On This Day in History: April 11

The Peace of Utrecht

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Hapsburg King of Spain Charles II was inbred as fuck and died young without an heir in 1700. What followed was the War of Spanish Succession: 14 years of conflict involving much of Western Europe to determine the fate of the world for centuries to come.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: April 11, 1713--

Chuck 2 was the last Hapsburg ruler, but the house still existed. And the Spanish Empire was rich and powerful, so of course the Austrian Hapsburgs wanted to keep control of it in the family. On the other side was the French House of Bourbon, which also had a dynastic claim to the Spanish throne.

Britain was like let’s just split shit up so we can keep a balance of power, and Chuck 2 on his deathbed said no fucking way and for some reason went against his family, maybe as a fuck you for all the inbreeding, and decided that the Bourbon Philip, Duke of Anjou, who was the grandson of the king of France, should be the next king of Spain. And that’s what happened, and a lot of people really didn’t like it.

England and Holland were pissed because they were in competition with France, and having some French dude controlling the mighty Spanish Empire was no bueno. Holy Roman Emperor Leo I was all I promised that crown to my son dammit and when rich people promise something to their kid the kid fucking gets it or the kid has a goddamn meltdown.

Grand alliances formed. England, the Dutch, Prussia, Portugal etc. sided with House Hapsburg, and France, Bavaria, Cologne etc. sided with House Bourbon. The fighting over the next dozen years wasn’t just limited to Europe but spilled over into the American colonies. In total, there were about 400,000 combat deaths and another million plus dead from disease.

And it wasn’t really going anywhere. Philip was still king of Spain, and it was costing a lot of money and lives, so they worked out the Peace of Utrecht, a series of treaties, with the main ones signed on April 11, 1713.

The primary provisions were that Philip got to stay king in Spain, but he had to renounce any claim to the throne of France because that would upset the balance of power. But Britain made out like a fucking bandit, setting the stage for her growth into a major world power. She was granted the strategic ports of Gibraltar and Minorca to give the nation commercial dominance in the Western Mediterranean. Britain also got a monopoly to provide slaves to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Although Austria did okay too, getting a bunch of Spain’s European possessions.

The Peace of Utrecht was basically the end of the expansion of the French Empire, and the beginning of the British Empire, much to the chagrin of much of the rest of the world.

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