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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Which would fit with the general Obelisk theme of "People who were fucked over by Fritz" in a metaphorical, not literal way better.

Yeah, I'm going to go with "probably the military context," but you never know. At least one biographer seems to think the Marwitz episode is when Heinrich's hatred of Fritz started, so..."Oh, how I hate you, let this obelisk count the ways."

Btw, it occurred to me that on the subject of the Fritz/Heinrich and FW/Fritz parallels, my feelings in this fandom can be summed up thusly:

Re Fritz: Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Re FW: HATE the sinner!

That's fair, right? :P

the four letters from Fritz to Heinrich re: Marwitz the hot page were written in March 1746

My sources also say March 1746. I went to look at his personal correspondence to reread the letters in question (I don't remember them being fully enlightening last time, but weak French + Google was probably not helping)--and I couldn't find them. I had "Marwitz" in my search history, proving that I did look them up before, but this time I'm only seeing a handful of letters from 1745-1746, and none of them seem to involve hot pages, and none of the 1746 ones are dated.

I'm terribly confused, because I could have sworn I read at least the letter where Fritz was saying "gonorrhea and flabby body" to Heinrich, and have some vague memory of the letter beyond that line...and yet now I can't find it. Perhaps I read it quoted somewhere else? I know I was looking into the lust triangle episode a while back. Anyway. I'm sure we'll get it sorted one day, thanks to your diligent efforts!

Also. March 1746 is not just the time of the Wilhelmine/Margrave/Marwitz love triangle. I *just* realized. It's also, generally speaking, the time of Darget.

As recounted here, December 1745 is when the French send Darget to (allegedly) try to seduce Fritz into not abandoning their alliance; January 1746 is when Darget comes to Berlin to ~~make an alliance of his own~~ be Fritz's librarian. So now I'm imagining...

Fritz: Look, I just won a war and my people are calling me "the Great"--of course I'm super revved up. Ima look at some pretty boys and build a palace, fuck yeah. \o/

Chronology is everything. :-PPP

(Also Fritz around this time: Hey, Algarotti!)

Apparantly he liked to look at the occasional corpse in Rheinsberg. But not until some make-up had been put on the dead fellow to make him look less corpse-like.

...I mean, at this point all I can do is stare at him and go, "I guess that's far from the weirdest thing a Hohenzollern ever did. You do you, Heinrich." (Do you need some therapy?)

it's sweet, but also yet another example of 'you two were a scandal that never happened due to your orientation'

Oh, you Hohenzollerns.

So when you said Heinrich and AW had a relationship of the same intensity as Fritz/Wilhelmine, and this time one has the right orientation and the other is bi according to at least one gossipy sensationalist...does that mean Heinrich/AW scandal fodder yes/no/maybe?

From:

selenak

The problem is that someone removed all the AW/Heinrich correspondance from the archives. Now it's entirely possible that they burned their respective letters themselves. (After all, that's why we don't have any Wilhelmine letters pre late 1732, even discounting the big letter fire of 1730 - Fritz burned them all at her request for FW reasons - and hardly any Fritz letters - ditto.) But it's also possible the letters were destroyed later. But it's still odd that their correspondances with practically every other family member survives in large parts, including some explicit "Fritz sucks!" letters to brother Ferdinand.

re: AW's sexuality, Ziebura doesn't mention any m/m affairs for him, but she certainly describes him as an ally in this regard. Because, you see, with his usual talent of picking teachers for his kids who were supposed to do one thing and who did then just the opposite when his back was turned, FW hired a steward for teenage AW and his kid brothers Heinrich and Ferdinand who was supposed to ensure their utter chastity, one Lt. von Kreyzen. Writes FW, in a letter still preserved:

To that end, he must never let Prince Wilhelm sleep alone at night, he shall sleep in the same room as the prince, always, and he must see and be responsible for the Prince Wilhelm not to go to whores, fornicate, or commit silent sins. (...) If he visits places with the prince, he is never to leave him alone. The prince is to talk to everyone but never to have any sinful discourses.

I take it "silent sins" means masturbation. Now, you probably guessed where this is going: Kreyzen turns out to be gay. Very gay. As for sinful discourses, here's AW some years later, writing to brother Ferdinand who at that point is the sole one left in von Kreyzen's charge, inviting the both of them to visit him, AW, at the military revue in Spandau, and adding as a postscript/inducement to Kreyzen: "I'm holding a beautiful ass and fleshy tighs ready for him." And at another opportunity, writing to Kreyzen directly: "My prettiest fellows expect your thick priapus full of impatience."

Edited Date: 2019-11-25 07:11 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

FW hired a steward for teenage AW and his kid brothers Heinrich and Ferdinand who was supposed to ensure their utter chastity

Oh LOLOLOL it's Keyserlingk all over again!

cahn, FW did the same thing with Fritz. The guy appointed to sleep next to teenage Fritz and keep him chaste, as well as well-behaved by FW standards in general, ended up being gay (probably? definitely?), well educated and cultured, and named in future Fritz's list of "the 6 I have loved the most."

Man. Whatever the opposite of gaydar is, FW had an unerring instinct for it, didn't he?

From:

selenak

No kidding. Incidentally, you probably know this, but von Krockow's double portrait with introductory FW chapter has reminded me again: back when FW took up pastel painting as a late hobby (not least due to being incapacitated so much by his various illnesses), he portrayed every. single. Potsdam. Giant. I mean.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Really? Omg, I knew he painted them, but I had not learned or forgotten it was every single one.

OMG, FW, your kids are all showing signs of being attracted to each other and/or their nieces, and you're drooling over your tall guards, HALP.

From:

selenak

And the uncle/niece marriage was still way more functional than the one of that girl's parents. I mean, due to being the youngest of the FW/SD brood, Ferdinand was only eight years older than his niece. (He was born in 1730, the year of doom.) (Something to keep in mind about SD, too, of course, that she was pregnant during some of that year, though by the time Fritz tried to escape baby Ferdinand was already there.) And they actually got along. Meanwhile, his poor older sister Sophie had been married to that same 19 years older Margrave of Schwedt whom Wilhelmine absolutely did not want (nicknamed "the mad Margrave" for good reason), and then, according to Wiki: The relationship of the couple was not happy. Sophia often fled to the protection of her brother King Frederick. The latter did not stop at friendly admonitions, but sent General Meir to Schwedt with unlimited authority to protect the margravine from insult. Eventually they lived in separate places: Sophia lived in the castle Montplaisir, and the Margrave lived in the castle of Schwedt.

Go Fritz, I suppose? Doing something nice for a sibling who isn't Wilhelmine? On the other hand, Wiki also says, re: Fritz and this brother-in-law in general (who was also his cousin): In contrast to his father's policy Frederick II sought to distance himself from his Schwedt cousins, humiliating them at every chance. He made them unwelcome at his court, undermined the margrave's authority in his own dominions by encouraging complaints and lawsuits by his tenants and neighbours and, most effectively, he marginalised the position of the Schwedt brothers within the Prussian army. Margrave Frederick William was removed from command in the army.

....Yeah, Elisabeth Luise (aka the niece) sure grew up in a peaceful family atmosphere, alright.

From:

cahn

Oh no, she got married to that Margrave? The only things I know about him are what Wilhelmine said in her memoirs, but he... did not sound good. Bad enough that Wilhelmine was like "yeah, I would actually rather hang out with my super abusive parents a while longer than marry you, even given that one of them is abusing me even more for not taking you. Thanks but no thanks."

From:

selenak

Indeed, that's the one poor Sophie ended up with. Now, the reasons why FW absolutely wanted to have him as a son-in-law were three fold. On the hand, it was strategic, because the von Schwedts were actually Hohenzollerns from a younger branch of the family, which meant that if by some misfortunate Fritz and all his siblings had been struck by lightning before they could procreate, this guy would have ended up on the Prussian throne, as a prince of the blood. (Fritz has a very sarcastic comment about princes of the blood in general in his political testament.) As the von Schwedts were ambitious, giving them one of the princesses basically bound them to the royal family in FW's mind, instead of giving them reason to plot against it. Secondly, that Margrave, between loving to hunt, loving to drink beer and loving rough pranks was just FW's type of fellow. And thirdly, the very fact that Milhelmine had refused him, given how FW related to his two oldest children at that point.

He was, however, sick during the actual wedding, which meant Fritz was the one who gave Sophie away in church. And if he provided her with an authorized knight to shield her from Schwedt's abuse, I'd say Fritz must have had a pretty clear idea about what that brother-in-law was like from the beginning, too.

Like I said: among the choices she had, Wilhelmine clearly picked the right guy.

From:

cahn

Like I said: among the choices she had, Wilhelmine clearly picked the right guy.

Yeeeeeah. Ugh.

Secondly, that Margrave, between loving to hunt, loving to drink beer and loving rough pranks was just FW's type of fellow.

I'm just... okay, it sucks that Sophie ended up with him, but I'm still really glad Wilhelmine didn't. I had this visceral reaction to "just like FW" and thinking about Wilhelmine with him :(

From:

cahn

WHAT
...yeah, have I mentioned repressed? OMG.

From:

cahn

OMG. Oh FW. LOL. Everything you tell me about him makes me think more and more that he was repressing all kinds of things :P ("This guy seems ~~attractive~~ ~~like someone I'd like to see around the place~~ like a good steward for my teenage boy!")

From:

mildred_of_midgard

OMG LOOOOOL I love your take on this! That could totally be it!

From:

cahn

Heh. I suppose it isn't exactly FW's fault, and of course I'm getting a biased view here with most of my info coming from people who like Fritz and don't like FW :P but he doesn't seem to really have the endearing qualities Fritz does. (And for all his extremely many faults, he did have endearing qualities.)

(This is, of course, a dare for both of you! Prove me wrong :P :D )
(I do not find the Potsdam giants endearing, I find them disturbing.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

My biggest problem is that I find Fritz's extremely many faults endearing too, seeing as how he is safely long dead and thus practically fictional in my mental ontology. I'm now more inclined to see them as faults than I was as a teenager *cough*, but they still give me warm and fuzzies as long as they aren't actively harming anyone currently living. (Everyone in the 18th century just lived in hell, that's all there is to it.)

I mean, between the fact that I'm still fascinated by military history, and the fact that I sometimes outright cheer for the villains in movies...Fritz fits right into my brain's "problematic faves <333" slot, and he hasn't budged yet.

Prove me wrong :P :D

Ahem.

selenak can prove you wrong, if she likes. I'm standing over here glaring at FW and hugging Fritz and Katte protectively. (And whispering in Fritz's ear, or more accurately having my Athena muse whisper, "You know, if you did such-and-such, you could probably hold Silesia with a lower death toll, and maybe Bohemia and Saxony too." While glancing shiftily around in case my actual principles can hear me. :PP)

(Athena's backstory with FW in this unwritten AU has kind of a hilarious intersection with some of today's topics, and it's been making me laugh.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So when I say, "hate the sin," I mean on principle, not why I'm in this fandom. Purely from a fandom perspective, I'm more like: "Go and sin no lots more!" :-PP

From:

selenak

I don't know about endearing, though if you like, you could use "FW, surprise! midwife" here - according to Wilhelmine, SD hadn't realised she was pregnant with Amalie until shortly before giving birth, because she thought it was the change and the stress and she was at last past childbirth, which meant there were zilch preparations, which meant when baby Amalie came, SD had to be birth assisted by one lady in waiting and her husband, who didn't budge and came through on that occasion.

But while Prussia's foremost abusive father, FW certainly was remarkable, and not in the ironic or "remarkably awful" sense, and prettty much unique among the princes of his time, in applying hardcore protestant work ethics to himself as well as his entire kingdom, making having a sense of duty, of service to the state, as a part of national self definition in a way that was not there for any other realm of the era. Even Peter the Great, that other worker and reformer on the throne of FW's generation, didn't abandon personal splendour (I mean, during military campaigns he did, but not when residing somewhere); FW took the whole "restoring my overdebted kingdom" thing to mean "thriftiness starts with me".) Von Krockow makes an intriguing comparison to Robesspierre, starting with a quote comparison daring the reader to guess whether it was FW or Max the revolutionary who said this, and I can totally see his point. They are pretty similar both in the ways they are remarkable and in the ways they are appalling, and FW was a revolutionary from the top in the context of his time and what he was trying to achieve.

(The quote: "We want to replace egoism by moral in our country, honor by decency, habits by princples, etiquette by duty, enforced tradition by the rule of common sense, the condemnation of misfortune by the condamnation of vice (...) and so-called good society by good people.")

(Obvious problem for both FW and Robespierre, and all ideologues - zero tolerance towards people who didn't want to be reformed to their way of thinking.)

Another unironic remarkable thing about FW is that for all his militarization of an entire country, and his army fetish, he didn't start a single war. He only fought in wars others had started, usually in his capacity of being a prince of the HRE and being called for duty by MT's dad. Now you'd think that once he had created the most modern army of Europe, he'd been dying to try it out, not least because there were two pieces of land he thought he had a claim on (neither of them Silesia btw) and hoped, in vain, MT's dad would give him as reward for his consistent loyalty, but no. 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.

(Von Krockow in his ponderings on Prussia per se states that for good or ill, the emergence of Prussia as a European power and its subsequent rise to THE German power, dominating all the others and changing them in its image, really depended on the combination of FW and Fritz as monarchs following each other. If F1 had been followed by a successor like himself, Prussia had never become more than a tiny overindebted principality with delusions of grandeur for calling itself a kingdom instead of a dukedom. If FW had been followed by "an avarage, or just an honorable man", then "Maria Theresia ascends to the throne untroubled, the Pragmatic Sanction holds" because no one wants to be the first to break it, and "Prussia remains a third rate German principality", financially sound and with a great civil service for a generation, true, but not in any way a model for any of the others. Again, an argument can be made that this would have been better in the long term. But it is not what happened, and I can see von Krockow's point - which is not his alone but a pretty popular one among traditional historians - that the entirety of subsequent German history depended on that father-son combination.

Lastly, an anecdote he quotes about FW's death, which you may or may not find endearing: On his deathbed the pious soldier had a choral being sung for him, the song by Paul Gerhardt "Warum sollt ich mich grämen? Hab ich doch Christum noch..." ("Why should I mourn? For I have Christ with me...") In the second verse, the lines go "Nude I lie on the floor/as I came into this world, took my first breath/ nude will I leave it..." When hearing these words, the pain-tormented majesty rose once more and thundered: "What do you mean, nude? I arrive, of course, in uniform!"

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yes, yes, he's a respectable *king*, as kings go. I think we are all forced to admit that. Even Fritz was. (Well, Fritz had a certain amount of survivor Stockholm Syndrome, but still.) And yes, that father-son combination being responsible for subsequent German history is an argument that I've always found compelling. (Again, agreed that it was not necessarily a good thing--and unlike many, I don't think it depends on the father-son dynamics, just the individual personalities.)

I still hate him, though. :P

BUUUUT, I have to admit that last uniform anecdote is pretty great. I wish it were from someone I actually liked. Ahem.

From:

cahn

Hmm, okay, thank you! And, right, some of that FW-as-king I should have remembered, from when you talked to me about Schiller!Philip :)

That is kind of cool actually that he didn't start any wars, especially compared to Fritz. And really interesting about the FW-Fritz combination.

there were two pieces of land he thought he had a claim on (neither of them Silesia btw)

...this is totally hilarious.

OK, FW as surprise midwife is kind of endearing, actually. And hee, the story about his death is totally awesome (although I might fall short of calling it endearing, lol).

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:

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!

From:

mildred_of_midgard

So remember our friend the shepherd at Neuruppin, whom Fritz was offering to kidnap? One of my bios actually says--no citation given--that the attempt to take him alive failed, and he was shot to death, "but Frederick gained credit for trying." I don't see this in Fontane, but let's just have another moment of silence for poor 6 foot 4 guy minding his sheep.

I am also reminded that this was not just PTSD-ed son independently trying to appease his father, but an expectation of all commanders in the Prussian army to supply FW with their quota of tall soldiers for his viewing pleasure.

*silence for everyone impressed into the Prussian army under father or son*

From:

selenak

Nope, Fontane does not mention the poor guy died. Also, what you said. Alas.

Wilhelmine's father-in-law the old Margrave, btw, was understandably pissed off when the tall-guy-napping by Prussian "recruiters" started in his realm as well, and hit the roof when it got him into trouble with the neighbouring principality of Bamberg (aka my hometown), because naturally those Prussian "recruiters" did not always pay attention to borders, and thus ended up kidnapping a subject of the Prince Bishop of Bamberg, who was decidedly NOT willing to provice one of his people for the King in Prussia to drool over.

Add to this that this was while FW was simultanously bullying his new son-in-law, and Team Bayreuth must have wondered whether they should not have married Bayreuth Friedrich to ANYONE ELSE but a Prussian princess. It's to future Margrave's credit he never took it out on her.

(Note, Hohenzollern brothers: it's possible not to relieve your own trauma/anger/frustration by taking it out on your wives. See newest book report below.)

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

From:

cahn - Date: 2019-12-02 09:23 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2019-12-03 05:50 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

From:

selenak - Date: 2019-12-04 05:26 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: More Book Reports: AW bio, Fritz and Heinrich double portrait/lengthy essay

From:

mildred_of_midgard - Date: 2019-12-03 05:53 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

cahn

Heh. I just think that FW would have hated Frederick the Great. I don't think he would have gotten over his visceral hate of Fritz as a child, and there's certainly enough there, as you say, that he could find plenty to justify that hate.

But that quote about wars is... actually... kind of endearing to me. FINE.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Oh, but what you don't know is that when FW was dying, he said that he had every reason to worry that young Fritz would have made a terrible king and squandered his inheritance, but current Fritz was going to do just fine and he couldn't have hoped for a better heir.

Fritz: *stares at Dad*

Fritz: *cries*

HEAVILY implied "See, my ~~abuse~~ ~~trauma~~ rehabilitation worked!" (Which was also the discourse of Prussian historians for, like, forever. Including the devoutly Protestant homophobic ones.)

That's why I think he looks for the parts he likes, takes credit, and tries to overlook what he can't change, while occasionally muttering darkly to himself. (I mean, once you've reincarnated him, there's the whole theology question, but I'm not interested enough in FW to figure out *what* he would have made of the eternal damnation aspect. Oh, and I'm not letting him *around* Fritz in this AU. They stay on opposite sides of the planet, and FW quickly kicks it ~~in a highly satisfying manner~~ before that can change. :P)

Also, huh. This reminded me strongly of the Fritz/Heinrich dynamic when Fritz was dying and having a cunning plan to keep Heinrich from feeling relieved once he kicked it. Well, he was relieved, but also immediately started talking Dad up to everyone, including Wilhelmine.