Frederick II of Prussia secured his conquest of Silesia with his victory over the Austrians at Chotusitz and confirmed it with the Treaty of Breslau in June 1742. Maria Theresa of Austria accepted the peace and the loss of her valued province as a temporary expedient in order to deal with the Franco-Bavarian threat to the west. Once the French were on their side of the Rhine, then Austria could devote its complete attention to wresting Silesia away from Prussia.

This marked the second time that Frederick abandoned his French and Bavarian allies (the first time being the Convention of Klein Schnellendorf in October 1741) and like the first time, Frederick would eventually be forced to intervene on France's behalf due to Austrian military successes. Frederick used this two year respite to raise nine new field battalions of infantry, seven garrison battalions and twenty squadrons of hussars, for a total increase of 18,000 men at arms.

Scores of Prussian recruiting officers scoured every corner of northern Europe for new cannon fodder. The First Silesian War had demonstrated the woeful inadequacy of Prussia's light cavalry arm. Accordingly, hussar recruits were found in Hungary and Poland and Frederick even contemplated offering to buy a complete hussar regiment from Maria Theresa.

In terms of operations and training, Frederick stressed the importance of mobility and issued regulations that restricted the amount of baggage that officers could take on campaign. Troops were to march and fight with as little personal gear as possible to reduce weight. Artillery mobility was improved with the introduction of a new 3-pound battalion cannon, with the Holtzman limber chest that gave each piece a limited supply of ammunition on the gun trail. This reduced the dependency of the battery on its munitions wagon. The larger field cannon were now cast with lighter metals and with cylendrical, rather than conical chambers, to reduce weight. Linger's new and lighter 12-pound cannon replaced the 6-pounder as the standard Prussian field gun and Holtzman invented a 10-pound howitzer to add to the variety of Prussian field ordnance. Frederick also increased the number of supply wagons to over 1300 and specified that only a quarter were to be horse-drawn, the balance by oxen. Oxen were cheaper, stronger could be eaten in a pinch, and ate only straw or hay, whereas horses required fresh grass. Finally, Frederick continued to train and reorganize his cavalry based on the lessons learned at Mollwitz and Chotusitz. Cavalry commanders were encouraged to attack on their own volition. Indeed, any Prussian cavalry commander who allowed himself to be attacked first faced discharge and disgrace.

While the Prussians regrouped and built up their army, things were going decidedly against their former French allies. During the fall of 1742, the French army occuppying Bohemia found itself bottled up in Prague by the Austrians. Marshal Belle Isle staged a desperate breakout in mid-winter and made a disasterous retreat from Prague to the Rhine. In June 1743, the "Pragmatic Army" of British, Austrian and Hanoverian troops slipped out of a trap and defeated the French at Dettingen on the Main River. This caused the French armies in Bavaria and the Rhine to fall back into Alsace and left Bavaria in the hands of the Austrian army commanded by Charles of Lorraine. This was offset somewhat by Marshal Saxe's campaign in the Austrian Netherlands, which was under his (French) complete control by the end of 1743.

Frederick realized that he would have to pull the French chestnuts out of the fire sooner or later and his sense of unease was reinforced by word of the content of the Treaty of Worms, September l 3, 1743. Britain, Holland, Sardinia and Saxony pledged to recognize Austria's borders as they had been before the start of the war. There was no mention of a Prussia-held Silesia. There were also rumblings from St. Petersburg that Russia, backed by British gold, would enter the war on Austria's side.

In response, Frederick signed the Treaty of Paris (June 5, 1744) with France and Bavaria. The French would recapture Bavaria from the Austrians and continue down the Danube towards Vienna. Prussia would invade Bohemia to take some of the pressure off the French armies. Events accelerated the need for action. In early July 1744, Prince Charles of Lorraine led an army of 70,000 Austrians across the Rhine and seized the French lines of Lauterburg and Weissenburg in northern Alsace. There he took up a strong defensive position. In response, much of the French army in Flanders was withdrawn to defend the homeland.

More Second Silesian War

Second Silesian War: Introduction
Second Silesian War: Bohemia 1744
Second Silesian War: Silesia 1745

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