[PATRONS]
Things looked pretty grim for Vienna by spring 1741, and they only got worse as the year progressed. Prussian forces had surged into Silesia, taking its anemic defences completely off guard. To the West, the French had teamed up with Bavaria and Saxony, and had promised each of those German powers the moon in return for their alliance. By mid-May, Prussia defeated a Habsburg army all on its own, for the first time ever. Then, in November, Prague fell to the combined forces of Saxony, France and Bavaria.
The event prompted Maria Theresa to burst into tears, but all was not yet lost in Vienna. Across the Channel, British forces were on the march. For many reasons, from Maria Theresa's sympathetic profile, to France's undermining of the balance of power, to the fact that they'd been caught been with their pants down in the wake of Frederick's strike, it was determined to enter what had now become the War of the Austrian Succession. The intervention could not come son enough!