Austria, officially neutral during 1714 but influenced by the brilliant Savoyard strategist, Prince Eugene (1663-1736), makes a defensive alliance with Venice in 1716.

Arguing that the Porte has broken the 1669 Treaty of Karlowitz and endangered Dalmatia (and therefore Austria's Croatian and Styrian territories), Austria mounts an offensive.

Prince Eugene takes advantage of the Ottoman forces’ confusion to capture Temesvár, the last Ottoman fortress in Hungary, and to ...

...besiege Belgrade, the strongest Ottoman fortification in the Balkans.

A large Ottoman army moves rapidly to confront Eugene's Austrian troops, who at first fare badly in battle but a surprise charge by Eugene’s cavalry scatters the Turks and wins victory.

Some eighty-three thousand troops under Eugene rout one hundred and fifty thousand Ottoman Turks under Damad Ali Pasha at the Battle of Peterwardein on the Danube River on August 5, 1716.

Losing six thousand men and over one hundred artillery pieces, the Turks are afterward slow to recover their discipline, for their grand vizier has been mortally wounded.

Spain had lost all its possessions in Italy and the Low Countries in the Treaty of Utrecht ending the War of the Spanish Succession.

The Spanish Netherlands, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples and Sardinia had been given to Austria; Sicily to the Duke of Savoy.

These territories had been under Spanish rule for nearly two centuries, and their loss is perceived as a great blow to the country in both practical and prestige terms.

With the rise of Spain as an important military power again, and the ambitions of Philip V of Spain to regain the Spanish supremacy in Italy and the Mediterranean, the rest of the European powers, Great Britain, France and Austria, to strengthen the Treaty of Utrecht, are in 1717 contemplating ceding Sicily to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, but this arrangement displeases Spain, who wants to recover the island.

With this background, and the arrest in Milan of Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Jose Molina, by the Austrians, Philip V obtains the pretext he seeks.

Philip begins hostilities against Austria, taking advantage of the fact that Austria is tied up in the Austro-Turkish War of 1716-18.

Spain assembles a fleet of one hundred transport ships, protected by fifteen warships, and carrying eighty-five hundred men infantry and five hundred cavalry under command of Don Juan Francisco de Bette, Marquis of Lede.

It sails in late July 1717 from Barcelona.

Belgrade surrenders on August 21, 1717.

Austrian forces now occupy much of Serbia, Wallachia, and other Balkan areas and begin to advance on Constantinople (Istanbul) when the Ottomans sue for peace.

The Spanish forces had landed in Sardinia on August 22, and in just two months have reconquered the whole island, whose defenses were commanded by the Marquis of Rubi.

The quick victory is mainly due to the psychological actions of the Marquis of San Felipe, who has toured the island by encouraging its inhabitants, who are not happy with the Austrian dominion and prefer to return to e Spanish rule.

Resistance comes only from the strongholds of Alghero, the important city of Cagliari, and the Aragonese Castle on the Island of Ischia, but, absent reinforcements, the Austrian troops in Cagliari, commanded directly by Rubi, decide to flee to the north of the island.

The Spanish troops take the city on October 4.

The bulk of the Spanish troops led by the Marquis of Lede and the Duke of Montemar on October 19 lay siege to Alghero, which finally capitulates on October 25.

The Aragonese Castle falls to Spanish forces on October 30, and the Spanish victory is complete.

The initial Austrian reaction to this invasion is limited, as the Austrian Supreme Commander Prince Eugene of Savoy wants to avoid a major war in Italy as long as the conflict in the Balkans continues, soaking up Austrian troops and resources.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had accompanied her husband to Vienna, and thence to Adrianople and Constantinople.

Edward had been recalled in 1717, but they remain until at Constantinople, where January 19, 1718, he has a daughter, who will grow up to be Mary, Countess of Bute.

The Montagus return to England after an unsuccessful delegation between the Austrian and Ottoman empires.

The Spaniards, this time with thirty thousand men, including four regiments of Dragoons, again led by the Marquis of Lede, and a fleet of three hundred and fifty ships, and over two hundred and fifty pieces of artillery, invade Sicily.

The Spanish forces capture Palermo on July 7, then divide their army in two.