The motives which inspired Frederick to take action are so clear that there is no need to seek them in the solemn accusation against Austria which he gave to the world in August. He deemed it expedient to take up the attitude of a German patriot, who, after exhausting the resources of negotiation, was driven to repel by force the conspiracy of the Queen of Hungary against the constitution of the Empire. “The race of those Germans of old, who for so many centuries defended their fatherland and their liberties against all the majesty of the Roman Empire, still survives, and will make the same defence to-day against those who dare to conspire against them.... In one word, the King asks for nothing and with him there is no question whatever of personal interests. His Majesty has recourse to arms only to restore liberty to the Empire, the sceptre to the Emperor and peace to Europe.” Such was the Prussian account of the origin of the Second Silesian War. Frederick again resorted to the method of simultaneous parley and stroke which had served so well when he seized Silesia. On the same day (August 7, 1744) that his ambassador at Vienna announced his crusade to rescue the Emperor, he himself astonished the Saxons by showing them the Emperor’s order to permit the passage of Prussian troops. It is characteristic of the tangled politics of the time that Prussia and Saxony remained technically at peace with each other while Frederick, as the Emperor’s servant, led sixty thousand men up the Elbe into Bohemia and Augustus, as the ally of the Queen of Hungary, sent twenty thousand men to act against him. For the moment Frederick profited by his speed. At the beginning of September he lay before Prague and joined forces with twenty thousand men whom Schwerin had brought from Silesia. Eighty thousand Prussians were thus assembled in the heart of Bohemia, and on September 16th they took the capital. The appearance of success was, however, delusive. Far from being panic-stricken by Frederick’s sudden spring, the scrupulous Queen rejoiced to see him break the treaty which gave him a title to Silesia. From every point of the compass she summoned forces to defend Bohemia. The army of Alsace recrossed the Rhine with great skill and marched eastwards. They were undisturbed by the French, among whom Frederick’s treacheries were passing into a proverb:—_se battre pour le roi de Prusse_, to fight without reward. Clouds of irregular horse issued from Hungary. The Saxons were marching southwards. The people of Bohemia showed themselves hostile to the Prussians and assisted an Austrian army to maintain itself in the kingdom. What course, we may ask, was the wisest for a commander surrounded by so many dangers?