War of the Spanish Succession: A multinational army led by the Austrian commander Guido Starhemberg defeats the Spanish-Bourbon army commanded by Alexandre Maître, Marquis de Bay in the Battle of Saragossa.
The Battle of Saragossa, also known as the Battle of Zaragoza, took place on 20 August 1710 during the War of the Spanish Succession. A Spanish Bourbon army loyal to Philip V of Spain and commanded by the Marquis de Bay was defeated by a Grand Alliance force under Guido Starhemberg.Despite this victory, which allowed Philip's rival Archduke Charles to enter the Spanish capital of Madrid, the Allies were unable to consolidate their gains. Forced to retreat, they suffered successive defeats at Brihuega in November and Villaviciosa in December, which effectively ended their chances of installing Archduke Charles on the Spanish throne.
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1715) was a conflict involving many of the leading European powers that was triggered by the death in November 1700 of the childless Charles II of Spain. It established the principle that dynastic rights were secondary to maintaining the balance of power between different countries. Related conflicts include the 1700–1721 Great Northern War, Rákóczi's War of Independence in Hungary, the Camisards revolt in southern France, Queen Anne's War in North America and minor struggles in colonial India.
Although weakened by over a century of continuous conflict, in 1700 the Spanish Empire remained a global power with its vast dominions including the Spanish Netherlands, large parts of Italy, the Philippines, and much of the Americas. Charles's closest heirs were members of the Austrian Habsburgs or French Bourbons; acquisition of an undivided Spanish Empire by either threatened the European balance of power.
Attempts by Louis XIV of France and William III of England to partition the empire in 1698 and 1700 were rejected by the Spanish. Instead, Charles named Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, as his heir; if he refused, the alternative was Archduke Charles, younger son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Having accepted, Philip was proclaimed king of an undivided Spanish Empire on 16 November 1700. The proclamation led to war, with France and Spain on one side and the Grand Alliance on the other to maintain the separation of the Spanish and French thrones.
The French held the advantage in the early stages, but were forced onto the defensive after 1706; however, by 1710 the Allies had failed to make any significant progress, while Bourbon victories in Spain had secured Philip's position as king. When Emperor Joseph I died in 1711, Archduke Charles succeeded his brother as emperor, and the new British government initiated peace talks. Since only British subsidies kept their allies in the war, this resulted in the 1713–15 Peace of Utrecht treaties, followed by the 1714 Treaties of Rastatt and Baden.
Philip was confirmed as king of Spain in return for renouncing the right of himself or his descendants to inherit the French throne; the Spanish Empire remained largely intact, but ceded territories in Italy and the Low Countries to Austria and Savoy. Britain retained Gibraltar and Menorca which it captured during the war, acquired significant trade concessions in the Spanish Americas, and replaced the Dutch as the leading maritime and commercial European power. The Dutch gained a strengthened defence line in what was now the Austrian Netherlands; although they remained a major commercial power, the cost of the war permanently damaged their economy.
France withdrew backing for the exiled Jacobites and recognised the Hanoverians as heirs to the British throne; ensuring a friendly Spain was a major achievement, but left them financially exhausted. The decentralisation of the Holy Roman Empire continued, with Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony increasingly acting as independent states. Combined with victories over the Ottomans, this meant the Austrian Habsburgs increasingly switched their focus to southern Europe.