The War of the Austrian Succession began in 1740 when Prussia invaded Silesia, after Maria Theresa ascended the Austrian throne. It raged for eight years, culminating in the Russian army's advance from Moscow to the Rhine River in support of Austria; though they arrived to late to be of much help, it signalled the end of open conflict.
A congress of nations gathered in Aachen, Germany on April 24, 1748 to hammer out the details of a peace treaty. The agreement they came up with was signed on October 18 of the same year; it was called the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, after the French name for Aachen.
The treaty itself was mostly negotiated by France and Great Britain, followed by the others once its main points had been determined. Generally speaking, what it did was restore the territories that had been conquered to their original owners. Its specific terms were as follows:
- The fortified city of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, was returned by Great Britain to France; it had been conquered after a series of sieges in 1745.
- Madras, India was returned to Britain by France.
- Barrier towns that had been taken during the conflict were returned to the Dutch.
- Maria Theresa, the heiress of Habsburg, was awarded lands in Austria.
- The duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla in Italy were ceded to Spain, from Austria.
- Prussia, though not involved directly in treaty negotiations, was allowed to keep the duchy of Silesia and the county of Glatz.
- The Duke of Modena and the republic of Genoa were restored to the positions they had held before the war.
- The House of Hanover was guaranteed the right to succession in Great Britain and Hanover.
- The Asiento contract of 1713 was renewed, and Britain was granted the right to send one ship annually to the Spanish colonies.
The treaty settled nothing; instead it angered nearly everyone involved. Its support of Maria Theresa was superficial, as it forced cession of the Italian duchies. By awarding Silesia to Prussia, both France and Britain hoped to gain its support for the future; in this way the treaty can be seen as affirmation of the fact that more conflict was unavoidable.
Overseas, returning Louisbourg to France was nothing more than delaying the inevitable; the city would eventually be captured again. It did nothing to address the commercial struggle between France and Britain in Africa and the West Indies. Spain was so dissatisfied with the Asiento clause that its role was supplanted by the Treaty of Madrid two years later, which removed Britain's right to send a ship to the Spanish colonies.
Though it failed to create a lasting peace in Europe, the treaty wasn't all bad. French composer Jean Philippe Rameau was commissioned to write an opera in commemoration of the event; the opera he wrote was called Nais, and it still crops up occasionally in Baroque concerts and recordings. In England, a similar request was made to George Frideric Handel; in response, he wrote "The Musick for the Royal Fireworks", which is both profoundly lovely and enduringly popular.
On a political level, however, the treaty's inadequacy was confirmed less than a decade after it was signed, when the Seven Years War broke out in 1756.
Sources:
Bonnie Prince Charlie's Secret Return. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist/makhist4_prog6a.shtml
"St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, pianist Ohlsson to perform Beethoven". (News release dated 13 October 2000.) University of Iowa. http://www.uiowa.edu/~ournews/2000/october/1013st_paul.html
Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle. University of Houston. http://www.hfac.uh.edu/gbrown/philosophers/leibniz/BritannicaPages/Aix-la-ChapelleTreaty/Aix-la-ChapelleTreaty.html
Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Aix-la-Chapelle
War of the Austrian Succession. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Austrian_Succession
All pages accessed on 27 July 2004.