The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) involved nearly all the powers of Europe. The war began under the pretext that Maria Theresa of Austria was ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg throne, because Salic law precluded royal inheritance by a woman.
The most enduring military historical interest and importance of the war lies in the struggle of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchs for the region of Silesia. Various other powers joined them at intervals, but what became the surprise was the quality of the Prussian forces, which were a professional army, not a gaggle of mercenary companies as had been typical theretofore. Even Gustavus Adolphus, whom some credit with the invention of modern warfare method of combined arms, had used mercenaries in large measure. Permanent professional armies, then as now, were expensive.
Southwest Germany, the Low Countries and Italy were, as usual, the battle-ground trampled by the armies of France and Austria. The habitual and constant allies of France and Prussia were arrayed against the same Hapsburg relations in Spain and the Kingdom of Bavaria that had been teaming up for many conflicts since the Thirty Years' War and to an extent, long before.
Austria was supported almost as a matter of course by Great Britain and by the Dutch Republic, the traditional enemies of France, as throughout the Second Hundred Years' War. Of Austria's intermittent allies, the Kingdom of Sardinia and Saxony were the most important.
The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.
Problems began when King Frederick II of Prussia, having not himself agreed to the Pragmatic Sanction, invaded Silesia on 16 December 1740, using a variety of minor unsettled dynastic territorial claims as a pretext. Maria Theresa, as a woman, was perceived as weak, and some other Dragons (such as Charles Albert of Bavaria) alleged his own claim to the crown of Maria Theresa as someone who as a male with a clear genealogical basis, could inherit directly the elected dignities of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Prussia in 1740 was a small and thoroughly organized emerging international power. While the only recent war experience of its army had been in the desultory War of the Polish Succession (Rhine campaign of 1733–1735), it therefore had an uninspiring reputation and was counted as one of the larger of very many minor armies of Europe of which there were a plenitude in the German states.
Only few, and those counted as dreamers, thought that it could rival the modern forces of Austria and France. But King Frederick William I had drilled it to a perfection previously unknown, and the Prussian infantry soldier was so well-trained and well-equipped that he could fire five shots to an Austrian's three. Prussian cavalry and artillery were comparatively less efficient, but they were of somewhat better quality as well, for Prussia had contended with the excellent cavalry of Poland to its east and had felt the lash of the Swede's artillery in the early to middle seventeenth century.
The initial advantage of Frederick's army was that undisturbed by wars, it had developed the professional standing-army concept to full maturity and effect. This was telling in the early going while the Austrians had to wait for drafts to complete the field forces, Prussian regiments took the field at once, and thus Frederick was able to overrun Silesia almost unopposed.
In any event, his army had massed quietly along the Oder River during early December, and on 16 December 1740, without declaration of war, it crossed the frontier into Silesia. The extant forces available to the local Austrian generals could do no more than garrison a few fortresses, and they necessarily fell back to the mountain frontier of Bohemia and Moravia with only a small remnant of their available forces left in the garrisons.
On their new territory, the organized Prussian army was soon able to go into winter quarters, holding all Silesia and investing the strong places of Glogau, Brieg and Neisse. In effect, in one step, Prussia had doubled its population and made huge gains in its industrial productivity for the minor cost of fair treatment of the people in the occupied territory—an atypical factor and effect in a day when relatively undisciplined mercenary forces (typically gangs of thugs in quasi uniforms organized under a "captain" or "colonel" who had little interest in protecting the populace, and every interest in accommodating his men's desires) were the rule rather than the exception with their habitual rapine, looting, and abuse of the various populations around themselves — which were generally forced to provide quarters.
Nationalism as we know it today, was not a factor but an evolving concept just coming into its early years. Prussia benefited greatly from the apolitical nature of the society of the time, as the masses in central Germany would correspondingly suffer as the contending armies rampaged through their plains yet again.
In February 1741 the Austrians collected a field army under Count Neipperg and made preparations to re-conquer Silesia. While the Austrian garrisons in Neisse and Brieg continued to hold out against Prussian forces, Glogau was stormed on the night of 9 March 1741. The Prussian besiegers under Prince Leopold (the younger) of Anhalt-Dessau executed their task in one hour with a mathematical precision which excited universal admiration. However, the Austrian army in Moravia took to the field at a time when Frederick's cantonments were dispersed over all Upper Silesia. Consolidating the army proved a difficult task for the ground was deep in snow; before it could be completed, Neisse was relieved and the Prussians cut off from their own country by the march of Neipperg from Neisse on Brieg. A few days of slow manoeuvring between the two armies ended in the Battle of Mollwitz (10 April 1741), the first pitched battle fought by Frederick and his army. The Austrians routed the Prussian right wing of cavalry, but Frederick's infantry held and won the battle.
Frederick himself was absent after the battle. He had fought in the cavalry mêlée, but when the battle seemed lost, he had been persuaded by Field Marshal Schwerin to ride away. Schwerin thus, like Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy, remained behind to win the victory, and the king narrowly escaped being captured by wandering Austrian hussars.
In the aftermath of the battle the Prussians secured Brieg, and Neipperg fell back to Neisse, where he maintained himself and engaged in a series of manoeuvres during the summer. Europe recognized the emergence of a new military power, and France sent Marshal Belle-Isle to Frederick's camp to negotiate an alliance, causing the "Silesian adventure" to become the War of the Austrian Succession. The Elector of Bavaria's candidacy for the imperial dignity was to be supported by a French "auxiliary" army, and other French forces were sent to observe Hanover. Saxony was already watched by a Prussian army under Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, the "old Dessauer", who had trained the Prussian army to its present perfection.
During the Russo-Swedish War, 1741-1743, the task of Sweden was to prevent Russia from attacking Prussia, but her troops were defeated, on 3 September 1741, at Villmanstrand by a greatly superior Russian army. In 1742 another great defeat was sustained by the Franco-Prussian alliance, when the Russians conquered Helsinki from Sweden.
The French in the meantime had stormed Prague on 26 November 1741, the Grand-Duke Francis, consort of Maria Theresa, who commanded the Austrians in Bohemia, moving too slowly to save the fortress. The Elector of Bavaria, who now styled himself Archduke of Austria, was crowned King of Bohemia (9 December 1741) and elected to the imperial throne as Charles VII (24 January 1742), but no active measures were undertaken.
In Bohemia the month of December was occupied in mere skirmishes. On the Danube, Khevenhüller, the best general in the Austrian service, advanced on 27 December, swiftly drove back the allies, shut them up in Linz, and pressed on into Bavaria. Munich itself surrendered to the Austrians on the coronation day of Charles VII.
At the close of this first act of the campaign the French, under the old Marshal de Broglie, maintained a precarious foothold in central Bohemia, menaced by the main army of the Austrians, and Khevenhüller was ranging unopposed in Bavaria, while Frederick, in pursuance of his secret obligations, lay inactive in Silesia.
Prince Charles, in pursuit of the king, marched by Jihlava and Teutsch (Deutsch) Brod on Kutná Hora, and on 17 May was fought the Battle of Chotusitz, in which after a severe struggle the king was victorious. His cavalry on this occasion retrieved its previous failure, and its conduct gave an earnest of its future glory not only by its charges on the battlefield, but by its vigorous pursuit of the defeated Austrians. Almost at the same time Broglie fell upon a part of the Austrians left on the Vltava and won a small, but morally and politically important, success in the action of Sahay, near Budweis (24 May 1742). Frederick did not propose another combined movement. His victory and that of Broglie disposed Maria Theresa to cede Silesia in order to make good her position elsewhere, and the separate peace between Prussia and Austria, signed at Breslau on 11 June, closed the First Silesian War, but the War of the Austrian Succession continued.
Marshal Maillebois, the French commander, then manoeuvred from Amberg towards the Eger valley, to make contact with Broglie. Marshal Belle-Isle, the political head of French affairs in Germany and a very capable general, had accompanied Broglie throughout, and it seems that Belle-Isle and Broglie believed that Maillebois' mission was to regain a permanent foothold for the army in Bohemia. Maillebois, on the contrary, conceived that his work was simply to disengage the army of Broglie from its dangerous position, and to cover its retreat. His operations were no more than a demonstration, and had so little effect that Broglie was sent for in haste to take over the command from him, Belle-Isle at the same time taking over charge of the army at Prague.
Broglie's command was now on the Danube, east of Regensburg, and the imperial (chiefly Bavarian) army of Charles VII under the dismissed ex-Austrian Feldmarschal Seckendorf aided him to clear Bavaria of the Austrians. This was effected with ease, for Khevenhüller and most of his troops had gone to Bohemia. Prince Charles and Khevenhüller now took post between Linz and Passau, leaving a strong force to deal with Belle-Isle in Prague. This, under Prince Lobkowitz, was little superior in numbers or quality to the troops under Belle-Isle, under whom served Saxe and the best of the younger French generals, but its light cavalry swept the country clear of provisions. The French were quickly on the verge of starvation, winter had come, and the marshal resolved to retreat. On the night of 16 December 1742, the army left Prague to be defended by a small garrison under de Chevert, and took the route of Eger. The retreat (December 16-26) was accounted a triumph of generalship, but the weather made it painful and costly. The brave Chevert displayed such confidence that the Austrians were glad to allow him freedom to join the main army. The cause of the new emperor was now sustained only in the valley of the Danube, where Broglie and Seckendorf opposed Prince Charles and Khevenhüller, who were soon joined by the force lately opposing Belle-Isle.
Broglie, worn out by age and exertions, was soon replaced by Marshal Coigny. Both Broglie and Noailles were now on the strict defensive behind the Rhine. Not a single French soldier remained in Germany, and Prince Charles prepared to force the passage of the great river in the Breisgau while the king of Britain moved forward via Mainz to co-operate by drawing upon himself the attention of both the French marshals. The Anglo-allied army took Worms, but after several unsuccessful attempts to cross, Prince Charles went into winter quarters. The king followed his example, drawing in his troops to the northward, to deal, if necessary, with the army which the French were collecting on the frontier of the Southern Netherlands. Austria, Britain, Holland and Sardinia were now allied. Saxony changed sides, and Sweden and Russia neutralized each other (Peace of Åbo, August 1743). Frederick was still quiescent. France, Spain and Bavaria actively continued the struggle against Maria Theresa.
The attention and resources of Austria were fully occupied, and the Prussians were almost unopposed. One column passed through Saxony, another through Lusatia, while a third advanced from Silesia. Prague, the objective, was reached on 2 September. Six days later the Austrian garrison was compelled to surrender, and the Prussians advanced to Budweis. Maria Theresa once again rose to the emergency, a new "insurrection" took the field in Hungary, and a corps of regulars was assembled to cover Vienna, while the diplomats won over Saxony to the Austrian side. Prince Charles withdrew from Alsace, unmolested by the French, who had been thrown into confusion by the sudden and dangerous illness of Louis XV at Metz. Only Seckendorf with the Bavarians pursued him. No move was made by the French, and Frederick thus found himself isolated and exposed to the combined attack of the Austrians and Saxons. Marshal Traun, summoned from the Rhine, held the king in check in Bohemia, the Hungarian irregulars inflicted numerous minor reverses on the Prussians, and finally Prince Charles arrived with the main army. The campaign resembled that of 1742: the Prussian retreat was closely watched, and the rearguard pressed hard. Prague fell, and Frederick, completely outmanoeuvred by the united forces of Prince Charles and Traun, retreated to Silesia with heavy losses. At the same time, the Austrians gained no foothold in Silesia itself. On the Rhine, Louis XV, now recovered, had besieged and taken Freiburg, after which the forces left in the north were reinforced and besieged the strong places of Southern Netherlands. There was also a slight war of manoeuvre on the middle Rhine.
In Silesia the customary small war had been going on for some time, and the concentration of the Prussian army was not effected without severe fighting. At the end of May, Frederick, with about 65,000 men, lay in the camp of Frankenstein, between Glatz and Neisse, while behind the Karkonosze about Landeshut Prince Charles had 85,000 Austrians and Saxons. On 4 June was fought the Battle of Hohenfriedberg or Striegau, the greatest victory as yet of Frederick's career, and, of all his battles, excelled perhaps by Leuthen and Rossbach only. Prince Charles suffered a complete defeat and withdrew through the mountains as he had come. Frederick's pursuit was methodical, for the country was difficult and barren, and he did not know the extent to which the enemy was demoralised.
The manoeuvres of both leaders on the upper Elbe occupied all the summer, while the political questions of the imperial election and of an understanding between Prussia and Britain were pending. The chief efforts of Austria were directed towards the valleys of the Main and Lahn and Frankfurt, where the French and Austrian armies manoeuvred for a position from which to overawe the electoral body. Marshal Traun was successful, and the Grand-Duke became the Emperor Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor on 13 September. Frederick agreed with Britain to recognise the election a few days later, but Maria Theresa would not conform to the Treaty of Breslau without a further appeal to the fortune of war. Saxony joined in this last attempt. A new advance of Prince Charles quickly brought on the Battle of Soor, fought on ground destined to be famous in the war of 1866. Frederick was at first in a position of great peril, but his army changed front in the face of the advancing enemy and by its boldness and tenacity won a remarkable victory (September 30).
But the campaign was not ended. An Austrian contingent from the Main joined the Saxons under Field Marshal Rutowsky (1702–1764), and a combined movement was made in the direction of Berlin by Rutowsky from Saxony and Prince Charles from Bohemia. The danger was very great. Frederick hurried up his forces from Silesia and marched as rapidly as possible on Dresden, winning the actions of Katholisch-Hennersdorf (November 24) and Görlitz (November 25). Prince Charles was thereby forced back, and now a second Prussian army under the Old Dessauer advanced up the Elbe from Magdeburg to meet Rutowsky. The latter took up a strong position at Kesselsdorf between Meissen and Dresden, but the veteran Leopold attacked him directly and without hesitation (December 14). The Saxons and their allies were completely routed after a hard struggle, and Maria Theresa at last gave way. In the Peace of Dresden (December 25) Frederick recognized the imperial election, and retained Silesia, as at the Peace of Breslau.
In central Italy an army of Neapolitans and Spaniards was collected for the purpose of conquering the Milanese. In 1741, the allied Neapolitans and Spaniards had advanced towards Modena, the duke of which state had allied himself with them, but the vigilant Austrian commander, Count Traun had out-marched them, captured Modena, and forced the duke to make a separate peace.
In 1742, Traun held his own with ease against the Spanish and Neapolitans. Naples was forced by a British squadron to withdraw her troops for home defence, and Spain, now too weak to advance in the Po valley, sent a second army to Italy via France. Sardinia had allied herself with Austria, and at the same time neither state was at war with France, and this led to curious complications, combats being fought in the Isère valley between the troops of Sardinia and of Spain, in which the French took no part.
In 1743, the Spanish on the Panaro had achieved a Pyrrhic victory over Traun at Campo Santo (8 February 1743), but the next six months were wasted in inaction, and Lobkowitz, joining Traun with reinforcements from Germany, drove back the enemy to Rimini. The Spanish-Piedmontese war in the Alps continued without much result, the only incident of note being the first Battle of Casteldelfino (7-10 October 1743), when an initial French offensive was beaten off.
In 1744 the Italian war became serious. A grandiose plan of campaign was formed, and the French and Spanish generals at the front were hampered by the orders of their respective governments. The object was to unite the army in Dauphiné with that on the lower Po. The support of Genoa allowed a road into central Italy. But Lobkowitz had already taken the offensive and driven back the Spanish army of the Count de Gages towards the Neapolitan frontier, so the King of Naples had to assist the Spaniards. A combined army was formed at Velletri, and defeated Lobkowitz there on 11 August. The crisis past, Lobkowitz then went to Piedmont to assist the king against Conti, the King of Naples returned home, and de Gages followed the Austrians with a weak force.
The war in the Alps and the Apennines had already been keenly contested. Villefranche and Montalban were stormed by Conti on 20 April, a desperate fight took place at Peyre-Longue on 18 July (second Battle of Casteldelfino), and the King of Sardinia was defeated in a great battle at Madonna dell'Olmo (September 30) near Coni (Cuneo). Conti did not, however, succeed in taking this fortress, and had to retire into Dauphiné for his winter quarters. The two armies had, therefore, failed in their attempt to combine, and the Austro-Sardinians still lay between them.
The campaign in Italy this year was also no mere war of posts. In March 1745 a secret treaty allied the Genoese republic with France, Spain and Naples. A change in the command of the Austrians favoured the first move of the allies. De Gages moved from Modena towards Lucca, the French and Spaniards in the Alps under Marshal Maillebois advanced through the Italian Riviera to the Tanaro, and in the middle of July the two armies were at last concentrated between the Scrivia and the Tanaro, to the unusually large number of 80,000. A swift march on Piacenza drew the Austrian commander thither, and in his absence the allies fell upon and completely defeated the Sardinians at Bassignano (September 27), a victory which was quickly followed by the capture of Alessandria, Valenza and Casale Monferrato. Jomini calls the concentration of forces which effected the victory "le plus remarquable de toute la guerre".
The complicated politics of Italy, however, brought it about that Maillebois was ultimately unable to turn his victory to account. Indeed, early in 1746, Austrian troops, freed by the peace with Frederick, passed through the Tyrol into Italy. The Franco-Spanish winter quarters were brusquely attacked, and a French garrison of 6000 men at Asti was forced to capitulate. At the same time Maximilian Ulysses Count Browne with an Austrian corps struck at the allies on the lower Po, and cut off their communication with the main body in Piedmont. A series of minor actions thus completely destroyed the great concentration. The allies separated, Maillebois covering Liguria, the Spaniards marching against Browne. The latter was promptly and heavily reinforced, and all that the Spaniards could do was to entrench themselves at Piacenza, Philip, the Spanish Infant as supreme commander calling up Maillebois to his aid. The French, skillfully conducted and marching rapidly, joined forces once more, but their situation was critical, for only two marches behind them the army of the King of Sardinia was in pursuit, and before them lay the principal army of the Austrians. The pitched Battle of Piacenza (June 16) was hard fought, and Maillebois had nearly achieved a victory when orders from the Infant compelled him to retire. That the army escaped at all was in the highest degree creditable to Maillebois and to his son and chief of staff, under whose leadership it eluded both the Austrians and the Sardinians, defeated an Austrian corps in the Battle of Rottofreddo (August 12), and made good its retreat on Genoa.
It was, however, a mere remnant of the allied army which returned, and the Austrians were soon masters of north Italy, including Genoa (September). But they met with no success in their forays towards the Alps. Soon Genoa revolted from the oppressive rule of the victors, rose and drove out the Austrians (December 5–11), and the French, now commanded by Belle-Isle, took the offensive (1747). Genoa held out against a second Austrian siege, and after the plan of campaign had as usual been referred to Paris and Madrid, it was relieved, though a picked corps of the French army under the Chevalier de Belle-Isle (1684–1747), brother of the marshal, was defeated in the almost impossible attempt (July 10) to storm the entrenched pass of Exilles (Colle dell'Assietta), the chevalier, and with him much of the elite of the French nobility, being killed at the barricades. Before the steady advance of Marshal Belle-Isle the Austrians retired into Lombardy, and a desultory campaign was waged up to the conclusion of peace.
The war, like other conflicts of the time, featured an extraordinary disparity between the end and the means. The political schemes to be executed by the French and other armies were as grandiose as any of modern times. Their execution, under the then conditions of time and space, invariably fell short of expectations, and the history of the war proves, as that of the Seven Years' War was to prove, that the small standing army of the 18th century could conquer by degrees, but could not deliver a decisive blow. Frederick alone, with a definite end and proportionate means to achieve it, succeeded completely. The French, in spite of their later victories, obtained so little of what they fought for that Parisians adopted the expression Bête comme la paix ("Stupid as the peace").
Even less was to be expected when the armies were composed of allied contingents, sent to the war each for a different object. The allied national armies of 1813 co-operated loyally, for they had much at stake and worked for a common object. Those of 1741 represented the divergent private interests of the several dynasties, and achieved nothing.
The war was remarkable for the prominence of privateering on both sides. It was carried on by the Spaniards in the West Indies with great success, and actively at home. The French were no less active in all seas. Mahé de la Bourdonnais's attack on Madras partook largely of the nature of a privateering venture. The British retaliated with vigour. The total number of captures by French and Spanish corsairs was in all probability larger than the list of British - as the French wit Voltaire drolly put it upon hearing his government's boast, namely, that more British merchants were taken because there were many more British merchant ships to take; but partly also because the British government had not yet begun to enforce the use of convoy so strictly as it did in later times.
Spanish privateers cruised with destructive effect against British trade both in the West Indies and in European waters. When Vernon had been joined by Sir Chaloner Ogle with naval reinforcements and a strong body of troops, an attack was made on Cartagena in what is now Colombia (March 9 - April 24, 1741). The delay had given the Spanish admiral, Don Blas de Lezo (1687–1741), time to prepare, and the siege failed with a dreadful loss of life to the assailants. Want of success was largely due to the incompetence of the military officers and the brutal insolence of the admiral.
The war in the West Indies, after two other unsuccessful attacks had been made on Spanish territory, died down and did not revive till 1748. The expedition under Anson sailed late, was very ill-provided, and less strong than had been intended. It consisted of six ships and left Britain on 18 September 1740. Anson returned alone with his flagship the Centurion on 15 June 1744. The other vessels had either failed to round the Horn or had been lost. But Anson had harried the coast of Chile and Peru and had captured a Spanish galleon of immense value near the Philippines. His cruise was a great feat of resolution and endurance.
The French invasion scheme was arranged in combination with the Jacobite leaders, and soldiers were to be transported from Dunkirk. But though the British government showed itself wholly wanting in foresight, the plan broke down. In. February 1744, a French fleet of twenty sail of the line entered the English Channel under de Roquefeuil, before the British force under Admiral John Norris was ready to oppose him. But the French force was ill-equipped, the admiral was nervous, his mind dwelt on all the misfortunes which might possibly happen, and the weather was bad. De Roquefeuil came up almost as far as The Downs, where he learnt that Sir John Norris was at hand with twenty-five sail of the line, and thereupon precipitately retreated.
The military expedition prepared at Dunkirk to cross under cover of De Roquefeuil's fleet naturally did not start. The utter weakness of the French at sea, due to long neglect of the fleet and the bankrupt state of the treasury, was shown during the Jacobite rising of 1745, when France made no attempt to profit by the distress of the British government.
The Dutch, having by this time joined Great Britain, made a serious addition to the naval power opposed to France, though Holland was compelled by the necessity for maintaining an army in Flanders to play a very subordinate part at sea. Not being stimulated by formidable attack, and having immediate interests both at home and in Germany, the British government was slow to make use of its latest naval strength. Spain, which could do nothing of an offensive character, was almost neglected. During 1745 the New England expedition which took Louisburg (April 30 - June 16) was covered by a British naval force, but the operations were in a general way sporadic, subordinated to the supply of convoy, or to unimportant particular ends. In the East Indies, Mahé de la Bourdonnais made vigorous use of a small squadron to which no effectual resistance was offered by the British naval forces. He captured Madras (July 24 - September 9, 1746), a set-off for Louisburg, for which it was exchanged at the close of the war. In the same year a British combined naval and military expedition to the coast of France - the first of a long series of similar ventures which in the end were derided as "breaking windows with guineas" - was carried out during August and October. The aim was the capture of the French East India Company's dockyard at L'Orient, but it was not attained.
From 1747 until the close of the war in October 1748 the naval policy of the British government, without reaching a high level, was yet more energetic and coherent. A closer watch was kept on the French coast, and effectual means were taken to intercept communication between France and her American possessions. In the spring information was obtained that an important convoy for the East and West Indies was to sail from L'Orient. In the previous year the British government had allowed a French expedition under the Duc d'Anville to fail mainly by its own weakness. In 1747 a more creditable line was taken. An overwhelming force was employed under the command of Anson to intercept the convoy in the Channel. It was met, crushed and captured, or driven back, on 3 May, in the first Battle of Cape Finisterre.
On 14 October another French convoy, protected by a strong squadron, was intercepted by a well-appointed and well-directed squadron of superior numbers - the squadrons were respectively eight French and fourteen British - in the Bay of Biscay. In the second Battle of Cape Finisterre which followed, the French admiral, Desherbiers de l'Etenduère (1681–1750), made a very gallant resistance, and the fine quality of his ships enabled him to counteract to some extent the superior numbers of Sir Edward Hawke, the British admiral. While the war-ships were engaged, the merchant vessels, with the small protection which Desherbiers could spare them, continued on their way to the West Indies. Most of them were, however, intercepted and captured in those waters. This disaster convinced the French government of its helplessness at sea, and it made no further effort.
The last naval operations took place in the West Indies, where the Spaniards, who had for a time been treated as a negligible quantity, were attacked on the coast of Cuba by a British squadron under Sir Charles Knowles. They had a naval force under Admiral Reggio at Havana. Each side was at once anxious to cover its own trade, and to intercept that of the other. Capture was rendered particularly desirable to the British by the fact that the Spanish homeward-bound convoy would be laden with the bullion sent from the American mines. In the course of the movement of each to protect its trade, the two squadrons met on 1 October 1748 in the Bahama Channel. The action was indecisive when compared with the successes of British fleets in later days, but the advantage lay with Sir Charles Knowles. He was prevented from following it up by the speedy receipt of the news that peace had been made in Europe by the powers, who were all in various degrees exhausted. That it was arranged on the terms of a mutual restoration of conquests shows that none of the combatants could claim to have established a final superiority. The conquests of the French in the Bay of Bengal, and their military successes in Flanders, enabled them to treat on equal terms, and nothing had been taken from Spain.