text:
Talk:Libertarian perspectives on abortion

Final paragraph re: dividing libertarians
I reworded the final paragraph which used to state:

 * While the abortion issue fiercely divides the American mainstream, pro-life and pro-choice libertarians are not so vehemently separated. Like anarchists and minarchists, they have much more in common than they have dividing them.

This is POV, so the paragraph was reworded more neutrally. Some libertarians do view the issue as an absolute, fundamental dividing line between "true" libertarians and others, regardless of side (pro- or anti-abortion rights). - Korpios 18:34, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Implicit-"all" libertarians against gov't funding?
I changed:

''Libertarians are agreed on the latter question, at least, believing that government should not fund personal activity (especially activity of such a controversial nature). . .''

to now begin with "The vast majority of".

My reasoning? IMHO, it is possible (although wildly unpopular, granted) to argue that government funding of abortion can fall under minarchist libertarian principles. Some libertarians would argue for government maintenance of a federal highway system, or environmental regulations, on the grounds that these are "special cases" (freedom to move from Point A to Point B for the former, and Tragedy of the Commons effects of pollutions for the latter); I would argue that funding birth control and abortion can very much be viewed through a libertarian lens of avoiding excessive population. Furthermore, I do not assume a positive "right" to have a child, especially since children (unlike, say, a pet) are destined to become full citizens and therefore potentially strain minarchist systems such as law enforcement.

I feel "vast majority" was the correct NPOV way to put this in the article, since I'm under no illusion that most libertarians would agree with me here.

- Korpios 18:53, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Hmm, thoughtful edit. I think I agree.  I think we'd be hard-pressed to find a particular libertarian who feels this way (unless you are submitting yourself as an example?), but it is theoretically possible.  Thanks for the change, and the detailed explanation. Jdavidb 14:52, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, I am an example of one. As I said, I'm well aware that this isn't a popular stance among libertarians.  ;) - Korpios 15:46, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

''What applies to a fetus, also applies to a physically dependent adult. If an adult—say a medical welfare recipient—must survive by being connected to someone else, they may only do so by the voluntary permission of the person they must be connected to. There is no such thing as the right to live by the efforts of someone else, i.e., there is no such thing as the right to enslave.''

Is this part of the quote or the actual article? If it is part of the article, it is POV....
 * My bad. It's part of the quote.  I'll fix it now. Dave (talk)

Balance the "Pro Abortion" POV

 * Families and Children National Libertarian Party platform

 * Parents have no right to abandon or recklessly endanger their children. Whenever they are unable or unwilling to raise their children, they have the obligation to find other person(s) willing to assume guardianship.

For the record, I am "pro abortion" but the argument that a fetus is in its mother's womb because of some "permission" seems like the wrong approach. Children do not live in their parents' house, or live off the fruits of their parents' labor because of permission that must be explicitly granted. Children exist because of a choice made by the parents exercising their right to procreate. Libertarians recognize that with the right to have children comes the responsibility to care for them, as stated in the quoted part of the official National Libertarian Party platform. Children do not need to seek permission from their parents to get from them those things which a child needs to continue to live. Fulfilling obligations freely chosen (such as caring for a child) can in no way be said to "enslave" someone.

The argument that "a fetus does not have a right to be in the womb of any woman, but is there by her permission" evokes images of a landlord and an eviction. If that fetus is a child, then the parent has the obligation to care for the child until another willing guardian is found. The argument for or against abortion must hinge on that single question: at what point between conception and adulthood does a collection of cells become a human being with its own inalienable right to life?

The answer to the question of when human life begins is a philosophical or religious question, not a political one. Intelligent, well-meaning people will disagree about abortion for as long as that question is in dispute, even if their politics are identical.

I will consider how to write this up for the article page - and if something along these lines should be there.

 * There are a lot of good points here. You're welcome to add arguments from the other side, especially with quotations.  You should leave the "Abortion Is Pro Life" quote even though you disagree with it (we should show arguments from both sides), but you could probably shorten it without losing much.  I'll be happy to work with you on making this more neutral. Dave (talk) June 28, 2005 12:53 (UTC)

 * I made some improvements. there's more to do, though.  Dave (talk) June 29, 2005 03:25 (UTC)

 * I made some more improvements, and I'm satisfied with the NPOV. Since this issue interests you, you may want to add more, though.  Enjoy:-) Dave (talk) July 1, 2005 14:58 (UTC)

U.S. Libertarian Party position
This section states:

 * It holds that abortion should be legal but neither state-funded or required because "the government should be kept out of the question".

Nowhere it the cited link to the platform is it stated that the USLP holds that abortion should be legal; the lack of a definite statement saying "abortion should be legal" is actually quite conspicuous in its absence.

The statement is presumably an inference from the claim that "the government should be kept out of the question," but the position is (perhaps intentionally?) vague on whether that means anything more than the state not funding or mandating abortions.

In addition, I'm no authority, but I believe that:

 * In this, its position is quite similar to that of another institution claiming the support of natural law: the Catholic Church, which allows abortions for medical reasons and sanctions misdeeds only through excommunication

is likely a misleading description of Church policy. --Jfpbookworm 18:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You're correct about the Church's view on this matter. See 2270 of the Catechism. Roy Harmon 07:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Page is Wrong About Catholic Church's teachings
Say what you will about the Catholic Church as an "institution," but She does not support abortion for "medical reasons." The Catholic Church is against abortion. In case you didn't notice the period, I repeat, PERIOD.

While She does recognize that a mother who finds herself in an unplanned or medically difficult pregnancy has varying levels of diminished capacity to be morally culpable for the abortion (boyfriend/husband/family pressure, doctors' unwillingness to follow the Hipocratic oath), the fact remains that the Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a grave sin, even if done for "medical reasons." By the way, my personal response to those who use the excuse of medical necessity to exonerate abortion comes down to two words: second opinion. Mattsteady 16:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

What Other Libertarian movements have abortion controversies?
Obviously wikipedia has chosen to deal with libertarianism] the way it does. The question is, are there other libertarian movements - socialist, left, whatever - that have issues or are they all just pro-choice? If so, create a section.  If there is controversy, more reason to do so. I have higher priorities than correct the article besides what I added about the pro-choice libertarian group in the past.  But I would note that the current article gives the impression American pro-property or whatever you want to call the libertarians are more pro-life than they are. Carol Moore 03:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[[User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

Pro-abortion is "predominant" libertarian viewpoint?
I edited the lead (since reverted) to, I believe, more impartially express the cited reference. I don't know Ruwart's personal opinion on the matter, but think the lead is extracting from the reference something that isn't quite there. After describing the libertarian anti-abortion stance, the reference says, "the predominant 'pro-choice' viewpoint, as expressed in the current version of the Libertarian Party platform, is backed by principled arguments as well..." That wording is ambiguous: the text only refers to the "predominant pro-choice viewpoint" -- "predominant" is either modifying "pro-choice" or it's modifying "viewpoint" (and is poorly written), but it's impossible to tell which from the text. If it modifies "pro-choice", that would be saying that it is the predominant viewpoint within the pro-choice camp.

Regardless, this is all secondary to a more important point: Why should this group or individual be considered a good barometer for libertarians in general? Ruwart may be a good source for the viewpoints of the Libertarian Party, but is not necessarily so for 'libertarians'. Therefore, I think my change to make it clear that pro-abortion is the Libertarian Party platform, without specifying either way about the majority or "predominant" viewpoint among libertarians in general, is more accurate. The title of this article, after all, is not "Libertarian Party perspectives..."

Both the Republican Liberty Caucus and the Cato Institute, which is unaffiliated with the LP or any other political party, are intentionally neutral on abortion because of its contentiousness. Most "small-L" libertarians are disaffected conservatives who have defected from the Republican Party, or conversely, vote Republican out of expediency. Two of the most prominent LP candidates, Bob Barr and Ron Paul, were first Republicans themselves—and both strongly anti-abortion. Seems especially relevant since Barr beat out (the above quoted) Ruwart for the most recent LP nomination. Mark Sanford, Republican and self-professed libertarian, is anti-abortion. A May 2009 Gallup Poll showed 51% of Americans were "pro-life", while 42% were "pro-choice". All of these things make it hard for me to believe that libertarians are pro-abortion by any sizable majority. Strikehold (talk) 08:22, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What matters is what the sources say, not your own views (WP:SOAPBOX), including your soap-boxing with the word "pro-abortion." This statement is clearly attributed to Ruwart as her opinion, and I believe is an accurate rendition of her full statement which is:
 * "The predominant 'pro-choice' viewpoint, as expressed in the current version of the Libertarian Party platform, is backed by principled arguments as well. Libertarians believe that no one should be enslaved to support another, including a pregnant woman 'enslaved' to carry a fetus she does not want. A woman's body is her property, to do with as she wishes."
 * It doesn't matter if it is unclear what "predominant" is modifying or if people interpret it differently. (See Truth.) The statement is in full compliance with policy.
 * If it is unclear to you what she refers to that can be remedied by finding a more explict source from her. Or you can find some other credible WP:RS source to come up with some other viewpoint on the topic, assuming it refers to explicitly to libertarians and abortion. Most of the ones you listed above did not. Only one mentioned abortion specifically in relation to libertarianism, and that one stated that the Democratic candidate was more for getting the govt out of abortion (and inferred as being more libertarian) than the losing republican." CarolMooreDC (talk)

 * I'm "soapboxing" by trying to increase the neutrality and accuracy of the article? You should assume good faith instead of negatively characterizing someone else's comments. "Pro-choice" and "pro-life" are politically-charged terms for what is quite simply either pro-abortion rights or anti-abortion rights views. No reasonable person is against either "life" or "choice", so it's needlessly polemical to use those terms.

 * Secondly, it is not a faithful paraphrase due to the ambiguity of the quote if you look at it in its full context, instead of just the part you quote above. In context, it is less clear-cut:"In general, libertarians are split into two camps, both believing that their view best expresses the non-aggression principle. The group which identifies with the 'pro-life' viewpoint feels that a couple engaging in sexual relations should be responsible for the results of their actions. If a child is conceived who cannot fend for himself, the parents are responsible for bringing him into the world and caring for him until he can. Abortion is viewed as murder of an innocent, much as you describe. The predominant 'pro-choice' viewpoint, as expressed in the current version of the Libertarian Party platform, is backed by principled arguments as well..."
 * Truth, which you cite, is an essay that has not attained any status of consensus within the community, and with good reason. It is silly to say we should not strive for factuality, although I fail to see how that's relevant to this discussion either way. The policies WP:OR and WP:V clearly prohibit synthesis.
 * The burden is not on me to disprove anything Ruwart believes or espouses. The burden is on someone who wants to include an extraction of her opinions.
 * Lastly, I was not attempting to provide sources to say "most libertarians are against abortion", I was making the case that in such a contentious issue, where even the two primary political parties are divided on the issue, it is highly doubtful that one can make the claim that libertarians predominantly support the legal status of abortion. Libertarians are not a single-issue group, so it is unlikely that they heavily side either way on an issue that divides the American population essentially down the middle. It is fair to say that libertarians favor maximizing individual choice and minimizing government interference, but an opinion on abortion would be governed by whether they believe that a fetus at any stage is a human life. Again, since the opinion on that cuts down the middle, it is unlikely they are heavily in favor of abortion rights. Strikehold (talk) 01:11, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

 * I decided the best thing to do is to take my own advice and look for more sources showing that libertarians a predominantly pro-choice and inserting in article. So adding several new WP:RS. CarolMooreDC (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

 * Well, Ayn Rand was pro-choice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.237.243.185 (talk) 02:57, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Libertarian Party position vs. Republican candidates
I've again removed the text which implied a disconnect between Ron and Rand Paul and the official position of the Libertarian Party. Neither is a politician in that party, and as such the disconnect needn't be mentioned. The disconnect is already implied between the Libertarian pro-choice perspective, but not the party. Dif:. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:02, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

 * Technically Ron Paul is a libertarian and Barr was the 2008 Prez candidate, so I think including them with WP:RS ok. Rand Paul definitely would need a ref since he seems to be less libertarian than Republican. However, I'm not going to go looking for the ref, so it would be up to someone else to put in the ref'd info. CarolMooreDC (talk) 18:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Again, this has nothing to do with them being libertarian. It has to do with them not being parts of the Libertarian Party. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

 * I do not understand your point. The article is about libertarians in general, not the LP only. And even if it was, Paul and Barr both were LP candidates so that would be relevant. If WP:RS do call Rand Paul a libertarian on the vast majority of issues, that also would be relevant.)
 * I think it is helpful to briefly explain their views (including what level of govt they want to outlaw abortion under what circumstances) once WP:RS are found. CarolMooreDC (talk) 22:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

My point is that an IP kept adding that both Pauls were pro-life, "despite the official Libertarian Party position", which is a non-sequitur. That's why I pasted this post, because I reverted twice, which I don't usually do. . Magog the Ogre (talk) 23:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

 * OK, I got that on first reading but got confused after your second reply. CarolMooreDC (talk) 03:37, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Globalize tag
If there are other libertarianisms that have views on abortion, please supply info. CarolMooreDC 06:31, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Rothbard is evictionist
I believe Rothabard's position is evictionist. "What the mother is doing in an abortion is causing an unwanted entity within her body to be ejected from it: If the fetus dies, this does not rebut the point that no being has a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person’s body." -Rothbard, For A New Liberty

Both Rothbard and Block are evictionists, and evictionism should have a subsection. Dude6935 (talk) 15:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Your personal views are WP:Original research. Please read the policy. I don't see any refs calling Rothbard's view "evictionism." All I see is one use by Block. Not enough for a section. I am reverting all your edits based on questionable premises. Please do not revert until you have made a case for them according to wikipedia policy and not your personal views. See the policy: WP:Edit warring.  CarolMooreDC 19:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I didn't call Rothbard's views evictionist in my edits. Only here on the talk. His own words are support for Blocks positions, and Block cites Rothbard in the source material. There are also numerous papers for and agianst evictionism. I can reference many such sources if needed. There is no need to revert without discussion. Dude6935 (talk) 19:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * OK the whole wikipedia approach after much internal wrangling is to contrast support for and opposition to legal abortion (see relevant links), which is actually the way libertarians look at it. So I updated and restructured it that way. Feel free to have a paragraph on evictionism with your refs from whoever uses the phrase so it is not original research. But this is the structure article should have. CarolMooreDC 19:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Exactly which relevant links are you referring to? And no, libertarians hold distinct moral and legal beliefs. That is actually the whole point of libertarianism, not to impose beliefs on others through force. Dude6935 (talk) 20:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

While I oppose the article's changes in structure, I have connected Rothbard and Block with an new source. Dude6935 (talk) 20:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Please read RS. Libertarians for Life can be quoted on their own views as they are here. But their views on other parties, like Murray Rothbard, are not acceptable unless they publish a piece by someone who is identified by WP:Reliable sources as an expert in their field, which I do not believe can be proved about John Walker. I note that searching Rothbard in Block's paper he mentions him a few times, and it would be proper to quote him if he said something like "I building on such and such ideas from Rothbard." If he just uses Rothbard as a ref, then it probably would be WP:Original research to try to interpret what he got from Rothbard.
 * If you don't understand policy, we can have a third party come and explain it. CarolMooreDC 00:12, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

 * How about Stephan Kinsella: "A healthy number of libertarians believe the following. First, the fetus does have rights--at least, a late-term fetus. However, the fetus is a trespasser on the woman's body, thus it can be evicted at any time (the is the view of Walter Block and Murray Rothbard--evictionism)."? I think that qualifies as an expert. https://www.facebook.com/DoubleXMag/posts/10151035512854702 Dude6935 (talk) 03:57, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

 * "Norman Stephan Kinsella (/kɪnˈsɛlə/; born 1965) is an American intellectual property lawyer and libertarian legal theorist. His works are primarily published on his blog and websites associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute and anarcho-capitalist organizations." He is an expert. Dude6935 (talk) 18:30, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I am taking down the John Walker ref. I didn't realize he was part of libertarians for life when I posted it. Dude6935 (talk) 16:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Kinsella on Facebook is not WP:RS either. Please remove. Do I really have to go to WP:Reliable sources noticeboard to prove this point to you which is abundantly verified on WP:RS policy page?? Please read all of it, not just the part you think applies to my edits. Thanks. CarolMooreDC 17:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * So Kinsella is not an expert, but your group is? They are both self-published, but in Kinsella's case he has an established record of lectures and published books. Can pro-choice libertarians say that? If you want to go to a noticeboard, please feel free. I think the pro-choice libertarian source is far less reliable than this one. Dude6935 (talk) 18:15, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Having since re-read the comments at WP:COIN and noticed the one about it would be better to summarize the comments, I did so very briefly in an NPOV way with note in the edit summary: The Pro-Choice Libertarians group lists some of the reasons libertarians may oppose government involvement in the abortion issue based on various views of morality, rights of the mother and the fetus, the proper role of government.[23] Maybe that was your original point; if so you never made it clearly. Saying the group exists and summarizing it's views certain is well within Wikipedia boundaries.  I'm also going to make a Pro-Choice Libs in the News page for the various news stories about the group over the years. "Support for legal abortion" being a majority in the movement, it has not been necessary to promote the views as much except when attacked within specific organizations. I'm not going to promote there being an article on Wikipedia.  Frankly I've seen groups with far more refs than Libertarians for Life get the boot and maybe putting that article through AfD would be the best thing and then we could decide if either group should be mentioned at all, IF you objection is mentioning the pro-choice group at all.
 * So do you have a problem with that before I go to WP:RSN about Kinsella. CarolMooreDC 19:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I agree that that edit was a needed improvement. It was not my original point, but the change did address more than one of my minor points. It now reads like it isn't explicitly stating the opinions of others. It reads more like the group's opinion, as it should. Dude6935 (talk) 20:07, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Couldn't the part on Rothbard be re-written with his own writings as references. Then the Kinella ref would not be needed at all. He calls the fetus a parasite just like Block does and says it can be ejected (rather than evicted). Thoughts? Dude6935 (talk) 21:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I missed this comment before posting this Reliable_sources/Noticeboard.
 * Anyway, if you can find that Block says "Rothbard says so and so" and then says something like "which is what I mean or similar to what I say when I say such and such" then it's ok. But for YOU to make that connection is WP:Original Research. If you quote Rothbard saying "the fetus is a parasite and it can be ejected" (or whatever) and then the next paragraph is Block making his point, then you legitimately can let the reader draw her own conclusions, which may or may not be same as yours. CarolMooreDC 01:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Facebook cannot be used as a reliable source here. Norman Stephan Kinsella must be quoted from a reliable source or not quoted at all. Binksternet (talk) 01:41, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I'm thinking something like: "Dr. Walter Block, professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, defends the right of a mother to "evict" an unwanted fetus on the same propertarian basis as Rothbard, but adds that the mother does not have a right to kill the fetus "if technology permits her not to do so". Block argues that life begins from conception, and that the fetus (as a human) is protected against aggression. Block asserts that this compromise, "evictionism", is the only justifiable position and is a true alternative to the standard choice between "pro-life" and "pro-choice".

 * Let me know what you think. I have reviewed both "The Ethics of Liberty" and "Compromising the Uncompromisable" while writing this, so most statements have been 100% verified rather than stated off the cuff. I can add quotes and edit as needed. The (a)(b)(c) stuff currently in the article doesn't read easily to me. And propertarian here just mean property based. But Rothbard is also called popertarian (with a ref) in Propertarianism.

 * BTW, I only heard about evictionism a couple of weeks ago. I don't think I am gung-ho evictionist. I just think it is a very important philosophical theory which lends more consistency to libertarianism. Anyway, is think evictionism really is a compromise, and I lean in it's direction. Dude6935 (talk) 20:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Please show your sources. Your proposed text is nothing until its sources can be seen. Binksternet (talk) 21:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * As I said, "Ethics of Liberty" and "Compromising the Uncompromisable"
 * http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-whitehead_abortion-2005.pdf
 * http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dude6935 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * If YOU are the one who says "on the same propertarian basis as Rothbard," it is WP:Original research. If you say Block does it on propertarian basis and that he quotes or cites Rothbard's view of propertarianism (which he may well do) or whatever, then you are just describing facts, though some still might object you are trying to make your own argument and not just describe Block's position. I think Block himself is strong enough to make any point, without referring to Rothbard, and that if there is some quote from Rothbard using similar language, just use it in the Rothbard section. It's just a matter of learning how to do things in a Wikipedian encyclopedic manner. CarolMooreDC 03:56, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Here are Kinsella, Block, and Whitehead citing Rothbard view on a mother's private property rights and on a fetus' non-right to trespass as the basis for eviction. See the section on abortion page 945. http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block-etal_spam_whittier-2006.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dude6935 (talk • contribs) 05:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Here's what the full text in question reads:

All they are saying is that Rothbard says even if fetuses are human they have no right to trespass. And Kinsella, Block, and Whitehead's conclusions from that. They are not saying Rothbard's an evictionist.

And do not forget the oft made counter argument - in fact perhaps made by Rothbard himself - that may be in one of the sources you already provided that the mother has no legal duty to take care of the fetus when born or to give it to someone else. Obviously libertarians may disagree on that, but just pointing out that argument also exists. In any case, why the "argument from authority" (Rothbard). If this is what Kinsella, Block, and Whitehead believe, just say it. CarolMooreDC 21:01, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Ok, I will take another shot at it:

 * Dr. Walter Block, professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and fellow libertarian contributers, defend the right of a mother to "evict" an unwanted fetus on the libertarian private property basis(ref1), but add that the mother does not have a right to kill (that is, to abort (ref1)) the fetus "if technology permits her not to do so", so long as any willing third party exists to adopt it.(ref2) Block supports his position by arguing that "the fetus is an alive human being from day one onward, with all the rights pertaining to any other member of the species."(ref2) Block maintains that this compromise, "evictionism", is a true alternative to the standard "pro-life" and "pro-choice" positions and that it is the only justifiable abortion position.(ref2)

 * Ref1 is Kinsella, Block, and Whitehead
 * Ref2 is Block and Whitehead

 * "the mother has no legal duty to take care of the fetus when born". Block agrees, not really a counter.
 * "or to give it to someone else". Block disagrees on this and argues against.
 * I am starting to agree about the non-necessity of referencing Rothbard since probably half of the other paragraphs could reference him too.
 * I believe this is a simple statement of verifiable facts, and I believe this version conveys more information, more clearly, and probably in fewer words than the current text. Dude6935 (talk) 21:30, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

 * The main problem I see (without bothering to check whether statements actually come from each source, since I assume it's close enough) is that Block and Whitehead write the main longer paper Ref1, so would think Whitehead should be identified there. It's confusing to say "other contributors" but then keep saying Block this and Block that for rest of paragraph. For Ref2, did they all write the whole piece, or did Block or he and Whitehead only write abortion section? If that's made explicit in original source, would be relevant. CarolMooreDC 22:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

 * It seems that Kinsella descents with a more pro-life position a bit later in the abortion section. So I see no reason to site the paper to which he contributes. Every statement can be referenced to the original Block-Whitehead paper and I included page refs.

 * I added Whitehead, but the intro is soo long now.

 * Dr. Walter Block, professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and Roy whitehead Associate Professor of Business Law, University of Central Arkansas, defend the right of a mother to "evict" an unwanted fetus on the libertarian private property basis(ref page 44), but add that the mother does not have a right to kill (that is, to abort (ref page 21)) the fetus "if technology permits her not to do so", so long as any willing third party exists to adopt it.(ref page 44,45) Block and Whitehead support their position by arguing that "the fetus is an alive human being from day one onward, with all the rights pertaining to any other member of the species."(ref page 17) They maintain that this compromise, "evictionism", is a true alternative to the standard "pro-life" and "pro-choice" positions and that it is the only justifiable abortion position.(ref page 44)

 * Thoughts? Dude6935 (talk) 18:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Confusion cleared up. Eventually I might check if it's an accurate reflection, when I'm in a finicky mood. But that might be months from now. It sounds like more detailed version of last version which I never checked either. :-) See, isn't collaboration fun?? CarolMooreDC 00:56, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Harry Browne's non-postion on abortion.
Harry Brown expresses no opinion on abortion itself in the cited source. He states only his opinion on government. This opinion should be under "Role of government in abortion" or the like. Then it could be expanded with similar views like Ron Paul's position to have it decided at the state level, or lower. Dude6935 (talk) 15:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * "The only issue in libertarianism is whether the government should be involved - based on whatever philosophy one might have." This is not true. For example, Ron Paul opposes abortion, but believe that states have the right to ban it (or not) free from federal interference. Dude6935 (talk) 19:40, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Actually Paul's position is it is a life FROM conception so he would LIKE to see all the states ban it but realizes that may not be possible. And some right to lifers want it banned; some think the states should decide. That's what article should reflect. CarolMooreDC 19:42, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, there is debate on the morality of abortion, and there is the separate question of what the legality of abortion should be. Your edits mush all that together. If you want to address only the legal question of abortion, the article needs to be re-titled or moved to an article with an appropriate title. Dude6935 (talk) 19:49, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Legality is the main issue in libertarianism - and in wikipedia. Support for the legalization of abortion (article title) or Opposition to legal abortion (article title) are the retitled names of the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" articles after much community discussion.
 * The various arguments which people must for or against legality of some or all abortion are thus logically organized under those concepts. People come up with all sorts of reasons for their views, some questionable. For example, some people are against it because they want their race or religion to survive or triumph demographically; others are for it because they think it's a blessed religious sacrament for liberation of a soul from an unwanted body. And some of these people might call themselves libertarians. If WP:RS covered those views, they'd be eligible for inclusion in this article.
 * But the main way to organize these for or against views is - do they want it mostly or totally legal or illegal. I'm going to get some outside opinions on this and on the eligibility of the Pro-Choice Libertarians material. As I said above, advocacy groups can be quoted talking about their own views and views of supporters, but not those of other people or groups, unless the author is a noted expert on a subject. (So I don't feel I have a conflict of interest quoting the views of a group whose web page I manage; not sure, so asking opinion on that elsewhere.) CarolMooreDC 05:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

 * In my opinion, there is an unannounced conflict of interest here. This should rule out making any controversial edits as per WP:AVOIDCOI, especially without full disclosure and discussion before edits are made. I welcome other opinions on this issue. Dude6935 (talk) 06:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

 * First, I see that you found out I was the contact for Pro-Choice libertarians in an email to the group asking about Block. I thought it was a wikipedia forwarded email.
 * Second, until you raised the issue it didn't even occur to me that my adding the quote from Pro-Choice Libertarians which I helped found and whose web page I still do was a conflict of interest. I did it 4 or 5 years ago before I was very aware of COI issues and hadn't thought about it since til you brought up the issue. I am sure that NPOV editors will find that adding that one paragraph is not WP:Undue. And I certainly am not promoting the group beyond that.
 * Third, having a position is not a conflict of interest unless you engage in behaviors that are against policy, like: engaging in original research, trying to use NON-WP:RS sources in an article, being uncivil, being a sock puppet, etc. You do seem to be interested in this view that evicted viable fetuses should be adopted by others but that shouldn't bar you from editing if it does not marr your editorial objectivity. (I personally don't care if those views are in the article, as long as they reflect what a reliable source actually said.)
 * At this point it seems we are having a civil discussion and I am explaining what I think are the policy issues are and trying to understand views. I do not understand your opposition to the renamed sections per the above suggested per the Wikipedia dichotomy.  Maybe there is a problem with that - I just am not sure what your point is.  Obviously there is a spectrum of views. Gary Johnson mostly is pro-choice except for viable fetuses (what his definition of that is is not one I've found yet from a reliable source).  And Ron Paul per the current article seems to be personally for making it illegal but would let the states decide. (Which I think needs further clarification but I haven't bothered to get the right sourced info on his current views.) I don't think there's anyone who takes such a middle ground position they are equally for and against legality, but I could be wrong. So I think further article discussion, not excessive COI discussion, is what is needed here. CarolMooreDC 07:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

If further discussion is required on the COI subject, we should start a new thread. I will just quote from my link above, with my emphasis.

"Editors who may have a conflict of interest may nevertheless add material that accords with the Photographs and media files or Subject and culture sector professionals sections below, and are allowed to make certain kinds of non-controversial edits, such as: Removing spam and reverting vandalism. Deleting content that violates Wikipedia's biography of living persons policy. Fixing spelling and grammar errors. Reverting or removing their own COI edits. Cleaning up your own mess is allowed and encouraged. Making edits that have been agreed to on the talk page. Adding citations, especially when another editor has requested them. If another editor objects for any reason, then it's a controversial edit. Such edits should be discussed on the article's talk page." I will return the article structure to the way it was before your controversial, unilateral edit. If agreement is forthcoming on your proposed structure change, we should restore it. If you believe my edit that preceded yours is faulty, we can revert back further and discuss that as well. I believe this course of action can resolve this problem without need for any escalation. Dude6935 (talk) 18:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

 * You haven't proved there is a real conflict of interest. If you read: Conflict_of_interest you'll see I do not fall into any of those categories. I'm not a paid professional. I made one relevant edit re: Pro-Choice Lib group years ago which I'm quite sure no one has contested since. If there's a Pro-life group with a web page it's certainly relevant there's a pro-choice one. There was a real long RfC on Conflict of Interest recently and people were not happy about POVs being labeled COIs.
 * On the other hand it is quite clear that you do have a such a strong POV you are not interested in complying with WP:Reliable sources in order to push your own POV, ie in your entering both the Walker and now the Stephen Kinsella "references." Kinsella's entry is just a self-published commentary. And he's not a noted authority on the subject which would make it useable.  In fact someone put a tag on his article questioning his notability. Do I really have to go to the Reliable sources noticeboard with these refs so that other editors can make this policy clear to you? It's having such a strong POV you ignore policy that is more likely to be seen as a WP:COI under Conflict_of_interest   CarolMooreDC 19:04, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest
CarolMooreDC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#libertarian_perspectives_on_abortion — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dude6935 (talk • contribs) 22:06, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Closed with finding there is no conflict of interest. Link to archived copy. (once archived). CarolMooreDC 17:07, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Is the Pro-choice libertrains website a self-published source?
It appears to me that the reference to the pro-choice libertarians website is a self-published source. I also don't see any evidence of the author's name, so I don't think it could be an expert source. Can anyone clarify this for me? Here is the link: http://pro-choicelibertarians.net/ Dude6935 (talk) 18:39, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The text used here was passed by the group members who are involved in these discussions and members have in the past suggested content to the web page and to petitions and leaflets we circulated, so this is really an irrelevant comment. Our group has been as active in the Libertarian Party and there are probably at least as many WP:RS sources as Libertarians for Life. However, the fact there is NO Pro-Choice Libertarians article shows that we are not promoting it! Maybe I should put the factoids on my talk page and let the Feminist Wikiproject know and someone there can write the article if they so choose! I don't think that would be a COI, would it??
 * What IS relevant is your failure to show that two sources you propose are WP:RS. I have no problem with evictionism being mentioned if properly sourced. I have no problem with adding more pro-life views from different libertarian reliable sources, though frankly haven't paid much attention to who they might be. If you know some, add them. CarolMooreDC 19:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I am confused, is this not a self-published source making statements about other people? Isn't this an inappropriate source? Dude6935 (talk) 16:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * The sentence doesn't say SO AND SO SAYS. It says "Libertarians have said or believe" based on several people's input on things they have heard from 30 plus years of experience and which they all reviewed to make sure nothing was made up. CarolMooreDC 17:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * That is a self-published statement on the beliefs of a whole group of other people without evidence of expertise. How do we know what experience you and your group has? We have only your word as far as I can tell. We don't even know who wrote those words. They could be your own words for all we know. Dude6935 (talk) 18:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Having since re-read the comments at WP:COIN and noticed the one about it would be better to summarize the comments, I did so very briefly in an NPOV way with note in the edit summary: The Pro-Choice Libertarians group lists some of the reasons libertarians may oppose government involvement in the abortion issue based on various views of morality, rights of the mother and the fetus, the proper role of government.[23] CarolMooreDC 19:43, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Problems with section titles??
I still don't understand the actual objection from an editor to the current section titles which comply with wikipedia's way of framing the issue. However, I have now come up with a second possible objection, in addition to one I listed above. But I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth. Please explain and discuss issues here. Thanks. CarolMooreDC 20:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * If I were king of the page, I would structure it this way:

 * Role of government (or similar)- so far the majority of the text falls under this category
 * Pro-choice (the different moral/philosophical positions follow)
 * Pro-life
 * Other/Evictionism

 * Why? Take the anarcho-capitalist, to him everything should be legal with respect to the state. But murder would still be illegal in practice due to the combined effect of arbitration and protection services (or contracts). The same could be said for a pro-life anarcho-capitalist. He would want abortion to be legal WRT the state, but not in practice. Nor would he support abortion on moral grounds. So this is why I dislike the mushing together of legal and moral opinions. Dude6935 (talk) 21:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Both approaches suffer the same problem, since there are some pro-choice people who want the state involved at some point and pro-life people who don't want it at all.
 * It did occur to me today that "support for legal abortion" is a problematic title since there are lots of people who are against abortion but want the government out, so they would not describe their view as support for abortion; that's especially true for libertarians.
 * I think the most accurate way of saying it is:
 * Opposition to government involvement(and specify that some may want govt involvement after viability outside the womb). Block's Evictionism would fall into that broader category. (And of course his view/alternative is easily evaded by "partial birth" abortion or just killing in the womb, doubtless why it hasn't caught on as "third" alternative.) It's obviously a strongly held view by you, but don't impose it on the article.
 * Support for government involvement (and they tend to be opposed all the way through, though if any notable people are not, they can be noted).
 * Thoughts? CarolMooreDC 00:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * I agree with your point about support for legal abortion. I don't think the goal is to represent each group's world view. I think the goal is to represent each separate libertarian view. A group/person could have it's moral argument in one section and its view on the role of government in another section. Or, if its statements only address the role of government, they would be referenced in that section. Rothbard views, based on my reading today in "The Ethics of Liberty", only regard the legality: "What we are trying to establish here is not the morality of abortion (which may or may not be moral on other grounds), but its legality, i.e., the absolute right of the mother to have an abortion. What we are concerned with in this book is people's rights to do or not do various things, not whether they should or should not exercise such rights."

 * Indeed, block would be opposition to government involvement except after viability, around 5 months into gestation.

 * WRT evictionism, unless you see partial birth abortion as some sort of mercy killing for a baby who no one wants to adopt, it is incompatible with evictionism. A mother would not normally kill a child in any act of surgery or violence (either inside or outside her body), since she only has the right to remove it from her body. Her right is to refuse to care for the child, not to cause it harm.

 * Regardless of adding the moral dichotomy to the legal dichotomy, I prefer your proposed titles. Dude6935 (talk) 21:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

 * Too tired tonight to respond; workmen coming to house tomorrow. Soon. CarolMooreDC 03:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Libertarian perspectives on abortion. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050305231031/http://www.abortionisprolife.com:80/faq.htm to http://www.abortionisprolife.com/faq.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 09:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Analysis of Article
On this talk page the main arguments focus on the libertarian perspective as well as the religious perspective. Within these topics, government funding is addressed. One person debated that the section that stated libertarian would not want to fund such activity against nature. However,he/ she voiced his/her perspective that funding birth control and abortion cold greatly affect the stabilization in population. For their perspective even related a human to a pet, basically saying unlike animals, humans are destined to become full citizens.

The next idea that was being converted is “Parents have no right to abandon or recklessly endanger their children. Whenever they are unable or unwilling to raise their children, they have the obligation to find another person(s) willing to assume guardianship.” One debater made it known that he/ she was pro-abortion but the idea that a fetus doesn’t have a right to be in the mother’s womb, but is there by her permission is wrong. The individuals feel that fetus lies in the womb not by choice but basically due to the parents decision to procreate. Capitalism Magazine also supports pro- choice by saying, a fetus permission can be revoked at anytime depending on the mother. Harry Browne however, is against pro-choice and pro-life. He feels that Government doesn’t work, and eliminating abortions would be like eliminating drugs and poverty. One editor addresses the idea of misinterpreting Catholic views. He/ she states that Catholic institution doesn’t support abortion for medical issues and how Catholicism views abortion as a sin. He / she labels abortion as second opinion.

In conclusion, this talk page had many controversies on what was stated on the wikipedia page. Some feel that it violated their religion and was very disturbed of how the content mislead viewers when it came to the teachings of the Catholic religion. The debater in fact made it bold that this is not what the Catholic Religion represents. Also, many libertarians feel that some points were of on the page and were sure to correct them. Some felt free to include their personal opinions about the situation. Many debaters felt that the information in the article was biased and only spoke for some libertarians rather than all. They felt that maybe the word some would have made the statements true but definitely all didn’t view it that way. Debaters are also pro- human right for the most part. Many backed up the women's freedom of choice when it came to permission, allowance, and fetus. The conversations are pretty much civil for the most part, but they are very bold when it comes to individuals freely expressing their views on this article. Debaters definitely use their freedom of speech. The most controversial edit was the one on pro-abortion being the predominate libertarian viewpoint. Most controversial edits take place in the Summer, particularly 2005,2006,and 2009. The most shocking part was on the one with religion. I felt that it should be obvious that religion is against abortion, which is the acts of killing an unborn child. Corrections on content of the article were beneficial and needed to eliminate misunderstandings when comes to liberals, religion, and pro-choice.

Important Question
Can someone add Javier Milei's stance on abortion into this article? Quang, Bùi Huy (talk) 01:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)


text:
War of the Bavarian Succession

The War of the Bavarian Succession (Bayerischer Erbfolgekrieg; 3 July 1778 – 13 May 1779) was a dispute between the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and an alliance of Saxony and Prussia over succession to the Electorate of Bavaria after the extinction of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach. The Habsburgs sought to acquire Bavaria, and the alliance opposed them, favoring another branch of the Wittelsbachs. Both sides mobilized large armies, but the only fighting in the war was a few minor skirmishes. However, thousands of soldiers died from disease and starvation, earning the conflict the name Kartoffelkrieg (Potato War) in Prussia and Saxony; in Habsburg Austria, it was sometimes called the Zwetschgenrummel (Plum Fuss).

On 30 December 1777, Maximilian III Joseph, the last of the junior Wittelsbach line, died of smallpox, leaving no children. Charles Theodore, a scion of a senior branch of the House of Wittelsbach, held the closest claim of kinship, but he also had no legitimate children to succeed him. His cousin, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, therefore had a legitimate legal claim as Charles Theodore's heir presumptive. Across Bavaria's southern border, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor coveted the Bavarian territory and had married Maximilian Joseph's sister Maria Josepha in 1765 to strengthen any claim he could extend. His agreement with the heir, Charles Theodore, to partition the territory neglected any claims of the heir presumptive, Charles August.

Acquiring territory in the German-speaking states was an essential part of Joseph's policy to expand his family's influence in Central Europe. For King Frederick II of Prussia, Joseph's claim threatened Prussian influence in German politics, but he questioned whether he should preserve the status quo through war, diplomacy, or trade. Empress Maria Theresa, who co-ruled with Joseph, considered any conflict over the Bavarian electorate not worth bloodshed, and neither she nor Frederick saw any point in pursuing hostilities. Joseph would not drop his claim despite his mother's contrary insistence. Frederick August III, Elector of Saxony, wanted to preserve the territorial integrity of Bavaria for his brother-in-law, Charles August, and had no interest in seeing the Habsburgs acquire additional territory on his southern and western borders. Despite his dislike of Prussia, which had been Saxony's enemy in two previous wars, Charles August sought the support of Frederick, who was happy to challenge the Habsburgs. France became involved to maintain the balance of power. Finally, Empress Catherine II of Russia's threat to intervene on the side of Prussia with fifty thousand Russian troops forced Joseph to reconsider his position. With Catherine's assistance, he and Frederick negotiated a solution to the problem of the Bavarian succession with the Treaty of Teschen, signed on 13 May 1779.

For some historians, the War of the Bavarian Succession was the last of the old-style cabinet wars of the Ancien Régime era, in which troops maneuvered while diplomats traveled between capitals to resolve their monarchs' complaints. The subsequent French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars differed in scope, strategy, organization, and tactics.

Background
In 1713, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI established a line of succession that gave precedence to his own daughters over the daughters of his deceased older brother, Emperor Joseph I. To protect the Habsburg inheritance, he coerced, cajoled, and persuaded the crowned heads of Europe to accept the Pragmatic Sanction. In this agreement, they acknowledged any of his legitimate daughters as the rightful queen of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, and archduchess of Austria—a break from the tradition of agnatic primogeniture.

Holy Roman emperors had been elected from the House of Habsburg for most of the previous three centuries. Charles VI arranged a marriage of his eldest daughter, Maria Theresa, to Francis III of Lorraine. Francis relinquished the Duchy of Lorraine neighbouring France in exchange for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to make himself a more appealing candidate for eventual election as emperor. On paper, many heads of state and, most importantly, the rulers of the German states of the Holy Roman Empire, accepted the Pragmatic Sanction and the idea of Francis as the next emperor. Two key exceptions, the Electorate of Bavaria and the Electorate of Saxony, held important electoral votes and could impede or even block Francis' election. When Charles died in 1740, Maria Theresa had to fight for her family's entitlements in Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia, and her husband faced competition in his election as the Holy Roman emperor.

Charles Albert, Prince-elector and Duke of Bavaria, claimed the German territories of the Habsburg dynasty as a son-in-law of Joseph I, and furthermore presented himself as Charles VI's legitimate imperial successor. If women were going to inherit, he claimed, then his family should have precedence: his wife, Maria Amalia, was the daughter of Joseph I. Both Charles VI and his predecessor Joseph I had died without sons. Charles Albert of Bavaria suggested that the legitimate succession pass to Joseph's female children, rather than to the daughters of the younger brother, Charles VI. For different reasons, Prussia, France, Spain, and the Polish-Saxon monarchy supported Charles of Bavaria's claim to the Habsburg territory and the Imperial title and reneged on the Pragmatic Sanction.

Charles Albert of Bavaria needed military assistance to take the imperial title by force, which he secured the Treaty of Nymphenburg (July 1741). During the subsequent War of the Austrian Succession, he successfully captured Prague, where he was crowned King of Bohemia. He invaded Upper Austria, planning to capture Vienna, but diplomatic exigencies complicated his plans. His French allies redirected their troops into Bohemia, where Frederick the Great, himself newly King of Prussia, had taken advantage of the chaos in Austria and Bavaria to annex Silesia.

Charles Albert's military options disappeared with the French. Adopting a new plan, he subverted the imperial election. He sold the County of Glatz to Prussia for a reduced price in exchange for Frederick's electoral vote. Charles's brother, Klemens August of Bavaria, archbishop and prince-elector of the Electorate of Cologne, voted for him in the imperial election and personally crowned him on 12 February 1742 in the traditional ceremony in Frankfurt am Main. The next day, the new Charles VII's Bavarian capital of Munich capitulated to the Austrians to avoid being plundered by Maria Theresa's troops. In the following weeks, her army overran most of Charles's territories, occupied Bavaria, and barred him from his ancestral lands and from Bohemia.

Charles VII spent most of his three-year reign as emperor residing in Frankfurt while Maria Theresa battled Prussia for her patrimony in Bohemia and Hungary. Frederick could not secure Bohemia for Charles, but he did manage to push the Austrians out of Bavaria. For the last three months of his short reign, the gout-ridden Charles lived in Munich, where he died in January 1745. His son, Maximilian III Joseph (known as Max Joseph) inherited his father's electoral dignities but not his imperial ambition. With the Peace of Füssen (22 April 1745), Max Joseph promised to vote for Francis of Lorraine, Maria Theresa's husband, in the pending imperial election. He also acknowledged the Pragmatic Sanction. In return, he obtained the restitution of his family's electoral position and territories. For his subjects, his negotiations ended five years of warfare and brought a generation of peace and relative prosperity that began with his father's death in 1745 and ended with his own in 1777.

As the Duke of Bavaria, Max Joseph was the prince of one of the largest states in the German-speaking portion of the Holy Roman Empire. As a prince-elector, he stood in the highest rank of the Empire, with broad legal, economic, and judicial rights. As an elector, he was one of the men who selected the Holy Roman Emperor from a group of candidates. He was the son of one Holy Roman Emperor (Charles VII), and the grandson of another (Joseph I). When he died of smallpox on 30 December 1777, he left no children to succeed him and several ambitious men prepared to carve his patrimony into pieces.

The Heir

The Sulzbach branch of the Wittelsbach family inherited the Electorate of Bavaria. In this line, the 55-year-old Charles IV Theodore, the Duke of Berg-Jülich, held the first claim. Unfortunately for Charles Theodore, he was already the Elector Palatine. By the terms of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, he had to cede the Palatine electorate to his own heir before he could claim the Bavarian electorate. He was not eager to do so, even though Bavaria was larger and more important. He preferred living in the Palatinate, with its salubrious climate and compatible social scene. He patronized the arts, and had developed in Mannheim, his capital city, an array of theaters and museums at tremendous cost to his subjects. He hosted Voltaire at one of his many palaces. During the visit, he had enticed Voltaire's secretary, the Florentine noble Cosimo Alessandro Collini (1727–1806), into his own employment, considered a coup in some of the Enlightenment circles. Thomas Carlyle referred to Charles Theodore as a "poor idle creature, of purely egoistical, ornamental, dilettante nature; sunk in theatricals, [and] bastard children". The French foreign minister Vergennes, who knew him, described Charles Theodore's foibles more forcefully:
 * "Although by nature intelligent, he [Charles Theodore] has never succeeded in ruling by himself; he has always been governed by his ministers or by his father-confessor or (for a time) by the electress [his wife]. This conduct has increased his natural weakness and apathy to such a degree that for a long time he has had no opinions save those inspired in him by his entourage. The void which this indolence has left in his soul is filled with the amusements of the hunt and of music and by secret liaisons, for which His Electoral Majesty has at all times had a particular penchant."

The Electress had provided him with a son, who had immediately died, but Charles Theodore's "particular penchant" for secret liaisons, most of whom were French actresses that he had raised to the status of countess, had produced several natural children. By the time of Max Joseph's death, he had legitimated seven of the males of his various alliances, and was considering the legitimation of two more. With this host of male offspring, although Charles Theodore certainly wished to acquire more territory, he needed it to be territory that he could bequeath through his testament, rather than territory encumbered by a legal entailment that could only pass to a legitimate child.

Deal-maker
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, and co-ruler with his mother, Empress Maria Theresa, coveted Bavaria. He felt the War of the Austrian Succession had shown that the House of Habsburg-Lorraine needed a wider sphere of influence in the German-speaking parts of the Holy Roman Empire. Without this, the family could not count on the election of their chosen male candidate as emperor, nor could the family count on an uncontested succession to the Habsburg territories of Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia. For most of Joseph's adult life, he sought to strengthen his family's influence in German-speaking lands. For him, this meant the acquisition of German lands (generally better-developed economically), not lands in the eastern region of the Habsburg empire, even such strategic territories as Bukovina.

Joseph married Max Joseph's sister, Maria Josepha, in 1765, hoping he could claim the Bavarian electorate for his offspring. After two years of unhappy marriage, Maria Josepha died without issue. When Max Joseph died ten years later, Joseph could only present a weak legal claim to Lower Bavaria through a dubious and ancient grant made by the Emperor Sigismund to the House of Habsburg in 1425. Knowing its poor legal grounds, Joseph negotiated a secret agreement with Charles Theodore shortly after Max Joseph's death. In this agreement (3 January 1778), Charles Theodore ceded Lower Bavaria to Austria in exchange for uncontested succession to the remainder of the electorate. Charles Theodore also hoped to acquire from Joseph some unencumbered parts of the Austrian Netherlands and parts of Further Austria that he could bequeath to his bastards, but this was not written into the agreement and Joseph was not a particularly generous man. Furthermore, the agreement entirely ignored the interests of Charles Theodore's own heir presumptive, Charles II August, of the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld. Charles August was the presumptive heir of Charles Theodore's domains and titles. He had a clear and direct interest in the disposition of the Bavarian electorate, especially in its territorial integrity.

Heir presumptive
Unbeknownst to either Charles Theodore or Joseph, a widow (historians are uncertain which widow) opened secret negotiations with Prussia to secure the eventual succession of Charles II August (Charles August). Some historians maintain the active negotiator was Max Joseph's widow, Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony. Others assert it was Max Joseph's sister, Maria Antonia of Bavaria, who was also Charles August's mother-in-law and the mother of the reigning Elector of Saxony. Ernest Henderson even maintained she was the "only manly one among the many Wittelsbach parties" involved in the issue.

Charles August was no great admirer of Joseph's. As a younger man, he had sought the hand of Joseph's sister, Archduchess Maria Amalia. She had been quite content to take him, but Joseph and their mother insisted she marry instead the better-connected Ferdinand, Duke of Parma. After this disappointment, Charles II August married Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1774; she was the daughter of Frederick Christian, Elector of Saxony (d. 1763) and his wife Maria Antonia, Max Joseph's sister. In 1769, the reigning Saxon elector, Frederick Augustus III, had married Charles August's sister. Charles August, sometimes called duc de Deux-Ponts (a French translation of Zweibrücken, or two bridges), was a French client and could theoretically draw on French support for his claim. However, he had especially good relations with the Saxon Elector: both his mother- and brother-in-law wanted to ensure that Maria Amalia's husband received his rightful inheritance.

Interested parties
Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, Frederick the Great's prime minister, believed that any Austrian acquisition in Bavaria would shift the balance of power in the Holy Roman Empire, diminishing Prussia's influence. Prussia's recent gains had been hard-won: thirty years earlier, Frederick had engaged in protracted wars in Silesia and Bohemia, resulting in Prussia's annexation of most of Silesia, and now, with the economy and society modernizing under his direction, Prussia was emerging as a great power. In the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years' War, Frederick had earned a new, if grudging, respect for his kingdom's military and diplomatic prowess from the European powers of France, Russia, Britain and Austria. To protect Prussia's status and territory, Finck and Frederick constructed an alliance with the Electorate of Saxony, ostensibly to defend the rights of Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken.

Although equally interested in maintaining its influence among the German states, France had a double problem. As a supporter of the rebellious British colonies in North America, she wished to avoid a continental engagement; she could do more damage to the British in North America than in Europe. The Diplomatic Revolution in 1756 had gone against two hundred years of French foreign policy of opposition to the House of Habsburg, arguably bringing France massive territorial gains in repeated wars with Habsburg Austria and Spain. A reversal of this policy in 1756 tied French foreign policy in Europe to Vienna which, although it could give France additional influence and leverage, could also cripple the country's diplomatic maneuvers with the other power players: Britain, Russia, and Prussia. Despite this restructuring, there existed in the French Court at Versailles, and in France generally, a strong anti-Austrian sentiment. The personal union (the diplomatic term for marriage) of Louis, then the Dauphin, and the Austrian Archduchess Marie Antoinette, was considered both a political and matrimonial mésalliance in the eyes of many Frenchmen. It flew in the face of 200 years of French foreign policy, in which the central axiom "had been hostility to the House of Habsburg." The French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, maintained deep-seated hostility to the Austrians that antedated the alliance of 1756. He had not approved of the shift in France's traditional bonds and considered the Austrians untrustworthy. Consequently, he managed to extricate France from immediate military obligations to Austria by 1778.

Tensions rise
On 3 January 1778, a few days after Max Joseph's death, the electoral equerry proclaimed the succession of Charles Theodore. Dragoons rode through the streets of Munich, some banging drums and some blowing trumpets, and others shouting, "Long Live our Elector Charles Theodore." According to 3 January agreement between Joseph and Charles Theodore, fifteen thousand Austrian troops occupied Mindelheim, ultimately more territory than had been granted to Joseph. Charles Theodore, who had dreamed of rebuilding the Burgundian empire, realized that Joseph was not seriously planning to exchange Bavaria, or even a portion of it, for the entirety of the Austrian Netherlands. At best, he might acquire a few portions of it, perhaps Hainaut or Guelders, Luxembourg, Limburg, or various dispersed possessions in Further Austria, most of which lay in southwestern Germany, but Joseph would never release any sizable portion of territory, and certainly not any territory of strategic military or commercial value.

While Charles Theodore's dream of a Burgundian renaissance receded, Joseph continued on his course to annex part of Bavaria. The widow—Max Joseph's widow or the mother-in-law or both—petitioned Prussia on behalf of Charles II August. Frederick's envoys to the heir presumptive convinced this slighted prince to lodge protests with the Imperial Diet in Regensburg. Joseph's troops remained in portions of Bavaria, even establishing an Austrian administration at Straubing, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. Austrian occupation of Bavaria was unacceptable to Charles August's champion, Frederick. Prussian troops mobilized near Prussia's border with Bohemia, reminiscent of the invasion in 1740 that so endangered Maria Theresa's succession to the Habsburg hereditary lands. Meanwhile, the French wriggled out of their diplomatic obligations to Austria, telling Joseph that there would be no military support from Paris for a war against Prussia. Britain, Prussia's strongest ally, was already mired in a war in North America, but Prussia's military had recovered from the Seven Years' War and Frederick did not require any help. Prussia's other ally, Saxony, aligned by two marriages with Charles August, was strategically prepared for war against Austria and ready to contribute twenty thousand troops. Watching from Saint Petersburg, Catherine II was willing to mop up the spoils of war for the Russian Empire but did not want to get involved in another costly European conflict.

For four months, negotiators shuttled between Vienna and Berlin, Dresden and Regensburg, and Zweibrücken, Munich and Mannheim. By early spring 1778, Austria and Prussia faced each other with armies several times the size of their forces during the Seven Years' War, and their confrontation had the potential to explode into another European-wide war.

Action
When it became clear that other monarchs would not acquiesce in a de facto partition of Bavaria, Joseph and his foreign minister, Anton von Kaunitz, scoured the Habsburg realm for troops and concentrated six hundred guns and a 180,000–190,000-man Austrian army in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austrian Silesia. This amounted to most of Austria's two-hundred thousand effectives, leaving much of the Habsburg border regions with the Ottoman Empire under-guarded. On 6 April 1778 Frederick of Prussia established his army of eighty thousand men on the Prussian border with Bohemia, near Neisse, Schweidnitz, and the County of Glatz, which Frederick had acquired from the Wittelsbach contender in 1741 in exchange for his electoral support of Charles VII. At Glatz, Frederick completed his preparations for invasion: he gathered supplies, arranged a line-of-march, brought up his artillery and drilled his soldiers. His younger brother, Prince Henry, formed a second army of seventy-five to a hundred thousand men to the north and west, in Saxony. In April, Frederick and Joseph officially joined their armies in the field, and diplomatic negotiations ended.

In early July 1778, the Prussian general Johann Jakob von Wunsch (1717–1788) crossed into Bohemia near the fortified town of Náchod with several hundred men. The local garrison, commanded by Friedrich Joseph, Count of Nauendorf, then a Rittmeister (captain of cavalry), included only fifty hussars. Despite the poor numerical odds, Nauendorf sallied out to engage Wunsch's men. When his small force reached Wunsch's, he greeted the Prussians as friends; by the time the Prussians were close enough to realize the allegiance of the hussars, Nauendorf and his small band had acquired the upper hand. Wunsch withdrew; the next day, Nauendorf was promoted to major. In a letter to her son, the Empress Maria Theresa wrote: "They say you were so pleased with Nauendorf, a rookie from Carlstadt or Hungary, who killed seven men, that you gave him twelve ducats."

Invasion
A few days after Wunsch's encounter with Nauendorf, Frederick entered Bohemia. His eighty thousand troops occupied Náchod but advanced no further. The Habsburg army stood on the heights of the Elbe river, nominally under Joseph but with Count Franz Moritz von Lacy in practical command. Lacy had served under Marshal Daun during the Seven Years' War and knew his military business. He established the Austrian army on the most defensible position available: centered at Jaroměř, a triple line of redoubts extended 15 km southwest along the river to Königgrätz. The Austrians also augmented this defensive line with their six hundred artillery pieces.

While the main Habsburg army faced Frederick at the Elbe, a smaller army under the command of Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon guarded the passes from Saxony and Lusatia into Bohemia. Laudon was another battle-hardened and cagey commander with extensive field experience, but even he could not cover the long frontier completely. Shortly after Frederick crossed into Bohemia, Prince Henry, a brilliant strategist in his own right, maneuvered around Laudon's troops and entered Bohemia at Hainspach. To avoid being flanked, Laudon withdrew across the Iser river, but by mid-August, the main Austrian army was in danger of being outflanked by Henry on its left wing. At its center and right, it faced a well-disciplined army commanded by Frederick, arguably the best tactical general of the age and feared for his victories against France and Austria in the previous war.

While his main army remained entrenched on the heights above the Elbe, Joseph encouraged raids against the Prussian troops. On 7 August 1778, with two squadrons of his regiment, the intrepid "rookie", now Major Nauendorf, led a raid against a Prussian convoy at Bieberdorf in the County of Glatz. The surprised convoy surrendered and Nauendorf captured its officers, 110 men, 476 horses, 240 wagons of flour, and thirteen transport wagons. This kind of action characterized the entire war. There were no major battles; the war consisted of a series of raids and counter-raids during which the opposing sides lived off the countryside and tried to deny each other access to supplies and fodder. Soldiers later said they spent more time foraging for food than they did fighting.

The armies remained in their encampments for the campaign season while men and horses ate all the provisions and forage for miles around. Prince Henry wrote to his brother, suggesting they complete their operations by 22 August, at which time he estimated he would have exhausted local supplies of food for his men and fodder for his horses. Frederick agreed. He laid plans to cross the Elbe and approach the Austrian force from the rear, but the more he examined the conditions of Joseph's entrenchments, the more he realized that the campaign was already lost. Even if he and Henry executed simultaneous attacks on the Königgrätz heights, such a plan exposed Henry to a flanking attack from Laudon. A coordinated frontal and rear assault was also unlikely to succeed. Even if it did, the Prussian losses would be unacceptable and would demolish his army's capacity to resist other invaders. From Frederick's perspective, the Russians and the Swedes were always ready to take advantage of any perceived Prussian weakness, and the French also could not be trusted to keep their distance. For Frederick, it was a risk not worth taking. Despite this realization, the four armies—two Austrian, two Prussian—remained in place until September, eating as much of the country's resources as they could.

From their advantageous height by Königgrätz, the Austrians frequently bombarded the Prussian army encamped below them. On the same day that Frederick's doctors bled him, an Austrian cannonade grew so strong that Frederick rode out to observe the damage. During the ride, his vein opened. A company medic bound his wound, an incident later depicted by the painter Bernhard Rode. In his admiring history of Frederick the Great, the British historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) relayed the story of Frederick and a Croatian marksman. As Frederick was reconnoitring, Carlyle maintained, the King encountered the Croat taking aim at him. Reportedly, he wagged his finger at the man, as if to say, "Do not do that." The Croat thought better of shooting the King, and disappeared into the woods; some reports maintain he actually knelt before the king and kissed his hand.

Nauendorf continued his raids, the soldiers foraged for food and dug up the local potato crop, and Joseph and Frederick glared at one another by Königgrätz. Maria Theresa had sent Kaunitz on a secret mission to Berlin to offer a truce. In a second trip, she offered a settlement, and finally wrote to the Empress Catherine in Russia to ask for assistance. When Joseph discovered his mother's maneuvering behind his back, he furiously offered to abdicate. His mother enlisted the assistance she needed. Catherine offered to mediate the dispute; if her assistance was unacceptable, she was willing to send fifty thousand troops to augment the Prussian force, even though she disliked Frederick and her alliance with him was strictly defensive. Frederick withdrew portions of his force in mid-September. In October, Joseph withdrew most of his army to the Bohemian border and Frederick withdrew his remaining troops into Prussia. Two small forces of hussars and dragoons remained in Bohemia to provide a winter cordon; these forces allowed Joseph and Frederick to keep an eye on each other's troops while their diplomats negotiated at Teschen.

Winter actions
Appointed as the commander of the Austrian winter cordon, Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser ordered a small assault-column under the command of Colonel Wilhelm Klebeck to attack the village of Dittersbach. Klebeck led a column of Croats into the village. During the action, four hundred Prussians were killed, another four hundred made prisoner, and eight colors were captured. Following his successes against the Prussians in 1778, Joseph awarded Wurmser the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa on 21 October 1778.

In another raid, on 1 January 1779, Colonel Franz Levenehr led 3,200 men (four battalions, six squadrons, and 16 artillery) into Zuckmantel, a village in Silesia on the Prussian border, 7 km south of Ziegenhals. There he ran against a 10,000-man Prussian force commanded by General Johann Jakob von Wunsch; the Austrians decisively defeated the Prussians, with a loss of 20 men (wounded) against the Prussian losses of 800. Two weeks later, Wurmser advanced into the County of Glatz in five columns, two of which, commanded by Major General Franz Joseph, Count Kinsky, surrounded Habelschwerdt on 17–18 January. While one column secured the approach, the other, under the leadership of Colonel Pallavicini, stormed the village and captured the Landgrave of Hessen-Philippsthal, 37 officers, plus 700 to 1,000 men, three cannon and seven colors; in this action, the Prussians lost 400 men dead or wounded. Wurmser himself led the third column in an assault on the so-called Swedish blockhouse at Oberschwedeldorf. It and the village of Habelschwerdt were set on fire by howitzers. Major General Terzy (1730–1800), who was covering with the remaining two columns, threw back the enemy support and took three hundred Prussian prisoners. Meanwhile, Wurmser maintained his position at the nearby villages of Rückerts and Reinerz. His forward patrols reached the outskirts of Glatz and patrolled much of the Silesian border with Prussia near Schweidnitz. Halberschwerdt and Oberschedeldorf were both destroyed.

On 3 March 1779, Nauendorf again raided Berbersdorf with a large force of infantry and hussars and captured the entire Prussian garrison. Joseph awarded him the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa (19 May 1779).

Impact
In the Treaty of Teschen (May 1779), Maria Theresa returned Lower Bavaria to Charles Theodore, but kept the so-called Innviertel, a 2200 km2 strip of land in the drainage basin of the Inn river. She and Joseph were surprised to find that the small territory had 120,000 inhabitants. Saxony received a financial reward of six million gulden from the principal combatants for its role in the intervention.

The War of the Bavarian Succession was the last war for both Frederick and Maria Theresa, whose reigns began and ended with wars against one another. Although they deployed armies three to four times the size of the armies of the Seven Years' War, neither monarch used the entirety of the military force each had at their disposal, making this war-without-battles remarkable. Despite the restraint of the monarchs, some early nineteenth-century casualty estimates suggest that tens of thousands died of starvation and hunger-related disease. Carlyle's more moderate estimate lies at about ten thousand Prussian and probably another ten thousand Austrian dead. Michael Hochedlinger assesses combined casualties at approximately thirty thousand; Robert Kann gives no estimate of casualties but suggests the primary causes of death were cholera and dysentery. Gaston Bodart, whose 1915 work is still considered the authority on Austrian military losses, is specific: five Austrian generals (he does not name them), over twelve thousand soldiers, and 74 officers died of disease. In minor actions and skirmishes, nine officers and 265 men were killed and four officers and 123 men were wounded, but not fatally. Sixty-two officers and 2,802 men were taken prisoner, and 137 men were missing. Over three thousand Imperial soldiers deserted. Finally, twenty-six officers and 372 men were discharged with disabilities. Bodart also gives Prussian losses: one general killed (he does not say which), 87 officers and 3,364 men killed, wounded or captured. Overall, he assumes losses of ten percent of the fighting force. Little has been discovered of civilian casualties, although certainly the civilians also suffered from starvation and disease. There were other damages: for example, Habelschwerdt and one of its hamlets were destroyed by fire.

Despite its short duration, the war itself cost Prussia 33 million florins. For the Austrians, the cost was higher: 65 million florins, for a state with an annual revenue of 50 million florins. Joseph himself described war as "a horrible thing ... the ruin of many innocent people."

Change in warfare
This was the last European war of the old style, in which armies maneuvered sedately at a distance while diplomats hustled between capitals to resolve the monarchs' differences. Given the length of time—six months—the cost in life and treasure was high. In light of the scale of warfare experienced in Europe less than a generation later in the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, though, this six-month engagement seems mild. Yet while historians often dismissed it as the last of the archaic mode of Ancien Régime warfare, elements of the war foreshadowed conflicts to come: the sheer sizes of the armies deployed reflected emerging abilities and willingness to conscript, train, equip and field larger armies than had been done in previous generations.

The war also reflected a new height in military spending, especially by the Habsburgs. After the Seven Years' War, the size of the Habsburg military shrank, from 201,311 men in arms in 1761 to 163,613 in 1775. In preparing for a second summer's campaign, Joseph's army grew from 195,108 effectives in the summer of 1778 to 308,555 men in arms in Spring 1779. Habsburg military strength never dropped below two hundred thousand effectives between 1779 and 1792, when Austria entered the War of the First Coalition. Several times it surged above three hundred thousand men in arms, responding to needs on the Ottoman border or the revolt in the Austrian Netherlands. The military also underwent a massive organizational overhaul.

In the vernacular, the Austrians called the war Zwetschgenrummel ("Plum Fuss"), and for the Prussians and Saxons, it was Kartoffelkrieg ("Potato War"). In the historiography of European warfare, historians almost always describe the War of the Bavarian Succession "in dismissive or derisive terms [as] the apotheosis (or perhaps caricature) of old regime warfare," despite its grand name. Some historians have maintained that the focus on the consumption of the produce of the land gave the war its popular name. Others suggest that the two armies lobbed potatoes instead of cannonballs or mortars. A third theory maintains that the war acquired its popular name because it took place during the potato harvest.

Resurgence of the problem
The underlying problem was not solved: Joseph's foreign policy dictated the expansion of Habsburg influence over German-speaking territories, and only this, he believed, would counter Prussia's growing strength in Imperial affairs. In 1785, Joseph again sought to make a territorial deal with Charles Theodore, again offering to trade portions of Bavarian territory for portions of the Austrian Netherlands. This time it would be a straight trade: territory for territory, not a partition. Although the Austrian Netherlands was a wealthy territory, it was a thorn in Joseph's side, opposing his administrative and bureaucratic reforms and devouring military and administrative resources he desperately needed elsewhere in his realm. Despite its problems, Joseph could not afford to give up the Netherlands entirely, so his efforts to negotiate a partial territorial exchange guaranteed him some of the financial benefits of both his Netherlands possessions and the Bavarian territories.

Even if Joseph had to give up the Austrian Netherlands, it meant "the barter of an indefensible strategic position and ... an economic liability for a great territorial and political gain, adjacent to the monarchy." Again, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, resented the possible loss of his Bavarian expectancy, and again, Frederick of Prussia offered aid. This time, no war developed, not even a "Potato War". Instead, Frederick founded the Fürstenbund, or the Union of Princes, comprising the influential princes of the northern German states, and these individuals jointly pressured Joseph to relinquish his ambitious plans. Rather than increasing Austria's influence in German affairs, Joseph's actions increased Prussian influence, making Prussia seem like a protector state against greedy Habsburg imperialism (an ironic contrast to the earlier stage of the Austro-Prussian rivalry, in which Frederick seized German-speaking lands with military force and without formal declaration of war, causing most of the German states to join Austria). In 1799, Bavaria and the Palatinate passed to Maximilian IV Joseph, brother of Charles August, whose only child had died in 1784.

Long-term effect: the intensification of German dualism
Joseph understood the problems facing his multi-ethnic patrimony and the ambivalent position the Austrians held in the Holy Roman Empire. Although the Habsburgs and their successor house of Habsburg-Lorraine had, with two exceptions, held the position of Emperor since the early 15th century, the basis of 18th-century Habsburg power lay not in the Holy Roman Empire itself, but in Habsburg territories in Eastern Europe, where the family had vast domains. For Joseph or his successors to wield influence in the German-speaking states, they needed to acquire additional German-speaking territories. Acquisition of Central European territories with German-speaking subjects would strengthen the Austrian position in the Holy Roman Empire. As far as Joseph was concerned, only this could shift the center of the Habsburg empire into German-speaking Central Europe. This agenda made dispensable both the Austrian Netherlands—Habsburg territories which lay furthest west—and Galicia, furthest east. It also made the recovery of German-speaking Silesia and acquisition of new territories in Bavaria essential.

By the late 1770s, Joseph also faced important diplomatic obstacles in consolidating Habsburg influence in Central Europe. When the British had been Austria's allies, Austria could count on British support in its wars, but Britain was now allied with Prussia. In the Diplomatic Revolution, the French replaced the British as Austria's ally, but they were fickle, as Joseph discovered when Vergennes extricated Versailles from its obligations. Russia, which also had been an important Austrian ally for most of the Seven Years' War, sought opportunities for expansion at the expense of its weak neighbors. In 1778, that meant Poland and the Ottomans, but Joseph fully understood the danger of appearing weak in Russia's eyes: Habsburg lands could be carved off easily by Catherine's diplomatic knife. Still, Frederick of Prussia was the most definite enemy, as he had been throughout the reigns of Theresa and Franz before him, when the Prussian state's emergence as a player on the European stage had occurred at Habsburg expense, first with the loss of Silesia, and later in the 1750s and 1760s. Joseph sought to unify the different portions of his realm, not the German states as a whole, and to establish Habsburg hegemony in German-speaking central Europe beginning with the partition of Bavaria.

The broad geographic outlines of European states changed rapidly in the last fifty years of the century, with partitions of Poland and territorial exchanges through conquest and diplomacy. Rulers sought to centralize their control over their domains and create well-defined borders within which their writ was law. For Joseph, the acquisition of Bavaria, or at least parts of it, would link Habsburg territories in Bohemia with those in the Tyrol and partially compensate Austria for its loss of Silesia. The Bavarian succession crisis provided Joseph with a viable opportunity to consolidate his influence in the Central European states, to bolster his financially strapped government with much-needed revenue, and to strengthen his army with German-speaking conscripts. Supremacy in the German states was worth a war, but for Frederick, the preservation of Charles August's inheritance was not. He had had sufficient war in the first years of his reign, and in its last twenty years, he sought to preserve the status quo, not to enter into risky adventures that might upset it. If he had to withdraw from engagement with Joseph's army, such a sacrifice was a temporary measure. Warfare was only one means of diplomacy, and he could employ others in this contest with Austria. The Austro-Prussian dualism that dominated the next century's unification movement rumbled ominously in the War of the Bavarian Succession.

20th century

 * Kotulla, Michael, "Bayerischer Erbfolgekrieg." (1778/79), In: Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte vom Alten Reich bis Weimar (1495–1934). [Lehrbuch], Springer, Berlin: Heidelberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-48705-0.
 * Ziechmann, Jürgen, Der Bayerische Erbfolge-Krieg 1778/1779 oder Der Kampf der messerscharfen Federn. Edition Ziechmann, Südmoslesfehn 2007,
 * Groening, Monika . Karl Theodors stumme Revolution: Stephan Freiherr von Stengel, 1750–1822, und seine staats- und wirtschaftspolitischen Innovationen in Bayern, 1778–99. Obstadt-Weiher: Verlag regionalkultur, [2001].
 * Nersesov, G.A. . Politika Rossii na Teshenskom kongresse: 1778–1779. No publication information.
 * Thomas, Marvin Jr. Karl Theodor and the Bavarian Succession, 1777–1778: a thesis in history. Pennsylvania State University, 1980.
 * Criste, Oskar. Kriege unter Kaiser Josef II. Nach den Feldakten and anderen authentischen Quellen. Wien: Verlag Seidel, 1904.

19th century

 * Reimann, Eduard. Geschichte des bairischen Erbfolgekrieges no publication information. 1869.
 * Geschichte des Baierischen Erbfolgestreits [microform] : nebst Darstellung der Lage desselben im Jenner 1779. Frankfurt & Leipzig: [s.n.], 1779.
 * Neufchâteau, Nicolas Louis François de (comte). Histoire de l'occupation de la Baviere par les Autrichiens, en 1778 et 1779; contenant les details de la guerre et des negotiations que ce different occasionna, et qui furent terminées, en 1779, par la paix de Teschen. Paris: Imprimerieimperiale, [1805].
 * Thamm, A. T. G. Plan des Lagers von der Division Sr. Excel. des Generals der Infanterie von Tauenzien zwischen Wisoka und Praschetz vom 7ten bis 18ten July 1778. no publication information, 1807.

18th century

 * Historische Dokumentation zur Eingliederung des Innviertels im Jahre 1779: Sonderausstellung: Innviertler Volkskundehaus u. Galerie d. Stadt Ried im Innkreis, 11. Mai bis 4. Aug. 1979. (Documents relating to the annexation of the Innviertel in 1779.)
 * Geschichte des Baierischen Erbfolgestreits nebst Darstellung der Lage desselben im Jenner 1779. Frankfurt: [s.n.], 1779.
 * [Seidl, Carl von]. Versuch einer militärischen Geschichte des Bayerischen Erbfolge-Krieges im Jahre 1778, im Gesichtspunkte der Wahrheit betrachtet von einem Königl. Preussischen Officier. no publication information.
 * Bourscheid, J. Der erste Feldzug im vierten preussischen Kriege: Im Gesichtspunkte der Strategie beschreiben. Wien: [s.n.], 1779.
 * Keith, Robert Murray. Exposition détaillée des droits et de la conduite de S.M. l'imṕératrice reine apostolique rélativement à la succession de la Bavière: pour servir de réponse à l'Exposé des motifs qui ont engagé S.M. le roi de Prusse à s'opposer au démembrement de la Bavière. Vienne: Chez Jean Thom. Nob. de Trattnern, 1778.
 * Frederick. Memoirs from the Peace of Hubertsburg, to the Partition of Poland, and of the Bavarian War. London: printed for G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1789.

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title: War of the Bavarian Succession