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

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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

Oh wow, that AW quote. :( <3 And Heinrich's too, although in a different more specifically-Fritz-bitter way -- but AW's view of war in general is just heartbreaking to me.

From:

selenak

Same here. It also goes directly against the "well-meaning, dumb jock" image 19th century historians have given him. If you want a bit more heartbreak, Fontane points out that before their fall-out, despite the bossing around, Fritz actually showed consistently signs of being fond of AW, for that praise-and-instruction poem from his crown prince time turns out not to have been a singular event: "(Fritz) dedicated his great poem to him. "The art of war," he also dedicated to him "The History of Our House" and pronounced it in the masterful introduction of this work in front of the whole world and the future, why he held this brother, who was to succeed him, especially dear as both friend and prince. "The gentleness, the humanity of your character, is what I treasure; a heart open to friendship is above sublime ambition; you know no commandment other than justice, and no other will, than the desire to earn the esteem of the wise. "

Fontane's summary of the disastrous event: As my readers know, Prince August Wilhelm was put in command of those troops who were to withdraw to Lausitz; Winterfeldt was added to him. Things went badly, and when the two brothers met again, that terrible scene took place, which Count Schwerin, Winterfeldt's adjutant, described as follows: "A circle of witnesses was formed in which the prince and all his generals stood. Not the king entered the circle, but Winterfeldt instead of him. On the King's orders he had to say: 'They would all deserve to have a council of war over their conduct, where they would not escape the dictum of losing their heads; however, the King did not want to push it so far, because he did not forget his brother in the General. "The King was standing near the circle," continues Count Schwerin, "and paid attention as to whether Winterfeldt was using the expressions demanded of him. Winterfeldt did so, but with a shudder, and he could at once see the impression of his words, for the prince immediately left the circle and rode to Bautzen without speaking to the King."

Now how much of this was scapegoating for a military disaster, or correct blame for a military disaster, or at long last channelling some buried resentment toward's Dad's favorite, or channelling his father in the worst way, or all and any of this, biographers have been debating ever since.

From:

cahn

ugh ugh ugh FRITZ

From this description I could totally see him thinking that he had done right by AW, like, "what is your problem?? I would totally have been justified in killing him outright and I DIDN'T and look I'm just a merciful kind of guy why are you all so mad at me??"

FRITZ YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT