Treaty of Teschen

Friede von Teschen
Signed	13 May 1779
Location	Teschen (Cieszyn)
Effective	28 February 1780
Condition	Ratification by theEmpire
Signatories	Habsburg Monarchy Kingdom of Prussia
Languages	French

TheTreaty of Teschen (German:Frieden von Teschen,lit. 'Peace of Teschen';French:Traité de Teschen) was signed on 13 May 1779 inTeschen, then inAustrian Silesia, between the AustrianHabsburg monarchy and theKingdom of Prussia, which officially ended theWar of the Bavarian Succession.^[1]

When the childlessWittelsbach electorMaximilian III Joseph of Bavaria died in 1777, theHabsburg emperorJoseph II sought to acquire most of theElectorate of Bavaria and theUpper Palatinate, basing his claim on his marriage with the late elector's sister,Maria Josepha, who had died in 1767.

Maximilian's direct heir was his distant cousin Count Palatine and Prince-ElectorCharles Theodore (1724–1799), by prior succession agreements between the Bavarian and Palatinate branches of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Charles Theodore was amenable to an agreement with Emperor Joseph II that would allow him to acquire parts of theAustrian Netherlands in exchange for parts of his Bavarian inheritance. From 16 January 1778 Austrian troops moved into theLower Bavarian lands ofStraubing. Ultimately, both parties envisioned a wholesale exchange of the Bavarian lands for the Austrian Netherlands, but the final details were never concluded by treaty due to outside intervention.

Since Charles Theodore too had no legitimate heirs, his prospective successor was his Palatine cousin, DukeCharles II August of Zweibrücken (1746–1795), who objected to an agreement that would deprive him of the Bavarian inheritance. He appealed to theImperial Diet in Regensburg. His cause was taken up by Prussian KingFrederick the Great, who refused any increase in Austrian territory, and bySaxony, whoseWettin electoral house had married into the Wittelsbach family and therefore had allodial claims to parts of the inheritance.

The War of the Bavarian Succession broke out with the invasion of thePrussian Army intoBohemia on 5 July 1778 after Austria and Prussia could not negotiate a solution to their differences. Difficulties in supplying the troops turned the war into a stalemate: the Prussians were not able to advance far into the Bohemian lands, but the Austrians were unwilling to invade Saxony or Prussia. That was partly because EmpressMaria Theresa (the mother of Joseph II and his co-ruler as Queen of Bohemia and Archduchess of Austria) firmly opposed the war after it became clear that a stalemate had prevailed.

She dispatched peace initiatives to King Frederick II of Prussia and forced her son to accept mediation byFrance andRussia. The peace came at the initiative of the Russian EmpressCatherine the Great and wasguaranteed by both Russia and France.

The accord dictated that the Habsburg Archduchy of Austria (Principality ofAustria above the Enns) would receive the Bavarian lands east of theInn river in compensation, a region then called "Innviertel", stretching from thePrince-Bishopric of Passau to the northern border of thePrince-Archbishopric of Salzburg. However, one of the requirements was that Austria would recognize the Prussian claims to theFranconian margraviates ofAnsbach andBayreuth, ruled in personal union by MargraveChristian Alexander from theHouse of Hohenzollern. Prussia finally purchased both margraviates in 1791. The Electorate of Saxony received a sum of six million guilders (florins) from Bavaria in exchange of its inheritance claims.

With the accession of Elector Charles Theodore, the electorates of Bavaria and theCounty Palatine of the Rhine (i.e. the territories in theRhenish Palatinate and theUpper Palatinate) were under the united rule of the House of Wittelsbach. Their electoral votes were combined into one per a provision in the earlier Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, thereby reducing the number of electorates in the Holy Roman Empire to eight. The Innviertel, except for a short time during theNapoleonic Wars, has remained withUpper Austria up to today.

In 1785, Maria Theresa's son and successor EmperorJoseph II of Austria made another try at attaching the Bavarian lands to hisHabsburg possessions, and even contracted with Elector Charles Theodore to swap it for theAustrian Netherlands. However, Joseph II again did not agree to a full exchange of all provinces within the Austrian Netherlands, and the agreement collapsed amidst tacit French opposition and overt Prussian hostility, with KingFrederick II of Prussia raising the opposition by theFürstenbund, an association of severalImperial princes. After theWar of the Austrian Succession, Austria and Prussia had a long-standing rivalry for supremacy in Central Europe until 1866 that was calledDeutscher Dualismus (German dualism).

• German dualism
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• Text of the Treaty at the website of the Mainz Institute of European History

• Peace treaties of Austria
• Peace treaties of the Kingdom of Prussia
• History of Silesia
• 1770s in the Holy Roman Empire
• 18th century in Bavaria
• 18th century in Saxony
• Cieszyn Silesia
• 1779 in the Habsburg monarchy
• 1779 treaties
• Treaties of the Habsburg monarchy
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• 1770s in Prussia
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