King George's War - Causes

Causes

For more information on the underlying European causes of the war, see War of Jenkins' Ear and War of the Austrian Succession.

The War of Jenkins' Ear (named for a 1731 incident in which a Spanish commander chopped off the ear of British merchant captain Robert Jenkins and told him to take it to his king, George II) broke out in 1739 between Spain and Great Britain, but was confined to the Caribbean Sea and conflict between Spanish Florida and the neighboring British Province of Georgia. The War of the Austrian Succession, nominally a struggle over the legitimacy of the accession of Maria Theresa to the Austrian throne, began in 1740, but at first did not involve either Britain or Spain militarily. Britain was drawn diplomatically into that conflict in 1742 as an ally of Austria and an opponent of France and Prussia, but open hostilities between them did not take place until 1743 at Dettingen, and war was only formally declared between France and Britain in March 1744.