cahn | Frederick the Great, discussion post 5: or: Yuletide requests are out!

All Yuletide requests are out!

Yuletide related:
-it is sad that I can't watch opera quickly enough these days to have offered any of them, these requests are delightful!

-That is... sure a lot of prompts for MCS/Jingyan. But happily some that are not :D (I like MCS/Jingyan! But there are So Many Other characters!)

Frederician-specific:
-I am so excited someone requested Fritz/Voltaire, please someone write it!!

-I also really want someone to write that request for Poniatowski, although that is... definitely a niche request, even for this niche fandom. But he has memoirs?? apparently they are translated from Polish into French

-But while we are waiting/writing/etc., check out this crack commentfic where Heinrich and Franz Stefan are drinking together while Maria Theresia and Frederick the Great have their secret summit, which turns into a plot to marry the future Emperor Joseph to Fritz...

Master link to Frederick the Great posts and associated online links

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From:

cahn

LOL, okay, I'm glad that you guys don't know what's going on because I was reading

selenak's excerpts and going "wtf? whaaaaat? where did this gonorrhea thing even come from??" Only I'm not glad because if you knew you could tell me :P But they are kind of amazing letters in the very-Fritz kind of way!

From:

cahn

omg this is THE BEST

(I know I say that a lot, but there are a lot of best things OKAY)

Fritz to Heinrich: Ulrike's kid is coming. Mind dropping by? "For I believe the two of us are not too many to preach restraint to him, or at least quench his initial fire."

Heinrich: Okay. Gustav, you don't know how rare an event this is, but the two of us agree on something, and that something is that a coup d'etat in Sweden IS A REALLY BAD IDEA.

HAHAHAHA (I think one of my narrative kinks is people who don't ever agree, agreeing because something really IS that good or bad of an idea...)

(No really, they have a giant sibling face off about which of their parents was worse. In the end, Ulrike and Charlotte as well as Ferdinand give up, whereas Heinrich and Amalie still keep going, with Heinrich insisting FW was worst and Amalie insisting SD was worst until they swear never to talk to each other again.)

WOW. I'm just... a combination of rubbernecking and facepalming, here.
(and if Wilhelmine and Fritz had been there I feel like they might have pointed out that they could both be the worst to different people?? I feel like W and F kind of understood that??)

Fritz: Had a good time in dear old Wusterhausen, did we?

LOL FOREVER FRITZ

Next thing on my to do list: get an heir!

hee!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, I'd seen the gonorrhea quote all over the place, even before I'd read the letters, so I assumed it was real and reflected Fritz's disillusionment after winning (I was also operating on a version of events where he used his power as king to poach Heinrich's page/bf), but now having read the letters more closely instead of just going "...what?" and giving up, I have NO idea whether Fritz is maybe making the gonorrhea thing up. It would sadly be in character from him as a prank/power play.

One day we will solve the sordid mystery of the two brothers and the one Marwitz. (Whatever else it is, it is obviously sordid.)

From:

cahn

Wait, what, as I said to

selenak somewhere above, the opera is actually based kind of on fact?? I mean, not the awkward poly thing, but Gustav is totally blase about being in danger, there is indeed a soothsayer, and he is shot at a ball.

From:

cahn

Hee! Oh, yes! I will link her :D

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, then, you know the story! I didn't know there was an opera covering all this. I just glanced at Wikipedia and had to share the WTFery.

So I guess if you're not going to read the cautionary tales, Gustav, you can yourself become the cautionary tale for opera lovers? I can see the value in having the cautionary tale encoded in several different genres, so as to reach the widest audience possible. :P

From:

cahn

Tried to edit my comment but you'd already replied :D

selenak suggested I link you -- here are my reactions to watching Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), which also double as a synopsis, more or less. In the comments zdenka also links to a synopsis from her DW, which is a better synopsis and probably funnier as well :)

Basically, the plot is actually the history you have delineated in this thread, except that Verdi added a love triangle with a best friend (who is obviously my favorite! :D <3 ), who ends up joining the conspirators.

Also, Gustav in the opera is (apparently at least somewhat intentionally) written as totally bi, although I didn't clue into that when I first watched it (the direction didn't really make a thing of it).

From:

cahn

ahahaha the phrase clicks for me because of the rap :P (I mean, it might have anyway? But I immediately think "Out the gate, first servant of state!")

Yeah, AW seems kinda... perceptive, from what you guys have shared about him.

From:

cahn

Awwww. He sounds pretty great, actually! <3

(and, okay, I am now a sucker whenever anyone says that anyone was in a happy marriage! Regardless of whether it actually makes sense to believe them!)

From:

cahn

lol, you guys are amazing :D I feel like the two of you should write a book, you're chasing down all the evidence like you are!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Hahaha, that's what the rap is for! It's to make things so catchy they're unforgettable. :P I admit that despite knowing about and associating this phrase with Fritz for decades, that line now runs through my head too, and has been doing so throughout this whole conversation. I will also now never be able to hear the phrase "oblique order" without thinking "oblique attack tactics ain't exactly straight" either. :P

Pssst, what about a flute-bustin' Prussian?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Heeee. :DD Tbh, I'll be happy if one of us writes that curtain fic. (But seriously, is that not high on the list of sweetest things Fritz has ever come up with??)

Also, I refuse to write a book on Fritz until I can read both French and German, and that might take a while. :P

If we did convert these posts into a book, though, I think we could model it on 1066 and All That. 1740 and All That?

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, I wish Fritz had been more supportive of Fredersdorf's decision to get married, but I guess when you were forced into a loveless marriage and then your boyfriend leaves you, at least partly, for a happy marriage, being rational and mature about said marriage may not be your knee-jerk reaction. Even beyond your normal resentful attitude toward other people's marriages.

Also, if it was 1753, what else happened that year? Well, the big Voltaire implosion, and Algarotti scuttling away to Italy never to return. Once again, I feel like Fritz's mood and interpersonal relationships are having a chicken-egg effect here.

From:

selenak

There are actually several operas, though Verdi's won the test of time. I mean, if a King - one famous for his scandals, his opera love and opera financing, no less - gets assassinated - well, shot at - in the opera during a masque ball, you don't expect composers to resist, do you? Poor old Verdi and his librettists had to change their script several times, though, as by the 19th century censorship was very tetchy about the depiction of assassinations involving royalty. So Gustav first got demoted from Swedish King to Duke of Pomerania, and then, when censorship still wasn't satisfied and demanded the entire action to be transferred to another continent, he ended up as "Riccardo, Governor in Boston". Bet you didn't know the early Puritans partied like that, did you?

(These days, the opera is produced in both the rewritten and the original draft version.)

(This problem kept happening to Verdi. It's also why Rigoletto, which is based on Victor Hugo's novella Le Roi S'Amuse, got transfered to Mantua, with King Francis I. ending up as the anomymous Duke of Mantua. (Who doesn't die, but there is an assassination attempt. Like I said - tetchy censorship was tetchy.)

From:

selenak

I'll try, but I can't promise anything, I have to be careful not to break any spines. I'll message you if I succeed.

From:

selenak

Yes, I've got nothing. I mean, Ziebura gives these four letters and the diary entry ten years later as her sources, so I assume that's all that exists. She does think Fritz maligned Marwitz, but her basis for assuming this is that she identifies Marwitz the page with Marwitz the quatermaster from the Rheinsberg obelisk, and states that surely, Heinrich, decades later after he was well out of love, would not have done Marwitz the honor of being listed with AW and other military guys if he'd been an STD-ridden cheat? But a) the Marwitz family was unfortunately large, and b) it's entirely possible that a guy gets STD and still is an honorable man who years later proves his valor in the 7 Years War.

(Fontane, who did see the obelisk in its original state - due to two WWs, it had to be renovated and today there's only the inscription about AW, with the original inscriptions to the other wronged-by-Fritz military guys on separate plaques, or so the German internet says, I haven't been to Rheinsberg yet myself - transscribes all the inscriptions in his "Rheinsberg" chapter, and there, the only thing mentioned is what I already included in another comment - that Marwitz the quatermaster made a good call at Hochkirch.)

Now, given Heinrich later that year wants to go on the Grand Tour (in a military educational kind of way, ahem) and is refused permission by Fritz who mentions in the letter that Heinrich didn't talk to him for six months and "sulked", I dare say Ziebura is on firmer ground in stating this year was when Heinrich's attitude towards Fritz shifted to "oh, how I hate you, let me count the ways" from whatever it was before. (Harder to say how much or little he ever had hero worship the way teenage AW definitely did.)

Since Lehndorff's diary entry is the only source that outright was Fritz was after Marwitz hismelf, it is of course possible that he was mistaken about this. Otoh, this sentence from the letters, put into the mouth of Marwitz-as-imagined-by-Fritz - "Doesn't everyone have to love me, adore me, worship me? What, you little villain, you resist? You haven't yet put your heart at my feet?" - makes me think Fritz was at the very least attracted and rather wanted to blame the page for that, no matter whether or not the guy actually as much as flirted.

Armchair psychology alert: I doubt he had had much to do with Heinrich while Heinrich was still a child. (Heinrich was four years old when Katte died!) So basically, this younger brother is still a stranger, until the second Silesian war, when they start spending time in each other's proximity. And lo, it turns out that of all his siblings, Heinrich is the one most like him; he's basically a younger self. Simultanously to this, Fritz has his big estrangement period with the sibling he's closest to and grew up with, who treasured that younger self but now in his eyes keeps prioritizing other people over him. And there's the fact that Heinrich, while respectful towards him, isn't prioritizing him,either; Heinrich's beloved sibling of choice is AW. So our ever paranoid anti hero who is now is proving once and all Dad was mistaken in fearing Fritz would party his inheritance away and in regarding him as soft in general now decides to double down on that younger self because of all of the above.

(And then there's always the possibility of pure sexual envy. I mean, however much or little sex drive Fritz had, neither Heinrich nor AW were given to platonic relationships, and did have a sex life. Von Krockow thinks there's a parallel between Fritz wanting to spoil young Heinrich's Marwitz romance, and be it with sarcasm, and much later in the letter after AW's disgrace where Fritz makes things even worse with his "the only thing you're fit to command is a seraglio of court ladies!".) Of course Fritz didn't want the court ladies, and he might not even have wanted Marwitz in particular, but someone was having sex and getting affection here, and it wasn't him.)

Edited Date: 2019-11-29 01:00 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Re: FW and starting wars, in the first of his last wills, written 1722, he even explicitly wrote, addressing his sucessors (not just Fritz but any subsequent Prussian Kings). "I beg you not to start any wars of agression, for God has forbidden unjust wars, and you all must always justify yourself before God, for every single life taken in an unjust war."

(This is why I can't make up my mind about what FW would actually have thought of Frederick the Great. On the one hand: far from becoming a reborn F1, Fritz turns Prussia into a European power on a level with France, England, Russia and Austria. Yay! And he's as hard a worker on the throne as FW could ever have asked for. On the other hand: he's influencing his younger siblings to be anti-Church as well, freethinkers aren't just encouraged but invited into the country, and good lord, but do a lot of people die in wars he's mostly started: damnation surely is to follow.)

The two principalities FW thought he had a claim on were Berg and Jülich; if Fritz had started a war about them, it would not completely have surprised people. Whereas Silesia...

Edited Date: 2019-11-29 12:34 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

Okay, I picked up the Burgdorf bio this morning and raced through it, with special attention to the two pages you indicate.

The passage on page 83 reads: "At their first meeting after his flight and capture on August 15th 1731 in Küstrin, his father asked: "Did you seduce Katte, or did Katte seduce you?"" German word is "Verführen", as guessed. Also, FW is quoted saying "du", so he must be talking in German. "Friedrich claimed the guilt was his. The protocol of this meeting leaves it ambigous whether the question refers solely to the attempted flight, or also to the "horrible sins", at which the various interrogations had repeatedly hinted at."

Re: the Marwitz episode, that's a bust, Burgdorf just gives an abbreviated version of Ziebura's version, he doesn't even quote the letters, just Lehndorff's diary entry.

In general, I'm less than impressed by this book. I mean, yes, it's an unambious "Fritz was gay, gay, and did I mention, gay?", but he often writes speculation as fact without providing any sources to back this up. For example, re: Orzelska, he says they met in Dresden, hit it off and started "a life long correspondance in letters". (? This is news to me. Have not seen a single letter to or from Orzelska quoted in any biography so far.) Then Burgdorf adds that any thought Fritz actually slept with her even once has clearly to be a fairy tale conjured up by 19th century Prussian historians in a desperate attempt to make their hero less gay. Now, do I think later historians (and not just 19th century ones) jumped at the Orzelska episode, along with poor Doris Ritter, as one of the few examples of Fritz showing interest in a woman he's not related to and who could possibly constructed as a romantic object out of homophobia? Sure. But the thing is, said historians didn't make this up out of nothing. Fritz in a letter to Voltaire unambigously claims to have been in love with her. Wilhelmine said he came back from Dresden very pleased with himself and having had sex with her. Now Fritz could have been lying about this to Voltaire and Wilhelmine both, absolutely. But for Burgdorf not as much as reference the claim and pretend it was all an invention by later historians is disingenious.

And he keeps doing this. After quoting Wilhelmine's unflattering early assessment of Katte, he adds this negative opinion "was purely jealousy, as Wilhelmine had fallen for Katte herself". Ooookay. I mean, again: I, too, did wonder, whether in addition to resenting Katte for the same reason she had resented Keith before him - possessiveness of Fritz' time and attention -, she herself might have felt attracted to Katte and therefore been extra hostile. But that's speculation. He presents it without any "if" or "maybe" or "it could be possible, that...", just as a statement of fact, and there isn't as much as a footnote indicating where he has that from.

Hence me being less than impressed, alas. And not knowing he reliable is in matters I don't have previous background knowledge of, like, for example, a statemtn like: "The King's love could be deadly. Katte wasn't the only one who lost his life. A young officer, Gregorii, shot himself when Friedrich turned towards a new favourite." Again, no footnote indicating where this story is from.

One useful information I didn't know before which appears to be genuine: after Fredersdorf had died, Fritz asked his widow to return his (i.e. Fritz') letters. She did send two packages of letters back which were duly burnt, but as it turns out kept the majority of letters, which meant we still have them; they were not published until 1926, though.

The other new to me thing was that the "Prussian Pompadour" designation for Fredersdorf which I had read in articles before hails from none other than Ernst von Lehndorff, EC's chamberlain and Heinrich's friend-with-benefits, who writes in his diary in a 1757 entry that he finds it amazing that a "common man" (reminder: Fredersdorf was not a noble) "had played the role of prime minister for so long", ascribes it to him having had "a very pretty face" for a start and having had the wisdom "to withdraw in time, which is a delicate matter for men who have a position otherwise given to a beautiful woman who has to notice when her beauty starts to fade".

(My dear Lord Chamberlain, the Marquise famously held her position long beyond Louis' sexual interest, till her death. Just saying.)

Edited Date: 2019-11-29 12:28 pm (UTC)

From:

selenak

and if Wilhelmine and Fritz had been there I feel like they might have pointed out that they could both be the worst to different people?? I feel like W and F kind of understood that??

Hm, yes and no. I think that depends on when in their lives they were thinking about their parents? As long as both are still alive, it's worth noting Fritz always in his letters gives a kind of weather report to Bayreuth, i.e. "the Queen has gone somewhat cold on you" or "The Queen loves you", ditto for FW, and there is the one remark I quoted earlier to Mildred re: "it's impossible to make one happy without aggrieving the other" from 1733 or 1734. But there is absolutely nothing from him in any book I've read to equal Wilhelmine's most bitter statement - not given to Fritz - about her mother, that SD loved none of her children and was only using them as means to an end. Not that this was always Wilhelmine's consistent opinion, either; the lengthier characterisation she gives of SD in the memoirs does describe her with positive qualities as well bad ones.

They're more consistent in their FW opinion, both in the sense of regarding him as a menace to their lives and in being simultanously in awe of him and on some level never stopping to want him to be proud of them. But at least for Fritz, I would say post FW's death he has a "no one gets to diss my father but me" attitude. And Wilhelmine might kill off her father's avatar in Argenore after making that character sing about how he's destroyed his son and daughter, she might secretely write her memoirs painting her father as an abusive bastard - but she also was capable of writing "I am my father's daughter, I can face anything" early in the 7 Years War, i.e. retrospectively classifying those years of abuse as something she's currently drawing strength from in her miserable state.

So how would they have reacted had they been present in Wusterhausen? I suspect Wilhelmine would have tried to shut down the discussion early on, knowing nothing good could come of it, and she wouldn't have given her own opinion, but if Fritz afterwards, outside of everyone's earshot, had said something along the lines of "can you believe Amalie maligning Mom like that?", she might have replied "Well, Mom was a good mother...to you."

(Further tidbit from the Heinrich biography: SD visits Rheinsberg for the first time about a year or two after Heinrich has got it from Fritz as a main residence. Heinrich throws her a party much as AW has done in Oranienburg. SD: "How beautiful everything is here! How wonderfully well, with so much taste your brother has made this place his own. He truly is a marvel.")

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I agree with everything you say here. Unfortunately, we may know everything we're going to know about the Marwitz episode, which would mean all claims by biographers to have a clear account of what was going on are mistaken (which would hardly be a first). That would also explain why secondary accounts contradict each other. (Of course, why biographers can't just *say* we don't know instead of making up narratives...)

She does think Fritz maligned Marwitz, but her basis for assuming this is that she identifies Marwitz the page with Marwitz the quatermaster from the Rheinsberg obelisk, and states that surely, Heinrich, decades later after he was well out of love, would not have done Marwitz the honor of being listed with AW and other military guys if he'd been an STD-ridden cheat? But a) the Marwitz family was unfortunately large, and b) it's entirely possible that a guy gets STD and still is an honorable man who years later proves his valor in the 7 Years War.

What? Didn't Seydlitz have an STD? Yes, Wikipedia says syphilis. There is no logical connection between the two!

Since Lehndorff's diary entry is the only source that outright was Fritz was after Marwitz hismelf, it is of course possible that he was mistaken about this. Otoh, this sentence from the letters, put into the mouth of Marwitz-as-imagined-by-Fritz - "Doesn't everyone have to love me, adore me, worship me? What, you little villain, you resist? You haven't yet put your heart at my feet?" - makes me think Fritz was at the very least attracted and rather wanted to blame the page for that, no matter whether or not the guy actually as much as flirted.

Agreed on both counts. And there's a good chance Fritz was attracted but had no interest in acting on the attraction. Which does not mean he wanted the object of his attraction being more attracted to someone else, especially younger self.

Von Krockow thinks there's a parallel between Fritz wanting to spoil young Heinrich's Marwitz romance, and be it with sarcasm, and much later in the letter after AW's disgrace where Fritz makes things even worse with his "the only thing you're fit to command is a seraglio of court ladies!".) Of course Fritz didn't want the court ladies, and he might not even have wanted Marwitz in particular, but someone was having sex and getting affection here, and it wasn't him.)

This, and the part where if any of his friends (see also Fredersdorf, Catt) wanted to get married, he got pretty ticked off about that. He was less awful toward other people's love lives than FW was toward his, but that's about all you can say. He clearly resented the heck out of anyone having more success in that department than he did.

I think my take on FW-Fritz is that Fritz was not broken by his father, as is so often claimed, but emotionally stunted. As in, he was able to hold on to his own sense of self, but did not develop certain kinds of emotional maturity that he might otherwise have. (Which, after scrolling through volume 2 of the Catt memoirs for my map-making work, I see Fritz has now said *twice* to Catt.)

Also, a little digression on Fredersdorf, since he's been on my mind...it's entirely possible that those two had a satisfying, loving romantic relationship with as much sex as Fritz's sex drive was interested in (we will never know how much of that was trauma vs. personality, of course), and Fritz was *still* nasty about other people's relationships. It's not like relationships magically cure PTSD. And it's possible Fredersdorf *still* decided to get married after twenty years together--for one thing, they seem to have been seeing less of each other by that point, due to Fritz's constant travel and Fredersdorf's illnesses.

But the combination of all these factors makes me think that Fritz might not have been getting something he needed on the romantic front. Maybe he was, and it was just deep-seated trauma that meant that nothing would have been enough short of therapy. Maybe he and Fredersdorf had everything Fritz could possibly have wanted, and it still wasn't enough to let him be chill about everyone else's relationship success, because relationships are not therapy.

But given the circumstances under which Fredersdorf and Fritz met--in Küstrin, right after Katte's death, while Fritz was being watched closely and his movements reported to FW...that might not have been the best time to kick off a homosexual/homoromantic relationship with someone you didn't want to lose. Maybe, between Keith and Katte, Fritz had learned to hold back, to protect his significant relationships.

Maybe Fritz spent those twenty some years together consciously or subconsciously longing for something he didn't have, and I'm not talking sex here so much as relationship security. And maybe that's because Fredersdorf wasn't that way inclined, and maybe he was, but Fritz was holding back, or otherwise unable to figure out how to get his emotional needs met in a relationship. Which meant everyone around him who did, was going to suffer his displeasure.

This is wild, wild speculation and fanon rather than headcanon--i.e. one possible option among many. But it's my take on Fritz/Fredersdorf.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

But at least for Fritz, I would say post FW's death he has a "no one gets to diss my father but me" attitude.

This. This is exactly Fritz post-FW's death. And Fritz goes overboard trying to be fair to FW, praising him to the skies as king and downplaying the abuse (while still acknowledging it).

I suspect Wilhelmine would have tried to shut down the discussion early on, knowing nothing good could come of it, and she wouldn't have given her own opinion, but if Fritz afterwards, outside of everyone's earshot, had said something along the lines of "can you believe Amalie maligning Mom like that?", she might have replied "Well, Mom was a good mother...to you."

That seems plausible to me.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Thank you! What I ended up doing with the Lady Mary/Algarotti letters was holding the book open with one hand, so one side of the book is lying flat and the other sticking straight into the air, at a 90 degree angle, and taking a picture of the flat bit with my phoe. It resulted in some wavy and slanted text, but readable, and didn't bend the spine, compared to pressing it flat in a scanner.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

started "a life long correspondance in letters". (? This is news to me. Have not seen a single letter to or from Orzelska quoted in any biography so far.)

What. (Trier doesn't have anything either. WTF, author.)

Then Burgdorf adds that any thought Fritz actually slept with her even once has clearly to be a fairy tale conjured up by 19th century Prussian historians in a desperate attempt to make their hero less gay.

What.

he adds this negative opinion "was purely jealousy, as Wilhelmine had fallen for Katte herself".

What.

"The King's love could be deadly. Katte wasn't the only one who lost his life. A young officer, Gregorii, shot himself when Friedrich turned towards a new favourite."

What. Like you say, it may be true, but it's news to me. Citation required. Also, shooting yourself when your boyfriend moves on (why?) is not exactly comparable to being executed by your boyfriend's father.

after Fredersdorf had died, Fritz asked his widow to return his (i.e. Fritz') letters. She did send two packages of letters back which were duly burnt, but as it turns out kept the majority of letters, which meant we still have them; they were not published until 1926, though.

Okay, that's interesting. Friiitz! Inquiring minds need to know about your relationship with Fredersdorf ~~so we can write curtain fic~~.

(My dear Lord Chamberlain, the Marquise famously held her position long beyond Louis' sexual interest, till her death. Just saying.)

Maybe he's implying that she needs to step down too? :P Wikipedia tells me 1757 was 6 years after she ceased to be official chief mistress, which would mean he moved on sexually when she was about 30, and she's 35 now. (Lehndorff can hardly be held responsible for knowing in 1757 that she would still be influential in 1764, but yes, he should know about the last 6 years, though he may be stating his disapproval.) At any rate, he seems to be indicating that the stepping down was voluntary on Fredersdorf's part.

Okay, found the relevant passage in his diaries online: "His sickness, his jealousy of the famous Glasow*, his wealth, and especially his desire to live quietly, made him beg the king until he relieved him of all his offices." I really want to know what the primary source is for Fredersdorf's involuntary dismissal on grounds of dishonesty. Hopefully the letters will clear that up when they arrive.

Anyway, Burgdorf seems highly unreliable. I am not impressed.

Glasow: I had to refresh myself, but he was apparently a private soldier in the infantry with a pretty face, turned Fritz's favorite starting in 1755, then he ended up in Spandau in 1757 with no reason given. Secondary sources give two accounts: 1) he was part of a plot to poison Fritz, 2) he used his Fritz's seal in an unauthorized manner to issue orders of his own. The same source that says he used to be required to sleep in Fritz's bedroom is the same sources that other sources dismiss as unreliable for the poisoning account. It's pretty clear we have no idea what's going on here, even my secondary sources say that.

Man, I need to reread all the Fritz bios in e-book form. It's only been a few months since my last stint, but thanks to our discussion, there are so many things I actually have context for now that might jump out at me as interesting, like the monkey episode that I had apparently entirely forgotten when I read it the first time (because I had no one to share cool things with). As I was scrolling through volume 1 of Catt yesterday, I was realizing all the military details that I had skimmed because it was a bunch of meaningless place names, now have meaning to me. Totally unexpected side benefit of all that map work. So now I want to reread volume 1.

But! First I need to finish said map-making, and then I need to get my health sorted so I have the concentration to read even e-books again.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, my take on FW looking back on Frederick the Great is that he has to struggle with a lot of cognitive dissonance. In my reincarnation AU, he ends up ignoring the parts he didn't like, since it's too late to change them, and taking credit for the parts he does like.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Btw, I knew he didn't start any wars, but I didn't realize he had made a statement of principle against it. My take on his attitude toward Fritz's wars was always based on his insistence that young Fritz must have it drummed into his head that the best way for a prince to win honor and glory was by the sword. I guess good for him for not wanting that to be done as the aggressor?

If you were a soldier in FW's army, you might have been kidnapped for your body size or otherwise gang pressed, but you had a pretty good chance of survival, which, err, changed once his successor got on the throne.

Especially if you were kidnapped for reasons of body height! You were for painting and parading around, not for risking in battle. Fritz's death tolls: *grimace*

Also, meant to say, re dying in his uniform: teenage Fritz would have found that an appropriate use for the Sterbekittel!

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