Prussia stole Silesia and rewired Europe's alliances
When Charles VI died in 1740, Maria Theresa's right to Austria was contested from Paris to Berlin. Frederick II seized rich Silesia within weeks; eight years of war confirmed her titles yet left Prussia holding the prize—and Britain and Austria drifting apart.
The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) pitted France, Prussia, and Bavaria against Maria Theresa and the Pragmatic Allies—Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Hanover—while Spain, Savoy, Saxony, Sweden, and Russia were drawn in. Charles's 1713 Pragmatic Sanction had prioritized his daughter over nieces Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia, who renounced claims before marrying into Saxony and Bavaria. The imperial title remained elective and closed to women, so legal paperwork barely masked a scramble over the European balance of power.
Prussia's edge was stark. Austria's authorized army of 157,000 for sixteen million people was underfunded and thinly spread; Prussia fielded about 80,000—roughly four percent of 2.2 million—better trained and led. On 16 December 1740 Frederick invaded Silesia without declaring war, facing fewer than 3,000 Austrian troops at first. In under two weeks he held a province of over a million people and the commercial hub of Breslau. Mollwitz in April 1741 was nearly a Prussian disaster until Schwerin salvaged victory; both sides lost nearly 5,000 men.
Maria Theresa's September 1741 Hungarian Diet speech unlocked new troops, while Frederick's secret Klein-Schnellendorf deal with Neipperg angered his own allies. French and Bavarian forces took Prague; Charles Albert became Emperor Charles VII in February 1742—the first non-Habsburg in three centuries—even as Munich fell the same day. The October 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle confirmed Maria Theresa yet kept Silesia Prussian. French gains on land proved fleeting; British naval power rose. Austrian bitterness over British insistence on ceding Silesia helped produce the Diplomatic Revolution and the Seven Years' War in 1756.
Source: War of the Austrian Succession
