Defensive Treaty of Alliance between the King of Great Britain, the most Christian King, and the King of Prussia, concluded at Hannover the 3rd of September 1725. | |
---|---|
Type | Defensive Alliance |
Context | Stately Quadrille |
Signed | 3 September 1725 |
Location | Hannover, Germany |
Effective | 30 September 1725 |
Signatories | List
|
Ratifiers | |
Language | French |
The Treaty of Hanover was a treaty of defensive alliance signed on 3 September 1725 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Electorate of Hanover, the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Prussia. The alliance was formed to combat the power of the Austro-Spanish alliance, which was founded at the Peace of Vienna months earlier in May 1725. [1]
The United Provinces and the Kingdom of Sweden later acceded to the Hanoverian Alliance through the Treaties of The Hague (1726) and Stockholm (1727). [1] The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway did not formally join the Hanoverian Alliance but signed the Treaty of Copenhagen with Great Britain and France in April 1727. [2] In 1728, Prussia would ally itself with Emperor Charles VI and the Viennese Alliance by signing the secret Treaty of Berlin.
The Spanish, who were allies and close friends of the Habsburg monarchy following the succession of Charles I (V) to the Spanish throne in 1516, broke their partnership with the Austrians in 1700. This was due to the death of Charles II, the last Habsburg king of Spain, who died without issue. [3] King Charles II appointed Philip de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou as his successor. [4] The following succession crisis sparked the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), and consequently ended the two century alliance between Austria and Spain.
After the defeat of the Spanish in the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1717-1720), the Austrians decided to ally the Spanish once again in order to reset the balance of power in Europe; which had leaned towards France in recent years. King George I had also become wary of a renewed hegemony of Europe by Spain and the Empire. The Treaty of Hanover marks the beginning of the Hanoverian Alliance as a formal opposition to the renewed Austro-Spanish alliance (which would later be joined by the Russian Empire, and the Electorates of Bavaria and Cologne in 1726). [5] [6] Separate reassurances of full military support were also given in the event of the Holy Roman Empire attacking the French unexpectedly. [1]
"There shall be now, and in all Time coming, a true, firm, and inviolable Peace, the most sincere and intimate Friendship, and the most strict Alliance and Union between the said three most serene Kings, their Heirs and Successors...and prevent and repel all Wrongs and Damages, by the most proper means they can find out."
It was agreed among the signers that approximate amounts of troops and cavalry would be supplied immediately in support if an enemy were to declare war. Great Britain and France would both send eight thousand troops and four thousand cavalry, while Prussia would send only three thousand troops and two thousand cavalry. [1] Naval support was also guaranteed if needed. [1]
In 1714, a religious massacre occurred in Polish-ruled Royal Prussia called the Tumult of Thorn. Religious tensions had been present in the city since the Jesuits entered into Thorn due to Poland-Lithuania's acceptance of the Counter-Reformation in 1595. After the Treaty of Oliva [lower-alpha 1] in 1660, religious tolerance was enforced in Royal Prussia; the city had become about half Catholic and half Lutheran. [7]
On 16 and 17 March 1726, the Jesuits were celebrating the feast day of Corpus Christi [lower-alpha 2] when Jesuit student of a monastery complained that Lutherans who were watching the procession did not take off their hats or kneel before the statue of Mary. Fights on both sides ensued, and a Jesuit monastery was damaged. [8]
Jesuits were badly beaten, portraits of Catholic saints were destroyed, and part of the altar was damaged. The Lutherans also gathered a pile of Catholic books and paintings, which were set on fire outside the monastery. [8] After these events, the Jesuits sued the City in the Polish Supreme Court in Warsaw. The court, directed by King Augustus II, [lower-alpha 3] issued a verdict where thirteen Lutherans were set to be executed. [9]
Great Britain and Prussia, who both guaranteed the Treaty of Oliva, were greatly concerned with this massacre. [1] The Polish court's verdict revealed religious intolerance present in Poland towards its Lutheran population, which both powers believed needed to be corrected and damaged Poland's international reputation. [10] Prussia and Great Britain agreed to concert efforts towards Poland to enforce tolerance in the area. [1]
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Participants were representatives of all European powers and other stakeholders. The Congress was chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, and was held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 (O.S.) until his death in 1760.
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.
The Austro-Prussian War, also by many variant names such as Seven Weeks' War, German Civil War, Brothers War or Fraternal War, known in Germany as Deutscher Krieg, Deutscher Bruderkrieg and by a variety of other names, was fought in 1866 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, with each also being aided by various allies within the German Confederation. Prussia had also allied with the Kingdom of Italy, linking this conflict to the Third Independence War of Italian unification. The Austro-Prussian War was part of the wider rivalry between Austria and Prussia, and resulted in Prussian dominance over the German states.
The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially Great Britain, was a sovereign country in Western Europe from 1707 to 1801. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The unitary state was governed by a single parliament at the Palace of Westminster, but distinct legal systems—English law and Scots law—remained in use.
The House of Hanover, whose members are known as Hanoverians, is a European royal house of German origin that ruled Hanover, Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire at various times during the 17th to 20th centuries. The house originated in 1635 as a cadet branch of the House of Welf, at that time also called by House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, growing in prestige with Hanover becoming an Electorate in 1692. A great-grandson of King James VI and I, George I, who was prince-elector of Hanover, became the first Hanoverian monarch of Great Britain and Ireland in 1714. At the end of his line, Queen Victoria's death in 1901, the throne of the United Kingdom passed to her eldest son Edward VII, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, through his father Albert, Prince Consort. The last reigning members of the House of Hanover lost the Duchy of Brunswick in 1918 when Germany became a republic.
The Kingdom of Prussia constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1866 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Its capital was Berlin.
The Holy Alliance was a coalition linking the monarchist great powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia, which was created after the final defeat of Napoleon at the behest of Emperor (Tsar) Alexander I of Russia and signed in Paris on 26 September 1815. The alliance aimed to restrain liberalism and secularism in Europe in the wake of the devastating French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars; it nominally succeeded in this until the Crimean War. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck managed to reunite the Holy Alliance following the unification of Germany in 1871, but the alliance again faltered by the 1880s over Austrian and Russian conflicts of interest over the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
George V was the last king of Hanover, reigning from 18 November 1851 to 20 September 1866. The only child of King Ernest Augustus and Queen Frederica, he succeeded his father in 1851. George's reign was ended by the Austro-Prussian War, after which Prussia annexed Hanover.
Prussia was a German state located on most of the North European Plain, also occupying southern and eastern regions. It formed the German Empire when it united the German states in 1871. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, expanding its size with the Prussian Army. Prussia, with its capital at Königsberg and then, when it became the Kingdom of Prussia in 1701, Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.
Bremen-Verden, formally the Duchies of Bremen and Verden, were two territories and immediate fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire, which emerged and gained imperial immediacy in 1180. By their original constitution they were prince-bishoprics of the Archdiocese of Bremen and Bishopric of Verden.
The Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Hanover, and joined 38 other sovereign states in the German Confederation in June 1815. The kingdom was ruled by the House of Hanover, a cadet branch of the House of Welf, in personal union with Great Britain between 1714 and 1837. Since its monarch resided in London, a viceroy, usually a younger member of the British royal family, handled the administration of the Kingdom of Hanover.
The Electorate of Hanover was an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, located in northwestern Germany and taking its name from the capital city of Hanover. It was formally known as the Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg. For most of its existence, the electorate was ruled in personal union with Great Britain and Ireland following the Hanoverian Succession.
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.
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European great powers and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754–1763), the Carnatic Wars (1744–1763), and the Anglo-Spanish War (1762–1763). The opposing alliances were led by Great Britain and France, respectively, each seeking to establish global pre-eminence at the expense of the other. Along with Spain, France fought Britain both in Europe and overseas with land-based armies and naval forces, while Britain's ally Prussia sought territorial expansion in Europe and consolidation of its power. Long-standing colonial rivalries pitted Britain against France and Spain in North America and the West Indies. They fought on a grand scale with consequential results. Prussia sought greater influence in the German states, while Austria wanted to regain Silesia, captured by Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession, and to contain Prussian influence.
The Stade Region emerged in 1823 by an administrative reorganisation of the dominions of the Kingdom of Hanover, a sovereign state, whose then territory is almost completely part of today's German federal state of Lower Saxony. Until 1837 the Kingdom of Hanover was ruled in personal union by the Kings of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
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 Whig statesman Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who considered an alliance with Austria crucial to prevent the further expansion of French power.
The Anglo-Prussian Alliance was a military alliance created by the Westminster Convention between Great Britain and Prussia that lasted formally between 1756 and 1762, during the Seven Years' War. The alliance allowed Britain to concentrate most of its efforts against the colonial possessions of the French-led coalition while Prussia was bearing the brunt of the fighting in Europe. It ended in the final months of the conflict, but strong ties between both kingdoms remained.
Lieutenant-General Sir James Campbell, KB was a Scottish professional soldier, Member of Parliament for Ayrshire from 1727 to 1741, and Governor of Edinburgh Castle from 1738 to 1745.
The Hanoverian Army was the standing army of the Electorate of Hanover from the seventeenth century onwards. From 1692 to 1803 it acted in defence of the electorate. Following the Hanoverian Succession of 1714, this was in conjunction with the British Army with which it shared a monarch. Hanoverian troops fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, Seven Years' War and American War of Independence during the eighteenth century.
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