rable 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 _levee en masse_, or "insurrection," which furnished the
regular army with an invaluable force of light troops. A fresh army was
collected under Field Marshal Khevenhueller 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, Khevenhueller, 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 Khevenhueller 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 Khevenhueller
and the enthusiastic "insurrection" of Hungary, Maria Theresa's oppositio