When Diplomacy Fails Podcast
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PINYL #25: The Fickle And The Weak
🕑 Added 2021-01-18 06:01:01 +0000 UTC[PATRONS]
Europe was a mess of conflicting loyalties and interests in the early 1730s. The six main powers: Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia and Spain all had their own reasons for sticking resolutely to peace, or hoping for war. Out of the corner of Europe's eye, you could argue, Poland and its vacant crown was beginning to become not just a major issue, but also the spark which threatened to set off conflicts which were decades in the making, and which would converge at Warsaw.
The War of the Polish Succession was more accurately a Franco-Spanish attempt to seize the Holy Roman Emperor's prized possessions along the Rhine and in southern Italy, but as the Crown of Poland was added to the mix, and as this crown concerned Austria, Prussia and Russia in equal measure, this misnamed conflict is ours to untangle and make sense of. Alliances would be abandoned by the fickle, and the great hopes would be denied to the weak, but Europe refused - through it all - to sit still. Sounds like Poland Is Not Yet Lost!
