While these negotiations were pending, the king himself made an ostentatious entry into Silesia.  The majority of the Silesians were Protestants.  The King of Prussia, who had discarded religion of all kinds, had of course discarded that of Rome, and was thus nominally a Protestant.  The Protestants, who had suffered so much from the persecutions of the Catholic church, had less to fear from the infidelity of Berlin than from the fanaticism of Rome.  Frederic was consequently generally received with rejoicings.  The duchy of Silesia was indeed a desirable prize.  Spreading over a region of more than fifteen thousand square miles, and containing a population of more than a million and a half, it presented to its feudal lord an ample revenue and the means of raising a large army.  Breslau, the capital of the duchy, upon the Oder, contained a population of over eighty thousand.  Built upon several islands of that beautiful stream, its situation was attractive, while in its palaces and its ornamental squares, it vied with the finest capitals of Europe.

Frederic entered the city in triumph in January, 1741.  The small Austrian garrison, consisting of but three thousand men, retired before him into Moravia.  The Prussian monarch took possession of the revenues of the duchy, organized the government under his own officers, garrisoned the fortresses and returned to Berlin.  Maria Theresa appealed to friendly courts for aid.  Most of them were lavish in promises, but she waited in vain for any fulfillment.  Neither money, arms nor men were sent to her.  Maria Theresa, thus abandoned and thrown upon her own unaided energies, collected a small army in Moravia, on the confines of Silesia, and intrusted the command to Count Neuperg, whom she liberated from the prison to which her father had so unjustly consigned him.  But it was mid-winter.  The roads were almost impassable.  The treasury of the Austrian court was so empty that but meager supplies could be provided for the troops.  A ridge of mountains, whose defiles were blocked up with snow, spread between Silesia and Moravia.

It was not until the close of March that Marshal Neuperg was able to force his way through these defiles and enter Silesia.  The Prussians, not aware of their danger, were reposing in their cantonments.  Neuperg hoped to take them by surprise and cut them off in detail.  Indeed Frederic, who, by chance, was at Jagerndorf inspecting a fortress, was nearly surrounded by a party of Austrian hussars, and very narrowly escaped capture.  The ground was still covered with snow as the Austrian troops toiled painfully through the mountains to penetrate the Silesian plains.  Frederic rapidly concentrated his scattered troops to meet the foe.  The warlike character of the Prussian king was as yet undeveloped, and Neuperg, unconscious of the tremendous energies he was to encounter, and supposing that the Prussian garrisons would fly in dismay before him, was giving his troops, after their exhausting march, a few days of repose in the Vicinity of Molnitz.