cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 9

it's also that he'd been in no way prepared for this kind of relentless emotional eviscaration, since FW had always had a positive relationship with him, and so, for that matter, had Fritz.

*nods* :( And those letters from Fritz are heartbreaking, like, they really are sweet and paternal, and to think about how AW must have felt, emotionally, when Fritz turned on him :(

(Current headcanon: that visit Heinrich paid to a dying Wilhelmine made a difference. He didn't tell her about AW's death, granted, but she knew about the disgrace and had tried to mediate, so maybe she talked about Fritz and tried to explain and/or made Heinrich promise not to get himself into an argument with him as well.)

...You're going to write this, right? Because in the department of Things I Didn't Know I Needed But Totally Do is the highly dysfunctional near-deathbed scene where Heinrich has lost AW and realizes he's about to lose Wilehlmine too, and he hates her because Fritz loves her and because AW is dead but he loves her too, and Wilhelmine doesn't know AW is dead but she sure knows the situation has gone toxic (and regardless of what Fredersdorf may have thought, Wilhelmine must have known, having gone through it herself, that Fritz, how does it go, "is very sensitive") and that Heinrich is this close to snapping, and makes him promise not to, and Heinrich is both totally resentful and secretly relieved that Wilhelmine is emotionally blackmailing him with her death.

(And, OK, I also want the meeting between Heinrich and Fritz, but I find myself much less able to imagine all the tensions running through that one, wow.)

Am definitely going to write that, yes, because it must have been so intense and messed up, and I hope I'll be able to do it justice. Btw, check out our new community for all that I've uploaded of our past collected material! Am currently deciding whether to make one or two posts for the Heinrich and AW material. I mean, I have my write ups for the Heinrich bio, then the Fritz letters to Heinrich (with a very few from him) in general, and then the very specific AW Collection I just did.

And those letters from Fritz are heartbreaking, like, they really are sweet and paternal, and to think about how AW must have felt, emotionally, when Fritz turned on him.

I'm always wondering whether or not to take Fritz' description of Henricus Minor to Ulrike as being like AW (without the bad parts, arghhh) at face value, because it might be another reason why he favoured him, because he thought he had a chance there for a do-over, if Henricus Minor really did resemble him. But of course it doesn't work that way...

I have seen your posts and they are awesome! I am wretchedly tired today, but I have at least made a list of posts of my own to transfer, and it's a long 'un. ;)

Henricus Minor: maybe, or Fritz could just be totally delusional. "Like AW" could just mean "not a terrier" or more specifically, "I used to get along with AW until You-Know-What, and HM died before I could fuck things up with him (let's remember HM was only 19), and so I was getting along with him, which must mean they shared good qualities, like not being a terrier. QED."

(AW: at long last, cornered, displays his inner terrier there at the very end; since it does not compute, Fritz writes it off as those convenient bad advisors.)

Edited 2020-01-16 18:06 (UTC)

I have been enjoying your posts in the community :DDDDD

But now the wretched question comes up, where to comment? Perhaps mildred was right that it's a little weird to split discussion.

On the other hand, I REALLY like having all the material in posts like that.

I also wonder if it makes sense to link to where they came from? In case someone would like to read the full discussion :) (Although maybe it doesn't make sense to go back and do that for the ones you've already done.)

I'm reading the AW Trier letters now (this is your fault) and they are breaking my heart. Fritz is so sweet in them, the bastard.

On the other hand, I REALLY like having all the material in posts like that.

It's also great being able to edit, i.e when I find another Fredersdorf letters quote, say, I can put it into the main post instead of having to post another comment.

Re: discussion - well, how about this:

For ongoing discussions, like currently about AW-Fritz-Heinrich, we use your posts, as per usual. If you, by the collection of the material, feel inspired to make another, new comment, it would in fact be more sensible to make it at the community, as your old Posts already have 300 plus comments.

Linking the discussions themselves: Maybe once we're done uploading, but honestly, I think potential new readers will be very busy reading through the main post material to begin with! ;)

Fritz being sweet towards AW: I know. Remember when a long time ago we had no idea how he and Wilhelmine stood towards the younger sibs? About the only thing I knew back then was that things did end badly with AW, so I assumed they'd had a distant relationship at best.

Edited 2020-01-17 07:49 (UTC)

I also think the ability to edit is a huge plus and one of my reasons for wanting to create a community.

I like your idea about commenting procedures. The only downside is those of us without paid accounts can only subscribe to 25 notifications at once.

Oh, who am I kidding? Thanks to my word-counting and comment-counting script, I practically already have a notification system I wrote myself, with no service limits. :P I'd just need to tweak that.

Okay, problem solved. :D

Remember when a long time ago we had no idea how he and Wilhelmine stood towards the younger sibs?

A long time ago, we had no idea about a lot of things. We've all come a long way! If it weren't for you two, I would have read/reread two Kindle bios of Fritz, written some uninformed fanfic, and called it a day. I am profoundly grateful for the educational opportunities.

Guys, what I think the community needs is a definitive timeline/chronology. Is there one? If so, it should be helpfully stapled to the top of this thing and made mandatory reading.

This is a very good idea, but since Mildred is the queen of Dates, I'm shamelessly saying she'd be the best to do it!

Like...how many dates do you guys want? Serious question. A chronology of everything we've talked about is going to be absurdly long, but Queen Mildred is extremely bad at summarizing.

I was also thinking there should be a sticky posts with recs for books, shows, etc. Like

cahn's links post, but with an annotated bibliography of English and German bios.

Hmmmmm. I don't think we want everything we've talked about, for sure! But there is kind of a lot of stuff I would like to be in there. Let's see. A list of the kind of things I would like to see:
* births and deaths of Fritz's immediate family, also Fredersdorf and Katte deaths
* Ascensions of other monarchs where it's relevant (Austria, Russia)
* Beginning and ends of various wars
* The AW implosion
* Fritz' marriage and those of his siblings
* The dates of Visits Important To Gossipy Sensationlists, like, when Voltaire visited Prussia, when Algarotti was in Prussia / made Count / etc.

To encourage brevity, what if all entries for the specific year were made under that year?

1740: Friedrich Wilhelm dies 31 May. Fritz crowned [whenever he got crowned]. His Anti-Machiavel pamphlet is published in September. Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, dies 20 October (Maria Theresia succeeds him but is not recognized at the time as Empress). Fritz invades the Austrian province of Silesia in December, starting the War of the Austrian Succession.

Something like that? It should make sense to someone who is coming to it new but shouldn't have a lot of extraneous detail, that is what the posts are for :D

My other thought is that really important stuff should be bolded. Things like Fritz ascending to the throne. And Katte :P

ETA: And YESSSSS to recs and books! I don't even know what bio of Fritz I should check out; I looked around over the break and got sort of intimidated by all the possibilities.

Edited 2020-01-17 17:39 (UTC)

This sounds good!

To encourage brevity, what if all entries for the specific year were made under that year?

What do you mean?

I don't even know what bio of Fritz I should check out;

Ugh, I wish I could be more help, but physical books, you know. The one I recommended a while back when someone asked was Blanning; very recent (2015? I forget), tries not to buy into centuries of mythologizing but actually look at evidence, gay but not "Everyone is GAY GAY GAY and bi people do not exist and neither does an experimentation/questioning phase!" I would also add that it's light on politics/war (but has a very interesting take on Fritz's strengths and weaknesses as a general that has informed mine, after years of exposure to the Mythologizing of Frederick the Great), but heavy on arts and music, which might be an extra feature for you.

So if you wanted to start somewhere, that's not a bad place. I do need to reread it, though, now that I know far more than when I read it back in June or whatever. I might find lots of issues that I didn't pick up on at the time. (So far the big one is his presentation of the Marwitz episode like he actually knows what happens.)

To encourage brevity, what if all entries for the specific year were made under that year?

What do you mean?

I mean that I feel like if each entry got its own part of the timeline, it would become very large and invite expansion. Here's a sample of what I think would rapidly become very unwieldy:

31 May 1740 FW dies, age 51
1 Jun 1740 [I know this isn't right but I can't easily find the date reference] Friedrich is crowned King Friedrich II in Prussia
Sept 1740 Fritz's anti-Machiavel pamphlet is published, thus leading Voltaire to exclaim [whatever it was he said about how Fritz was the greatest]

I propose instead what I said above, a single entry for the entire year:

1740: Friedrich Wilhelm dies 31 May. Fritz is crowned King Friedrich II in Prussia [whenever he got crowned]. His Anti-Machiavel pamphlet decrying invasion is published in September. Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, dies 20 October (Maria Theresia succeeds him but is not recognized at the time as Empress). Fritz invades the Austrian province of Silesia in December, starting the War of the Austrian Succession.

It may be a little harder to read individual entries than the first way but I think it has the virtues of not being quite as overwhelming overall and making the entire timeline a little easier to scan through.

Hmm, OK, I may check the Blanning out! After I finish all my current reading, lol. I will go back to Wilhelmine but I've sort of slewed over to the AW letters for now :P :)

1 Jun 1740 [I know this isn't right but I can't easily find the date reference] Friedrich is crowned King Friedrich II in Prussia

That's because he was never crowned! He went for cheap homage ceremonies, appeared in public, waved at people, gave out some medals with his image on them, went home. FW had done the same. The last coronation in Prussia was the first King (in) Prussia, Grandpa F1, who was a big spender.

Coronations are expensive and decadent and (of concern to Fritz) not for enlightened, non-superstitious monarchs!

Okay, so you want fewer items but more detail per item than I was going to go for. I suppose that makes sense if it's meant as an introductory resource and not just a reference for the initiated.

I may also do a longer chronology with less detail per entry as a reference work for the initiated (who may also be plotting fic, haha).

Blanning is also a lighter read than a lot of the other biographers, in that it took me less time to read 600 pages by him than to read 300 pages by other biographers. So it's a good intro to the topic for that reason as well. It's also ten bucks.

I will go back to Wilhelmine but I've sort of slewed over to the AW letters for now :P :)

There's a lot to read! I've started like ten things that I haven't finished. (I have a Trello list for them, lol.) Plus I'm about to finish rereading MacDonogh, and then I want to reread Blanning, with all this new knowledge under my belt.

Coming over lateish to echo my support for cahn’s suggested chronology format. Year by year, and the various highlights in each year, with no more than a line or two describing said highlight. Major events in bold. (And then people could come back and insert links or footnotes to said events if they wanted to.) As we all know, chronos are invaluable for the casual reader wanting to deep dive, academics, and fic XD

Relatedly, is there a good, non-overly aggrandising book or resource as to Fritz’s military strategy? I’m only familiar with the standard myth of the war genius general, mostly from Berlin visits and familiarity with the post-Fritz Napoleonic wars, albeit from the non-Prussian side of things (thanks, Mis fandom!). I see you’ve recommended Blanning to cahn, which probably means I should wait for her to be done with it and make free with her summarised views :)

(I’m also interested in resources on the Prussian military uniform, but that’s probably just my thing for uniforms.)

I have some Fritz-related military history books on my wishlist for when I'm in a better position, health-wise, to read them, but atm, no, I have nothing better than Blanning to recommend as at least an alternative to the standard myths. And I haven't done enough of a deep dive to know how much I agree with Blanning, although I definitely think he's right to challenge the myth. (Heinrich: challenging the myth since the Seven Years' War (at least).)

I similarly have Frederick the Great: The Uniforms of the Prussian Army under Frederick the Great 1740 to 1786 on my list of books to ILL on some future date, since I can't find it cheaply enough to buy. Or at least couldn't last time I looked.

...changed a couple of times, so for example those worn during the 1870/71 French/Prussian-German war were not identical with the earlier versions. Hell, not even the uniforms during the wars against Napoleon in 1815 were! However, googling gave me sketches of the correct Frederician army uniforms for you:

Cavalry

Infantry

Special tasks not covered by the above:

Oh, hee! Of course he didn't get crowned, that's hilarious.

Oh, yeah, I totally support making two chronologies: a beginner's chronology specifically for introductory purposes, and one with lots of entries, for reference (which, yeah, I would also find REALLY helpful when reading these letters, for one thing). And yay fic-writing :D

The entire entry for 1730: "Four-year-old Heinrich joins AW's household."

HAHAHAHAHAHA

(omg, I got a chronology joke, what have you guys DONE to me)

:D :D :D :D :D :D

Mildred, when I go to the profile page there is a "track" button on the right that lets me check a box to be notified when anyone comments on the community on any entry. I think this is an admin button (so should be available to all three admins) and not dependent on the admin being a paid account, but let me know.

Another great thing about a community! :)

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that option. Thanks for reminding me!

The community is turning out to have many benefits. I'm glad we founded it!

Finally finished updating and organizing my Katte material and posted it to

rheinsberg! 20 posts down, only 25 to go!

Soooooo, um:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22408975

OMG

you must have posted this literally MINUTES after I had to leave go do a bunch of family stuff (and in particular was not checking my AO3 notifications)

brb

Frederick the Great discussion post 9

Re: Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath

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Re: Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath

Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

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Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

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Prussian military uniforms

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

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Tracking Rheinsberg

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Re: Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath

Re: Brotherly Conduct III: The Aftermath