Frederick the Great discussion post 9

[cahn]

...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!

I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)

Frederick the Great links

Comments

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

[iberiandoctor]

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.)

Re: Rheinsberg, the community

[mildred_of_midgard]

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.

Prussian military uniforms

[selenak]

...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: