Villars, Claude Louis Hector, duc de, 1653–1734, marshal of France, the last of the great generals of Louis XIV. He fought in the Dutch War (1672–78) and in 1687 went to Bavaria, where he help...

Eugene of Savoy, 1663–1736, prince of the house of Savoy, general in the service of the Holy Roman Empire. Born in Paris, he was the son of Eugène, comte de Soissons of the line of Savoy-Carig...

Baden, former state, SW Germany. Karlsruhe was the capital. Stretching from the Main River in the northeast across the lower Neckar valley and along the right bank of the Rhine to Lake Constan...

Utrecht, Peace of, series of treaties that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession. It put an end to French expansion and signaled the rise of the British Empire. By the treaty between Eng...

Metternich, Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Fürst von, 1773–1859, Austrian statesman and arbiter of post-Napoleonic Europe, b. Koblenz, of a noble Rhenish family.While a student in Strasbourg M...

Spanish Succession, War of the, 1701–14, last of the general European wars caused by the efforts of King Louis XIV to extend French power. The conflict in America corresponding to the period o...