bank of the Elbe—a plan with which we here meet for the first, but by no means for the last time in the annals of Prussian politics. Frederick's action was as rapid as it always was. Crossing through the territory of Saxony, that was now allied with Austria, Frederick entered Bohemia on August 15, 1744, declaring that he appeared there to re-establish the rule of the legitimate sovereign, Charles VII. He occupied Prague after a short resistance and then marched into Southern Bohemia, perhaps intending to menace Vienna. The Austrian armies, that had been engaged in a campaign against France, near the Rhine, were, however, now recalled, and Frederick's position in Bohemia became a dangerous one. He was also threatened in his rear by a Saxon army. Frederic therefore determined to evacuate Prague and to retire into Silesia through the North-eastern districts of Bohemia. He successfully accomplished this difficult task, not without the aid of the secretly Hussite peasants of Bohemia, who sympathized with Prussia. The war between Frederick the Great and the allied forces of Austria and Saxony still continued for some time, but after Frederick's victories at Hohenfriedberg and Kesselstadt a treaty of peace was signed at Dresden on December 25, 1745. Its contents were similar to those of the treaty of Berlin. Prussia retained possession of the greatest part of Silesia and of the county of Glatz.
Almost immediately after the treaty of peace, Maria Theresa—who became Empress when her husband, Charles of Lorraine, was, after the death of Charles VII, chosen as Emperor—decided to reorganize and centralize the administration of the states over which she ruled. To the great autonomy and independence which some of these lands still possessed, she largely attributed the troubles which had marked the beginning of her reign. These constitutional changes were, however, necessarily delayed by the outbreak of the Seven Years' War.
Though the results of the Seven Years' War affected Bohemia very little, as at its close the stipulations of the Treaty of Berlin remained unchanged, yet as this war was, particularly in the two first years, fought principally on Bohemian soil, it cannot remain quite unmentioned here. In 1756 Frederick the Great, having received information that a large coalition of the European powers against him was being formed, determined, with his habitual resolution
