though she held
her head high through the war, the symptoms of weakness were apparent
in her failing armaments. Therefore, though the United Provinces
attained the great object for which they began the war, and saved the
Spanish Netherlands from the hands of France, the success was not
worth the cost. Thenceforth they withdrew for a long period from the
wars and diplomacy of Europe; partly, perhaps, because they saw how
little they had gained, but yet more from actual weakness and
inability. After the strenuous exertions of the war came a reaction,
which showed painfully the inherent weakness of a State narrow in
territory and small in the number of its people. The visible decline
of the Provinces dates from the Peace of Utrecht; the real decline
began earlier. Holland ceased to be numbered among the great powers of
Europe, her navy was no longer a military factor in diplomacy, and her
commerce also shared in the general decline of the State.

It remains only to notice briefly the results to Austria, and to
Germany generally. France yielded the barrier of the Rhine, with
fortified places on the east bank of the river. Austria received, as
has been mentioned, Belgium, Sardinia, Naples, and the Spanish
possessions in northern Italy; dissatisfied in other respects, Austria
was especially discontented at her failure to obtain Sicily, and did
not cease negotiating afterward, until she had secured that island. A
circumstance more important to Germany and to all Europe than this
transitory acquisition of distant and alien countries by Austria was
the rise of Prussia, which dates from this war as a Protestant and
military kingdom destined to weigh in the balance against Austria.

Such were the leading results of the War of the Spanish Succession,
"the vastest yet witnessed by Europe since the Crusades." It was a war
whose chief military interest was on the land,--a war in which fought
two of the greatest generals of all times, Marlborough and Prince
Eugene, the names of whose battles, Blenheim, Ramillies, Malplaquet,
Turin, are familiar to the most casual reader of history; while a
multitude of able men distinguished themselves on the other theatres
of the strife, in Flanders, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain. On the
sea only one great battle, and that scarcely worthy of the name, took
place. Yet looking only, for the moment, to immediate and evident
results, who reaped the benefit? Was it France, whose only gain was to
seat a