he could fire five shots to the Austrian’s three, though the cavalry and artillery were less efficient. But the initial advantage of Frederick’s army was that it had, undisturbed by wars, developed the standing army theory to full effect. While the Austrians had to wait for drafts to complete the field forces, Prussian regiments could take the field at once, and thus Frederick was able to overrun Silesia almost unopposed. His army was concentrated quietly upon the Oder, and without declaration of war, on the 16th of December 1740, it crossed the frontier into Silesia. The Austrian generals could do no more than garrison a few fortresses, and with the small remnant of their available forces fell back to the mountain frontier of Bohemia and Moravia. The Prussian army was soon able to go into winter quarters, holding all Silesia and investing the strong places of Glogau, Brieg and Neisse.
2. Silesian Campaign of 1741.—In February 1741, the Austrians collected a field army under Count Neipperg (1684–1774) and made preparations to reconquer Silesia. The Austrians in Neisse and Brieg still held out. Glogau, however, was stormed on the night of the 9th of March, the Prussians, under Prince Leopold (the younger) of Anhalt-Dessau, executing their task in one hour with a mathematical precision which excited universal admiration. But the Austrian army in Moravia was now in the field, and Frederick’s cantonments were dispersed over all Upper Silesia. It was a work of the greatest difficulty to collect the army, for the ground was deep in snow, and before it was completed Neisse was relieved and the Prussians cut off from their own country by the march of Neipperg from Neisse on Brieg; a few days of slow manœuvring between these places ended in the battle of Mollwitz (10th April 1741), the first pitched battle fought by Frederick and his army. The Prussian right wing of cavalry was speedily routed, but the day was retrieved by the magnificent discipline and tenacity of the infantry. The Austrian cavalry was shattered in repeated attempts to ride them down, and before the Prussian volleys the Austrian infantry, in spite of all that Neipperg and his officers could do, gradually melted away. After a stubborn contest the Prussians remained masters of the field. Frederick himself was far away. He had fought in the cavalry mêlée, but after this, when the battle seemed lost, he had been persuaded by Field Marshal Schwerin to ride away. Schwerin thus, like Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy, remained behind to win the victory, and the king narrowly escaped being captured by wandering Austrian hussars. The immediate result of the battle was that the king secured Brieg, and Neipperg fell back to Neisse, where he maintained himself and engaged in a war of manœuvre during the summer. But Europe realized suddenly that a new military power had arisen, and France sent Marshal Belleisle to Frederick’s camp to negotiate an alliance. Thenceforward the “Silesian adventure” became the War of the Austrian Succession. The elector of Bavaria’s candidature for the imperial dignity was to be supported by a French “auxiliary” army, and other French forces were sent to observe Hanover. Saxony was already watched by a Prussian army under Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, the “old Dessauer,” who had trained the Prussian army to its present perfection. The task of Sweden was to prevent Russia from attacking Prussia, but her troops were defeated, on the 3rd of September 1741, at Wilmanstrand by a greatly superior Russian army, and in 1742 another great reverse was sustained in the capitulation of Helsingfors. In central Italy an army of Neapolitans and Spaniards was collected for the conquest of the Milanese.
3. The Allies in Bohemia.—The French duly joined the elector’s forces on the Danube and advanced on Vienna; but the objective was suddenly changed, and after many countermarches the allies advanced, in three widely-separated corps, on Prague. A French corps moved via Amberg and Pilsen. The elector marched on Budweis, and the Saxons (who had now joined the allies) invaded Bohemia by the Elbe valley. The Austrians could at first offer little resistance, but before long a considerable force intervened at Tabor between the Danube and the allies, and Neipperg was now on the march from Neisse to join in the campaign. He had made with Frederick the curious agreement of Klein Schnellendorf (9th October 1741), by which Neisse was surrendered after a mock siege, and the Austrians undertook to leave Frederick unmolested in return for his releasing Neipperg’s army for service elsewhere. At the same time the Hungarians, moved to enthusiasm by the personal appeal of Maria Theresa, had put into the field a levée en masse, or “insurrection,” which furnished the regular army with an invaluable force of light troops. A fresh army was collected under Field Marshal Khevenhüller at Vienna, and the Austrians planned an offensive winter campaign against the Franco-Bavarian forces in Bohemia and the small Bavarian army that remained on the Danube to defend the electorate. The French in the meantime had stormed Prague on the 26th of November, the grand-duke Francis, consort of Maria Theresa, who commanded the Austrians in Bohemia, moving too slowly to save the fortress. The elector of Bavaria, who now styled himself archduke of Austria, was crowned king of Bohemia (19th December 1741) and elected to the imperial throne as Charles VII. (24th January 1742), but no active measures were undertaken. In Bohemia the month of December was occupied in mere skirmishes. On the Danube, Khevenhüller, the best general in the Austrian service, advanced on the 27th of December, swiftly drove back the allies, shut them up in Linz, and pressed on into Bavaria. Munich itself surrendered to the Austrians on the coronation day of Charles VII. At the close of this first act of the campaign the French, under the old Marshal de Broglie, maintained a precarious foothold in central Bohemia, menaced by the main army of the Austrians, and Khevenhüller was ranging unopposed in Bavaria, while Frederick, in pursuance of his secret obligations, lay inactive in Silesia. In Italy the allied Neapolitans and Spaniards had advanced towards Modena, the duke of which state had allied himself with them, but the vigilant Austrian commander Count Traun had outmarched them, captured Modena, and forced the duke to make a separate peace.
4. Campaign of 1742.—Frederick had hoped by the truce to secure Silesia, for which alone he was fighting. But with the successes of Khevenhüller and the enthusiastic “insurrection” of Hungary, Maria Theresa’s opposition became firmer, and she divulged the provisions of the truce, in order to compromise Frederick with his allies. The war recommenced. Frederick had not rested on his laurels; in the uneventful summer campaign of 1741 he had found time to begin that reorganization of his cavalry which was before long to make it even more efficient than his infantry. Charles VII., whose territories were overrun by the Austrians, asked him to create a diversion by invading Moravia. In December 1741, therefore, Schwerin had crossed the border and captured Olmütz. Glatz also was invested, and the Prussian army was concentrated about Olmütz in January 1742. A combined plan of operations was made by the French, Saxons and Prussians for the rescue of Linz. But Linz soon fell; Broglie on the Moldau, weakened by the departure of the Bavarians to oppose Khevenhüller, and of the Saxons to join forces with Frederick, was in no condition to take the offensive, and large forces under Prince Charles of Lorraine lay in his front from Budweis to Iglau. Frederick’s march was made towards Iglau in the first place. Brünn was invested about the same time (February), but the direction of the march was changed, and instead of moving against Prince Charles, Frederick pushed on southwards by Znaim and Nikolsburg. The extreme outposts of the Prussians appeared before Vienna. But Frederick’s advance was a mere foray, and Prince Charles, leaving a screen of troops in front of Broglie, marched to cut off the Prussians from Silesia, while the Hungarian levies poured into Upper Silesia by the Jablunka Pass. The Saxons, discontented and demoralized, soon marched off to their own country, and Frederick with his Prussians fell back by Zwittau and Leutomischl to Kuttenberg in Bohemia, where he was in touch with Broglie on the one hand and (Glatz having now surrendered) with Silesia on the other. No defence of Olmütz was attempted, and the small Prussian corps remaining in Moravia fell back towards Upper Silesia. Prince Charles, in pursuit of the king
