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In February 1741 the Austrians collected a field army under Count Neipperg (1684- 1774) and made preparations to re-conquer Silesia. The Austrians in Neisse and Brieg still held out. Glogau, however, was stormed on the night of 9 March 1741, the Prussians, under Prince Leopold (the younger) of Anhalt-Dessau , executing their task in one hour with a mathematical precision which excited universal admiration. But the Austrian army in Moravia was now in the field, and Frederick's cantonments were dispersed over all Upper Silesia. It was a work of the greatest difficulty to collect the army, for the ground was deep in snow, and before it was completed Neisse was relieved and the Prussians cut off from their own country by the march of Neipperg from Neisse on Brieg; a few days of slow manoeuvring between these places ended in the battle of Mollwitz (10 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 down the Prussians, 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 mêlée, 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 realised suddenly that a new military power had arisen, and France sent Marshal Belle-Isle 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 3 September 1741, at Villmanstrand by a greatly superior Russian army, and in 1742 another great reverse was sustained in the capitulation of Helsingfors in Finland. In central Italy an army of Neapolitans and Spaniards was collected for the conquest of the Milanese.
The French duly joined the Bavarian elector's forces on the Danube and advanced towards Vienna; but the objective was suddenly changed, and after many countermarches the anti-Austrian 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 considerable 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 (9 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 levée en masse, or "insurrection", which furnished the regular army with an invaluable force of light troops. A fresh army was collected under Field Marshal Khevenhüller 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 26 November 1741, 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 (9 December 1741) and elected to the imperial throne as Charles VII (24 January 1742), but no active measures were undertaken.
In Bohemia the month of December was occupied in mere skirmishes. On the Danube, Khevenhüller, the best general in the Austrian service, advanced on 27 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 Khevenhüller 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 out-marched them, captured Modena, and forced the duke to make a separate peace.
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