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The balance-of-power idea became a crucial concept in the discourse of international affairs by the mid-seventeenth century. Nonetheless, the concept of balance of power was not even explicitly referenced in the Peace of Westphalia (1648). Instead, the legal principles of status quo ante and uti possidetis reigned supreme. Even though the balance-of-power principle was not mentioned in the Peace of Westphalia, it was often referenced during the negotiations and its implicit presence or practical balance of power was evident in the treaties trying to reach stability in the inter-state system. Several alliances, concluded mostly against France and Louis XIV in the second half of the seventeenth century, implied the balance of power and, more specifically, the balance of sea power. The paper argues that the balancing process became less theoretical and more pragmatic as evidenced by interactive alliance treaties that established reciprocal responsibilities and numerical equilibrium. By the Peace of Utrecht (1713), the balance of power or the balance of Europe became a leading principle and it was referenced repeatedly in the treaties in different languages. The paper traces the balance-of-power idea from the diplomatic background to the diplomatic foreground as the idea moved from natural law to positive law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is usually taken for granted that intelligence organisations provide information for decision-making and that the knowledge produced in the process is therefore deeply utilitarian. Drawing on organisational sociology, this article draws on a case study of English intelligence efforts during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) to reflect critically on the assumed direct relationship between intelligence-gathering and political decision-making. In eighteenth-century England, intelligence frequently fulfilled other, often more symbolic functions, for example when access to intelligence was employed to legitimise individual actors. In this sense, intelligence was doubtlessly useful, albeit in other ways than generally postulated by intelligence theory. These observations strongly suggest a 'missing dimension' in the history of intelligence in other periods as well as intelligence theory more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the year 1711, Harleyite diplomacy was driven by two major concerns: the credit crisis precipitated by the ministerial change of 1710, and the matter of the British engagement in the War of the Spanish Succession. Both issues were intimately linked, and their resolution well illustrates Robert Harley’s political vision, as a cross-partisan moderate, as well as his manipulation of public opinion for political gain. This article focuses on the role of Matthew Prior – poet, diplomat and propagandist – and the crisis generated by the revelation of secret peace negotiations between France and Britain in the summer of 1711. Based on extracts from the press, ballads, and a secret history, this article discusses the intermingling of politics and literature, the communication strategies put in place by the Harley administration and its opposition, and the consequences of this diplomatic incident.

Concluding its participation in the War of the Spanish Succession was not easy for the British government. Hampered by internal problems, it also had to face the strong campaign against peace carried out by the Whig opposition and the displeasure of its war allies. Among the measures taken by the Harley Cabinet to achieve peace, the use of the press and political propaganda was of vital importance. Through the study of the press and printed propaganda, the political documentation and the correspondence of those involved this article examines the government’s strategy and methods and its ability to adapt to the counterattacks mounted by the press linked to the opposition. It also analyses the internal contradictions of this propaganda campaign resulting from the opposition between the two key figures of the Tory government, Harley and Henry St. John, as well as its influence on the triumph of the peace option in the British Parliament.

Between late summer 1711, when secret Anglo-French negotiations to end the War of the Spanish Succession became public, and the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in April 1713, Britain’s political discourse focused principally on the making of peace. While this discourse has been closely studied, coinciding as it did with the emergence of Habermas’s model public sphere, the role of Britain’s Allies in it has received relatively little attention. Following recent studies in the field of public diplomacy, this paper seeks to redress the balance, demonstrating how the Allies intervened in British political discourse to influence public opinion, Parliament and the negotiations in pursuit of their diplomatic objectives.

In common with many military officers at the turn of the 18th century, Joseph Sevin kept a journal that chronicled army life on and off the battlefield. His memoirs, covering the years 1697 to 1713, are of particular interest because they reveal his pleasure in making music with his fellow officers and the women whom he met socially. While boasting of only modest attainments, the Chevalier de Quincy adored his basse de viole and took it everywhere he went in the course of the War of the Spanish Succession, from Paris to the châteaux of Quincy, Versailles and Fontainebleau, to Provence, Flanders and Italy. His descriptions bring to life the musical occasions in which he took part or simply attended. They also mention fellow officers who we know played and enjoyed the viol. Among the many bonds between members of the noblesse militaire , music can at last be counted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Euphemism and dysphemism are common within political communication as the former is a linguistic make-up leading to deception and distortion of reality (Rodríguez González 1991: 90) whereas the latter highlights the most pejorative traits of the taboo with an offensive aim (Crespo-Fernández 2015: 2). Considering this, I have analysed euphemism and dysphemism in George Ridpath’s political writings during the War of the Spanish Succession (1710-1713), in a corpus comprising two journals (The Observator and The Flying Post), and examined how this author used language to shape and manipulate Great Britain’s public opinion during the Stuart period. To this end, I have followed Taboada and Grieve’s (2004) approach of Appraisal Theory (Martin and White 2005) as well as Politeness Theory (Brown and Levinson 1987), Face Theory (Goffman 1967), Charteris-Black’s Critical Metaphor Analysis (2005: 45) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Gibbs 2011). The findings show that Ridpath used x-phemistic language to positively self-present the ingroup and negatively other-present the outgroup.

After the defeat in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1714), between 25.000 and 30.000 people, most of them Catalans, went into exile. The article analyses the behaviour of the exiled Spanish soldiers especially during the campaigns of 1716 and 1717 of the Ottoman-Venetian War. In that contest, three Spanish cavalry regiments and two infantry regiments took part actively. On the other hand, from 1735 onward, an important part of the Hispanic exile was moved to the Banat of Temeswar, territory incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy by the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718). They set up a colony there, called New Barcelona, of ephemeral life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Austrian and British alliance in the Western Mediterranean from 1703 to 1708 is used as a case study in the problem of getting allies to cooperate at the strategic and operational levels of war. Differing grand strategies can lead to disagreements about strategic priorities and the value of possible operations. However, poor personal relations can do more to wreck an alliance than differing opinions over strategy. While good personal relations can keep an alliance operating smoothly, it is often military necessity (and the threat of grand strategic failure) that forces important compromises. In the case of the Western Mediterranean, it was the urgent situation created by the Allied defeat at Almanza that forced the British and Austrians to create a workable solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article women dressed as men serving in early modern armies are interpreted as the 'normal exceptional' that allows us to trace the construction of gender roles and female agency as well as the cultural logic behind the standing armies of the period. Looking at examples from Germany, Austria, France and Great Britain, the 'career' of the female soldier in eighteenth‐century warfare is situated in the field of tension between dissimulation and sensation. The disclosure of a hidden gender identity not only exposed such women to military justice but also opened up new 'tactical' possibilities for self‐fashioning and survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the losses sustained at Cherbourg and La Hogue following the battle of Barfleur in 1692, Louis XIV remained keen to continue building up his navy to a size equal to or exceeding in strength the combined English and Dutch fleets. Within a few days he authorized six replacement First Rank ships (three-deckers) and five Second Rank (large two-deckers); more followed with a year. By 1694, however, the economic crisis in France brought this expansion to an end. Louis was forced to choose between his battlefleet and his army, and strategic realities determined that he chose the latter. This article explores the changing nature of the French navy in the period between 1702 and 1719 and examines in detail the reduction of the French Mediterranean fleet, the flotte du Levant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No other institution illustrates the tensions between competing normative ideals and discursive behaviours more than the army. At the turn of the eighteenth century the British military had a reputation for being particularly untrustworthy, licentious, immoral and drunk. Using autobiographical sources and focusing on subjective experience in relation to normative expectations, this article questions such stereotypes by looking at four men in the middle ranks of the army officer corps. The attempt of these four officers to understand, perform and negotiate competing norms illustrates the tension that often existed between the expectations of a variety of masculine discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este artículo pretende mostrar el importante papel jugado por un miembro de la baja nobleza castellana durante la Guerra de Sucesión al servicio de Felipe V. Este servicio le valdrá para conseguir una serie de mercedes y reconocimientos que lo encumbrarán directamente a la Corte, poniendo de manifiesto las posibilidades de promoción social que propició un conflicto bélico para aquellos que, mostrándose fieles a la nueva dinastía, aprovecharon un momento convulso para ascender socialmente. El II marqués de Valdeguerrero supo capitalizar en su beneficio el esfuerzo desarrollado a lo largo de la contienda logrando un gran ascenso social.This article is aimed at showing the important role played by a member of the Castillian low nobility at the service of Felipe V during the Spanish War of Succession.This service helped him to achieve a series of favours and acknowledgments which will send /sent him directly to the Court. This fact proved the possibilities of social promotion which brought about a military conflict to those who, being loyal to the new dynasty, took advantage of a convulsed moment to promote socially. The II Marquis of Valdeguerrero knew how to capitalize the effort made along the battle for his own advantage, achieving a great social promotion.

Cloudesley Shovell, a British admiral of the early 18th century was at the head of the British Fleet in 1707 during the Siege of Toulon (War of the Spanish Succession). On their way back home, the four warships of the Fleet hit rocks in the Scilly Islands. All the members of the crew perished. This naval catastrophe, the worst in British history, became an opportunity to create a myth around the 1707 Siege of Toulon and turn Shovell into an iconic figure.

The War of the Spanish Succession affected the entire continent of Europe directly or indirectly. Within the Spanish monarchy, most of the states in the Crown of Aragon sided with Archduke Charles of Austria (Charles III), while Crown of Castile lent its support to Duke Philip of Anjou (Philip V). After the Treaty of Utrecht, Catalonia prolonged its resistance for 14 more months under a republican government. At the end of the war, the victors imposed repression, exile and the end to the Catalan constitutions.

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The importance of terrain in warfare has often encouraged an intense relation between military conflicts and the use of techniques designed to understand space. This is especially relevant since the modern era, where the engineers who built and assaulted city defenses recorded the events with diverse documentation, including reports, diagrams, and maps. A large number of these sources contain spatial and temporal information, but it is difficult to integrate them into a common research framework due to its heterogeneity. In this context, geographical information science provides the necessary tools to explore an interdisciplinary analysis of these military actions. This article proposes a new approach to the study of sieges using a spatiotemporal formal model capable of integrating cartography, archaeological, and textual primary sources and terrain information. Its main aim is to show how concrete research questions and hypotheses can be explored using a formal model of this type of historical events. The methodology is applied to a particular case study: the French–Spanish siege of Barcelona that occurred in 1714. The protagonists faithfully recorded the development of the action, providing essential information for the model. Besides, different authors depicted the event as the paradigm of a city siege. For this reason, the model is also used to explore why real actions deviated from theoretical guidelines, clearly defined in different manuals. We use this scenario to explore two issues: (a) why the attackers chose to assault a particular city sector and (b) the factors that explain the casualties of the besiegers. We conclude that we need methodological tools capable of integrating heterogeneous information to improve the understanding of siege warfare that affected not only military conflict but also the shape of European urban landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the War of the Spanish Succession, the duke of Lorraine trod a difficult path in his attempts to maintain the independence of his state. While Louis XIV agreed in principle to respect his neutrality, the French nevertheless imposed significant restrictions on the duke’s sovereignty. The Grand Alliance, meanwhile, viewed Leopold’s neutrality with suspicion and refused to assist him unless he publicly declared for the coalition. The dissonance in views regarding the status of Lorraine reflected a long-term clash of sovereignties in the region, between France, Lorraine and the Holy Roman Empire. It also reflected the evolving status of neutrality in international relations, as well as attendant tensions within the European dynastic system: though the duke’s policy of neutrality may have saved Lorraine from potential devastation in the war, it severely impeded his dynasty’s ambitions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), there were attempts to support colonial maritime war by legislation, and the American Act of 1708 can be seen as their culmination. Historians who study privateering or colonial history have referred to this act in several contexts, such as reform in prize administration, naval impressment in American colonies, and Spanish- American trade. However, the political and economic interests behind this act have not been fully investigated. By examining the process of the enactment of the American Act together with antecedent attempts to promote colonial maritime war in parliament, this article reveals the political and vested interests involved in the act, the relations between them, and the influence they had on the content of the act. This analysis will show the complex interaction between politics, trade, and colonial maritime war in the early-18th-century American colonies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 November 1700 Charles II of Spain died without direct descendants, specifying in his will: “ […] We do name [the Duke of Anjou] heir to all Our Realms and all Our Domains without any exception whatever.” Anjou was the second son of Monseigneur, the legitimate successor to the late King of Spain: his mother, in fact, was the elder half-sister of Charles II, the Infanta Maria Theresa, wife of Louis XIV. In excluding the Dauphin and his eldest son, the Duke of Burgundy, Charles II proclaimed his rejection of France and Spain ever being united under one king. However, although the choice of the Duke of Anjou had deprived the Monseigneur of his incontestable rights to Spain, he was of the opinion, when the will became known, to accept it in the hopes of avoiding an international war.

The account books of the Board of Ordnance in the National Archives list the provisions made to the Ordnance, including clothing, and offer a wonderful insight into uniform provided to the soldiers serving with this branch of the military at time of the War of the Spanish Succession. Through a series of accounts dating from 1706 to 1708 this paper demonstrates how one position under the control of the Board of Ordnance, that of the kettle drummer, was ostentatious in the extreme requiring ninety yards of gold lace. The article will relate his clothing to clothing provided to other soldiers, and show how his clothes reflected the high status of the kettle drummer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), opposing groups of supporters of the two pretenders to the Spanish throne, Philip of Anjou (Philip V of Spain) and the Archduke Charles (Emperor Charles VI of Austria), emerged. Subsequently, loyalties in the Southern Netherlands became divided, a problem which continued until the claimants settled their differences in 1725. This article examines the various reasons underlying their support for either of the two pretenders, and the attitude of the Emperor towards his opponents. While he forced his adversaries to emigrate and confiscated their properties, he pragmatically tried to bind the elites to his person as much as possible, even those who previously had shown an attachment to other regimes. The article further argues that this situation can be explained by the fact that the new Austrian regime needed the cooperation of these elites. The problem of divided loyalties was brought about by the multiple changes in sovereign, within the span of two decades, which had weakened bonds of loyalty. Many inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands had been forced to choose sides and in this choice personal interests often prevailed over political convictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joseph Addison’s travel to France was never turned into a narrative. His Remarks on several parts of Italy only focused on Italy and a part of Switzerland. However, France is a favorite topic for the editor of The Spectator, as the Spanish Succession war thunders to its climax. The war is then transposed onto the papers co-edited with Steele, and England triumphantly emerges out of a Francophobe discourse. The tone changes in 1713 when the Treaty of Utrecht is signed; four travel letters, clearly dating from his French sojourn, are published in The Guardian. Here, by way of contrastive rhetoric, Addison questions the notion of English liberty, inherited form the Glorious Revolution of 1688.