Editing War of the Polish Succession (section)

===Rhineland===
Following France's 10 October declaration of war, it began military operations three days later, invading the [[Duchy of Lorraine]] and [[Siege of Kehl (1733)|besieging the imperial fortress at Kehl]], across the [[Rhine]] from [[Strasbourg]], gaining control of both objectives in a few weeks. Unable to attack Austria directly, and unwilling to invade the intervening German states for fear of drawing Great Britain and the Dutch into the conflict, France consolidated its position in Lorraine, and withdrew its troops across the Rhine for the winter.

The emperor mobilized his active forces in response to the French attacks, and began the process of calling up the [[Army of the Holy Roman Empire]], establishing a defensive line at [[Ettlingen]], near [[Karlsruhe]].  In the spring of 1734 French maneuvers successfully flanked this line, and [[Prince Eugene of Savoy]] was forced to withdraw these forces to the imperial encampment at [[Heilbronn]]. This cleared the way for the French army under the [[James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick-upon-Tweed|Duke of Berwick]] to [[Siege of Philippsburg (1734)|besiege the imperial fort at Philippsburg]], which fell after a siege of two months in July 1734. Eugene, who was accompanied by Crown Prince [[Frederick II of Prussia|Frederick]] of [[Prussia]], made some attempts to relieve the siege, but never made any decisive attacks against the besieging army owing to its size and the relatively poor quality of the troops under his command. Berwick was killed by a shell at Philippsburg.

French armies continued to advance along the Rhine, reaching as far as [[Mainz]], but the growing imperial army, which came to include troops from Russia that had assisted with the capture of Danzig, was able to prevent France from establishing a siege there, and Eugene went on the offensive. A force of 30,000 under [[Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff]] crossed the Rhine and began pushing the French back toward [[Trier]], [[Battle of Clausen|defeating them]] at [[Battle of Clausen|Clausen]] in October 1735, in one of the last battles before preliminary peace terms were reached.