Simon van Slingelandt was succeed by the Willem Buys, pensioner of Amsterdam, director of the Society Suriname, fluently in French and a very skilled diplomat. He had close contact with the Whigs in Great Britain and was supporter of close ties with this nation. He prevented in 1731 and in 1733 a war between France and England which would involve the Netherlands as well.
Willem Buys needed all his diplomatic skills and connections to keep the Dutch Republic out of the War of the Austrian Succession which started in 1740, especially when France was involved in it. The Republic declared itself neutral. The declaration of neutrality was made easier since Catharina of Austria refused to pay for the Dutch garrisons of the Barrier cities, as was agreed in the Treaty of Utrecht This prompted the Dutch to with draw their troops, from this barrier cities when war loomed, except from Yper.
Since the Dutch Republic had their finance in order there was room for well maintained, improvement and even new, for Broekburg, fortifications of its border forts an cities. The Dutch already, since the previous war, reinforced their enclave of Graveline , Dunkirk, Broekburg.
Dunkirk, the enclave in the Austrian Netherlands, was by now regarded as a very valuable Naval base. Even the United Provinces were neutral, State Pensioner Buys could convince the Council of States and State General to increase funding for army and fleet and to mobilise the conscripts.
Initially the Austrian Netherlands would declared neutral, by all factions. But in 1744 France declared war to Austria and invaded the Southern Netherlands. One of the first main goals of the 90000 strong army was to recapture the city of Ostend in order to execute an invasion plan to bring James Stuart on the British throne. The French advance went very swiftly at the centre and the other border cities where only occupied by very small Austrian contingent which could not with stand a siege. When the French invaded the Austrian Netherlands they had except for several short sieges almost no resistance. Since Yper was still occupied the Dutch Republic did get involved with the war. Ypres fell after a siege but the Dunkirk enclave resisted the siege the same for the Defence lines in States Flandres at the Southern bank of the river Scheldt close to Antwerp.
To prevent an atmosphere close to that of 1672 when William III made a coup against the State Pensioner, Johan de Wit, Willem Buys asked for the election ofJohan Friso as Stadholder of all provinces and was granted overall command of the State Army.
The UK, now ruled by the House of Hanover also got involved and sent troops to the continent. The Allies determined to stop the French had a bad start. Stadholder Johan Friso insisted to command the Allied troops due to his seniority, however the Duke of Cumberland and the British were insisting that the Duke was in command which he eventually become. This dispute was referred often after the debacle of the battle of Fontenoy were French army under Saxe defeated the advancing Allied army. After this defeat the Dutch declared that their army only was allowed to be commanded by the commander of their preference. Since the Dutch now delivered the bulk of the Allied army Johan Friso became commander.
He moved his army towards Maastricht were the French opened siege trenches in front of Maastricht. Johan Friso manoeuvred his army in a way that it treated the line of retreat of the French and harass their supply and positioned his army at a defensible position. In essence he copied the tactics of Saxe. Saxe trying to evade battle , but was forced to do was defeated in the battle of Raucourt near Liege
Johan Friso repeated this by forcing the French to retreat another time and with this relieving the siege of Bergen op Zoom.
After this battles Willem Buys arranged a separate ceasefire with France which took the Republic de-facto out the war except that the Enclave of Dunkirk was de-facto besieged.
Hostilities flared up when, as part of defensive manoeuvre to prevent French troops invading the Dutch Republic, the Dutch occupied Cleves which was part of the Prussia.
After negotiation Cleve could be kept by the Dutch Republic in return for an anual payment which last 50 years.
At sea various encounters between Dutch and French or Spanish vessels
During the war years the fleet grew more to nearly the same size as the British. The conscript system and army improved drastically.
The war did caused difficulties for overseas trade and plantation colonies on Tobago and Cumana on South America and Leijdzaamheid at the Delagoa bay South Africa were sacked but it over all the Republic of the United Provinces and their numerous trading companies experienced an large increase in their influence and power. The VOC in the years between 1740 and 1746 gained complete control over Ceylon, in an almost textbook example of divide and conquest. A trade consortium of merchants from Frisia, Groningen and East Frisia bought from the Xhosa land to build a trade fort at the Bay of Natal, fort Natalia. At the Gold coast, East of the Danish slave station Fort Fredensborg three more slave forts were established. While in the hinterland at Fort Elmina the first successful plantations emerged. Almost all of them owned by Vrijburghers, people of mixed descent. The trade post on the Congo river Mpinda proved to a profitable place as well. The slaves from West Africa ended on the ever increasing plantations on the rivers sides of the Berbice, Demary, Escecuibo, Suriname, Orinoco, Araya and many plantations on the Islands of Tobago, Trinidad, Curacao and other smaller Caribian islands.
The Consil of States approved even the construction of a complete new city in front of the fort Breskens in the Demary river as an administrative centre of all the colonies in the Guyana’s. Since the VOC left the Cape colony the influx of migrants increased considerable from al kind of regions. Most of them from the Netherlands or Austrian Netherlands but during the Austrian Succession war a considerable number of Germans and French men, deserters, who as contract workers tried their luck on the Cape. The Guyana colonies saw as well an increase of the European population most of them contract workers from France, Prussia, Austria or other German principalities.