Austrian Succession, War of the (1740-1748)

This conflict, also known as King George's War in North America, and incorporating the war of Jenkins' Ear between Britain and Spain, involved most of the powers in Europe, except the Polish—Lithuanian Commonwealth and Portugal. The war began upon the death of Emperor Charles VI, the last male Habsburg, in October 1740—an event which disturbed the fragile stability of Europe's inter-state system, prompted a realignment of key power affiliations, and with the succession of a woman, Maria Theresa, to the Austrian throne fanned the expansionist ambitions of Frederick II, the young and dynamic Prussian monarch. Maria Theresa's succession rights were legally guaranteed through the so-called Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, signed by a majority of the German states (including Prussia), but preserving her possessions intact would prove inherently problematic. The loosely federated Habsburg lands, patched together by marriage alliances, were scattered across central Europe—dominions including Hungary, Bohemia, parts of what are now Romania, southern Germany, northern and central Italy, and Belgium—each with its own administrative, financial, and judicial system, all virtually impossible to coordinate. Charles VI's death not only entailed an interregnum but also marked the end of a continuous line of Habsburg emperors since 1438, thereby weakening imperial authority in favor of the electoral territories—the empire's constituent states vying for greater autonomy since the Thirty Years' War, and even before. Although, legally, these sub-domains could not form alliances against the emperor—the empire, by this point, had become a largely powerless entity, enjoying honorific dignity but existing in name only, lingering as such until its termination by Napoleon in 1806.