The second
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (
Aachen) of
1748 ended the
War of the Austrian Succession.
A
congress assembled at the
Imperial Free City of Aachen, in the west of the
Holy Roman Empire, on
24 April 1748. The resulting treaty was signed on
18 October 1748.
Britain and France dictated the treaty, and other nations followed the proposed terms which had previously been agreed at the
Congress of Breda.
The terms were:
- Austria recognized Frederick II of Prussia's conquest of Silesia, as well as losing parts of Italian territories to Spain. France withdrew from the Netherlands in order to have some of its colonies returned . France regained Cape Breton Island while it gave up Madras to Great Britain and gave up the Barrier towns to the Dutch (Britannica).
- The Asiento contract, which was guaranteed to Great Britain in 1713 through the Treaty of Utrecht, was renewed (Sosin). Spain later raised objections to the Asiento clauses, and the Treaty of Madrid, signed on 5 October 1750, stipulated that Great Britain surrendered her claims under those clauses in return for a sum of £.
In essence, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and the War of Austrian Succession concluded
status quo ante bellum. In the commercial struggle between Britain and France in the
West Indies,
Africa, and India, nothing was settled; the treaty was thus no basis for a lasting peace.
In France, there was a general resentment at what was seen as a foolish throwing away of advantages (particularly in the
Austrian Netherlands, which had largely been conquered by the brilliant strategy of
Marshal Saxe), and it came to be popular in
Paris to use the phrase
la guerre pour le roi de Prusse ("war for the king of Prussia"). By the same token, British colonists in
New England and merchants back in Great Britain resented the return of
Louisbourg to the French after they had captured the stronghold in a 46-day siege. This resentment was an early seed of the later
American Revolution. In actual fact, Britain exchanged
Louisbourg for
Madras, captured by French Admiral
La Bourdonnais in 1746.
In Britain itself,
George II and his Ministers were seen as having conducted the war and the peace to the best advantage of
Brunswick-Lüneburg (of which George was Elector) rather than Britain, and so the main British celebrations of the peace were only held six months later, with the fireworks display in
Green Park for which
Handel wrote his
Music for the Royal Fireworks. This celebration was deliberately held near the royal residence of
Buckingham House so as to present the king in a better light, as a British king and as the prime mover in a peace that was successful for Britain. (The display proved less successful than the music - the enormous wood building from which the fireworks were to be launched caught fire due to the fall of the
bas relief of George II). George and Britain did at least gain from the treaty in that one clause of it had finally compelled the French to recognise the
Hanoverian succession to the British throne and expel the
Jacobites from France.
In contrast to French and British unhappiness with the Treaty,
Italy gained stability for the first time in the 18th century. The new territorial settlement and the accession of the pacific
Ferdinand VI of Spain allowed the Aachen settlement to last until the outbreak of the
French Revolutionary Wars in
1792.
See also
- Treaty of Åbo, signed on 7 August 1743 between Imperial Russia and Sweden
