by Tom Anderson
Charles VI had been well aware that this would cause complications, and so he had made all the great powers agree to his Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, recognising Maria Theresa’s inheritance. Unfortunately, Charles did not perhaps take enough lessons from history. The First War of Supremacy had technically been unnecessary, as the fate of Spain’s royal succession had already been agreed some years earlier, but that had failed to stop the European powers fighting over it anyway. The Second War was much the same. As soon as Charles died in 1740, Maria Theresa ascended her thrones and most of the great powers decided that they had collectively had their fingers crossed behind their backs. More to the point, Frederick II of Prussia pointed out that he had never been consulted on the Sanction in the first place, and suited actions to words by invading Austrian Silesia. France and Bavaria also decided to rescind their recognition of Maria Theresa’s claim. By the attitudes of the time, it was thought that a mere woman would soon crumble beneath the pressure and the vast Hapsburg empire would be the allies’ to dismember. The end result of this confident assertion is the reason why Maria Theresa is today something of a Cytherean[15] icon.
Great Britain might never have got involved if the war had occurred in isolation: Walpole had already managed to dissuade George II from entering the War of the Polish Succession some years before. However, Britain was already engaged in a war from 1739 that eventually blended into the wider European war. This was originally called the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and stemmed from the fact that, according to the 1729 Treaty of Seville, Britain was forbidden from trading with the Spanish colonies in America. The Spaniards were allowed by the Treaty to board and search British vessels in Spanish waters in case of such trade violations, but in 1731 a British captain, Robert Jenkins, claimed that a brutish Spanish officer had cut off his ear while performing the inspection on his brig Rebecca. The rumour became reality when Jenkins exhibited his preserved and pickled ear to the House of Commons in 1738, and not even Walpole could restrain the outrage of the House. To much cheering, he finally gave in and declared war on Spain.
Britain’s naval task force was commanded by Admiral Edward Vernon, known to his men as ‘Old Grog’. Vernon’s men and troops were often drawn from the Colonies, and included Lawrence Washington, Augustine Washington’s eldest son by his first wife, as his Captain of Marines on his flagship. Vernon himself, though persuaded of Prince Frederick’s qualities by Washington, remained personally loyal to George II.
Vernon’s first victory was in the first year of the war, when he captured the Spanish port of Porto Bello in Darien.[16] His victory was so decisive and absolute that the Spanish changed their trading practices, no longer using a few very large and rich ports with enormous treasure fleets, instead splitting them between many smaller ports. Vernon briefly returned to England and was acclaimed by the English people for his victories, including the first ever performance of God Save King George (later God Save The King). However, his performance in the rest of the war went badly, with Vernon’s attempted descent[17] of Cartagena-des-Indes in New Granada in 1741 being embarrassingly repulsed by greatly outnumbered Spanish defenders under Sebastian de Eslava. 1742 saw Vernon occupy Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, temporarily renaming it Prince William’s Bay,[18] before being driven from Cuba by Spanish irregulars. For now, at least, Cuba would remain Spanish.
The Spanish did not fight a wholly defensive war, either. A Spanish attack on Georgia in 1742 was repulsed at the Battle of Bloody Marsh, and the colonials attempted equally futile attacks on Spanish Florida at the same time. It was an indecisive war, one in which Vernon’s early victory was eclipsed by his later defeats. Historically he is more remembered for the introduction of watered rum into the Royal Navy, affectionately nicknamed ‘grog’ in his memory. Lawrence Washington nevertheless remained an admirer of Vernon, and managed to persuade Prince Frederick not to launch savage attacks on him as a means of targeting his father.
It has been suggested that this otherwise desultory war was an awakening of national consciousness, for it was at this time that the term American began to dominate over Colonial as a word to describe the British settlers in the Americas.
After 1742 the war merged into the greater European conflict when France joined Spain. It was at this time that Walpole’s government first began exacting increased taxes on the Americans in order to pay for the war, a highly unpopular policy and one which Frederick, of course, capitalised upon. Frederick also witnessed one of the failed American attacks on San Agustín, Florida,[19] although he did not participate, and it was here that he began to realise that these almost entirely colonial-based military ventures were creating a distinct American identity. This was a fact almost entirely missed by the British government.
In Europe, the war had spiralled out of control. France and Sweden had joined Prussia after Frederick’s victory at Mollwitz in 1741, with France supporting Charles Albert of Bavaria’s claims to Maria Theresa’s titles. The alliance suffered a defeat when Russia knocked Sweden out of the war by 1743 and annexed most of Finland, though Russia withdrew from the war after this.
The Franco-Bavarian forces, commanded by Marshal de Broglie and supported by the Electorate of Saxony, did not work at all well together. By the end of 1742 they had a tenuous grip on Bohemia, while Prussia controlled Silesia. The Peace of Breslau temporarily ended the Austrian-Prussian war, with Prussian control of Silesia acknowledged by Austria. Prince Charles of Lorraine’s army was released by this peace and was able to mostly eject de Broglie’s forces from Bohemia. King Louis XV’s ministers, realising they had an inadequate army in place, stripped more French forces from where they had been guarding the potentially hostile Hanover and threw them into the fight.
Britain’s initial contributions to the European war were in the Mediterranean, where a British squadron forced French-allied Naples to keep its troops at home, and, due to some peculiarities of the war declarations, Spain sent troops through France to fight Piedmont-Sardinia without Piedmont-Sardinia actually being at war with France.
1743 saw even greater losses for the French. Charles Albert had crowned himself Holy Roman Emperor in Prague, but then the Franco-Bavarians lost not only Prague but were also forced back through Bavaria as well, the Austrians augmented by enthusiastic Hungarian levies who supported Maria Theresa. The role of the Hungarians in the victory would eventually result in a more privileged position for them within the Hapsburg empire. It was at this point, with the Franco-Bavarians losing the initiative in Germany, that George II personally went to the Continent with Prince William and raised an army in Hanover. This would be a fateful decision for the future of Britain.
The Anglo-Hanoverian army, supported by the Austrians, met the French at the Battle of Dettingen on June 27th (by the Julian calendar which Britain still used). George, delegating his command to William, was outmanoeuvred by his superior French counterpart, the Duc de Noailles. However, the British still won the day, but at a terrible cost.
As George personally led his troops into battle on horseback, he was wounded in the shoulder by a French musket ball. The wound was not great, and George completed the battle with his shoulder bound up and Noailles forced to concede the field, withdrawing his army. It was at this point that Prince William became an admirer of Scotch troops, as the Royal Scotch Fusiliers had played an important role in the victory.
But George’s wound became infected. Stricken by a fever, he died in Hanover on August 12th. Britain and the Colonies mourned when they heard the news, although Prince Frederick saw it as the first step towards his return and is rumoured to have thrown a tasteless party.[20]
The transition was surprisingly orderly. The new King William IV had always been George’s favourite son and the two thought much alike. William returned to Britain after being defeated by Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy in 1745, a victory which according to some was spectacular enough that it bought the French ancien régime another thirty years of life in the face of growing dissatisfaction among the common peo
ple.[21] William put down Charles Edward Stuart’s Jacobite rebellion in 1745 with the Scotch troops he admired, committing acts in the process that were accused of being atrocities by many—the image of ‘Butcher Billy’ would be a useful propaganda tool for Frederick. George II’s body was returned to England and buried in Westminster Abbey. The British army in Europe was delegated to the Earl of Stair and continued to fight on alongside Charles of Austria. France entered the war directly, while fighting between Prussia and Austria over Silesia broke out once more. France abandoned Prussia and focused on the conquest of the Austrian Netherlands, which under Saxe’s brilliant leadership was successfully accomplished. A complex conflict in Italy eventually left Austria as the dominant power in that theatre.
The war dragged on until October 1748. In India, it was known as the First Carnatic War, and French East India Company forces under Joseph François Dupleix took Madras from their British counterparts. In the Colonies, though, American forces from New England successfully conquered the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island in 1745, a seemingly impossible task. And this time Frederick was there in person, fighting as a cavalryman and honourary lieutenant colonel. He did not seem to be put off by the fact that his father had died in a similar role, rather noting with annoyance that he and William had won glory as a result of it. The operation was commanded by William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts and another acquaintance of Frederick’s. After fifty days of a land siege and far more of a naval blockade, the French surrendered. “This is a great Yankee victory,” Frederick said, upon standing in the Catholic chapel of the fortress. The American operation had taken on the air of a crusade, and the troops took great delight on stripping the island of ‘popery’, particularly if said popery was composed of gold and easy to carry.
The glory turned to disgust in 1748. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed to end the war. It was almost a treaty of status quo ante bellum,[22] save that Prussia retained Silesia—France withdrew from the Austrian Netherlands in an astonishingly unpopular move (a common saying at the time in France was that something was ‘as stupid as the peace’) and King William IV agreed to return Louisbourg to the French in return for Madras. The move was just as unpopular with the Yankees who had bled and died to take Louisbourg as it was with the French who had bled and died to take the southern Netherlands. But the difference was that the Colonies were thousands of miles away across the ocean. And they had a leader.
For Prince Frederick saw that this was his moment. The order to return Louisbourg to the French, though felt most painfully in New England, had been condemned by all throughout the Colonies. Frederick was on good terms with most of the colonial governors and legislatures. For those he did not, several of them technically owed their allegiance to the deceased George II, not having sworn oaths directly to William. So it was that at Fredericksburg, on February 4th 1748, the twelve governors and many other important dignitaries met with Frederick and signed the Declaration of Right, recognising Frederick as the rightful heir to the throne and proclaiming William’s claim void. The Prince had come into his element.
And the War of the British Succession had begun.
Chapter #5: How I Killed My Brother
Yankee Doodle won his war
By treachery and trick’ry
Pushed over a Frog’s nest
And called it a great vict’ry
Yankee Doodle, run and fly,
Yankee Doodle yellow,
Go back to your golden fields
And grow your baccy mellow.
- Song of the Williamite troops in the War of the British Succession,
to the tune of “Lucky Locket” ; author unknown[23]
*
From: “The War of the British Succession”, by Dr Colin FitzGeorge (1987)—
The War is one of the greatest ‘what if’s of history, oft quoted by the writers of speculative romances as they consider the knife edge on which our world has walked since the beginning of time.[24] It was viewed with delight by Great Britain’s continental enemies, who were willing to jump on any chance to take the hated islanders down a peg or two. However, no great invasion materialised. Most of the European powers were busy rebuilding for the next war, for the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had solved no-one’s grievances—though Britain was the only power to actually fight a civil war over it. France, Austria, Prussia and Russia were caught up in an arms race for when the peace inevitably failed, while Spain was focusing on rebuilding its fleet and improving its methods of trade after its losses at Edward Vernon’s hand.
Britain was divided in its loyalties, America much less so. Generally speaking, those in Britain who were on top now owed it to the patronage of George II or William, and so inevitably supported William, while those who had much to gain supported Frederick. Few in the Colonies, save some of the colonial officials, owed much to George and still less to William. After a few arrests and a handful of Williamite loyalists fleeing the colonies, America stood squarely behind Frederick, ‘our prince’.
Frederick’s bid to gain the crown would have been impossible without America’s support, but would inevitably fail if that was all he had. Fortunately, Britain had many supporters of Frederick as well. The Cornish and many of the Welsh, of course, were under his control through the rotten boroughs and the Stannary Parliament. England was the most fiercely divided, with the Patriot Boys and their allies supporting Frederick and the current Whig government supporting George. The distribution of MPs meant that Northumbria and Yorkshire had the greatest overall number of Patriots outside the Home Counties, whose stance could not be so readily divided on geographic grounds. London above all often had loyalties divided even within its families.
The political situation in Britain had changed little after George’s death at Dettingen. Walpole had already finally been forced to step down in 1742 and had by now passed away. He had been replaced by his old rivals the Earl of Wilmington (titular Prime Minister) and John Carteret (éminence grise). Wilmington, by then old and ill, had died soon after taking office, and had in turn been succeeded by the pro-peace Henry Pelham, who had misgivings (to say the least) about this new conflict following on the tails of the old.
The Opposition was led by the Patriots under William Pulteney, after the death of Lord Cobham earlier that year. Although still not having achieved anything near a majority, they were a thorn in the side of Pelham and William IV. Perhaps their most significant asset was the silver tongue of William Pitt, who made several highly calculated attacks on William and praising Frederick, without ever technically denying William’s right to the throne. That would open him to prosecution under the Treason Act of 1702, for which the penalty if found guilty was death. Pitt and the other Patriots merely argued that the legality of George II’s disowning of Frederick ought to be examined, “in view of the extraordinary circumstances in Parliament at the time”. This was still enough for William to become nervous, though, and he forced a reluctant Pelham to arrest and imprison several prominent Patriot MPs. Pitt, Grenville and Pulteney were all imprisoned in the Tower of London, albeit in relatively luxurious conditions, just as Robert Walpole had been thirty years earlier.
Nothing could have been better calculated to stir the British people’s sense of injustice, of course, and popular feeling began to turn against William and therefore towards Frederick. The worst part for William and Pelham was that the imprisonment didn’t even have that much effect—by some means, perhaps a sympathiser in the guards, the three Patriot prisoners managed to continue getting their writings and pamphlets out into London.
Both Frederick and William realised that the war and dispute could be ended at a single stroke: one of them had to die. William had not yet married, negotiations with various German princesses having been interrupted by the Second War of Supremacy, and had no blood heir. Frederick did have children, but by Mildred, claimant Duchess of Cornwall, and the Williamites did not recognise the morganatic marriage and hence the legitimacy of their th
ree children. Realistically, either Frederick or William being killed would end the problem, because their supporters would then have the unpalatable choice of either cleaving to the other or trying to find another claimant, possibly from Europe, and having the headaches of George I all over again.
William was always the more martial of the two, courageous if somewhat lacking in tact, and decided that the best way to settle the dispute quickly was to simply sail a grand fleet to America and give battle. The provisions of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle were still up in the air thanks to Frederick’s forces refusal to withdraw from Louisbourg, and so the French had in turn refused to return Madras to the British East India Company. William realised that if his fleet could take Louisbourg quickly, then it could be immediately handed back to France and settle the disputes. Frederick could then be tackled later, assuming that his Yankee forces did not break and shatter immediately; the British soldiers of the period had a poor opinion of colonial American fighting strength.