French–Habsburg rivalry
In addition to holding the Austrian hereditary lands, the Habsburg dynasty ruled the Low Countries (1482–1794), Spain (1504–1700) and the Holy Roman Empire (1438–1806).
This practice was described by Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus' quote: Bella gerant alii, tu felix Austria, nube!
The conflicts involved the major powers of Italy and Europe, in a series of events that followed the end of the 40-year long Peace of Lodi agreed in 1454 with the formation of an Italic League.
[3] The collapse of the alliance in the 1490s left Italy open to the ambitions of Charles VIII of France, who invaded the Kingdom of Naples in 1494 on the ground of a dynastic claim.
[3] An important consequence of the League of Venice was the political marriage arranged by Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor for his son, through Mary of Burgundy, Philip the Handsome who married Joanna the Mad (daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile) to reinforce the anti-French alliance between Austria and Spain.
The son of Philip and Joanna would become Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 succeeding Maximilian and controlling an Habsburg empire inclusive of Castile, Aragon, Austria, and the Burgundian Netherlands, thus encircling France.
When the Protestant King of Navarre laid siege to Paris, Spanish commander, the Duke of Parma, helped relieve the city on behalf of the Catholics.
[6] The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 as a result of conflict between the Protestant estates in Bohemia and their Catholic monarch Ferdinand II, who was heir to Austria.
Louis XIV had emerged from the Franco-Dutch War in 1678 as the most powerful monarch in Europe, an absolute ruler who had won numerous military victories.
Using a combination of aggression, annexation, and quasi-legal means, Louis set about extending his gains to stabilize and strengthen France's frontiers, culminating in the brief War of the Reunions (1683–84).
Louis's decision to cross the Rhine in September 1688 was designed to extend his influence and pressure the Holy Roman Empire into accepting his territorial and dynastic claims.
Leopold I and the German princes resolved to resist, and when the States General and William III brought the Dutch and the English into the war against France, the French king faced a powerful coalition aimed at curtailing his ambitions.
The Maritime Powers (England and the Dutch Republic) were also financially exhausted, and when Savoy defected from the Alliance, all parties were keen to negotiate a settlement.
By the terms of the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) France retained the whole of Alsace but was forced to return Lorraine to its ruler and give up any gains on the right bank of the Rhine.
Louis also accepted William III as the rightful king of England, while the Dutch acquired a barrier fortress system in the Spanish Netherlands to help secure their borders.
In the treaty of Utrecht, Louis succeeded in installing the Bourbon dynasty in a Spain that was by now a second-rank power, and in bringing the Habsburg encirclement of France to an end.
In a move masterminded by Austrian diplomat Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz,[11] France and Austria became allies for the first time in over two hundred years.
Despite having successfully defended her claim to the Habsburg throne and had her husband, Francis Stephen, crowned Emperor in 1745, she had been forced to relinquish valuable territory in the process.
The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war in 1763, established France's withdrawal from the American continent and consolidated Prussian gains in Europe to Austria's detriment.
The French Revolution was opposed by the Habsburgs in Austria, who sought to destroy the Revolutionary Republic with assistance from several coalitions of monarchical nations, including Britain and several states within the Holy Roman Empire.
Hostilities between the two nations resumed during the Franco-Austrian War in 1859, Franco-Sardinian victory which resulted in the gains of Savoy and Nice for France, and the loss of Lombardy for Austria.
