The drama was opened by the terrible battle of Fontenoy in the Netherlands.  On the 11th of May eighty thousand French met the Austrian allied army of fifty thousand.  After a few hours of terrific slaughter the allies retreated, leaving the French in possession of the field.  In Italy, also, the tide of war set against the queen.  The French and Spaniards poured an army of seventy thousand men over the Alps into Italy.  The queen, even with the aid of Sardinia, had no force capable of resisting them.  The allies swept the country.  The King of Sardinia was driven behind the walls of his capital.  In this one short campaign Tortona, Placentia, Parma, Pavia, Cazale and Aste were wrested from the Austrians, and the citadels of Alexandria and Milan were blockaded.

The queen had weakened her armies both in the Netherlands and Italy that she might accumulate a force sufficient to recover Silesia, and to crush, if possible, her great antagonist Frederic.  Maria Theresa was greatly elated by her success in driving the Prussians from Bavaria, and Frederic was mortified and irritated by this first defeat of his arms.  Thus animated, the one by hope, the other by vengeance, Maria and Frederic gathered all their resources for a trial of strength on the plains of Silesia.  France, fully occupied in the Netherlands and in Italy, could render Frederic no assistance.  His prospects began to look dark.  War had made sad ravages in his army, and he found much difficulty in filling up his wasted battalions.  His treasury was exhausted.  Still the indomitable monarch indulged in no emotions of dejection.

Each party was fully aware of the vigilance and energy of its antagonist.  Their forces were early in the field.  The month of April was passed in stratagems and skirmishes, each endeavoring in vain to obtain some advantage over the other in position or combinations.  Early in May there was a pretty severe conflict, in which the Prussians gained the advantage.  They feigned, however, dejection and alarm, and apparently commenced a retreat.  The Austrians, emboldened by this subterfuge, pursued them with indiscreet haste.  Prince Charles pressed the retiring hosts, and followed closely after them through the passes of the mountains to Landshut and Friedburg.  Frederic fled as if in a panic, throwing no obstacle in the path of his pursuers, seeming only anxious to gain the ramparts of Breslau.  Suddenly the Prussians turned—­the whole army being concentrated in columns of enormous strength.  They had chosen their ground and their hour.  It was before the break of day on the 3d of June, among the hills of Hohenfriedberg.  The Austrians were taken utterly by surprise.  For seven hours they repelled the impetuous onset of their foes.  But when four thousand of their number were mangled corpses, seven thousand captives in the hands of the enemy, seventy-six standards and sixty-six pieces of artillery wrested from them, the broken bands of the Austrians turned and fled, pursued and incessantly pelted by Frederic through the defiles of the mountains back to Bohemia.  The Austrians found no rest till they had escaped beyond the Riesengeberg, and placed the waves of the Elbe between themselves and their pursuers.  The Prussians followed to the opposite bank, and there the two armies remained for three months looking each other in the face.