The War of the Austrian Succession involves nearly all the powers of Europe.

The war begins under the pretext that Maria Theresa of Austria is ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg throne, because Salic law precludes royal inheritance by a woman.The most enduring military historical interest and importance of the war lies in the struggle of Prussia and the Habsburg monarchs for the region of Silesia.

Various other powers join them at intervals, but what becomes the surprise is the quality of the Prussian forces, which are a professional army, not a gaggle of mercenary companies as had been typical heretofore.

Even Gustavus Adolphus, whom some credit with the invention of the modern warfare method of combined arms, had used mercenaries in large measure.

Permanent professional armies, then as now, are expensive.Southwest Germany, the Low Countries and Italy are, as usual, the battleground trampled by the armies of France and Austria.

The habitual and constant allies of France and Prussia are the same Hapsburg relations in Spain and the Kingdom of Bavaria as have been teaming up for many issues and conflicts since the Thirty Years' War and to an extent, long before.Austria is supported almost as a matter of course by Great Britain and by the Dutch Republic, the traditional enemies of France, as throughout the Second Hundred Years' War.

Of Austria's intermittent allies, the Kingdom of Sardinia and Saxony are the most important.The war ends with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.