Walpole did his best to form a Grand Alliance between Hanover and Prussia, also between England, Holland, and Austria. However, Frederick’s claim to Silesia being refused by Austria, the French and Prussian armies crossed the Rhine, 1741. Thus France began the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1743 the Battle of Dettingen was fought between England and France, the former fighting on behalf of Maria Theresa, and as yet feeling her way carefully before she was brought into direct conflict with the latter Power.
After the Treaty of Worms the question at issue was changed to that of naval supremacy, and the War of the Austrian Succession fell into the background.
In 1744, after an attempted invasion of England on behalf of the Pretender, France declared war against both England and Austria. This was bad policy, for if she had fought against one enemy at a time she would have stood a far better chance of crushing England’s power. Professor Seeley says, “If we compare together those seven wars between 1688 and 1815, we shall be struck with the fact that most of them were double wars, and that there is one aspect between France and England, another between France and Germany.... It is France,” says he, “that suffers by it.”[33]
England and Holland firmly allied with one another, and German troops were subsidized by England.
Against this alliance the second secret _pacte de famille_ was founded.
Battles were fought on all sides, by land and sea, both in Europe and America. In spite of French successes at Fontenoy and Laufeldt, she was severely defeated both on the sea and in America. Louisburg fell, Cape Breton Island was captured, and many other losses sustained. At length the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle brought a nominal peace into the oceanic world, in 1748.
In 1756 this nominal peace came to an end, and the Seven Years’ War[34] was fought out, both in the Old and New Worlds; Pitt the elder then appeared as a great actor on England’s side, and used his great talents to crush down the French Colonial Empire, and to obtain for his country the sole mastery of the oceanic world.
He was essentially a war Minister: “The war was vigorously carried on throughout 1758 in every part of the globe where French could be found, and in 1759 Pitt’s energy and his tact in choosing men everywhere were rewarded by the extraordinary success by land and sea.”[35]