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

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.)

From:

cahn

...it is super sad and WTF about these tall shepherds, and at the same time, from centuries of remove, I also kind of find it macabrely funny. (Not for the shepherds, of course.)

Man, Wilhelmine really did luck out -- by which I mean, married someone who wasn't horribly awful and/or had awful PTSD or both -- wow, my standards for 18thC marriage (from the woman's perspective) are super low. And probably still too high :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Yeah, it's like Fritz/Voltaire: the more you empathize with everyone as real people, the more tragic it is; the more you view it from centuries of remove as practically fictional, the more comic it is.

Man, Wilhelmine really did luck out

Yeah, just cheating on your wife with her best friend gets you like an A-, when grading on the curve of other men in 18th century marriages!

How much childhood trauma did the Margrave have? Not to defend the Hohenzollerns, but childhood trauma vs. conflicts with equals beginning in adulthood makes a big, big difference to general fucked-up-ness. (It is possible to be deeply traumatized and not take it out on other people, of course, but the deck is stacked more against you with childhood trauma--which is almost word for word what Fritz told Catt, not just about himself but when observing other people who shared his anger management issues.)

From:

selenak

How much childhood trauma did the Margrave have?

The answer to this question is found in a reply at the latest post, she says with an evil laugh, here.

Edited Date: 2019-12-04 05:34 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I guess all these lives taken during the kidnapping of tall men were taken justly, and God is A-OK with that? I mean, granted the death count is way smaller than the Silesian wars, but if you have to account for each and every one...I hope God is an understanding repressed homosexual himself. ~~There were giants on the earth in those days.~~

ETA: I meant to say, nice use of "King in Prussia" there!

Edited Date: 2019-12-03 05:55 am (UTC)

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.

From:

cahn

O.M.G.

So, like, I was feeling a little more sorry for FW due to asking you guys for good stories about him, but NOW I DON'T ANY MORE.

...yeah, I can now totally see the parallels to what selenak has been telling us about Fritz/Heinrich.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

The thing is, just because you're horribly abusive to someone doesn't mean that you 1) don't also have warm-and-fuzzy feelings toward them, 2) aren't wildly inconsistent in your treatment of them. The second part is what makes it really hard to walk away from abusers, or to call the bad parts abuse even after they're no longer in your life. The inconsistency *really* messes with people's minds.

And FW did at least the following:

- Teenage Fritz is very sick. FW, who's been terrorizing him, writes to someone (Grumbkow?) that "You don't know how much you love your kids until you're afraid of losing them."
- In his first meeting with Fritz after the escape attempt, in August 1731, after Fritz grovels a lot and gets berated, lets him off easy, to the point where a shocked Fritz was like, "Maybe he does love me?"
- As selenak recounted to us from Fontane, has the gallows removed from Ruppin before Fritz arrives.
- Says a few nice things to Fritz in his last couple mellower years when he was sick and dying, including the "I think he's going to do fine."

I mean, *I* am the one reading between the lines of "See? It totally worked!" BUT I think that's totally reasonable. He's just got justify all that suffering somehow.

Incidentally, all this is why, even without the prospect of eternal damnation, I've always been inclined to think that even an atheistic FW would not have killed his son in cold blood. Hot, yes, but I think some fatherly feeling played a role in why he let himself be talked out of it. This does not mean that he wasn't abusive as hell. It just means I think "visceral hate" isn't the whole story. I really think "feedback loop" is a huge part of the story. I mean, as selenak pointed out, he got into a good feedback loop with AW.

Also: future FW is going to notice Frederick the Great praising FW as king, and modeling himself on FW to a significant degree. He's also going to notice how everyone is keeping their coffins together through the centuries and speaking of them as the two greatest things that ever happened to Prussia/Germany. (Even now that the coffins are no longer side by side, they're still way too close for my tastes.) Given all this, and his predisposition to think Fritz was going to do fine as king, I feel like future FW starts patting himself on the shoulder. Otherwise he has to admit the rehabilitation failed, and everything he did was for naught. And rationalization is a huge force in human psychology.

I suspect FW ends up with the same attitude toward Fritz that Fritz has toward him: "Great king...wow, there were some problems, but all in all, A+ job, fellow Hohenzollern."

Speaking of rationalization, I also wonder how much mileage FW can get out of that historical claim to Silesia. :P

From:

mildred_of_midgard

...yeah, I can now totally see the parallels to what selenak has been telling us about Fritz/Heinrich.

I don't think the "cunning plan" was actually a cunning plan, btw, in either case. I think in both cases the abusers had some warm-and-fuzzies, aka a love-hate relationship, and the acts of affection were genuine. And staring your own mortality in the face is something that warms a lot of people toward their family members, and Fritz and FW were no exceptions, imo.