Una paz Europea

Military force did not allow for a Clausewitzian decisive victory in the War of the Polish Succession. The Bourbon and Habsburg blocs would have to settle for a negotiated solution, wherein the existing claims would need to be accommodated, without excessively stretching the international order of the peace treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt and Baden. A crucial difference with the War of the Quadruple Alliance, however, concerned the role of the Maritime Powers, who had remained neutral in the conflict between Charles VI and Louis XV. Although their proposals were not incompatible with the final outcome, France and Austria settled the conflict directly. Besides the deals done on Naples, Tuscany, Lorraine and Bar or Parma and Piacenza, contemporary print sources also inform us on the image of Russia, which entered the Franco-German stage physically in the final campaign. As an ally of the czarina, Emperor Charles VI was drawn into the final conflict of his reign with the Ottomans