ABSTRACT
The change in character which the war had undergone was marked by the first moves attempted by the French in 1744. With the Treaty of Dresden the purely German phase of the Austrian Succession War came to an end; the battles of the three years which the war had to run were to be fought in other lands than Germany. In Italy Austria was undoubtedly fighting to obtain some compensation for the territorial loss she had undergone in Germany. In the enterprise Saxe was able to avail himself of another French army, to which had been entrusted the task of demonstrating along the frontiers of the Empire in order to overawe the minor Princes of South and Western Germany and prevent Maria Theresa from recruiting the Coalition among them. The despatch of a French envoy to the Diet of Ratisbon to promise that France would respect the neutrality of the Empire was quite sufficient.
