Anne's infant son, Ivan, was three months old, when he succeeded to the throne as Ivan VI. Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine, was twenty-eight years old; tall and masculine, bright and bold, daring on horseback as well as on the water, she had made a host of friends among the high officials and the Guards. She found an able adviser in the French Minister at St. Petersburg who was anxious to destroy the influence of Germany. The Swedes went so far as to begin a war, proclaiming the desire to deliver "the glorious Russian (p. 179) nation" from the German yoke. Elizabeth decided that the time had come to act, when the regiments devoted to her were ordered to the frontier. In the night of October 25, 1741, she went with three friends to the barracks. "Boys," she said to the men, "you know whose daughter I am?" "Matuska," (little mother), they replied, "we are ready; we will kill all of them." She said that she did not wish any blood to be shed, and added: "I swear to die for you; will _you_ swear to die for me?" They made the oath. When she returned to the palace, the regent, the infant czar, and the German members of the Government were arrested. Ivan VI was sent to a fortress near the Swedish frontier. The Germans were brought before a court and condemned to death, but Elizabeth commuted the sentence to exile. After this she went to Moscow, where she was crowned as czarina. Her next act was to send for her nephew, Peter, the son of her sister Anne of Holstein. He came and entered the Greek Church, when he was proclaimed as heir to the throne as Peter Feodorovitch. Sweden demanded the cession of the territory conquered by Peter the Great, and, since Elizabeth refused, the war continued. But Sweden was no longer the kingdom of Charles XII; the Russians were everywhere victorious, and by the Peace of Abo, in 1743, Sweden ceded South Finland and agreed to elect Elizabeth's ally, Adolphus of Holstein, as heir to the throne. In 1740 the Emperor of Germany died, after obtaining from the powers the consent to set aside the Salic Law of succession, in favor of his daughter. This law restricted the right of succession to male (p. 180) heirs exclusively. In violation of the pledged word, several claimants appeared to contest the claim of his daughter Maria Theresa, and since almost every nation took sides, it was important to know what Russia would do. Elizabeth was undecided; at least, she played with both sides until 1746, when she entered into an alliance with Maria Theresa, while England promised subsidies in money. It was, however, 1748 before a Russian army of 30,000 men passed through Germany and took up a position on the Rhine. In the same year the war was ended by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, without the Russians having been under fire.