ABSTRACT
IT seems to have been at a meeting of the Conseil du Roi on July 11 th that Louis XV and his Ministers decided what help they would send to their German allies. While one army under Belleisle himself was to join the Elector of Bavaria in yet another thrust down the Danube valley at Vienna, a second, to be commanded by Marshal Maillebois, was to cross the Rhine into Westphalia and so hold in check the "Pragmatic Army" which George II was collecting in Hanover. But for the present France abstained from a formal declaration of war against Austria, announcing that she was merely acting as an ally of the Elector of Bavaria, not as a principal, and that her troops were to be considered as mere "auxiliaries" of the Bavarians. 1
