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." [1001 Days]