War of the Bavarian Succession
Date 1778 to 1779 Location Largely in Bohemia and Silesia Result Treaty of Teschen, much of Bavaria's previous territory restored.
Belligerents
Austria	Prussia Saxony Bavaria
Commanders
Joseph, King of the Romans Count Franz Moritz von Lacy Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon	Frederick the Great Prince Henry of Prussia
Strength
unknown	160,000 Prussians and Saxons

The War of the Bavarian Succession occurred between 1778 and 1779 between Habsburg Monarchy, Saxony, Bavaria and Prussia. The conflict is often known as the Potato War (Kartoffelkrieg) because of the extended time the Prussian and Austrian troops spent on maneuvers in Bohemia securing food-supplies and denying them to their enemy.

The war was initiated with the sudden death of small pox of the last Wittelsbach, Maximilian Joseph, on 30 December 1777. He left no legitimate children and his family had intermarried throughout the previous centuries with most of the other German nobility, so many families could lay a legitimate claim to Bavaria. The closest genealogical claim was held by Charles IV Theodore, the Elector Palatine and the Duke of Berg-Jülich. The strongest military claim came from the Habsburg monarchy, which was opposed by Frederick II (also known as Frederick the Great). Joseph, who co-ruled with his mother Empress Maria Theresa, considered the Bavarian territory as a plum that would enhance the wealth, prestige and power of the family. Frederick opposed Joseph's legally weak claim.

Other states became involved to maintain the balance of power in Central Europe, a goal similar to the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War which preceded it. Neither Maria Theresa nor Frederick saw any point in pursuing hostilities; Joseph, though, would not let the cause go. Ultimately, it was Catherine the Great's threat to intervene with 50,000 Russian troops that forced Joseph to relinquish his own claim.

[edit] Background

Charles IV Theodore, the legal heir.

Joseph, the ambitious Habsburg neighbor.

Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, held great expectations.

Maximilian III of the junior branch of the House of Wittelsbach. By the Peace of Füssen, which he signed on 22 April 1745, he obtained the restitution of his family's dominions, lost by his father, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor, on condition that he formally acknowledge the Pragmatic Sanction and not seek the imperial title for himself or his heirs.^[1] Consequently, Max Joseph re-entered imperial politics, ostensibly on the side of the House of Habsburg. Most notably, however, he brought to his domains a generation of peace and relative prosperity that began with his ascension and ended with his death.^[2]

As the Duke of Bavaria, Max Joseph was the prince of one of the largest states in the German-speaking portion of the Holy Roman Empire. As a Prince-elector, he stood in the highest social category of the Empire, with specific and expansive legal, economic, and juridical rights. As an Elector, he was one of the men who elected the Holy Roman Emperor from among a group of imperial candidates.^[3] When he died of smallpox on 30 December 1777, he left no children.^[4]

[edit] Contenders

The Sulzbach line stood as heir to the Duchy of Bavaria and the Elector Palatine, the 55-year-old Charles IV Theodore held the best claim to Bavaria and the Electoral position, but he was already the Elector Palatine. By the terms of the Peace of Westphalia, he would have been required to cede the Palatine for Bavaria. He was not eager to exchange one electorate for another. He preferred living in the Palatine. Although he wished to acquire more territory, he had only natural sons, thus he preferred territory that he could dispose of by Testament, rather than territory that was encumbered by a legal entailment that he could only pass to a legitimate son.^[5] He and Max Joseph had signed an instrument by which they would each claim each others dignities upon death.^[6]

Joseph, Archduke of Austria and King of the Romans, regarded Bavaria with covetous eyes, and even had married Max Joseph's sister, Maria Josepha, in 1765, with the intent of using the marriage to claim the Electorate.^[7] She died in 1767, without issue, so this avenue proved a dead end. When Max Joseph died ten years later, Joseph presented a weak claim to Lower Bavaria by virtue of a dubious grant made by the Emperor Sigismund to the House of Habsburg in 1425.^[8] Negotiating a secret agreement with Charles Theodore, Joseph sent Habsburg troops into Lower Bavaria. Under the agreement, Charles Theodore ceded Lower Bavaria to Austria in exchange for which he was to receive the unencumbered Austrian Netherlands.^[9]

Unbeknownst to either of them, Maximilian's consort Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony^[10] opened negotiations with Prussia to secure Bavaria's independence from Habsburg domination and the succession of the third contender, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, of the Wittelsbach branch of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld in Bavaria after the eventual death of Charles IV Theodore. Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, Prussian First Minister for Frederick the Great, believed that any Austrian acquisitions in Bavaria would shift the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire, and diminish Prussia's rising influence. More than thirty years earlier, Frederick had engaged in a protracted war in Silesia and Bohemia, resulting in Prussia's acquisition of most of Silesia. Finck and Frederick constructed an alliance with Kingdom of Saxony and both states declared war on Austria, ostensibly to defend the rights of Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, Charles Theodore's heir.^[11]

[edit] Action

[edit] First skirmish

In early July 1778, the Prussian General Johann Jakob von Wunsch (1717–1788), crossed into Bohemia near the fortified town of Náchod, in the opening action of the War of the Bavarian Succession. The local garrison, commanded by Friedrich Joseph, Freiherr (Baron) von Nauendorf, a mere Rittmeister (Captain of Cavalry), included only 50 Hussars, but when informed of the incursion into Austria-held land. Despite the poor numerical odds, Nauendorf and his 50 Hussars its set off to engage them. When this small force encountered Wunsch's, which was more than triple the size, Nauendorf greeted the Prussians as friends; by the time the Prussians realized the allegiance of the Hussars, Nauendorf and his small band had the upper hand, and Wunsch withdrew. The next day Nauendorf was promoted to major.^[12] The news of Nauendorf's encounter with Wunsch pleased Joseph enormously. In a letter to him, written by his mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, wrote: "They say you are so pleased with the rookie Nauendorf that you gave him 12 ducats."^[13]

[edit] Invasion

In July, 1778, Frederick entered Bohemia at the county of Glatz, and with his 80,000 troops, occupied Nachod, but went no further. Joseph and his army stood at the heights of the Elbe River. Nominally commanded by Joseph, Count Franz Moritz von Lacy held actual command. Lacy had served under Marshal Daun during the Seven Years War, and knew his business; he established the Austrian army on the most defensible position available. Centered at Jaroměř,^[14] a triple line of redoubts extended 15 kilometres (9 mi) southwest along the river to Königgrätz. Joseph had brought in a substantial number of artillery to augment this defensive line. ^[15]

Joseph was outnumbered and nearly surrounded, but Frederick chose not to engage because of Joseph's superior position on the heights above the Elbe River.

While the main imperial army faced Frederick at the Elbe, a smaller army under the command of Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon guarded the passes from Saxony and Lusatia into Bohemia. It was an extensive frontier, and impossible to guard completely and Henry, Frederick's younger brother and a brilliant strategist in his own right, succeeded in maneuvering around Laudon's troops, and entering Bohemia at Hainspach (Haňšpach, in Lipová (Děčín District), in the Czech Republic).^[16] Laudon had to fall back across the Iser River. By mid-August, the Austrian army was in danger of being outflanked on its left wing, and its center and right faced a numerically far superior army.^[17]

Prince Henry maneuvered until he approached the Austrians from the flank, and wrote to his brother: that they needed to complete their operations by the 22nd, at which time he would have exhausted local supplies of food for his men and fodder for his horses. Frederick planned to cross the Elbe, and approach the Austrian force from the rear, but the more he examined the conditions of Joseph's entrenchments, the more he realized the campaign was already lost. The three armies—one Austrian, two Prussian—remained in place until mid-October, eating as much of the country's resources as they could.^[18]

[edit] Raids on Berbersdorf

While his main army was entrenched on the heights above the Elbe, Joseph encouraged raids against the Prussian troops. On 7 August 1778, with two squadrons of his regiment, Nauendorf led a raid against a Prussian convoy at Berbersdorf 51°01′N 13°11′E / 51.017°N 13.183°E / 51.017; 13.183 in the Kingdom of Saxony. The surprised convoy surrendered, and Nauendorf captured its officers, 110 men, 476 horses, 240 wagons of flour, and 13 transport wagons, which were subsequently burned. On 3 March 1779, he raided the same village again, this time with a larger force of infantry and hussars, and took the entire Prussian garrison as prisoner. Following this action, Joseph awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (19 May 1779).^[19] This kind of action characterized the entire war; there were no major battles, but rather a series of raids and counter-raids in which the opposing sides lived off the country-side and tried to deny each other access to supplies and fodder.^[20] Soldiers later said they spent more time foraging for food than they did fighting.^[21]

[edit] Aftermath

The invasion of Bohemia was largely bloodless. Notably, this was the last war of both Frederick and Maria Theresa, more remarkable in that neither deployed the military force each had at his or her disposal.^[22] Despite this restraint, some casualty estimates suggest that tens of thousands died on each side, largely of starvation and hunger related disease, and that the war itself cost Prussia the equivalent of $10 million, a phenomenal sum in 1778.^[23] The war ended in the Congress of Teschen (1779), mediated by France and Russia. According to the settlement, Maria Theresa, much to her son's and co-ruler's displeasure, returned but the Innviertel to Bavaria. Saxony received a financial reward for its role in the intervention.^[24]

[edit] Resurgence of the problem

In 1785, Joseph again sought to make territorial deals, again with Charles IV Theodore, and again offering to trade portions of Bavarian territory for the Austrian Netherlands, the same deal that had fallen through in 1778. It was to be a straight-up trade: territory for territory. Although the Austrian Netherlands was a wealthy territory, it was a thorn in Joseph's side, opposing his administrative and bureaucratic reforms, and devouring military and administrative resources. He sought to focus more of his time on his contiguous hereditary lands, those in Austria, in the Balkans, Hungary, for example; the Austrian Netherlands, populated with contentious urban bürgers were troublesome.^[25] Again, Charles of Zweibrücken resented the loss of his Bavarian expectancy, and once again, Frederick II offered aid. This time, no war developed, not even a quasi-war; instead, Frederick resorted to imperial pressure politics. He founded the Fürstenbund, or the Union of Princes, comprising influential princes of the northern German states, and these individuals jointly exerted pressure on Joseph to relinquish his ambitious plans.^[26]

[edit] Sources

[edit] Citations and notes

[edit] Bibliography

• Benians, E. A. et al. The Cambridge History of Modern Europe, Cambridge: University Press, 1902–12.

• Blanning, Timothy. The French Revolutionary Wars. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

• Church, William Conant. "Our Doctors in the Rebellion." The Galaxy, volume 4. New York: W.C. & F.P. Church, Sheldon & Company, 1866–68; 1868–78.

• Dill, Marshal. Germany: a modern history. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970.

• (German) Ebert, Jens-Florian. "Nauendorf, Friedrich August Graf." Die Österreichischen Generäle 1792–1815. Accessed 15 October 2009.

• "Maximilian III Joseph".In Encyclopædia Britannica.Retrieved 18 December 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

• Henderson, Ernest Flagg. A short history of Germany (volume 2). New York: Macmillan, 1917.

• Holborn, Hajo. A History of Modern Germany, The Reformation, Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1959.

• Ingrao, Charles. "Review of Alois Schmid, Max III Joseph und die europaische Macht." The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 5 (Dec., 1988), p. 1351.

• (French) "Maria Theresa to Joseph, 17 July, 1778." Maria Theresa, Empress and Joseph, Holy Roman Emperor. Maria Theresia und Joseph II. Ihre Correspondenz sammt Briefen Joseph's an seinen Bruder Leopold. Wien, C. Gerold's Sohn, 1867–68

• Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. Penguin Books, 2008.

• Williams, Henry Smith. The historians' history of the world : a comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations as recorded by the great writers of all ages. London: The Times, 1908,