a French squadron under Claude de Forbin intercepted a large British convoy escorted by three ships of the line, under Commodore Baron Wylde. The action began when three French ships, the Grifon, Blackoal and Dauphine, grappled HMS Hampton Court, killing her captain, George Clements, and taking her. Claude Forbin's 60-gun Mars next attacked HMS Grafton and, when joined by the French ships Blackoal and Fidèle, killed the Captain Edward Acton, and took her too. The convoy was scattered and the last British escort, HMS Royal Oak, badly hit and with 12 feet of water in her wells, managed to escape by running ashore near Dungeness, from where she was carried the next day into the Downs.
1707
Siege of Xàtiva (1707)
The Siege of Xàtiva was a siege of Xàtiva in the Kingdom of Valencia. It took place between 8 May and 6 June 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession.
1707
Siege of Gaeta (1707)
The siege of Gaeta was a three-month siege of the Italian city of Gaeta in 1707 by the forces of the Austrian monarchy under Wirich Philipp von Daun, during the War of the Spanish Succession. It ended on 30 September with the total destruction of the city's historic fortifications.
1708
Battle of Oudenarde
The Battle of Oudenarde, also known as the Battle of Oudenaarde, was a major engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession, pitting an Anglo-Dutch force consisting of eighty thousand men under the command of the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Overkirk and Prince Eugene of Savoy against a French force of eighty-five thousand men under the command of the Duc de Bourgogne and the Duc de Vendôme, the battle resulting in a great victory for the Grand Alliance. The battle was fought near the city of Oudenaarde, at the time part of the Spanish Netherlands, on 11 July 1708. With this victory, the Grand Alliance ensured the fall of various French territories, giving them a significant strategic and tactical advantage during this stage of the war. The battle was fought in the later years of the war, a conflict that had come about as a result of English, Dutch and Habsburg apprehension at the possibility of a Bourbon succeeding the deceased King of Spain, Charles II, and combining their two nations and empires into one.
1708
Siege of Lille (1708)
The siege of Lille was the main operation of the 1708 campaign season during the War of the Spanish Succession. Following their victory in the Battle of Oudenaarde, the Allies decided to besiege Lille, an important French city and perhaps the strongest fortress in Europe. After an obstinate defence of 120 days, the French garrison surrendered the city and citadel of Lille, commanded by Marshal Boufflers, to the forces of the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy.
1708
Battle of Wijnendale
The Battle of Wijnendale took place during the War of the Spanish Succession fought on 28 September 1708 near Wijnendale, Flanders, between an allied force protecting a convoy carrying ammunition for the Siege of Lille (1708) and forces of Bourbon France and Spain. It ended in a victory for the allies, leading to the taking of Lille.
1709
Battle of Malplaquet
The Battle of Malplaquet, 11 September 1709, was fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, near Taisnières-sur-Hon, close to the then border between France and Belgium. A French army of around 75,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Villars, engaged a Grand Alliance force of 86,000 under the Duke of Marlborough. In one of the bloodiest battles of the 18th century, the Allies won a narrow victory, but suffered heavy casualties.
1709
Battle of La Gudiña
The Battle of La Gudiña, Battle of Val Gudina, or Battle of Campo Maior, was fought on 7 May 1709 near Arronches between the Spanish Bourbon army of Extremadura, under the Marquis de Bay, and the Portuguese and British, under the Huguenot Earl of Galway and the Marquis of Fronteira. This battle resulted in a crushing defeat for the Anglo-Portuguese army, 4,000-5,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or captured, while the Spanish had only 400 soldiers dead or wounded.
1710
Battle of Villaviciosa
The Battle of Villaviciosa was a battle between a Franco-Spanish army led by Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme and Philip V of Spain and a Grand Alliance army commanded by Austrian General Guido Starhemberg. The battle took place during the War of the Spanish Succession, one day after a Vendôme's army overran a smaller British force under James Stanhope at Brihuega. Both Philip V of Spain and the Archduke Charles of Austria claimed victory, but the number of dead and wounded, the number of artillery and other weapons abandoned by the Allied army and the battle's strategic consequences for the war confirmed victory for Philip.
1710
Battle of Almenar
The Battle of Almenar took place near Balaguer in Catalonia, on 27 July 1710, during the War of the Spanish Succession.
1710
Battle of Saragossa
The Battle of Saragossa, 20 August 1710, took place during the War of the Spanish Succession, near Zaragoza in Spain. A slightly inferior Franco-Bourbon Spanish army commanded by the Marquis de Bay was severely defeated by a Grand Alliance force under Guido Starhemberg, which included Habsburg Spanish troops.
1710
Battle of Brihuega
The Battle of Brihuega took place on 8 December 1710 in the War of the Spanish Succession, during the Allied retreat from Madrid to Barcelona. A British Army rearguard led by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope was cut off and trapped within the town of Brihuega before being overwhelmed by a Franco-Spanish army under the command of Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme. The battle, along with other events, brought an end to British participation in the war.
1710
Battle of Syracuse (1710)
The Battle of Syracuse was a naval engagement of the War of the Spanish Succession fought on 9 November 1710, outside the Sicilian port of Syracuse. A French fleet of four ships under the command of Jacques Cassard came to relieve a heavily laden French merchant fleet that had been blockaded in the Syracuse harbour by a British fleet. Cassard arrived off Syracuse when most of the blockading fleet had left to resupply at Port Mahon; he successfully captured Falcon and Pembroke, the two ships left to maintain the blockade, and escorted the fleet to Marseille.
1711
Siege of Bouchain (1711)
The siege of Bouchain, following the Passage of the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra, was a siege of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the last major victory of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Marlborough and François Nicolas Fagel broke through the French defensive lines and took Bouchain after a siege of 34 days. Its capture left Cambrai the only French-held fortress between the allied army and Paris.
1712
Battle of Denain
The Battle of Denain was fought on 24 July 1712 as part of the War of the Spanish Succession. It resulted in a French victory, under Marshal Villars, against Dutch and Austrian forces, under Prince Eugene of Savoy.
1713–1714
Siege of Barcelona (1713–1714)
The siege of Barcelona was a 13 month battle at the end of the War of Spanish Succession, which pitted Archduke Charles of Austria against Philip V of Spain, backed by France in a contest for the Spanish crown. The capitulation of Barcelona represented the fall of the last pro-Habsburg stronghold in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as the end of the independent political status of the Principality of Catalonia.
Earlier and later events nearby
- 1610Galileo's telescopic discoveries
- 1648Peace of Westphalia
- 1683Battle of Vienna
- 1701–1714War of the Spanish SuccessionThis page
- 1805Battle of Austerlitz
- 1813Battle of Leipzig
- 1815Battle of Waterloo
Who ruled this land
States that held this place in the historical borders data (Cliopatria). Years are approximate, as fine as the data's snapshots (every few years to a century). Tap to open the map for that year.