Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"Touching off the Europe-wide War of Austrian succession (1740-1748), the seizure of the Austrian-ruled German province of Silesia in December 1740 by the new king of Prussia, Frederick II (the Great), was an act of naked opportunism.… But the superbly well-disciplined Prussian infantry rallied under Frederick's Swedish military tutor Kurt von Schwerin and won a narrow victory.… The rest of his reign consisted of an almost uninterrupted string of victories against Austria and France." [Furtado: 1001 Days] "It was the death of the tsarina, Frederick wrote in The History of My Own Times, which finally determined his decision to invade Silesia, for, during the minority of the infant Ivan, Russian policy makers would be too preoccupied with maintaining stability at home to think about supporting the Pragmatic Sanction abroad. . . . The three western powers were diverted by conflict actual or imminent; the only great power in the east was immobilized by domestic upheaval." [Blanning: Frederick the Great, Kindle, p. 97]