1710 Homann Map of Southern Germany and Austria: War of Spanish Succession

This is a c. 1710 Johann Baptist Homann map of southern Germany, Austria, and environs, produced for his Neuer Atlas. It is essentially wartime propaganda, celebrating the victories of the Habsburgs and their allies in the War of the Spanish Succession and supporting the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I (r. 1705 - 1711).

A Closer Look

Coverage embraces from Mainz, Heidelberg, Nurnberg (Homann's hometown), and Prague in the north to Milan, Venice, and Istria in the south, and from Strasburg and Basel in the west to Vienna and Bratislava (Pressburg) in the east. Color-shading indicates the region's various kingdoms, principalities, etc., including the Republic of Venice. Bavaria, prominent near the center, was initially aligned with Bourbon France against the Habsburgs but was forced to leave the conflict following a crushing defeat at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. Various cities in southern Germany (here as Swabia / Svevia) appear as exclaves from the surrounding lands; at least some of these were besieged during the conflict, likely the source for their being so designated.

Evidence of the ongoing War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714, discussed below) is everywhere. The elaborate cartouche at the top presents the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, to whom the map is dedicated, with a retinue of generals meant to represent the commanders of the Habsburg-led Grand Alliance, including Prince Eugene of Savoy and John Churchill, the English Duke of Marlborough (ancestor of Prime Minister Winston Churchill), two of the greatest military commanders of their time. The figure bowing to the emperor is likely Prince Eugene of Savoy. Behind him, generals hold maps of battlefields along the Rhine, in northern Italy, and in the Adriatic. (Text at the bottom of each identifies the commanders of the battles - the Duke of Baden, the Duke Eugene of Savoy, and so on - and it is possible that the figures are meant to represent the victor of each battle, meaning the third figure from Joseph would be Eugene of Savoy). The attendant and horse behind them are ready to carry Joseph to the battlefield in the distance, presumed to be the Siege of Landau (1702), when Joseph was still 'just' an archduke, the only military campaign in which he ever directly participated. In the Adriatic, there is a fleet, and an accompanying note explains that it delivered supplies to Grand Alliance forces in northern Italy. The legend at the bottom right includes a symbol denoting the location of battles. However, these appear to be earlier battles, such as the Sack of Brescia in 1512, rather than contemporary ones.

Generals or Emperor?

This map has a contentious relationship with a highly similar and even rarer contemporary work, Pieter Schenk's 'Invictissimis Heroibus Duci Marleborough, Principibus Eugenio Sabaudo, et Hassiae-Casselio…' While Homann's map is generally agreed to have been engraved in 1705, it is unclear if Schenk's map came before or after (most sources say after, in 1706). In any event, Schenk replaces Joseph with his father, Leopold I (who was likely already dead when the map was printed), and shifts the arrangement of figures in order to more clearly identify and glorify the generals of the Grand Alliance, and particularly the Duke of Marlborough. Other elements of the cartouche are changed or rearranged, and one of the maps is swapped with a map focusing specifically on the Battle of Blenheim. Schenk's motivations in doing so are unclear - perhaps he was trying to capitalize on the good fortunes of the Alliance to sell maps - but his apparent snub of Joseph I is suggestive of some other motive.

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701 - 1714)

As its name indicates, the War of the Spanish Succession resulted when the childless Spanish Habsburg King Charles II died in 1700. Afterward, rival claimants aimed to ascend the throne, with the young Bourbon Philip of Anjou (grandson of Louis XIV) being proclaimed King of Spain on November 1, 1700. This presented a direct threat to the balance of power in Europe as Philip was also likely to eventually become king of France, thus raising the possibility of unifying Europe's two largest and most powerful Catholic kingdoms. As a result, the Habsburg Archduke Charles (younger brother of Joseph I), who also claimed the right to the Spanish Crown, gained considerable support from other European powers wary of a Franco-Spanish union. The Bourbon and Habsburg-aligned forces engaged in an epic conflict across much of western Europe and even the New World (as Queen Anne's War). As the subtitle here indicates, much of the fighting took place along the Rhine, especially in the Low Countries but also further south. At the same time, the Austrians were also bedeviled by a French-backed rebellion in Hungary (Rákóczi's War of Independence). In 1704, French and Bavarian armies even threatened Vienna but were decisively defeated at the Battle of Blenheim.

The war saw alliances shift, especially when Joseph I died in 1711 without an heir and was succeeded by Archduke Charles, presenting a new threat of a European superpower, this time a Habsburg one, emerging from the conflict. The result was that in the Peace of Utrecht, signed in 1713, Philip was granted the Spanish Crown but renounced any claim to the French throne, while Charles was maintained as the Holy Roman Emperor. Although this ostensibly was a raw deal for Charles, in reality, the Bourbon monarchies had been considerably weakened by the conflict, losing all their territory in Italy, as well as granting Gibraltar to the British, while the Habsburg side gained territory and strengthened its position in Hungary and the Netherlands. Britain is generally seen as the main beneficiary of the conflict, as, although it participated, it was not badly impacted by the mostly continental war. With the Dutch suffering both physical and financial costs, the door was open for Britain to become the main commercial maritime power in Europe and the world.

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared by Johann Baptist Homann, originally c. 1705, though this example dates from the c. 1710 edition of his Neuer Atlas. In any event, the prominence of Joseph I indicates that the map must have been prepared during his reign, between 1705 and 1711. After Joseph's death, Homann published a highly-similar map under the title 'Germania Austriaca' (expertly examined in Chet Van Duzer's book Frames That Speak: Cartouches on Early Modern Maps). In this edition, reissued through the late 1710s and into the 1720s (see Rumsey 12499.109), not only is Joseph removed, but the cartouche is completely changed, and all references to the war on land and sea are removed. Also, as discussed above, Pieter Schenk appears to have copied Homann's map but changed the cartouche to celebrate the generals of the Grand Alliance rather than Joseph I. Both this edition of Homann's map and Schenck's iteration of it are scarce today, and the present map appears to be cataloged outside of Europe only at the University of Southern Maine.