Treaty of Turin (1696)

The Treaty of Turin of 1696 was a turning point in the War of the League of Augsburg. The treaty, which initially was kept secret, marked an end, if only in the short term, to the territorial ambitions of Victor Amadeus II, the Duke of Savoy, and enshrined his enforced membership of the French alliance which he had hitherto opposed.

Background
1690 found Piedmont/Savoy, under the Duke of Savoy fighting in alliance with the Spanish and the Holy Roman Empire, and against the territorially ambitious Louis XIV of France. The war was going very badly for Piedmont which in August 1690 suffered a heavy defeat at Staffarda (some 50 km/30 miles upstream along the Po valley, to the south-west of Turin). French progress was halted with the Siege of Cuneo in June 1691. However, the French under Nicolas Catinat (soon to be promoted Marshall, primarily in recognition of his military successes against the Savoyard army) returned to the offensive and occupied Montmélian a few days before Christmas 1691.

The weakened military position of Piedmont/Savoy now prompted the French king to offer the Duke of Savoy a deal. The duke himself became dangerously ill, raising the possibility that he might die without a direct male heir. The duke nevertheless rebuffed the king, and named his cousin Emmanuel Philibert de Savoie-Carignano, then aged 8, as his heir.

The duke recovered from his illness, but in October 1693 suffered a further massive military defeat at Marsaglia to the south of Turin, near the route towards Genoa and the coast. Shortage of supplies and money kept the French from pressing their advantage and marching on towards Turin, but the much depleted residue of the Savoyard army was nevertheless obliged to take refuge in the fortress at Moncalieri.

Party representatives
Negotiation of the treaty involved the French Maréchal de Tessé and Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, an originally French noblewoman who by now was the longstanding mistress of the duke of Savoy.

The Treaty of Turin
On 26 August 1696, in order to save his Duchy, Victor Amadeus bowed to the inevitable, accepting the French offer of an alliance and agreeing to the marriage of his eldest daughter, Marie Adélaïde, to the French king's grandson Louis, known at this time as "Le Petit Dauphin". She and her husband would predecease his grandfather (during the 1711 Measles epidemic), so Marie Adélaïde never became Queen, but in the meantime she made a powerfully favorable impression on the aging French king and his courtiers.

Other treaty terms included the return of Pignerol to Piedmont/Savoy. However, the French king also insisted on the destruction of the fortress at Pignerol which enjoyed much notoriety at the time on account of the incarceration within it, till 1680, of the king's disgraced ex-minister Nicolas Fouquet.

The treaty also stipulated the transfer of Casale to the Duke of Mantua, then formally neutral. French forces attended to the destruction of the town's fortifications.

For some time the duke of Savoy did not dare to publicize the fact that he had changed sides under the terms of the Treaty of Turin, although the imperial side quickly suspected it. When the terms of the treaty became public, French forces were installed in the territory of Piedmont/Savoy in order to defend it from its former allies.