Thaaaaat's a really interesting question. To begin with, my chronology assumes they have maybe one year of knowing each other in person. (Maybe this is not the most realistic chronology, but it was also made to order for maximum cahn enjoyment rather than strict derivation from first principles. ;) )
I'm going to go with, no, knowing MT in person from 1731-1732 and getting an annulment after a childless marriage doesn't stop Fritz from invading Silesia in 1740. I don't think he invaded and conducted his wars the way he did primarily because he underestimated MT's desire to rule and iron will in any way that he wouldn't have if he'd known her for that one year. He *did* underestimate her and her iron will, obviously, and he was in for an unpleasant surprise himself at how non-trivial it was to hold onto Silesia (and I'm not even talking the crazy hard Seven Years' War here, just the first two Silesian wars).
But 1) knowing in 1732 that this 15-yo meant to rule, even if she managed to impress him with her intelligence and strength of will, would probably not have scared him off. The first thing he did in 1740 was distance all royal women from the throne, because otherwise they'd start trying to rule, so it wasn't like women running things was a foreign concept to him. (At the same time, he was distancing all his brothers as well. Isolate and entrench, his lifelong MO.)
2) Many of his decisions in the first two Silesian wars (and, yes, at least the first few years of the Seven Years' War too) came from underestimating, not MT herself, but her generals and the quality of the various armies he faced. When I asked "does time in Vienna cause him to stop underestimating them?" I was thinking mostly of the army. And my conclusion is no, he neither has the interest in interacting with the army to the exclusion of all else (I do think he takes something of an interest), nor does he have the time, power, and interest to reform them yet.
The upshot, I think, is that Fritz walks away from his time in Vienna still thinking he can do better than they can and it's safe to invade. He might think that MT's next husband needs to make damn sure he imposes his will on her or she'll start running things, but I don't think that prevents him from invading any more than Elisabeth or Madame de Pompadour keep him from being misogynistic or underestimating Russian and French forces. The Fritz who walks away from this marriage and goes back to Berlin is probably the same canonical Fritz who thinks he can do better than everyone else.
Now, does ~7 years of power affect his behavior in such a way that his Machiavellian tendencies show well before 1740, meaning MT is more prepared? Maybe. (I mean, strictly speaking, my chronology assumes he reneges on the AW deal as soon as FW dies, so that's a big sign right there, but he could pass that off as that promise being made under duress, and play on people's sympathies.) His expansionist interests were showing early on in that decade (even at Küstrin, I think), and Eugene definitely thought he was going to do great things, in 1734 or whenever they met. Of course, the context in which they met was military, and I think Fritz was trying to impress FW too, but yeah, the 1740 about-face was foreshadowed if you knew him well.
So MT might have known to keep an eye on him, but probably more based on the way he ran his kingdom after their annulment than on their brief marriage. And would she have seen Silesia specifically coming? I kind of doubt it? I think she probably would have expected him to do the Poland land grab of 1773 first, because that's what he was mostly talking about in the 1730s, in the excerpts I've read on his musings on such subjects.
These are just guesses, of course, and it's difficult to draw strictly logical conclusions from illogical premises like "FW has a literal fatal aneurysm from reading Fritz's letters from Vienna." ;)
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Re: MT marriage AU, cont'd
Date: 2019-10-15 05:24 am (UTC)I'm going to go with, no, knowing MT in person from 1731-1732 and getting an annulment after a childless marriage doesn't stop Fritz from invading Silesia in 1740. I don't think he invaded and conducted his wars the way he did primarily because he underestimated MT's desire to rule and iron will in any way that he wouldn't have if he'd known her for that one year. He *did* underestimate her and her iron will, obviously, and he was in for an unpleasant surprise himself at how non-trivial it was to hold onto Silesia (and I'm not even talking the crazy hard Seven Years' War here, just the first two Silesian wars).
But 1) knowing in 1732 that this 15-yo meant to rule, even if she managed to impress him with her intelligence and strength of will, would probably not have scared him off. The first thing he did in 1740 was distance all royal women from the throne, because otherwise they'd start trying to rule, so it wasn't like women running things was a foreign concept to him. (At the same time, he was distancing all his brothers as well. Isolate and entrench, his lifelong MO.)
2) Many of his decisions in the first two Silesian wars (and, yes, at least the first few years of the Seven Years' War too) came from underestimating, not MT herself, but her generals and the quality of the various armies he faced. When I asked "does time in Vienna cause him to stop underestimating them?" I was thinking mostly of the army. And my conclusion is no, he neither has the interest in interacting with the army to the exclusion of all else (I do think he takes something of an interest), nor does he have the time, power, and interest to reform them yet.
The upshot, I think, is that Fritz walks away from his time in Vienna still thinking he can do better than they can and it's safe to invade. He might think that MT's next husband needs to make damn sure he imposes his will on her or she'll start running things, but I don't think that prevents him from invading any more than Elisabeth or Madame de Pompadour keep him from being misogynistic or underestimating Russian and French forces. The Fritz who walks away from this marriage and goes back to Berlin is probably the same canonical Fritz who thinks he can do better than everyone else.
Now, does ~7 years of power affect his behavior in such a way that his Machiavellian tendencies show well before 1740, meaning MT is more prepared? Maybe. (I mean, strictly speaking, my chronology assumes he reneges on the AW deal as soon as FW dies, so that's a big sign right there, but he could pass that off as that promise being made under duress, and play on people's sympathies.) His expansionist interests were showing early on in that decade (even at Küstrin, I think), and Eugene definitely thought he was going to do great things, in 1734 or whenever they met. Of course, the context in which they met was military, and I think Fritz was trying to impress FW too, but yeah, the 1740 about-face was foreshadowed if you knew him well.
So MT might have known to keep an eye on him, but probably more based on the way he ran his kingdom after their annulment than on their brief marriage. And would she have seen Silesia specifically coming? I kind of doubt it? I think she probably would have expected him to do the Poland land grab of 1773 first, because that's what he was mostly talking about in the 1730s, in the excerpts I've read on his musings on such subjects.
These are just guesses, of course, and it's difficult to draw strictly logical conclusions from illogical premises like "FW has a literal fatal aneurysm from reading Fritz's letters from Vienna." ;)