The States of the Netherlands were still warmly with Austria, as they dreaded so formidable a power as France directly upon their frontier.  The other minor powers of the alliance were also rather inclined to remain with Austria.  The war continued while the terms of peace were under discussion.  England, however, entered into a private understanding with France, and the Duke of Ormond, who had succeeded Marlborough, received secret orders not to take part in any battle or siege.  The developments, upon fields of battle, of this dishonorable arrangement, caused great indignation on the part of the allies.  The British forces withdrew, and the French armies, taking advantage of the great embarrassments thus caused, were again gaining the ascendency.  Portugal soon followed the example of England and abandoned the alliance.  The Duke of Savoy was the next to leave.  The alliance was evidently crumbling to pieces, and on the 11th of April, 1713, all the belligerents, excepting the emperor, signed the treaty of peace.  Philip of Spain also acceded to the same articles.

Charles was very indignant in being thus abandoned; and unduly estimating his strength, resolved alone, with the resources which the empire afforded him, to prosecute the war against France and Spain.  Having nothing to fear from a Spanish invasion, he for a time relinquished his attempts upon Spain, and concentrating his armies upon the Rhine, prepared for a desperate onset upon France.  For two years the war raged between Austria and France with war’s usual vicissitudes of defeat and victory on either side.  It was soon evident that the combatants were too equally matched for either party to hope to gain any decisive advantage over the other.  On the 7th of September, 1714, France and Austria agreed to sheathe the sword.  The war had raged for fourteen years, with an expenditure of blood and treasure, and an accumulation of misery which never can be gauged.  Every party had lost fourfold more than it had gained.  “A war,” says Marshal Villers, “which had desolated the greater part of Europe, was concluded almost on the very terms which might have been procured at the commencement of hostilities.”

By this treaty of peace, which was signed at Baden, in Switzerland, the States of the Netherlands were left in the hands of Austria; and also the Italian States of Naples, Milan, Mantua and Sardinia.  The thunders of artillery had hardly ceased to reverberate over the marshes of Holland and along the banks of the Rhine, ere the “blast of war’s loud organ” and the tramp of charging squadrons were heard rising anew from the distant mountains of Sclavonia.  The Turks, in violation of their treaty of peace, were again on the march, ascending the Danube along its southern banks, through the defiles of the Sclavonian mountains.  In a motley mass of one hundred and fifty thousand men they had passed Belgrade, crossed the Save, and were approaching Peterwarden.