The War of Austrian Succession {Part 2}

{Map of War of Austrian Succession by June 1742}

By April of 1742, many had assumed the war to be over. While the HRE was still split in two, there was an overwhelming consensus over much of the non-involved states that the HRE was now headed by Emperor Charles VII. Although this assumption was founded on simply looking at the war from a two-sided perspective, while in reality, there had been a third side that was claiming the throne. That had been the side of King Augustus III of Poland, better known as the Husband of the claimant Empress Maria Amalia.

In the first act of the war, they had stayed mostly silent, while they had intended to re-take silesia from Empress Theresa, they were beaten to the punch by Emperor Charles' coalition. Maria Amalia's goal was simply to unite the Poland-Lithuanian union with the Electorate of Saxony and re-establish the HRE under a Polish rule. The plan of execution was simply a brutal show of force in Silesia, but since the Prussians had taken it first, they had a rash decision to make; give up their claim, or declare war on both the Empress and the Emperor. By Mid-Summer of 1742, there had been a clear triumphant out of the first act of the War.

On July of 1742, the Polish-Lithuanian/Saxony coalition of armies started building up their armies on the border of Silesia. The Prussians had accepted the perception of Poland-Lithuania not going to join the war. Naturally, this meant the Prussians were off-guard in the region. 

The Silesian Offensive of Prussian Silesia was commenced on early August. The Saxons marched and met the polish armies with relative ease and little resistance. They set siege to the town of Breslau and proceeded to rout the Prussians in the Battle of Lubin, to which the Prussians were routed with relative ease due to their lack of an efficient Artillery force. Breslau fell on September 3rd, which following it led the Polish-Lithuanians on a campaign to cut off the Prussians on the Northern Oder.

While this had the effect of playing into the advantage of the Poland-Lithuanians, this sparked reactions throughout Europe. At this point, they believed that Poland-Lithuania was conspiring with the Hungarian-Empire (Former HRE), in an attempt to restore Maria Theresa as Empress. Maria Theresa assumed Maria Josepha had simply decided to retake Silesia, and used this as a ploy to use her newly-trained Hungarian conscripts and set a marching path for Graz. The English, assuming that Maria Josepha was on the Hungarian side, Declared War on France, Prussia, and the Holy Roman Empire. The Hanoverians and Dutch took the English side and declared war as well. The Wurttembergers seized this opportunity to seize the Swabian lands of Northern Tyrol and declared war on the Holy Roman Empire, which inspired their fellow Swabians, the Swiss, to form an alliance in an effort to retake Swiss lands from Habsburg hands. All of these followed in the same week, a week which would come to be remembered as the 'Week of Widows'.

The War of Austrian Succession had now become a Free-For-All for the livelihood of the continent of Europe.

P.S. This is a short post due to the fact that the next part is going to be detailing the complete 'Second Act' of the war, this is simply to take some of the weight off!