So cunningly was this stratagem carried on, that the emperor was not undeceived until his own artillery, which he had sent to Charles Emanuel, were thundering at the gates of the city of Milan, and the shot and shells which he had so unsuspectingly furnished were mowing down the imperial troops.  So sudden was the attack, so unprepared was Austrian Lombardy to meet it, that in twelve weeks the Sardinian troops overran the whole territory, seized every city and magazine, with all their treasures, leaving the fortress of Mantua alone in the possession of the imperial troops.  It was the policy of Louis XV. to attack Austria in the remote portions of her widely-extended dominions, and to cut off province by province.  He also made special and successful efforts to detach the interests of the German empire from those of Austria, so that the princes of the empire might claim neutrality.  It was against the possessions of Charles VI., not against the independent States of the empire, that Louis XV. urged war.

The storms of winter were now at hand, and both parties were compelled to abandon the field until spring.  But during the winter every nerve was strained by the combatants in preparation for the strife which the returning sun would introduce.  The emperor established strong defenses along the banks of the Rhine to prevent the passage of the French; he also sent agents to all the princes of the empire to enlist them in his cause, and succeeded, notwithstanding the remonstrances of many who claimed neutrality, in obtaining a vote from a diet which he assembled, for a large sum of money, and for an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men.

The loss of Lombardy troubled Charles exceedingly, for it threatened the loss of all his Italian possessions.  Notwithstanding the severity of the winter he sent to Mantua all the troops he could raise from his hereditary domains; and ordered every possible effort to be made to be prepared to undertake the offensive in the spring, and to drive the Sardinians from Lombardy.  In the beginning of May the emperor had assembled within and around Mantua, sixty thousand men, under the command of Count Merci.  The hostile forces soon met, and battle after battle thundered over the Italian plains.  On the 29th of June the two armies encountered each other in the vicinity of Parma, in such numbers as to give promise of a decisive battle.  For ten hours the demoniac storm raged unintermitted.  Ten thousand of the dead covered the ground.  Neither party had taken a single standard or a single prisoner, an event almost unparalleled in the history of battles.  From the utter exhaustion of both parties the strife ceased.  The Sardinians and French, mangled and bleeding, retired within the walls of Parma.  The Austrians, equally bruised and bloody, having lost their leader, retired to Reggio.  Three hundred and forty of the Austrian officers were either killed or wounded.