cahn | Frederick the Great post links

More Frederick the Great (henceforth "Fritz") and surrounding ~~spinoffs~~ history! Clearly my purpose in life is now revealed: it is to encourage

mildred_of_midgard and

selenak to talk to me about Frederick the Great and associated/tangential European history. I am having such a great time here! Collating some links in this post:

* selenak's post on Frederick the Great as a TV show with associated fandom; a great place to start for the general history

* I have given up indexing all posts, here is the tag of discussion posts. Someday when I actually have time maybe I'll do a "best of."

Some links that have come up in the course of this discussion (and which I am putting here partially for my own benefit because in particular I haven't had time to watch the movies ~~because still mainlining Nirvana in Fire~~):
Fritz' sister Wilhelmine's tell-all tabloidy memoirs (English translation); this is Part I; the text options have been imperfectly OCR'd so be aware of that (NOTE 11-6-19: THIS IS A BOWDLERIZED TEXT, I WILL COME BACK WITH A BETTER LINK)
Part II of Wilhelmine's memoirs (English translation)
A dramatization of Frederick the Great's story, English subtitles
Mein Name ist Bach, Movie of Frederick the Great and J.S. Bach, with subtitles Some discussion of the subtitles in the thread here (also scroll down)
2017 miniseries about Maria Theresia, with subtitles and better translation of one scene in comments

ETA:
Miniseries of Peter the Great, IN ENGLISH, apparently reasonably historically solid
ETA 10-22-19
Website with letters from and to Wilhelmine during her 1754/1755 journey through France and Italy, as well as a few letters about Wilhelmine, in the original French, in a German translation, and in facsimile
University of Trier site where the full works of Friedrich in the original French and German have been transcribed, digitized, and uploaded:
30 volumes of writings and personal correspondence
46 volumes of political correspondence
Fritz and Wilhelmine's correspondence (vol 27_1)
ETA 10-28-19
Der Thronfolger (German, no subtitles; explanation of action in the comment here)
ETA 11-6-19
Memoirs of Stanisław August Poniatowski, dual Polish and French translation
ETA 1-14-20
Our Royal Librarian Mildred has collated some documentation, including google translate versions of the Trier letters above (see the "Correspondence" folder)!

Page 5 of 12 << [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] >>

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mildred_of_midgard

What

selenak said!

Peter was not above beating Menshikov up if he thought he was stealing from the treasury too much

But if he stole just the right amount, that was okay?

From:

cahn

YES SUCCESS

...that is to say, glad you are here, glad you are liking the posts (aren't selenak and mildred_of_midgard great??), and enjoying your wacky Peter stories :D

From:

taelle

I suspect the right amount of stealing was flying under radar and was a bit like salary - I think Russian economy at that time was in a certain sense included that into the system, like, an official sent to manage a region would _of course_ "feed" from that region.

Also, I strongly suspect Peter was more like "do not create problems for my projects" than "do not break any laws".

From:

taelle

Yes they are)

The wackiest stories are not completely canonical (also, a lot of things _everyone_ knows about Peter comes from Alexei Tolstoy's novel about him, which, I think, was translated into English).
Buuut... there are stories that he loved kissing his orderlies a lot (I mean, doing like a hundred kisses in a row) and also slept with an orderly in the sense of using him as a pillow.

More seriously, Peter's arrival to the throne was a bit wacky (and his response to this was to make the inheritance issues even wackier - he insisted the emperor can choose his own heir (yes, he set himself up as an emperor) and the whole 18th century became completely off-kilter as for inheritance (until Paul I who really disliked his mother Catherine II set it up so women could not rule. Which was then a factor in the Russian revolution in 1917, as in, if Nicholas II stopped at, say, two or three daughters and never had a hemophilic son, maybe the monarchy would not become so off-kilter).

Back to Peter, sorry. His elder brother inherited after their dad and died in about 5 years without leaving issue. There were then two remaining princes: Peter, aged about 10, healthy and intelligent boy, son of his father's second wife, and his older brother Ivan, aged about 15, son of the first wife, sickly and generally considered to be unfit for rule (I don't know what was wrong with him - he was ill a lot but also was very passive and not very bright. He did have kids though! His daughter Anna Ioannovna ruled Russia from 1730 to 1740). So... the solution was to crown both Peter and Ivan (and let the fractions centered around their mothers' families fight it out) and have the oldest sister Sofia as a regent. So Peter had a co-ruler for about 10 years or so, and also saw a lot of political infighting and also outright violence.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

That all makes perfect sense!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Soooo, the evidence post has gone up! I'm happy to look at a draft of ours and offer suggestions, but I would be most comfortable if someone else took the lead in putting it together and posting it, since 1) I've never participated in Yuletide, 2) I am ~~blatantly invading Silesia~~ not signing up this year either. :(

From:

cahn

I'm on it! Here's the draft:

Fandom: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Possible issue with the fandom: May not be clear what "Frederician" entails
Why this fandom should be considered eligible: The word "Frederician" is meant to relate to Frederick the Great (Friedrich II) of Prussia, by analogy with "Elizabethan" or "Georgian"; we felt this would be simpler and easier than "Frederick the Great and his associated friends, enemies and frenemies RPF."

Frederick the Great and friends have been nominated before under "Prussian 18th Century RPF," but since he interacted with not only Prussians but an international cast, including Empress Maria Theresia, Emperor Joseph II, and Voltaire (and we are interested in those particular dynamics as well as the intra-Prussian ones) we feel that this is a better descriptive fandom name for what we are nominating.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yay, thank you! *happy dance*

I don't know if it's worth rephrasing to make it sound less like we made up the term "Frederician" to refer to Frederick the Great, because it's a thing already. We're just extending it to Yuletide RPF (go us, haha).

Nitpick: the fandom in question in preceding years seems to have been "18th Century CE Prussia RPF."

From:

selenak

You are a treasure, and as Darth Real Liife is hounding my steps, I'm more grateful than ever! Now, nomination day (the first) is October 2nd, right? Will be there to nominate as agreed upon, and here's hoping we get this fandom through!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So hilariously, this reminds me of the time I and another Indo-Europeanist student showed up at a summer school in Europe, took a two-week course on comparative Semitic linguistics with both of us having NO background in Semitic, and by the end of week one I was raising my hand to vociferously disagree with the professor (who would never admit that he was wrong and I was right) about how Semitic historical linguistics worked. The other student was less confrontational, but would take me aside to tell me quietly that I was right and making good arguments and to encourage me to keep fighting the good fight. I was amused at our brazenness at the time, and I continue to be.

Later, back at my home university, I took a full semester course on a Semitic language, asked that professor what he thought, and he agreed with the professor at the other university. I continued to be outraged (ETA: "outraged" is a bit strong for historical linguistics. Indignant, maybe) and disagree.

In our defense, several years later, I found out that the foremost historical Semitic linguistics scholar agreed with me. Said foremost scholar also believes the field of historical Semitic linguistics is not as advanced as historical Indo-European linguistics and contains scholars still making elementary methodological mistakes about things that we IE-ists figured out in the 19th century. So there.

But I still think our total confidence about something we first- and second-year grad students had been studying for a week was hilarious, and I relate so hard to Fritz's arrogance, even when it's unwarranted. The thing about being arrogant is that sometimes you're wrong and you get egg on your face (or your entire army gets pummeled or even destroyed at Hochkirch or Kunersdorf) because you refuse to believe it, and sometimes you really are right and the so-called experts really are wrong! Suspect a flautist teaching a castrato is the first case, but there were times when Fritz really was right, and I am not rewriting my essay to be more like George Washington, dammit! :P (LOL)

Edited Date: 2019-09-29 05:22 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I just want to say that I have this huge grudge against biographer Carlyle for not only not shipping my ship--which, fair enough!--but for being an anti. And Carlyle specifically because of my own personal history with this fandom.

In high school, I read voraciously (god knows, none of this was covered in class) on Fritz, but was interested in the military history and magnificent bastardy aspects, not the interpersonal relations.

At the end of high school, I had moved into another fandom and discovered slash, but since I can only do one fandom at a time, it was too late to go back and start slashing Fritz.

For the next twenty or so years, I was never deeply in 18th century or Fritz fandom again, until three months ago. I only sporadically spent an hour here or there making up stories about Fritz in my head, without doing research, just based on what I remembered. (Realize that everything I've been regurgitating here is a combination of a couple of years of reading in high school, a 20-year lacuna, then 4-8 weeks of refreshing myself in summer 2019 and taking advantage of internet resources on Katte. And internet only because of the new physical disability that I will never stop complaining about.)

But, even in my days of not being in this fandom, I did want to ship Fritz/Katte. Badly. But being deeply immersed in other fandoms, I was unmotivated to go getting my hands on sources. And, due to repeated moves on a low budget, I had gotten rid of my history book collection, seeing as how I hadn't been in that fandom in a gazillion years. So all I had was an electronic copy of the public domain biography of Fritz by Carlyle, written in the 1860s.

And I have multiple memories, years apart, of trying to get material for my ship from Carlyle, and being defeated by his "anti" attitude toward my ship, which basically consists of repeating Wilhelmine, either in paraphrase or direct quotation at length. Behold.

"Poor young man, [Fritz] has got into a disastrous course; consorts chiefly with debauched young fellows, as Lieutenants Katte, Keith, and others of their stamp, who lead him on ways not pleasant to his Father, nor conformable to the Laws of this Universe."

"Of Lieutenant von Katte,— a short stout young fellow, with black eyebrows, pock-marked face, and rather dissolute manners,— we shall not fail to hear."

"A second favorite, and a much more dangerous, succeeded Keith. This was a young man of the name of Katte, Captain-Lieutenant in the regiment GENS-D'ARMES."

Then he repeats the entire passage from Wilhelmine, which you've read, including the "His physiognomy was rather disagreeable than otherwise. A pair of thick black eyebrows almost covered the eyes of him; his look had in it something ominous, presage of the fate he met with: a tawny skin, torn by small-pox, increased his ugliness. He affected the freethinker, and carried libertinism to excess; a great deal of ambition and headlong rashness accompanied this vice. A dangerous adviser here in the Berlin element, with lightnings going! Such a favorite was not the man to bring back my Brother from his follies."

"The maternal heart and Wilhelmina's are grieved to see Lieutenant Katte so much in his confidence— could wish him a wiser councillor in such predicaments and emergencies! Katte is greatly flattered by the Prince's confidence; even brags of it in society, with his foolish loose tongue. Poor youth, he is of dissolute ways; has plenty of it 'unwise intellect,' little of the 'wise' kind; and is still under the years of discretion."

[After the failed escape attempt] "The same post brought an order to the Colonel of the Gerns-d'Armes to put that Lieutenant Katte of his under close confinement:— we hope the thoughtless young fellow has already got out of the way? He is getting his saddle altered: fettling about this and that; does not consider what danger he is in."

He gets some pity for being young, foolish, and loyal, that's all.

Now, I am far from saying that we have to paint Katte and young Fritz as perfect in all ways. Among other things, they made some seriously bad choices around the escape plan! But my ship is my ship and it's for a reason.

So I always went "meh" after flipping through this chapter in Carlyle, was annoyed at what comes across as reflexes of victim-blaming and homophobic mindsets, and went back to kind of vaguely background shipping them without too much detail. Occasionally, I would be like, "And in some AU there was a successful escape attempt, yay, and they lived happily ever after. The end."

Only in my very recent re-perusal of the sources and examination of some new sources did I get enough material for the ship to set sail properly.

And while I should refrain from spending too much money I don't have on books I can't read, this week I did buy a couple used paperbacks for a few dollars each, one of which was Goldsmith's. I can at least use them as references as needed, even if I can't read them cover-to-cover.

And by flipping through the obligatory escape attempt chapter, I discovered that Goldsmith, despite writing in 1929 (!!!) ships my ship! I am willing to forgive her her various claims and omissions that were very common a hundred years ago but which don't stand up to more recent thorough examinations of the documentary evidence, because she ships my ship!

Check this out.

"Rumors of his attachment [to Keith] finally reached the King. Such affairs were by no means uncommon in the century of Louis XV, but they were decidedly out of place at the Court of Frederick William." [!! Her whole attitude is "Fritz was gay and I'm cool with that, deal with it."]

"Frederick's attachment to Keith had been a mere episode, but his friendship with Katte was not a schoolboy's passing fancy; it was deep love and friendship." [!!! <333]

"Katte was the son of a general in Frederick William's army. His ancestors had been Prussian officers for generations, but the military life had never appealed to him. Even Wilhelmine, who disliked him because she was afraid of the disaster which this friendship might mean for her brother, had to admit that Katte was 'well read, intelligent, and that he had savoir faire.' He had studied law in Berlin and had traveled all over Europe, but in the end he had been forced into the army; for one of his class in Prussia there was no future in any but a military career. He would have preferred the life of a scholar, but he was not strong enough to oppose so radically the traditions of his family. Katte was widely read and very well informed for a man of his age and class. He was witty and entertaining. He stimulated Frederick's imagination. He was not good-looking--his heavy eyebrows met over the bridge of a large nose, and he was badly pockmarked--but his great charm of manner apparently caused people to forget his unattractive face.

"Katte, in turn, was devoted to Frederick. Although the young officer had abandoned all hope of any other life, he still rebelled inwardly against the army. It gave him tremendous satisfaction to encourage Frederick's revolt against his father's regime. This hopeless rebellion against the Prussian military system was the chief bond between the two. They had a hate in common: Frederick's father and all he stood for." [Not my interpretation at all, granted, but perfectly possible and an interesting take.]

"Katte helped Frederick to continue his non-military interests in many ways. He smuggled forbidden books into the Prince's apartments, and secretly arranged flute lessons at regular intervals. During these lessons the faithful Katte always kept watch outside Frederick's door, and warned him if he heard the unexpected approach of Frederick William.

"Frederick's allowance was so small that he could afford neither books nor lessons in flute-playing. Katte seemed to know everyone in Berlin, and he easily arranged loans with a number of wealthy merchants." [Insert secret library description.]

[After the failed escape attempt] "The king wanted to catch Katte unwarned. Undoubtedly, however, when Wilhelmine told him of this letter from her father, Katte knew that he would, inevitably, be involved; that he would share Frederick's final punishment if he stayed in Berlin. His furlough had begun. He was free to leave Berlin at any time, but he did not go. Katte was neither a coward nor a weakling, and he loved Frederick. He could not make up his mind to let his friend face Frederick William's wrath alone. Finally, one morning the King's courier arrived in Berlin, and it was rumored that Katte was about to be arrested. He was a popular young man, and by noon some of his his friends had informed him of his coming arrest. Even his colonel sympathized with Katte, and wanted to give the young officer a chance to get away. The arrest was postponed, therefore, until late in the evening. The colonel fully expected that Katte would have left by then, but he was awaiting the officers in his rooms when they arrived.

"During the day Katte had been busy. He had sent the Queen a sealed case with all his letters from Frederick, as well as copies of Frederick's secret messages to England. These documents compromised the Queen as well as Frederick, and it would have been disastrous for her if Frederick William had found them."

"Katte, alone in his cell, not far from Frederick's, hoped for many weeks that his life would be spared. All the time he thought more of Frederick than he did of himself."

[Insert his final letter to his grandfather.] "No, Katte was no coward and no weakling. On the day of his execution he said to Major Schenk, who, much against his will, was ordered by Frederick William to take charge of the execution, 'I die for a Prince whom I love, and I comfort myself with the thought that my death will be the greatest possible proof of my devotion to him.' Wilhelmine, usually so ready with sarcasm, has nothing to say about Katte's last talk with Schenk. She simply records what he told her, word for word. Clearly there was nothing for her to add."

"When he recognized Katte, [Fritz] went almost mad, and knocked his head frantically against the iron bars which separated him from his friend.

"'Forgive me, my dear Katte,' was all he could say again and again.

"The gallant Katte, rising to this last occasion, looked up at Frederick, smiled, and said:

"'Death for such a charming Prince is indeed sweet.'"

Then Goldsmith writes about Fritz's roaring twenties: "[Random woman who Fritz het-posed about]: She has caused his biographers much racking of brains. Some, who are very respectable, wanting to forget or ignore his gay life in Dresden or his friendships with Keith and Katte, speak of Frau von Wreech as his 'first love', but most of them agree that his love for the lady, who must indeed have been very charming, was purely platonic. But I have grown suspicious, skeptical, about Frederick's relations with women...I have wondered whether...gossip about a liaison with a woman of her type would have been welcomed by his father...I do not think Frederick would have announced his passion for the lady had he really cared. Increasingly, as he grew older he locked his real secrets away within himself. There is no reference to Katte in his letters." Earlier on, Goldsmith has said, about Doris Ritter, "[Fritz] thought that he was in love with her, but he was mistaken. His predilection was not for her sex."

1929! Meanwhile, biographers much later in the 20th century are still going, "There was nothing unnatural about Frederick's sex drive, it was just underdeveloped," or "There's no evidence for homosexuality except one estranged and notoriously unreliable Frenchman." Only 8 years ago (!!!), Blanning's bio was notable for going, "Look, people, he was GAY. AND CAMP. Look at the evidence. Sheesh."

Man, if I had had her book instead of Carlyle's, how the history of this ship in my life might have been different. And yes, I transcribed all the Goldsmith excerpts myself, from a physical book, and my upper back is now paying the price. WORTH IT.

Also, shipping aside, I think these two sets of excerpts show just how much room for interpretation of the sources there is, and the one is not necessarily more reliable than the other (I honestly think Goldsmith, while good for <333, goes too far for nonfiction in her interpretations and puts more weight on the evidence than it will bear. Basically, like everyone else, she's presenting her headcanon as canon.). This is why I said, in a comment to one of your other posts, that I've started to read history books like novels. Thank you for your novel, Goldsmith. Ima go write some fic and not call it a bio.

From:

cahn

For both of you: I'm just about to post on the nomination-coordination post. Do I have this right? (I have used canonical AO3 tags where available, and Wikipedia when not.)

18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Hans Hermann Von Katte
Peter Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina
Joseph II Holy Roman Emperor
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern

Yekatarina II Alekseyevna | Catherine the Great of Russia
Sophia Dorothea of Hanover
François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire
Countess Anna Karolina Orzelska

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Awesome, thanks! My two cents:

Hans Hermann Von Katte

I was about to make a comment about lowercasing the "von" here, and then I realized that's canonical on AO3. Sigh. I'm going to add this to my list of things to bug them about. Stet, then.

Peter Keith

In keeping with the tradition of full names, I say "Peter Karl Christoph von Keith".

Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina

She seems to have a variety of tags all wrangled under her name. I wonder if we want to throw a "Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa (possibly with her other names)" into the mix, but I will defer to

selenak. Historical RPF tags seem wildly inconsistent (well, I've been complaining about the inconsistency and sometimes downright inaccuracy of Greek mythology tags for years...), so it really doesn't matter too much.

Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern
There is an existing "Elisabeth Christine von Preußen | Elisabeth Christine Queen of Prussia" tag on AO3. (It's on my favorite Fritz fic!) I vote for using that one.

François-Marie Arouet | Voltaire

I like this better than the tag I'm finding on AO3, which is "Voltaire (Writer)".

Countess Anna Karolina Orzelska

Since no one else has a title at the beginning of their name and it's not in the title of her Wikipedia article, I think "Anna Karolina Orzelska" is probably fine (to match Wikipedia), or possibly "Anna Karolina Countess Orzelska".

Maybe we can get some other characters nominated! *rubs hands gleefully*

From:

cahn

Excellent! I will post with your changes (and any that

selenak has) tomorrow morning.

Maybe we can get some other characters nominated! *rubs hands gleefully*

That's what I'm hoping!

From:

cahn

This is amazing! I... would not have thought crowning TWO monarchs would be a good solution to this. At all. I am not surprised at all there was a lot of political infighting!

if Nicholas II stopped at, say, two or three daughters and never had a hemophilic son, maybe the monarchy would not become so off-kilter

Wait, what did this have to do with the monarchy becoming off-kilter? Is it because of Rasputin?

From:

selenak

She seems to have a variety of tags all wrangled under her name.

One problem there is that some of them actually refer to Louis XIV' wife. Who does show up in some Versailles fanfiction, as she's a supporting character on the show. When I searched for "Maria Theresa" (i.e. the English language spelling, without the additional i we add in German to Theresia), I got a lot of French queens of Spanish origin and only a few Austrians; of those, a lot were from Der Rosenkavalier which has a character named Maria Theresa of Werdenberg. Wrong Habsburg, so to say. But I don't think we can avoid that either way. My current inclination is to vote for Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria, and skip the other names.

I'm also for "Anna Karolina Orzelska", without "Countess".

And yes, maybe we attract others who also nominate! There's still a rich cast to pick from!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Ah, okay, I was wondering if they were all her, but did not check. I'm in favor of "Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria". Alternatively, "Wilhelmine's FRIEND, the Queen of Hungary." :P /silly

From:

selenak

:) Given some of the other names Fritz called her... *

Which reminds me: if this fandom really takes off, how long before we get a "League of Pettiooats": Maria Theresia, Elizabeth of Russia, Madame de Pompadour" group tag going? (Madame de Pompadeur is a well established AO3 character, since as Reinette, she showed up on Doctor Who. And the Czarina does have some fictional appearances as well.) /also silly.

*In the prologue to one of the new MT biographies which appeared when she had her most recent 300 centennary, the author sums up her changing image with Austrian and German historians:

MT dies in the late 18th century: thank God the old and old fashioned girl is gone, time for our new male reforming Emperor to rule unhindered!

(A few years and Joseph's reforms later: OMG not THOSE reforms! Bring on his old fashioned brother, we don't need a Fritz follower on the throne! Yay Leopold!)

Napoleon conquers much of Europe, officially dissolves the Holy Roman Empire and restructures the German principalities into something making more geographic sense, blackmails himself an Austrian second wife:

Historians: this is so humiliating. Remember when MT ruled and held her own against bloody Fritz? Yeah. Those were the days.

Napoleon is defeated, nationalism is on the rise in both Austria and the remaining German principalities, fiery debates about possible German unification and if so, with or without Austria are held through the 19th century:

Historians: MT was the woman! Fritz was the man! Shame their parents didn't think of marrying them to each other, then we could have had a unified German Empire a long time ago! (What's that you say about incompatible religions and sexual orientations? Pffff!)

This goes on until WWI, after which a lot of historians get disenchanted with empires of all persuasians and the ones still singing the nationalistic tune also come with a side helping of never mind the woman and the man, they were of their day but we need a new glorious leader now.

Post WWII: eh. Can we study economic developments producing history instead of glorified rulers now?

Edited Date: 2019-09-30 06:24 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

LOL, this was *great*. As per usual. I am always interested in changing perceptions of historical figures.

MT was the woman! Fritz was the man!

He was a boy. She was a girl. Can I make it any more ~~obvious~~ heteronormative?

(What's that you say about incompatible religions and sexual orientations? Pffff!)

Didn't stop FW from marrying EC to Fritz! (Of course, EC at least espoused the religion of her *country*, if not her husband. Not to mention the even bigger incompatibilities between Fritz and MT. Lol. Disaster or big disaster?)

Bring on his old fashioned brother, we don't need a Fritz follower on the throne! Yay Leopold!

Stop me if I'm wrong, but Leopold II was at least sort of reforming, right? Not Joseph levels, but notable for ending the death penalty, among other things?

From:

selenak

re: Leopold, oh, absolutely. It was his son Franz II who was the true reactionary (who took back all of Leopold's and Joseph's reforms). But since Leopold came after Joseph, his initial image was "conservative-moderate".

Not to mention the even bigger incompatibilities between Fritz and MT. Lol. Disaster or big disaster?

Maximum desaster. Though I have a hard time seeing it happening in the first place, because the religious obstacles are truly considerable. One of them would have had to convert. There's no way, no how, that the heiress presumptative to the Habsburgs, a dynasty defining itself as champions of the Catholic faith, would have been allowed to convert, or to marry someone who wasn't a Catholic himself, even if he swore any children would be Catholics.

(There were, of course, several Protestant German princesses who had to marry Catholic or Russian Orthodox princes and converted - including Catherine II - but Catherine I is the only Catholic I can think of who converted in order to marry Peter I., and she was a freed serf, not a princess. The only "Catholic princess marries Protestant prince who is allowed to maintain his religion as part of the marriage deal" example I can currently think of is the most notoriously ill fated of them all - Margot de Valois/Henri de Navarre - and post- St. Bartholomew Night, he did have to convert. Not for the last time.)

But let's say FW, arch-Protestant who he is, allows Fritz to convert, and let's say Fritz is willing to fake becoming a Catholic for the sake of becoming Emperor (which, after all, is the deal for anyone marrying Maria Theresia unless her father sires a male heir at the last minute, which on one but her dad considered still possible at that point). Maybe Fritz activates his inner Machiavellian and figures once he's on the throne, he can ignore what nominal religion he has anyway, plus he gets to be his father's boss if FW should outlive MT's father. Let's also consider that Maria Theresia was raised to believe in the superiority of the male sex and would have accepted, to a degree, her husband's decisions. Let's also say the two don't hate each other on sight, because MT symbolizes freedom from Dad and superiority to Dad for Fritz, and she's well educated (she was trained to be a royal spouse, after all), smart, and, importantly, musical. (She must have had a great singing voice; her singing opera arias early in the miniseries is one of the actual historical elements. Meanwhile, MT might have been heartbroken because she was already in love with Franz Stefan, but she had a keen sense of duty, Fritz was smart and again, well educated, though they'd have to talk about the classics and music since she had no sympathy for Voltaire. If all this works out, then I still would argue "to a degree" would soon be used up.

For starters: sex. There's no way Maria Theresia would have gone for one of Fritz' siblings as heirs presumptative of the Habsburg dynasty. No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body. And her father, who in fact outlived FW, would have insisted, too. (And considering Joseph's mission to fix his sister's sex life with Louis XVI in rl, you can bet his granddad would have been as intrusive when it came to his daughter and Fritz.) There are few things easier to produce mutual hostility than two people who don't love each other forced to have sex. (And I don't think either of them would have been much good at it under these circumstances.)

Secondly: priorities. Where do they live, Prussia or Austria? The Austrian army direly needed Prussian reforms, but I'm not sure the Austrian nobility would have accepted being subjected to them from a Prussian prince, especially if said Prince didn't produce male heirs from the Arch Duchess. (In rl, Franz Stefan was ridiculed for "only" siring daughters those first few years, and he actually had spent some considerable time at the Austrian court as a youth.) Once both fathers are dead, does Fritz actually get elected as Emperor or has he by then pissed off various other princes already and they go for the Wittelsbach guy anyway? How long does MT's sense of wifely duty last before she considers ~~killing him~~ asking for an annulment from the Church? If she and Fritz somehow do produce a male heir, would Fritz then ~~kill her~~ take off to Prussia and hope she's content with a separated life instead of mobilizing the Austrian and Hungarian nobility against him? And so forth.

Edited Date: 2019-09-30 09:31 am (UTC)

From:

taelle

Yes, Rasputin and also the general isolation of the royal family from everyone who could possibly help/support/advise them (like, even relatives did not know about Alexey). Mind you, very possibly the regime would still collapse, just... maybe in a less extreme way.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I feel like Fritz is in way over his head politically in this scenario. Something is going to have to give, and it's not going to be pretty. I *do* still wonder how much of his treatment of EC was due to his extreme bitterness over the marriage. But even without that, homosexual + committed rather than casual misogynist does not a good combination with a more strong-willed, politically influential wife make.

No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body. And her father, who in fact outlived FW, would have insisted, too. (And considering Joseph's mission to fix his sister's sex life with Louis XVI in rl, you can bet his granddad would have been as intrusive when it came to his daughter and Fritz.)

Notoriously open secret gay/asexual Fritz goes through the motions of trying, makes a point of not ejaculating inside her? Plays it off as impotence/sexual hangups? He only has to get away with this for 7-10 years to get elected Emperor. This is the same guy, remember, who, when forced by Dad to go hunting, would write fake upbeat letters going, "Welp, I shot at the animal and missed. But I'm sure I'll have better luck next time!"

There's no way Maria Theresia would have gone for one of Fritz' siblings as heirs presumptative of the Habsburg dynasty. No matter if she'd come to loathe Fritz as a person, she'd have wanted heirs from her own body.

After ~10 years of the above, would she have gone for an annulment of a childless marriage and a marriage to brother Augustus Wilhelm? It's a variation on marrying a sister to AW to appease the Brunswicks. Assume Fritz has been elected Emperor at this time, is pretty clearly not having kids of his own or planning to remarry, is willing to leave her the prestige and nominal power of the titles of the Pragmatic Sanction, but is consolidating power in his own hands and politically sidelining his entire family. In a misogynistic world, with her sense of duty and a more ambitious husband than Franz Stefan, would MT have gone along with this? I don't know her personality well enough. Would the entire Austrian nobility have gone along with this or not been able to stop it?

It's a real stretch: I'm struggling to come up with *any* possible non-catastrophic outcome. Fritz does not play well with others, and MT does not take things lying down like EC, plus she comes with a whole family and country with opinions of their own.

The only other possible path that I can see to a less than catastrophic outcome is if EC got an especially raw deal from Fritz, and Amelia or MT or basically anyone who gave him an "out" from Dad before 1740 would have gotten better treatment, including maybe a willingness to make an effort to beget heirs once a month or something. I mean, when he was plumping for the British double marriage, should we imagine he was intending to completely avoid Amelia sexually even before he became king? I find that difficult to believe, or at least to assume without questioning.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the way I read Fritz's personality, there is a world of difference between an idea that came out of his own head and one that was forced onto him, in terms of how he reacts. And if he decides he wants to be HRE because it's a way to get the upper hand over Dad, and he gets what he wants, then I'm guessing his brain decides to emphasize the way MT and he can bond over music and some literature, and he has some sex with her, at least in the early days. If FW forces him into this marriage because FW is a big fan of the Emperor, then Fritz's brain emphasizes how he despises the long-past-its-glory-days HRE and Catholics and women and possibly the thought of being shipped to Vienna as if *he* were the subordinate partner, and maximum disaster ensues with maximum speed.

The only "Catholic princess marries Protestant prince who is allowed to maintain his religion as part of the marriage deal" example I can currently think of is the most notoriously ill fated of them all - Margot de Valois/Henri de Navarre

Catherine of Braganza and Charles II come to mind, but Braganza != Habsburg, as you point out. And Charles at least had Catholic sympathies. Fritz...did not. I also imagine the Pope having nominal authority over Fritz would have gone over about as well as the Holy Roman Emperor having nominal authority over Fritz went over irl. "Lol wut? I barely took orders from my father when he was alive and locked me in prison, and you think you can tell me what to do from a distance? You and what army?"

Secondly: priorities. Where do they live, Prussia or Austria?

Totally trolling here: after their dads die, Fritz in Prussia, MT in Austria. That's far enough away to avoid the cooties, right? :PP

Once both fathers are dead, does Fritz actually get elected as Emperor or has he by then pissed off various other princes already and they go for the Wittelsbach guy anyway?

1730s Fritz? Sympathies for him personally are still running high, to the point where various European courts are lending/giving him money, he's not as despotic as in later years, and Prussia is starting to be taken seriously thanks to FW's army, which Fritz has inherited by the time of the election. My guess is he gets elected and everyone regrets it *later*. Assuming he's managed to pay enough lip service to Catholicism. If he has and he still doesn't get elected, my guess is that it takes him and MT less than 8 years to solve it in their favor. Which is of course the whole point of this scenario.

My question is, how much does young Fritz manage to piss off his *dad* in the 1730s, particularly if this marriage lands him in Austria? And what are the consequences of *that*?

Edited Date: 2019-10-01 01:11 am (UTC)

From:

selenak

My question is, how much does young Fritz manage to piss off his *dad* in the 1730s, particularly if this marriage lands him in Austria? And what are the consequences of *that*?

How FW would have reacted to a Fritz not just geographically but hierarchically completely out of his control - if Fritz is in Vienna (and assorted other locations all over the HRE which aren't Prussia - as MT's spouse, son-in-law of the Emperor and likely Emperor-in-Waiting is beyond my power to imagine. From the first time his ambassador reports onwards about how HRH had a great time at the public concert last night, playing flute while MT sang, and that's before we get the first letter (in French, of course) saying "Mon cher Papa, have suggested to the Emperor to request loan from our treasury so we can bring the Austrian army up to speed and also build me an extra royal mansion equipped with the latest fashion from Paris, cherio, Fritz".

Charles II/Catherine of Braganza: true, but in addition to not being the heir presumptative of the Portuegese throne she didn't have to convert, and that she was a practicing Catholic was used against her (and him) by Titus Oates et al. (I'm assuming that if they had had surviving children, they'd have been Anglicans, so Catherine's father must have agreed to that in the wedding treaty.

Assume Fritz has been elected Emperor at this time, is pretty clearly not having kids of his own or planning to remarry, is willing to leave her the prestige and nominal power of the titles of the Pragmatic Sanction, but is consolidating power in his own hands and politically sidelining his entire family. In a misogynistic world, with her sense of duty and a more ambitious husband than Franz Stefan, would MT have gone along with this?

Really hard to say. I mean, there's the rl example of her handling Joseph as a co-ruler with great difficulties and by coming out on top more often than not. (

cahn, since nominally Franz Stefan was the Emperor and MT "just" his spouse, upon his death Joseph got elected Emperor to co-rule with Mom, so the Salic Law still technically was upheld. However, unlike his father, Joseph wanted to actually, well, rule. And had quite different ideas than his mother did quite often.) But that was older, experienced MT who'd been ruling on her lonesome for decades and knew she could do it, plus she had the advantage of Joseph maybe chaffing to do his own thing, but also respecting the hell out of her. A young MT, without any such experience and an upbringing that told her that of course it was her duty to obey her husband, might have been a very different matter. Then again, she was strong willed even as a girl/young woman, and quite capable of having her own opinions. Plus you just know a lot of nobles both Austrian and Prussian would have formed parties against each other and would have schemed to get her on their side.

(MT really lucked out with Franz Stefan, because I bet most of the available princes would have at least tried to take power from her since tehy were nominally the Emperor, instead of accepting this was her throne and her rule and doing their own - useful, since he was making cash - thing.)

If FW forces him into this marriage because FW is a big fan of the Emperor, then Fritz's brain emphasizes how he despises the long-past-its-glory-days HRE and Catholics and women and possibly the thought of being shipped to Vienna as if *he* were the subordinate partner, and maximum disaster ensues with maximum speed.

Entirely agreed. Especially if he gets told the way Franz Stefan was that he's essentially there as a stud and if he can't even do that right, what is the point of him? (Again, MT lucked out with Franz Stefan, because seven or so years of "look at that whuss from Lorraine, can't even sire boys, just more useless girls!" might have embittered and thus poisoned the marriage in 8 out of ten cases.)

In that scenario, I see MT going for an annulment at top speed, and if she has to blackmail dad into it somehow, so be it.

(The biography reminds me that in rl, the first vaguely not quite insulting thing Fritz said about her - while she was still alive - was "finally the Habsburgs produced a man again, and it's a woman".)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

All of this, YES and YES and YES.

How FW would have reacted to a Fritz not just geographically but hierarchically completely out of his control ...is beyond my power to imagine. From the first time his ambassador reports onwards about how HRH had a great time at the public concert last night, playing flute while MT sang, and that's before we get the first letter (in French, of course)

I'm dying, this is hilarious, I can't imagine FW's reaction either. Especially if the marriage was his idea!

"have suggested to the Emperor to request loan from our treasury" Yes, yes, he totally would have done that! LOL

Charles II/Catherine of Braganza: Yup, completely different political waters, agreed. I was just throwing that out there as another example of a Catholic princess being allowed to marry a Protestant sovereign, not as a close parallel.

Side note, it's "heir presumptive" in English.

Really hard to say. I mean, there's the rl example of her handling Joseph as a co-ruler

Agreed. It says a lot about her personality, but mother/son dynamics are completely different than wife/husband dynamics, especially in her place and time.

MT really lucked out with Franz Stefan

Agreed!!

the first vaguely not quite insulting thing Fritz said about her - while she was still alive - was "finally the Habsburgs produced a man again, and it's a woman"

Oh, Fritz! *laughing* Of course you said that.

Yeah, I feel like Fritz is in way over his head politically in this scenario.

To expand a little on this, his forte was not navigating complex interpersonal dynamics. His forte was deciding what he was going to do, entrenching his position, and defending it at all costs. He reminds me of the proverb, "'Take what you want and pay for it,' says God." His default when he felt threatened was the pre-emptive attack. When he didn't have enough power for that, passive resistance. The one time we see him so helpless neither of those was an option is the one time we see him faint.

And I do think that keeping EC at arm's length for life was both a pre-emptive attack (don't let her get any political power) and passive resistance (this marriage was forced on me, so I will undermine it to the utmost). Fritz was capable of keeping up both the pre-emptive attacks and the passive resistance against his father well after FW died. All of which is perfectly in keeping with child trauma psychology.

From:

cahn

This whole chain is AMAZING and you guys are AMAZING and at first I was thinking I might ask for this AU for Yuletide too only, like, it's all right here so I don't even need to ask for it

Question for you guys. How over the line would it have been if in this MT/Fritz AU where Fritz isn't having sex with her, MT had found someone else (Franz Stefan?) to father her kids? You've told me that Fritz was not cool with it with his brother's wife, but then again this is a situation where it's her heir too...? Is this something they could have worked out? (Both from the political and the psychological sides.) Or is it just completely off the table?