victorious, to drive the Prussians out of Silesia. As was under these circumstances inevitable, the truce was of very short duration.
In the autumn of the year 1741 the armies of France, Bavaria and Saxony entered Bohemia from various directions. Their armies joined before Prague and took the town by assault on November 26. The Elector of Bavaria immediately assumed the title of the King of Bohemia and was solemnly crowned by the Archbishop of Prague in St. Vitus's cathedral on December 19. A general meeting of the Estates also took place and members of most of the families of the Bohemian nobility, such as Černin, Kolovrat, Kinský, Lützow, Lažanský, Waldstein and many others did homage to their new king. On this occasion great festivities took place at Prague, and the contemporary records of them are not dissimilar to those which describe the festivals on the accession of the equally ill-fated Frederick of the Palatinate. The new king—Charles III, as King of Bohemia—soon after his coronation at Prague left Bohemia and proceeded to Frankfurt. He was here elected German Emperor and assumed the title of Charles VII.
Almost from the moment that Charles had been crowned as Emperor, his armies and those of his allies were unsuccessful, and Maria Theresa, principally through the aid of the Hungarians, was able to recover part of the lands which she claimed. King Frederick of Prussia, feeling that the Austrian victories might endanger his possession of Silesia, determined to end the short-lived armistice which he had concluded with Maria Theresa. He entered the county of Glatz, then an integral part of the kingdom of Bohemia, and took Glatz, the capital of the county, by assault. From here he marched through Eastern Bohemia to Moravia, and joined the Saxon forces there. Saxony was at that moment already more suspicious of Prussia than of Austria—with which country it soon afterwards concluded a treaty of peace that was at a short interval followed by an alliance between the two countries. Seeing that no advantage could be obtained by the junction with the Saxons, Frederick returned to Eastern Bohemia, where he obtained a signal victory over the Austrian forces under the Duke of Lorraine, at Chotusic, near Časlav. Maria Theresa, still menaced by numerous enemies, again decided to free herself from the one who appeared most dangerous. After preliminary negotiations
