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The War of the Spanish Partition and the successful establishment of Joseph Ferdinand as King of Spain ended as said a whole chapter of Europe's diplomatic history. For centuries, Habsburg and Bourbon had been at odds with each other, and had always found something to fuel their wars anew. With the Spanish issue settled more or less peacefully, though, that now changed, and all of Europe regogniced that, too. The courts of Paris and Vienna were virtually thrown into vacuum. Sources of the time from those courts all have a certain theme of “What now?”. Many preffered a redirection of foreign policy, while others where unable to see the respective opponent as anything else than an eternal enemy. However, in the end it simply made sense for both realms to bury the war hatchet.

Already in autumn 1703 diplomats of both sides met. Despite a history of hostility, the situation was good for an agreement. Now lacking other foci, Austria wanted to concentrate on the Ottomans. France in the meanwhile wanted to have free hand in whatever it would do. Bluntly speaking, the court at Versailles was fed up that an Europe-wide against everybody would break out the minute France did something. Breaking out Austria from that inofficial anti-French alliance would be a major diplomatic success. In November 1703 the inofficial “Versailles Consensus” is reached, in which both sides more or less state those aims and agree that they are compatible with each other. However, it took another four months until the Treaty of Kehl was signed between France and Austria, mostly because of the death of Louis XIV due to food poisoning, 12 years earlier as IOTL, and the ascension of his successor, Louis XV., IOTL never king and called “Le Grand Dauphin”. In the treaty, both sides obliged themselves to consult each other in all military matters, to avoid further semi-accidental wars, and a non-agression pact for 10 years was concluded, too.

The Treaty caused major outrage in Germany, as many felt the “Emperor has sold out Germany!”, and that just like in the War of the Grand Alliance apparently Hungary was more important to him than the Realm from which he derived his imperial title. The diplomatic fallput will be described in the segment about the War of the German Alliance, this segment focuses on Austria. There the idea of a new war against the Ottomans was controversional, too, though. The Austrian finances were stzill strained from the War of the Grand Alliance seven years back. It was not as bad as IOTL, since the War of the Spanish Succession ha sbeen avoided, but it was certainly bad enough that people at court spoke out against plans for war. However, Emperor Leopold would not lend his ear to it. While Austrian-Ottoman Wars were never really wars of religion, the religious element now drive Leopold to seek war no matter what. To that end, in July 1704 the Treaty of Gran is signed between Russia and Austria, an offensive alliance against the Ottoman Empire. It was more or less a symbolic actt only, as Russia was still occupied with the Great Nordic War, but it did secure Austria's flank, as unnecessary as that might have been. At the same time, support from the Most Serene Republic of Venice was already secure: Venice wanted to reconquer territories lost in Greece.

Thusly warned, the Ottomans began to concentrate troops around Belgrade, and began to strengthen the city's already formidable fortifications. War was not declared, it in general was not between Christian and Mulsim powers at that time. The 6th Austrian-Ottoman War began when in March 1705 Austrian troops marched into the Banat, the only part of Hungary not won in the previous war. However, while their aim was clearly Belgrade, the Ottoman Defenders did not just wait to receive them among fortifications. Instead, the Ottoman troops were split, and an army of 80,000 Ottoman soldiers was sent out to give battle to defend the Banat. Those troops made for Temesvar (Timisoara), another Ottoman fortress. The Austrian troops numbered 90,000, under Prince Eugen of Savoy. When the Prince heard of the Ottoman movements, he sent his lighter troops out to harass the Ottonan march, and raced with his main force to the fortress itself. This plan worked, and hence the Austrian main force under Prince Eugen of Savoy was able to attack the Ottomans when they had not yet fully entered the fortification. Half of the Belgrade troops were defeated before Temesvar's gates, and most of the unit train was captured, and the fortress itself fell to the ensuing siege two months later. The Banat was hence secured, and the attack on Belgrade could be well planned and supplied.

When news about Ottoman reinfrocements bound for Belgrade reached Prince Eugen in June, his advisors urged him to wait for own Austrian reinforcments. However, Prince Eugen always preferred the offensive solution, and hence he rallied his troops to cros the Danube. Belgrade, lying between Danube and Save, was only really attackeable from the south, and the Save was too well secured. Hence, as IOTL, the Austrian troops crossed the Danube east of Belgrade, but instead turned against the Ottoman reinforcments. In the Battle of Mladenovac, the Austrian forces again defeated a numerically by far superior army – 70,000 Austrians defeated 110,000 Ottomans. But it was a pyrrhic victory, and a third of the Austrian troops lay dead on the field. Hence, when already the next day the Belgrad garrision now came out to battle the Austrians, even Prince Eugen had to decide for a retreat. Leading personally the detachment covering the retreat, he thus helped 30,000 Austrians to escape. He himself was determined to the face the Ottomans to the last, but was knocked unconscious by a loyal staff aide, and carried across the Danube, too.

With the failed Danube crossing of the Austrians, the offensive capabilities of both sides had been exhausted. Additionally, the Ottoman troops began to make entrenchments all along Save and Danube, making any further landing next to Belgrade impossible. Hence, the Austrians pursued a different strategy in 1706. Starting two offensives, the reinforcmentes originally planned for Belgrade invaded Bosnia, while Prince Eugen's troops crossed the Southern Carpathes and invaded Wallachia. Unwilling to bare Belgrade, after it had been held in the last year by sheer numerical superiority of troops, the Ottomans gave less resistance than one would have thought. The Wallachian campaign was successful, securing Lesser Wallachia (Oltenia). The Bosnian campaign, though, saw a complete desintegration of traditioal combat structures of the time. The Austrian force managed to defeat the Ottoman main force at Travnik, then Bosnian capital – but it also managed to piss of the lcoal population, be it Orthodoxs, Catholics or Muslims. Hence, the remaining Ottoman troops were able the next four years to wage what we would nowadays call a guerilla war, and the Austrian troops were bound in what was called in Vienna a “pacification campaign against mobs and plunderers”.

This continued, as said, in 1707. Additionally, the Ottoman troops at Belgrade now attacked and retook Temesvar, only to be later beaten again by Prince Eugen. And this more or less described the entire war in the following years: Guerilla war in Bosnia, and a cat and mouse game between the Ottomans and Prince Eugen in the Banat and in Lesser Wallachia. The pattern was broken by the Ottomans in 1710. After finally having assembled a large enough army, they could simply march through the Banat unhindered, into Hungary proper. The Austrians reacted with panic. What saved them was that they had prepared a major offenisve, too, but still they drew and indeed had to draw troops from all over their domains. And hence, the fate of Hungary, after some delaying battles along the Ottoman army's path would be decied once again near Mohacs. In the third battle of Mohacs in August 1710, 110,000 Austrian troops defeated 140,000 Ottoman troops, and set immidatly out for a counterstrike. However, crossing the Danube or Save would have to wait until next year. And indeed, in May 1711, in the Battle of Kleinwardstein the Austrians defeated the Ottomans and then crossed the Save. A hastily assembled Ottomean relief army was, once again, defeated at Belgrade's gates. The city itself was not taken, though. Both sides had used the time to build up considerable danube fleets, but the Austrians were too secure in already having the superior fleet. In the Naval Battle of Belgrade in July, the Ottomans were victorious, and hence any siege of Belgrade was now ineffective,a s the city could be supplied by river. As the Austrians now also wanted to partake in the War of the German Alliance, it was a perfect time for peace talks.

In the Treaty of Passowitz (same location as IOTL after the Sixth Ottoman-Austrian War) signed at 10th November 1711, the Ottomans ceded the Banat, Bosnia, and Lesser Wallachia, but unlike OTL not North Serbia with Belgrade to Austria, and Crete back to Venice. Austria was now free to are about German politcis again, mainly saving bishoprics and engaging in the War of the German Alliance.

As said, Louis XIV. had already died in 1703. His succesor was his son, Louis “le Grand Dauphin”, so far King of Sicily and Naples as Louis II, where his second son Philip (IOTL Philip IV of Spain) succeeded him. Reigning as Louis XV., he had none of his father's energy. It was not that he was a bad man: His relatives and the courts liked him, and he generally was well meaning. But in the sharks tank that was Versailles, that was not enough. Very soon, cliques formed at court, and dominated it. By 1705 the process was complete: Everybody at court complained about the cliques, but they had become a fact of life. Basically, there were four factions at court: Dauphin Louis, his brother Charles, Louis XIV's legitimised son Louis-August, Duke of Main, and Philip II, Duke of Orleans. Louis XV's only efforts in the factional strife was to keep peace within his family, but that led to the “royally enforced” alliance between Dauphin Louis and Charles dominating the court – but not to the point that the other cliques would disapear, especially because thos etwo clciques ironcially were the most diametrically opposed ones. Still, the others were in an inferior position and there, too, internal strife happened, as Louis August and Philip of Orleans really hated each other: The Orleans was in a very unhappy marriage with Louis August's (full) sister.

The four men were all very different characters: The Dauphin Louis was a very pious and educated men, and his group's main aim was an administrtaive reform in France. They sought to strengthen again the provin es, with intermediatry councils standing between people and king. And they sought to restrengthen the nobles, who alone should sit in those councils – as opposed to the partly bourgeouise administrtaion apparatus of Louis XIV. Charles, in the meanwhile, had no such visions, and hence mainly stood for the continuation of Louis XIV's policies and administration structures. Hence, he gathered around them all those who stood to lose from the Dauphin's planned reforms, which is why the alliance with bis brother's faction was always a shaky one. Philip of Orleans was a sarcastic atheist, known for readings atire in mass and holding orgies.And finally Louis August meanwhile had been Louis XIV's favourite son, and hence many oldtimers from the Sun King's reign ended up with his group instead of Charles' faction.

Taking over much factual power from his apathic father, the Dauphin Louis soon got the King's consent to start with his envisioned reforms. He created the provincial councils in Summer 1706, but they were of few use. An endless stream of petitions from the enbattlened members of the Sun King's old administration reached Louis XV. withs support from Charles and Louis August, and the King was of a character that he wanted to offend nobody. Hence he let his heir create meaningless official institutions, while not granting them any major powers at all.

Louis August meanwhile was much more successful. During 1706, he managed to defame Philip of Orleans at court – not a difficult task, considering the duke's characteristics and scandals. Hence Louis August could gradually gain the King's favour. In what Louis XV saw as a fair quid-pro-quo, Louis August was given charge of the French naval programm, in exchange so to say for Dauphin Louis being in charge of the French administrative reform.This also worked because Louis August had already been made “général des galères” by Louis XIV, which goes to show it does not take the Star Wars Expanded Universe to have naval generals. In any case, Louis August had the better position with it: While the adminsitrative reform programm struggled, the naval programm was a vision already imagined by the Sun King. With Spain and Austria not enemies of France anymore, the kingdom should now concentrate on the sea. Louis XV. continued that policy, and under Louis August's influence the programm became more and more expanded. This secured Louis August's influence against the dominating alliance of court cliques, and should the naval programm succeed in a war, endless opportunities would lie before him.

Meanwhile, back in Germany… The princes were an uproar as I said already earlier. The French-Austrian detente left many German powers to think Habsburg had sold them out. For a time, especially western Germany looked much like a stable full of headless chickens running around – a general feeling of panic that steadily reinforced itself to a point where it had nothing to do with reality. After all, it was not ike France was immdiatly preparing for a land war. However, if one were to read the German newspapers of the time, one would have to come to this conclusion. Hence, in this imagined threat of war, several powers banded together to form a defensive alliance: Flanders, Lorraine, Savoy, the Palatinate, Baden, Württemberg, Nassau-Weilburg (due to Saarbrücken), Hesse-Darmstadt (due to Lichtenberg in the Alsace) the Bishopric of Basel and some Free Cities (including, outside the Empire, Geneva) banded together in the Convention of Karlsruhe, signed in August of 1706, soon (despite the presence of Geneva and Savoy) just called the German Alliance.

The irony of course is that the Alliance created a self-fulfilling prophecy. Louis XV. had not cared much about Germany, really. With Austria gone as a competition, the main enemy now was England, over the sea, and not the squabbling, small neighbours to the east. However, the German Alliance was seen as a threat to France. Several threats to the alliance members to disband it were rejected, in fact they were only seen as proof for France's hostile intention against which, after all, the alliance had been founded! Hence, France spent 1707 preparing for a war. Generally, it was pretty sure about a victory in Germany – after all, some small states, without the backing of Austria, or even Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony or Bavaria – hardly a threat to the most powerful kingdom of Europe. However, Louis XV. was worried about England. He assumed, somewhat rightfully, that England would enter any war France entered, on the opposite side. Those fears were further cemented due to Louis August's “lobbying”, as the master of France's navy of course had an interest to make the naval main enemy appear as threatening as possible. Hence, 1707 passes with troops drawn together and mainly building yet more ships. The irony of the German Alliance repeats itself here: Maybe only that shipbuilding programm made it truly certain that England would enter the war (though maybe it would have anyways).

In short, general European fear of war created the great war it feared.

That the coming war also gained a somewhat respectable casus belli in 1707 was then even rather unimportant, a further irony: In 1707, both Cosimo III of Tuscany and his son and heir Gian Gastone died when Nekromans' Death Ray… err, when a circus troops monkey ran away and was driven over by the Medici's carriage – which as consequence fell down so unfortunately that both Medici died. The dynastical heir was 7 years old Charles William, son of Cosimos daughter and John William of the Palatinate, and indeed also the Palatinate's heir. However, France and Sicily-Naples objected, insisting that Tuscany had been promised to Sicily-Naples in the negotiations after the War of the Spanish Partition. However, there were no treaties confirming that, and hence Tuscany came under Palatinatian rule, joining the side of the German Alliance.

At least Louis XV., in contrast to his father, had the decency to send declarations of war, which all members of the German Alliance received in April 1708, shortly followed by Sicilian declarations of war. Thus began the War of the German Alliance. Shortly after, they received French troops. Geneva, Basel, Lorraine and Faldners west of Liege were indeed simply overran, and Luxemburg (the remaining part of Flanders) and the Palatinate became heavy battlefields. The French strategy aimed for a defensible Rhine front, to have a clear hand for their main aim – England. Additionally, the Bishoprics of Cologne, Liege and Straßburg, later also Münster, joined the side of France, as they already had done in the War of the Grand Alliance, granting France brigdeheads across the Rhine (in the case of Münster and Straßburg, that is).

Those quick successes had negative diplomatic consequences, though. England/Scotland/Ireland had declared war on France and its allies immidatly after the start of the war, but when France's quick successes became known in Europe, many feared French dominance, and hence until the year was over Spain, the Netherlands, Modena, Bern and Zürich (yeah, okay, the latter two probably are not that important, but losing Geneva would be grave for the reformed side in Switzerland, so the two chief reformed cantons intervene) also declared war on France. British troops were shipped to the Netherlands, were together with Dutch and fled Flandrish troops they formed an expedition army to counterattack the French troops. Spain invaded southern France, and Hesse-Darmstadt, Baden and Württemberg drew together troops around Karlsruhe. Of course, the French army still outnumbered them all.

Had France simply pushed on in Germany, it could have conquered pretty much whatever it wanted, decisively winning the war. However, it did not, and two cases of sheer luck saved the German Alliance in 1709: The one was the intervention of Brandenburg-Prussia. The reasons why Frederick William II (IOTL “the Soldier King”, ITTL no King, hence numeral as Prince-Elector of Brandenburg) did this are complex. Generally, Frederick William did not like war. This would destroy his beautyful army, after all – or, more correctly, would not give him time to build it up as he had planned (his military reforms have only started yet, after all).The reason why he nontheless joined the war was something of a sense of “finsihing things up”. Already his father and his grandfather had fought at the Rhine against France, without getting something out of it, without even getting any recognition from Habsburg. Now that Habsburg cared more about the Ottomans than its own Empire, though, Brandenburg-Prussia had the chance to do things the way they ought to be – ought to be in the eyes of the Hohenzollern, of course.

Hence, the first thing the Brandenburg armies did also was occupying Cologne and Münster. Already last time their bishops had been pardoned for betraying the Empire. This time this would not happen. Frederick William II. was not a man caring greatly for for the ceremonial rules of his time, so he simply had the bishops be send into house arrest in Brandenburg, and their territories be put under Brandenburger administration. Of course, the French tried to help their allies, but to no avail: It is indeed the Battle of Cologne in August 1709 that is seen as the war's turning point.

The other lucky break the German Alliance got was the French decision to invade England…