International Library of Historical Studies
1 total work
v. 21
"King William's Other War", when William of Orange intervened to support Austria against the Ottoman Empire, was no sideshow. He helped to end Turkish expansion into Europe and freed Austria to join the War of the Grand Alliance with England, the Netherlands, Spain and the German states in opposing Louis XIV's rampant European expansion. Temporary peace treaties followed, but only as a prelude to the virtual world war of the Spanish succession, which set the scene for two centuries of Anglo-French imperial rivalry. The subsequent decline of Ottoman power saw the emergence of the Eastern Question as the central fault line in European great power politics. From these small beginnings can be traced the seeds of European conflagration and the disasters of the 20th century.