Austrian Netherlands

The Austrian Netherlands were the territory of the Burgundian Circle of the Holy Roman Empire between 1714 and 1797. The period began with the acquisition by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy of the former Spanish Netherlands under the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714. It lasted until Revolutionary France annexed the territory after the Battle of Sprimont in 1794 and the Peace of Basel in 1795. Austria relinquished its claim on the province in 1797 through the Treaty of Campo Formio. The Netherlands, previously the Burgundian Netherlands – inherited by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs – revolted against the absolutism and centralism of their common sovereign Philip II of Spain. The revolt launched into a war and this led to the formation of the Republic of the United Provinces in the northern part of the Netherlands, in 1568. The new state would have its independence recognized by the King of Spain in 1648, following the Treaty of Münster. In the southern part of the Netherlands, Philip II and his successors managed to retain ten provinces of the original seventeen provinces as part of a diminished Spanish Netherlands. In 1700, King Charles II of Spain designated the French Prince Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV, as his successor. He preferred him to a member of the cousin branch of the Austrian Habsburgs. Louis XIV accepted this choice on behalf of his wife, whose dowry had never been paid. A coalition was formed between the Austrian Habsburgs, England, and the United Provinces against Louis XIV's France and Philip V's Spain. This marked the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), during which the Spanish Netherlands were occupied by France on behalf of Louis XIV's grandson. At the end of this war (Treaties of Utrecht in 1713 and Rastatt in 1714),...