Joseph I

Energetic and Italianate, he reformed Habsburg administration and waged the War of the Spanish Succession effectively until smallpox killed him at thirty-two. His sudden death without a male heir abruptly transformed the war: his younger brother Charles, claimant to Spain, now stood to inherit Austria as well, raising for the allies the spectre of a single ruler reuniting Charles V's empire. The Treaty of Utrecht promptly stripped Charles of his Spanish prize.