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 melee, 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 manoeuvre 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 conside