ment had not
disappeared. In all history it would be hard to find a war more brazen
in the avowed selfishness of its beginning, more utterly callous in its
persistence, than that into which all Europe plunged in 1740.

This astonishing turmoil is known as the War of the Austrian Succession.
We have seen how the extinction of the line of the Spanish Hapsburgs
had given rise to kingly jealousies and strife in 1700. Next the
Austrian Hapsburgs, or at least the male line of them, became extinct in
1740. Their surviving representative was a daughter, a young and
energetic woman, Maria Theresa, the "Empress Queen." Her father, the
Emperor Charles VI, foreseeing the difficulties she must encounter, had
during his lifetime made treaties with every important court of Europe,
by which he yielded them valuable concessions in return for their
guarantee that on his death his daughter should succeed to his throne
and his possessions undisturbed. Her husband was to be made emperor.

The moment Charles was gone, every treaty was thrown to the winds, and
every hand seemed extended by a common impulse to clutch what it could
from a woman's weakness.[14] The first to move was Frederick II, King of
Prussia, he whom his admirers have called the Great. He was a young man,
he had just succeeded to the Prussian kingdom which his father had left
peaceful and prosperous, guarded by a powerful and well-trained army,
made secure by a well-filled treasury. Young Frederick was undoubtedly
great in intellect and in cynical frankness. He saw his opportunity, he
made no pretence of keeping his promises; marching his army forward he
seized the nearest Austrian province, the rich and extensive land of
Silesia. The other kingdoms rushed to get their share of the spoils;
France, Bavaria, Saxony, Sardinia, and Spain formed an alliance with
Prussia. Only England, in her antagonism to France, made protest--purely
diplomatic. Austria was assailed from every side. Her overthrow seemed
certain. A French army was within three days' march of Vienna; it
captured the Bohemian capital, Prague.

It was then that Maria Theresa made her famous appeal to the Hungarians,
and the impressionable Magyars swore to die in her defence. She gathered
armies, Austrian and Hungarian. She made a desperate alliance with
Frederick, consenting to give him Silesia so as to save her other
domains. The members of the coalition quarrelled among themselves. The
French were driven to a dis