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The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) involved most of the powers of Europe over the question of Maria Theresa's succession to the realms of the House of Habsburg. The war included King George's War in North America, the War of Jenkins' Ear (which formally began on 23 October 1739), the First Carnatic War in India, and the First and Second Silesian Wars. The war began under the pretext that Maria Theresa was ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg thrones of her father, Charles VI, because Salic law precluded royal inheritance by a woman—though it was commonly thought that the challenge of liability was an excuse put forward by Prussia and France to challenge Habsburg power. Austria was supported by Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, the traditional enemies of France, as well as the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Electorate of Saxony. France and Prussia were allied with the Electorate of Bavaria. Spain, which had been at war with Britain over colonies and trade ever since 1739, entered the war on the Continent to re-establish its influence in northern Italy, further reversing an Austrian dominance over the Italian peninsula that had been achieved at Spain's expense as a consequence of Spain's war of succession earlier in the 18th century. The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, by which Maria Theresa was confirmed as Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, but Prussia retained control of Silesia. ==Background== In 1740, after the death of her father, Charles VI, Maria Theresa succeeded him as Queen of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria and Duchess of Parma. Her father had been Holy Roman Emperor, but Maria Theresa was not a candidate for that title, which had never been held by a woman; the plan was for her to succeed to the hereditary domains, and her husband, Francis Stephen, to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. The complications involved in a female Habsburg ruler had been long foreseen, and Charles VI had persuaded most of the states of Germany to agree to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. Problems began when King Frederick II of Prussia violated the Pragmatic Sanction and invaded Silesia on 16 December 1740, using the 1537 Treaty of Brieg (under which the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg were to inherit the Duchy of Brieg) as a pretext. Maria Theresa, as a woman, was perceived as weak, and other rulers (such as Charles Albert of Bavaria) put forward their own competing claims to the crown as male heirs with a clear genealogical basis to inherit the elected dignities of the great Imperial title. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「War of the Austrian Succession」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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