Frederick, though he had arranged affairs in Russia to his liking, had, therefore, every reason to fear lest Austria should grow strong enough to turn against himself. He was annoyed beyond measure by the news of King George’s lucky victory over the French at Dettingen on June 27, 1743. “The devil fly away with my uncle,” he wrote to Podewils. He declared that he would never hear the name of France again. “Noailles is beaten, and by whom? By people who do not understand how to draw up a line of battle, and who, in fact, did not draw one up.” Frederick’s disgust was only increased by the fact that his military criticism was well founded. Owing to George’s want of skill, Noailles had caught his army in a trap, from which it escaped only by calm courage and desperate fighting hand to hand. “I have tolerably well foreseen everything that has passed in Europe hitherto,” wrote the King of Prussia, “but for this blow I was not prepared.” Dettingen and the fear of worse to follow impelled Frederick to take up arms anew. Early in September, 1743, he visited Wilhelmina at Baireuth and endeavoured in vain to organise a league of German princes to rescue the Emperor. The Austrian diplomats were more successful. In the same month, by a treaty made at Worms, they secured the definite alliance of England and Sardinia. Frederick noticed with some alarm that the Treaty of Berlin, which gave him Silesia, was not treated at Worms as indispensable to the future of Germany. In December a compact more distinctly menacing to Prussia, should she again interfere in the war, was concluded between Austria and Saxony. Early in the new year (1744), therefore, Frederick turned unabashed to France. He offered to join her in a war which both parties should pledge themselves to continue until Bohemia should have been wrested from the Queen. The Emperor was to receive the greater part of the kingdom, but Prussia, as in 1742, claimed the four Bohemian circles east of the Elbe and also that fringe of Silesia which the Treaty of Berlin had left in Austrian hands. Early in June all was arranged. By the so-called Union of Frankfort some share in the undertaking was promised by the Elector Palatine and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. But the substantial allies were, as in the earlier war, France, Prussia, and Bavaria. The general plan agreed upon was that France should cripple the Sea Powers by attacking the Netherlands and Hanover. If the result was to bring an Austrian army into Alsace, Frederick promised in his turn to cripple Austria by flinging eighty thousand men into Bohemia. In that case the French undertook to make another campaign in the East.