With the Peace of Breslau, then, the first period of the war ends, and the second begins, in which it assumes a new character. It is not Frederick and France fighting against Austria; it is Austria supported by Britain, and to some extent Holland, fighting, with the secret sympathy of Germany, against France and Spain. Elizabeth, too, the daughter of Peter the Great, had mounted the throne of Russia, and assisted her sister sovereign with sympathy and with money. The whole aspect of the war was suddenly changed. Austria was now free to turn her whole forces on France, and she did so with terrible effect. The French had to evacuate Bohemia in a retreat so heroic and so appalling that it anticipated the horrors of 1812. Of the 40,000 men with whom he had crossed the Rhine, Belleisle brought back but 8000 into France. The share of Great Britain in the war became substantial and direct. The Elector of Hanover, relieved from apprehension by his treaty with Prussia and the success of Austria, reduced his army by 16,000 men, but the King of England took them into his pay. This measure exasperated his British subjects, whose attention was thus once more called to the jarring interests of the Kingdom and the Electorate combined in George's person. But Ministers carried the day, and in June 1743 the King himself took the field with an Anglo-German army of some 40,000 men under the command of Lord Stair. At Dettingen, not far from Frankfort, in escaping from a position of extreme jeopardy, they encountered and defeated the French. The strangest part of this engagement was that there was then nominally no war between France and Great Britain, and that these operations were only accidental auxiliary conflicts. It was not for nine months afterwards that war between the two countries was formally declared. [Sidenote: Sept. 1743.] Later on in this year George II. took an even more active measure, and through Carteret, as Secretary of State, though behind the back of his other ministers, signed the Treaty of Worms. For many years past it had been the policy of the House of Savoy to put itself up to auction, and by the Treaty of Worms George II. became the successful bidder. The King of Sardinia was to receive some territory from Austria, and 200,000_l._ a year from Great Britain, while he was to assist the Austrian cause with 45,000 men. Carteret at the same time covenanted to pay Maria Theresa a subsidy of 300,000_l._ a year 'so long as the war should continue, or the necessity of her affairs should require.' But this the British Ministry refused to recognise, and it became the subject of fierce debate in Parliament.