War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, 1690-1720

This book deals with the crucial relationship between war and state formation in early modern Europe by considering the role of the Duchy of Savoy and the rise of this hitherto weak state into one of the regular members of the anti-French coalitions of the eighteenth century. Through his participation in the Nine Years War (1688-97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), Victor Amadeus II, duke of Savoy, acquired a reputation for unrivalled ‘Machiavellian’ diplomacy on the international stage. The book puts this diplomacy in context, and considers how the duke raised men and money (at home and abroad), the administrative changes forced by war, the resulting domestic pressures, and how these were dealt with. This is the first detailed study in English for this period of the state which would eventually unite Italy in the middle of the nineteenth century.