Amid all these disasters, however, the courage of the young Queen, rooted as it was in her belief that right must triumph, remained unshaken. She organised new armies and inspired them with her own spirit. Before the resurgent might of Austria the new-made Emperor sank into impotence. Within a month of his election the Queen recovered her cities on the Danube and overran the hereditary lands of the Bavarian. Et Cæsar et nihil laughed the wags. What would his allies, France, Prussia, and Saxony, do to relieve him?
The position of affairs may be simply stated. Two Austrian armies were in the field, one conquering Bavaria, the other protecting it against an attack from the side of Bohemia, where the allies were still masters of Prague. If this second army were driven back by a superior force, the first would be recalled to support it. Thus Bavaria and Bohemia, the actual and the pretended inheritance of Charles Albert, would be freed from the Austrians together. At the same time the French in Bohemia would be relieved from the fear of being outnumbered and attacked, and the Saxons would have the simplest march possible—straight into Bohemia by the natural highroad of the Elbe. Every military consideration thus summoned Frederick to join in clearing the kingdom of Austrian troops. But this plan promised no special advantage for the King of Prussia and it opened no market in which he might barter his allies. With infinite labour he therefore secured the adoption of another, in which these defects were remedied. This was that he should lead the Saxon army into Moravia to assist the Prussians in conquering the province, and in thus creating a diversion which, he maintained, would aid the Emperor as well as any other.
The Saxons reluctantly left their country with no force, save the French, to guard its frontier against the Austrian army of Bohemia. Frederick was therefore secure against treason on his flank and could again stir the waters of politics in full confidence that his House would gain some profit. Moravia might become to Silesia what Silesia had now become to Brandenburg—a dependency and an outwork. Or if this was too much to hope for, he as conqueror of Moravia might at least dictate to Vienna the surrender of a Silesia augmented by cuttings from the Bohemian kingdom, of which Frederick regarded the Emperor or the Queen as lawful sovereign exactly according to his convenience at the moment. At the worst Moravia might pass to the Saxon House, which was a weaker and therefore a safer neighbour than the Hapsburg.
All these calculations were falsified by events. The invasion of Moravia was a far more difficult task than the invasion of Silesia. Instead of a level and fertile country inhabited in part by Protestant well-wishers, Frederick found a rugged desert whose people hated the Prussians and did them every mischief in their power. He devastated the land by way of penalty, and dragged the grumbling Saxons through clouds of guerillas to Brünn, the capital, where he induced them to join him in a siege. As leader of a composite army, however, he was no longer served with the prompt and unquestioning obedience which the unmixed Prussian forces had displayed.
Brünn made a stout resistance and Prince Charles was deputed to march to its relief. At this point the heroism of the Queen seemed to be rewarded by a sudden change of fortune. Frederick tried once more to sacrifice his allies to his own profit, but in vain. England, now guided by Carteret in place of Walpole, was actively supporting Maria Theresa. Sardinia deserted the coalition against her. At Vienna, men regained a confidence which was heightened by the news from the North. Prince Charles feinted against the French in Bohemia and Frederick dismissed the Saxons to help them. This was but the first step towards the abandonment of the whole venture. After a toilsome retreat and countless skirmishes, the exhausted Prussians crossed safely into Bohemia before the end of April and again the negotiators were set to work. Once more they failed and the Prussians found themselves between Prague and the army of Prince Charles, which was now making thither from Moravia.
A conflict was inevitable. It took place at Chotusitz, near the Elbe, within three marches of Prague, on May 17, 1742. This battle is remarkable not only because seven thousand men fell in three hours, but also because it is the first victory actually won by Frederick himself. His imperious temper had cost him the services of Schwerin, the hero of Mollwitz, while the Old Dessauer had been rebuked for disobedience and sent to the rear. But the Prussian infantry were as steady as at Mollwitz, the cavalry, who suffered terribly, much better, and the King proved that he could seize the moment for decisive action on the field as well as in the cabinet. Four thousand Prussians fell, but casualties, captures, and desertion reduced Prince Charles’s force of thirty thousand by one-half.
The victory of Chotusitz assisted Frederick once more to abandon his allies. It added force to the diplomacy of England, whose policy was to help Austria a great deal against the French, but not at all against the Prussians. While the English ambassadors were urging the Queen to submit to the loss of Silesia, the Austrian troops pressed the French hard in Bohemia and thus forced Frederick to hurry on a peace. Within four weeks of Chotusitz, victor and vanquished had come to terms. Frederick withdrew from the war and received all Silesia except a fringe on the south-west, as well as the county of Glatz in full sovereignty for ever. On July 28th these terms were embodied in the Treaty of Berlin, which closed the First Silesian War. In twenty months, at a cost of two pitched battles, Frederick had added to Prussia sixteen thousand square miles of fertile land and a million and a quarter of inhabitants—a greater prize than any that his ancestors had won. He was not yet thirty-one years of age.
