The Congress of Soissons was a diplomatic conference held between a number of European powers, principally Great Britain and Spain, between 14 June 1728 and July 1729 in the French town of Soissons.
Along with the Convention of Pardo, it was designed to bring an end to the Anglo-Spanish War of 1727 by resolving their commercial and territorial disagreements. Spain agreed to recognise British possession of Gibraltar and Menorca in exchange for British recognition of Spanish rights in Italy. The ultimate aim of the British delegates Stephen Poyntz and Horatio Walpole was to prevent a Spanish-Austrian alliance from developing against Britain by resolving Britain's dispute with Spain as smoothly as possible. [1] Directed by the Duke of Newcastle, the British took a relatively hard line, believing they were negotiating from a position of strength—a strategy that proved successful. [2] The Dutch Republic was represented at the conference by Sicco van Goslinga.
It opened the way for a final treaty to be agreed between the two sides in Seville. However, many of the disputes between Britain and Spain flared up again over the next decade, leading the two states to fight again in the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739.
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, was a British statesman of the Whig group who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1766 to 1768. Historians call him Chatham or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish him from his son, William Pitt the Younger, who was also a prime minister. Pitt was also known as the Great Commoner, because of his long-standing refusal to accept a title until 1766.
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was an international diplomatic conference to reconstitute the European political order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a meeting of ambassadors of European states chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.
The War of Jenkins's Ear was a conflict between Britain and Spain lasting from 1739 to 1748, mainly in New Granada and among the West Indies of the Caribbean Sea, with major operations largely ended by 1742. Its name, coined by British historian Thomas Carlyle in 1858, refers to Robert Jenkins, a captain of a British merchant ship, whose ear was cut off by sailors of the Spanish coast guard when they boarded his Smuggling brig, Rebecca, in April 1731. Seven years later, in support of mongering for war, Jenkins was paraded before the British Parliament, without his ear.
Soissons is a commune in the northern French department of Aisne, in the region of Hauts-de-France. Located on the river Aisne, about 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of Paris, it is one of the most ancient towns of France, and is probably the ancient capital of the Suessiones. Soissons is also the see of an ancient Roman Catholic diocese, whose establishment dates from about 300, and it was the location of a number of church synods called "Council of Soissons".
The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne of Spain, and involved much of Europe for over a decade. The main action saw France as the defender of Spain against a multinational coalition. The war was very expensive and bloody and finally stalemated. Essentially, the treaties allowed Philip V to keep the Spanish throne in return for permanently renouncing his claim to the French throne, along with other necessary guarantees that would ensure that France and Spain should not merge, thus preserving the balance of power in Europe.
The First Moroccan Crisis or the Tangier Crisis was an international crisis between March 1905 and May 1906 over the status of Morocco. Germany wanted to challenge France's growing control over Morocco, aggravating France and Great Britain. The crisis was resolved by the Algeciras Conference of 1906, a conference of mostly European countries that affirmed French control; this worsened German relations with both France and Britain, and helped enhance the new Anglo-French Entente.
The Concert of Europe was a general consensus among the Great Powers of 19th-century Europe to maintain the European balance of power, political boundaries, and spheres of influence. Never a perfect unity and subject to disputes and jockeying for position and influence, the Concert was an extended period of relative peace and stability in Europe following the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars which had consumed the continent since the 1790s. There is considerable scholarly dispute over the exact nature and duration of the Concert. Some scholars argue that it fell apart nearly as soon as it began in the 1820s when the Great Powers disagreed over the handling of liberal revolts in Italy, while others argue that it lasted until the outbreak of World War I and others for points in between. For those arguing for a longer duration, there is generally agreement that the period after the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War (1853-1856) represented a different phase with different dynamics than the earlier period.
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and 1st Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne, was a British Whig statesman, whose official life extended throughout the Whig supremacy of the 18th century. He is commonly known as the Duke of Newcastle.
The 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, sometimes called the Treaty of Aachen, ended the War of the Austrian Succession, following a congress assembled on 24 April 1748 at the Free Imperial City of Aachen.
The Anglo-Spanish War of 1727–1729 was a limited war that took place between Great Britain and Spain during the late 1720s, and consisted of a failed Spanish attempt to capture Gibraltar and an unsuccessful British blockade of Porto Bello. It eventually ended with a return to the previous status quo ante bellum following the Treaty of Seville.
Sir Benjamin Keene (1697–1757) was a British diplomat, who was British Ambassador to Spain from 1729 to 1739, then again from 1748 until his death in Madrid in December 1757. He has been described as "by far the most prominent British agent in Anglo-Spanish relations of the 18th century".
The Convention of Pardo, also known as the Treaty of Pardo or Convention of El Pardo, was a 1739 agreement between Britain and Spain. It sought to resolve trade issues between the two countries and agree boundaries between Spanish Florida and the English colony of Georgia.
The Congress of Breda, also known as the Breda peace talks, were a series of bilateral negotiations between Great Britain and France, held in the Dutch city of Breda from 1746 and 1748. The discussions led to the agreement of terms that later became the basis of the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Anglo-Austrian Alliance connected the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Habsburg monarchy during the first half of the 18th century. It was largely the work of the British statesman Duke of Newcastle, who considered an alliance with Austria crucial to prevent the further expansion of French power.
The Anglo-French Alliance is the name for the alliance between Great Britain and France between 1716 and 1731. It formed part of the stately quadrille in which the Great Powers of Europe repeatedly switched partners to try to build a superior alliance.
Great Britain was one of the major participants in the Seven Years' War, which in fact lasted nine years, between 1754 and 1763. British involvement in the conflict began in 1754 in what became known as the French and Indian War. However the warfare in the European theater involving countries other than Britain and France commenced in 1756. Britain emerged from the war as the world's leading colonial power, having gained all of New France in North America, ending France's role as a colonial power there. Following Spain's entry in the war in alliance with France in the third Family Compact, Britain captured the major Spanish ports of Havana, Cuba and Manila, in the Philippines in 1762, and agreed to return them in exchange for Florida, previously controlled by Spain. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 formally ended the conflict and Britain established itself as the world's pre-eminent naval power.
The Treaty of El Pardo was concluded between Great Britain and Spain in March 1728 at the El Pardo Palace in Madrid.
Cristóbal de Moscoso y Montemayor, also known as the Count de las Torres, was a Spanish noble and military officer.
The Protocol of St. Petersburg was an 1826 Anglo-Russian agreement for the settlement of the Greek War of Independence.