The problem with disinheriting your oldest son is that you then end up with a Jacobite situation. Just because he's disinherited doesn't mean he doesn't come back with a foreign army; and then if you think there are strong sympathies for him in your own country, you might back down for these reasons alone.
Good point, especially given that the Jacobite Situation was very contemporary to FW. (BTW, refreshing my vaguer Hohenzollern memories reminded me that young FW managed to beat up future George II of England when they were both kids, despite being five years younger. No wonder adult George had a general "These Hohenzollern are all nuts, why is my sister married to one?" attitude.)
(Again, the politics of the Diplomatic Revolution are more complex than I have mastered, but I seem to recall Fritz blithely making enemies left, right, and center and then going, "I am innocent of this war."
That's how I recall it, too. There was a recent German tv two parter on young Maria Theresia which took a lot of liberties but did convey the general "What the hell, Prussian Ambassador? Did your king really just say/do that?" attitude quite well. Since both August Wilhelm and Heinrich strike me as more naturally cautious, I doubt they would have ended up in that situation.
And yes, on the one hand I can acknowledge that Fritz played his role in a sequence of events that culminated in the Nazis, and on the other, maintain that their propaganda that he would have been totally on board with their program is completely unjustified and he would have been appalled.
Oh, no question about that. He was ruthless in war, but his Prussia actually had the most modern laws of any German state until Napoleon in terms of citizen's rights, and he'd have regarded the whole racial superiority dogma as vulgar and stupid even before it got genocidal.
Btw, I always thought Goebbels telling Hitler that Roosevelt had died by saying "the Czarina Elizabeth is dead" and the lot of them promptly concluding that this would lead to the US withdrawing because that's what Russia had done in the 7-years-war was a perfect illustration of both historical ignorance and utter delusion about the present on a scale not rivaled until Ceaucesceou went out to greet the masses on his balcony in 1989 and just couldn't understand why they weren't cheering but wanted to kill him.
no subject
Good point, especially given that the Jacobite Situation was very contemporary to FW. (BTW, refreshing my vaguer Hohenzollern memories reminded me that young FW managed to beat up future George II of England when they were both kids, despite being five years younger. No wonder adult George had a general "These Hohenzollern are all nuts, why is my sister married to one?" attitude.)
(Again, the politics of the Diplomatic Revolution are more complex than I have mastered, but I seem to recall Fritz blithely making enemies left, right, and center and then going, "I am innocent of this war."
That's how I recall it, too. There was a recent German tv two parter on young Maria Theresia which took a lot of liberties but did convey the general "What the hell, Prussian Ambassador? Did your king really just say/do that?" attitude quite well. Since both August Wilhelm and Heinrich strike me as more naturally cautious, I doubt they would have ended up in that situation.
And yes, on the one hand I can acknowledge that Fritz played his role in a sequence of events that culminated in the Nazis, and on the other, maintain that their propaganda that he would have been totally on board with their program is completely unjustified and he would have been appalled.
Oh, no question about that. He was ruthless in war, but his Prussia actually had the most modern laws of any German state until Napoleon in terms of citizen's rights, and he'd have regarded the whole racial superiority dogma as vulgar and stupid even before it got genocidal.
Btw, I always thought Goebbels telling Hitler that Roosevelt had died by saying "the Czarina Elizabeth is dead" and the lot of them promptly concluding that this would lead to the US withdrawing because that's what Russia had done in the 7-years-war was a perfect illustration of both historical ignorance and utter delusion about the present on a scale not rivaled until Ceaucesceou went out to greet the masses on his balcony in 1989 and just couldn't understand why they weren't cheering but wanted to kill him.