Key Facts
- Duration
- 1713–1720 (Habsburg vassal period)
- Habsburg conquest
- 1708, with British naval assistance
- Spanish reconquest
- 1717
- Final transfer
- Treaty of The Hague, 1720, to House of Savoy
Imperial Zenith Metrics
Historical Trajectory
Phase I: Rise
Following the death of the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II, in 1700, rival dynastic claims triggered the War of the Spanish Succession. The Treaty of The Hague (1701) assigned Spanish Italian possessions to Emperor Leopold I. In 1708, Habsburg forces backed by Britain's Mediterranean Fleet seized Sardinia from Bourbon-loyal governors, bringing the island under Austrian Habsburg administration as part of their broader claim to the Spanish inheritance.
Phase II: Zenith
Under Habsburg administration, Sardinia was governed as one of several former Spanish territories claimed by Charles VI as part of his pretension to the Spanish throne. The island continued to be garrisoned by Spanish troops and managed through a viceroy system, maintaining existing administrative structures while formally integrated into the Habsburg sphere alongside Naples and other Italian territories awarded at Utrecht and Rastatt.
Phase III: Decline
Spain reconquered Sardinia in 1717, briefly reversing Habsburg control. The resulting diplomatic crisis was resolved by the Treaty of The Hague in 1720, which reallocated Sicily to the Habsburgs and transferred Sardinia permanently to the House of Savoy. This ended Sardinia's connection to the Spanish crown entirely, closing a turbulent twenty-year period of contested sovereignty and opening a new dynastic chapter under Savoyard rule.
Notable Imperial Reigns
Selected rulers mapping the empire’s trajectory