Austrian monarchy in the context of "Iberian Union"

The Duchy of Milan (Italian: Ducato di Milano; Lombard: Ducaa de Milan) was a state in Northern Italy, created in 1395 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, then the lord of Milan, and a member of the important Visconti family, which had been ruling the city since 1277. At that time, it included twenty-six towns and the wide rural area of the middle Padan Plain east of the hills of Montferrat. During much of its existence, it was wedged between Savoy to the west, Republic of Venice to the east, the Swiss Confederacy to the north, and separated from the Mediterranean by the Republic of Genoa to the south. The duchy was at its largest at the beginning of the 15th century, at which time it included almost all of what is now Lombardy and parts of what are now Piedmont, Veneto, Tuscany, and Emilia-Romagna.

Under the House of Sforza, Milan experienced a period of great prosperity with the introduction of the silk industry, becoming one of the wealthiest states during the Renaissance. From the late 15th century, the Duchy of Milan was contested between the forces of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Kingdom of France. It was ruled by Habsburg Spain from 1556 and it passed to Habsburg Austria in 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The duchy remained an Austrian possession until 1796 when a French army under Napoleon Bonaparte conquered it, and it ceased to exist a year later as a result of the Treaty of Campo Formio, when Austria ceded it to the new Cisalpine Republic.

In the siege of Belgrade (15 September – 8 October 1789) a Habsburg Austrian army led by Feldmarschall Ernst Gideon von Laudon besieged an Ottoman Turkish force under Osman Pasha in the fortress of Belgrade. After a three-week leaguer, the Austrians forced the surrender of the fortress. During the campaign which was part of the Austro-Turkish War, the Austrian army was greatly hampered by illness. Austria held the city until 1791 when it handed Belgrade back to the Ottomans according to the terms of the peace treaty. Several Austrian soldiers who distinguished themselves during the siege later held important commands in the subsequent French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Belgrade is the capital of modern Serbia.

At the urging of Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor committed the Habsburg monarchy to a war against Ottoman Turkey. In 1788, the Austrians captured one fortress and seized some territory but most of their efforts were thwarted. In August 1788, Joseph appointed Laudon commander in Croatia where that general enjoyed some successes. After the commander of the main army became ill, Joseph replaced him with Laudon at the end of July 1789 and ordered his new commander to capture Belgrade. In mid-September, Laudon's army crossed the Sava River and laid siege to Belgrade with 120,000 soldiers and over 200 cannons. At the end of the month the Austrians cleared the Ottomans from the suburbs. In the face of a destructive bombardment, Osman Pasha negotiated the surrender of the city on 7 October in exchange for allowing the garrison free passage to a Turkish fortress.