10 Years War: Part 1 (1730-1731)
As soon as its armies were mobilized, France launched the first offensive of the war by attacking the Austrian Netherlands (which the generals had agreed would be the chief priority in any war with Austria) with 90,000 men on December 10th, 1730. The divisions within the Grand Alliance's members along with France's faster mobilization allowed them to tear through Austrian and Dutch defenses all across the border, then continue to gradually advance. On December 31, they ended the year by facing 40,000 Alliance soldiers at Steenkirk, compared to 55,000 of their own. The battle was a French victory, which allowed them to begin the siege of Brussels in January 1731.
The war was going similarly well in western Germany, as the French managed to easily overwhelm the minor German duchies and kingdoms (due to Austria being too distracted in the East), and by the end of March 1731, the French were already dangerously close to the Rhine river. The only 3 armies capable of holding their own were the British (who had the tendency to use Scottish and
especially Irish soldiers as cannon fodder), Hanover, and the Dutch.
In the south, a force of 40,000 French and 30,000 Spanish attacked Savoy on April 6th of 1731, managing to win a decisive victory at the Battle of Assietta Hill that let them quickly advance through the Piedmontese lands. By the month's end, over half the state was under French control and the city of Turin was under siege. The Spanish also sent a force of 61,000 men to take Sicily on June 15th, 1731, squeezing out a victory against the Habsburg defenders on the island by May 25th despite heavy losses. The French victories encouraged Genoa to declare war on the Grand Alliance on May 1st, only to immediately be forced to fight against Tuscany, who had declared war on April 24th due to Austrian pressure. The Genoans did manage to easily defeat the Tuscan forces on the battlefield (not that their forces were uniquely good, just that Tuscany's army was extremely small and incompetent), and began preparations to attack Tuscany by sea for 1732. They also liberated the Republic of Lucca, which had been annexed by Tuscany out of arrogance.
Their fellow Italian Republic, Venice, launched a force of 20,000 men in March 1731 that managed to easily overrun the Austrian Duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Parma over the course of 2 months (lack of initiative among the Venetian officers slowed it down more than Austrian resistance). They were initially planning to find a way around Modena (since it was neutral), but France feared that Duke Rinaldo would side with the Austrians just like he had done in the War of Spanish Succession, so a joint Franco-Genoan-Venetian force invaded Modena on June 4th of 1731, allowing them to attack Northern Tuscany. After completely destroying the remnants of the Tuscan army at Florence on June 20th, the 3 armies managed to conquer the rest of Tuscany by the end of July, all but ending the fight in northern Italy (Austrian Naples was still resisting Spain).
In the east, the Austrians (who had basically left their western allies to fend for themselves for the time being) had to deal with the Bavarians and Venetians to the West, Saxons and Prussians to the North, and Polish to the East. Fortunately for them, the Bavarians were busy preparing their forces and the Venetians were focusing most of their forces in Italy at the moment, which gave the Austrians time to focus on their enemies to the north. This allowed them to defeat a Prussian offensive in January 1731 near Glogau, and a Polish offensive in March that attempted to take Breslau. By the time the Bavarians were ready to fight in May, an Austrian force had launched an offensive into eastern Bavaria. Fortunately, the Austrians were stopped near Regensburg by a Bavarian force of 30,000 men near the end of May, by which point the other nations facing Austria to the north were far more ready to fight.
The Austrian possessions in Northern Italy were not faring much better, as some 20,000 Venetian soldiers attacked eastward against Austrian forces in Carniola and northern Croatia while 8,000 others launched an attack on Tyrol that was partially to distract Austrian forces from blocking the Venetian offensive in the south and partially to help out Bavaria, who managed to overrun the Archbishopric of Salzburg with little trouble but was stopped by 50,000 Austrians who knew damn well that the Bavarians desired to take Vienna itself.
The Venetian forces in the east made significant headway, liberating most of Carniola and even half of Dalmatia, although the forces in Tyrol didn't get far due to Austrian resistance and very unpleasant mountain terrain. They began to plan a joint offensive with Bavaria in the west and Poland in the east for 1732, which would hopefully give them enough time to create more armies to fight the Austrians.
In the North, the Danish had to deal with the Hanoverians to the West (where they lost their Bremen territory and failed to amphibiously attack Friesland but managed to take Hamburg), Mecklenburg-Schwerin and minor German states to the east (though they were taken care of in about a month), and Sweden to the North. Russia was their ally, but it would take them a while to mobilize enough forces to fight in the north considering they were also preparing a large force to fight in Central Europe. Sweden launched the first offensive of the Scandanavian front by attacking the Jamtland on February 6. Just like they'd expected, the Norwegian force their was small, thinly spread, and ill-prepared for a ferocious Swedish attack, which resulted in Sweden taking back the entire region in just 2 weeks then chasing the Norwegians towards the coast.
The Swedish aimed to take out Norway and then Denmark before Russia could focus its large army on them. They wanted to retake Finland and annex Norway along with Scania, with Pomerania being in the cards as well.
However, a northern victory meant little in the long run, as an attack on Gothenburg in the same month was easily beaten back (the Danish knew that Sweden would want it back eventually, they weren't idiots), and the Danish scored offensive victories at Kalmar, Boras, and even Jonkoping (albeit the last one came at heavy cost and forced them to halt their offensive for the rest of 1731). The Danish victories were due partially to preparation for any future war with the Swedes, but also the population growth of Denmark in the past 15 years allowed them to field more soldiers than the Swedes, even with both of them having to fight on multiple fronts.
Even worse for the Swedish, the Russians prepared far faster than their enemies (and even their allies) had predicted, and launched an offensive on April 5th, 1731, with 16,000 men that attacked a garrison of just 4,000 Swedes in Vassa, quickly defeating the Swedish garrison and capturing the city (a superior navy helped them take it). A month later, 30,000 Russians launched a large attack on the fortress of Oulu, although the fortifications resulted in a month-long seige that inflicted heavy losses. That being said, the fall of Oulu cut off the final Swedish garrison that was in Kokkola, which surrendered on June 17th when food stocks ran out. This meant that the only Finnish territory still in Swedish hands was the Finnish Lappland.
On the bright side, both the Russians and Danish had to halt their offensives into Swedish territory due to other fronts (Russia in central Europe and Denmark in northern Germany) and overstretched supply lines, giving Sweden at least until 1732 to recover and recruit more men. Their pool of manpower wasn't that big (1.7 million Swedes vs 2.5 million Danish-Norwegians and 18 million Russians), but they had a decent military command with good officers and they hoped that they could hold their ground and then push back against both of their enemies, repeating the success of Gustavus Adolphus during the 30 Years War.
As 1731 came to an end, war continued to ravage Europe, but the next few years of the war would be what would truly change Europe forever. It simply came down to who won this conflict...
