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Frederick the Great discussion post 9
...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
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
Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
Now: to me, one of the most interesting things to compare this to are the Rheinsberg chapters from Fontane's Wanderungen, not least because they're both contemporaries (Hamilton read and sometimes quotes Fontane, even), coming, however, to quite different conclusions about some of the cast. (Notably, but not exclusively, Heinrich.)
This is because Hamilton's Fritz is Carlyle's Fritz. Carlyle's biography is the one by far most often quoted, usually with great admiration. Meaning: we're talking about Fritz the Übermensch here, endlessly chill, surrounded by unworthy mortals. (Hamilton near the end uses the brief description Goethe gives about visiting Sanssouci in Fritz' absence; remember, during his one and only trip to Berlin with Carl August, when he sneakily had Carl August having lunch with Heinrich as part of the "keep Carl August out of the Prussian army") campaign Anna Amalia had initiated, all of which also happens in the aftermath of Fritz' anti German literature book. In the original Goethe quote, he simply talks about birds, monkeys and even hearing the dogs bark. He says dogs. "Hunde". There is no reason to assume Goethe is talking about anything but the actual, real life, Frederician dogs. In Hamilton's rendition, the dogs are "miserable curs", and are meant metaphorically as descriptions of the unworthy Hohenzollern siblings critisizing their great and wonderful brother.)
This quote alteration to make a point isn't a single aberration. I mean, I realise Hamilton in 1880 doesn't have access to a lot of the sources published later, such as the Marwitz letters or for that matter Lehndorff's diaries, or the erotic poetry. But even with what he does have access to, such as the Preuss edited correspondance which forms the basis of the Trier archive, the editorializing is amazing. In his account of the AW matter, for example, the following happens:
The King's brothers: are all doom and gloom about the war, working themselves up into a frenzy that Prussia is doomed just because of their general anti Fritz attitude
AW: is like a rabbit in the spotlight unable to do anything because of this defeatist gloom, despite Fritz and Winderfeldt trying their best to advise him and get him going.
Fritz: is strict but fair with the casheering.
AW: goes home in even more defeatist gloom and dies.
(Any intermittent verbal abuse by Fritz via correspondance, or refusal to see AW? Does not happen.)
Fritz: writes lovely, kind letter to Heinrich. (Hamilton quotes only the sentences like "I fear for you, I wish you long life and good health" or "I know the tenderness you had for him", but leaves entirely out anything that makes Fritz sound bad, i.e., the majority of the letter.) Heinrich, in his usual anti-Fritz hysteria, for some reason reacts badly to this kind message. And so forth, and so on.
This is basically how Hamilton presents their entire relationship other than the very beginning when he admits Fritz is a bit strict, in Heinrich's own interest, about Heinrich's sloppy behavior with his regiment. Otherwise, Fritz is endlessly chill and friendly and patient, and Heinrich is mean and petty and hysterical throughout the decades of their relationship.
Hamilton also claims that after their bust up post War of Bavarian Succession and resumption of correspondance one and a half year later, Fritz only writes to Heinrich about literature and history anymore, and no more politics, because Heinrich has clearly disqualified himself as someone who can be trusted with political matters. How he can say this when the Trier correspondance has quite a lot of political post 1781 subjects (Fritz' conviction that Joseph is the coming menace of Europe, debates as to whether or not it's possible to talk the French out of the Austrian alliance when Heinrich in 1784 visits France for the first time, ever rising irritation with nephew Gustav in Sweden) is beyond me, except that it fits with the picture he wants to convey of Heinrich despite having some abilities ruining his own life with his totally unwarranted irrational hate for his brother.
Foreign diplomacy? Eh. Heinrich travelled to Sweden just for family reasons, and then Fritz had to practically force him to go to Catherine next, and then he just got feted there, and fine, he and Catherine got along really well, but politically all the action was between Fritz and Catherine and Heinrich was just sort of there. And later he had to be practically forced to go to Russia again. (Ziebura and Christian von Krockow: quote letters showing that Heinrich, while in Sweden, angled for an invitation from Catherine, Catherine asked Fritz, Fritz couldn't refuse and wrote I am very annoyed that I hadn't heard about the invitation earlier; I could have familiarized you with so many issues before hand..)
Also: Heinrich's entire foreign policy, says Hamilton, can be summed up by "alliance with France" (since comments on Russia and Sweden on his part do not exist in Hamilton's world, neither before nor after Fritz' death), and the sole reason why he was advising this even post revolution was because he was such a Francophile that even a French Revolution was okay by him. Now Hamilton does admit that Heinrich was simultanously very generous to the French émigrés - the royalists fleeing revolutionary France - in need of support and keeping up the interest in and contact with revolutionary France, which lesser beings like myself would interpret as proving an ability to differentiate between support for refugees and discounting the entire republican experiment, something that also fits with Heinrich's attitude re: the overseas former colonies and his reaction when Steuben wants to make him King there. But no, it's all Gallomania by a limited man who could never see the big picture in the way his great brother could.
Now, in the first volume, dealing with Fritz in Rheinsberg, this doesn't matter. Also, Hamilton has a fluent, and often amusing style. Though you may raise an eyebrow or two when he assures us that Fritz totally intended to live happily after with Elisabeth Christine. Yes, he originally objected to the marriage, and may have said something about planning to ditch her, but see, they were so happy in Rheinsberg, and what kind of a bastard fakes that while secretly still planning to ditch his lovely devoted wife? Not the future Überking. Gifting her Schönhausen was just meant as nice present, but Fritz totally was planning to continue living with her as they'd one before, it's just with first all the travelling in 1740, and then the two Silesian wars, he hardly was ever home, and enstrangement happened, and that is why they ended up living apart. But he wasn't planning on any of it in 1740! Or before!
Still: Volume 1 is a highly readable description of Rheinsberg both in Fritz' time and in Hamilton's visit time. There's just the occasional eyeroll inducing observation (Émilie is "greedy and selfish" when keeping Voltaire from Fritz, dontcha know, for example), while otoh there's a lovely write up about Fritz/Suhm (though not as lovely as Mildred's, naturally). It's in the second volume when the 19th century Frederick-the-Great worship truly strikes. And the fascinating thing is: the actual Prussian, Fontane, is way more able to keep a balance here. Now part of this is that Fontane has a softness for supporting characters - hence his rendition of the Katte saga focusing on Katte, not Fritz, and his Rheinsberg chapter having somewhat more Heinrich than Fritz, while the Oranienburg chapter of course is focused on AW - but he likes his Great King as well as the next Prussian and has a lot of Fritz anecdotes sprinkled across all the Wanderungen. It's just that he doesn't like him flawless. So you get this:
AW died...
Fontane: Heartbroken.
Hamilton: In a self induced fog of depression. Which he was in ever since getting command. Got there by incomprehensible doom and gloom caused by anti-Fritzness.
The Obelisk is...
Fontane: since Heinrich's commentary on his brother's memoirs got burned, just this. The voice of his majesty's opposition. I'm translating all the inscriptions, though, to show you how highly Heinrich thought of these people; it wasn't just about his brother(s). The Zieten epitaph is my favourite. And look, there's the inscription where Heinrich, in case any 7 Years War veteran feels left out, says he's just being subjective motivated by friendship, and does not mean to imply other veterans not listed are less heroic. Talk about courtoisie. I *heart* Heinrich.
Hamilton: a gigantic outcry of a warped existence. Okay, yes, he was sorry about AW, but guess what, I'm pretty sure he was even sorrier because he'd hoped Fritz would die in the war and he'd become the power behind the throne to King AW. That's what he was really sorry about. I'm not translating any individual inscriptions except the one about the selection being motivated by personal regard and not meant to put down other veterans as less deserving, because coward much?
Listed Heinrich's boyfriends are...
Fontane: Kaphengst the rough trade and the French comte, also known as "a last sunbeam". Kaphengst: guess some people just fall for their opposites. Am glad the French emigré guy worked out, though!
Hamilton: Just for the record, no one is gay in my volumes. Certainly not Fritz the chill. Heinrich might be, I'm using some coded language here, but mostly these favourites are examples of his inner weakness. Not at all comparable to those wonderful friendships mentioned in volume 1! Warped guy will have his favourites, what can I say. The French comte was sort of okay, though.
Seriously. Theodor Fontane, citizen of Bismarck ruled Prussia-and-Germany, has not only more sympathy for guys with critique for their monarch, who, gasp, might be in the wrong now and then, but also writes with sympathy about m/m "relationships of the heart", as he calls him. Andrew Hamilton, Brit or American (couldn't tell): doesn't quite hero worship on the level of Peter III but definitely subscribes to the "Fritz was right, everyone else was wrong" newsletter, has edited out any and all signs of pettiness or capacity for emotional cruelty from the picture of his hero, and certainly any signs of relationships marked by anything other than fondness and generosity (on the side of Fritz). Meanwhile, Heinrich ends up as the caricature of his brother, after some good beginnings warped into nothing but pettiness and hate. With a very few exceptions, as him being nice to French exiles, but that's just because he's a Gallomaniac. Which brings me to:
"German literature? No such thing."
When Fritz does it, this is....
Tragic, but look, there's that one quote of his from the letter to Voltaire about the dawn of a maybe future great age for German culture. If he'd lived longer, he would totally have changed his mind! How could he not? He was Frederick the Great!
When Heinrich does it, this is...
Typical for his narrow-mindedness. I mean, seriously, the guy lived into the age of Goethe. And did he notice? He did not. Kept playing French plays and reading French books till the end. How ridiculous was that?
In conclusion: read the first volume for your Rheinsberg research, skip the second.
Re: Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
omg. I can just imagine that Fritz himself would be all "uh, why are you being so hard on dogs?? Dogs are awesome!!"
Fritz: writes lovely, kind letter to Heinrich. (Hamilton quotes only the sentences like "I fear for you, I wish you long life and good health" or "I know the tenderness you had for him", but leaves entirely out anything that makes Fritz sound bad, i.e., the majority of the letter.)
*headdesk* THAT LETTER.
Though you may raise an eyebrow or two when he assures us that Fritz totally intended to live happily after with Elisabeth Christine.
Because the One King was so het, yeah, I get it. EC probably just wasn't good enough for him. *facepalm*
I'm translating all the inscriptions, though, to show you how highly Heinrich thought of these people; it wasn't just about his brother(s). The Zieten epitaph is my favourite. And look, there's the inscription where Heinrich, in case any 7 Years War veteran feels left out, says he's just being subjective motivated by friendship, and does not mean to imply other veterans not listed are less heroic. Talk about courtoisie. I *heart* Heinrich.
Aww, I *heart* him too! And you too, Fontane. <33333333 But not Hamilton :P
Re: Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
Anyway, here's Theo about Heinrich:
When one steps back into the open to walk across the castle courtyard, the park and the lake, one cannot fend off the question, how is it that this wise, witty Prince Heinrich, this general sans peur et sans reproche, this human heart inspired by the most noble sensations while serving in war, is so little popular. You go to a village school and test it. Every day laborer child will know of Zieten, of Seydlitz, of "Schwerin with the flag", but the main teacher himself will only be able to explain stutteringly who Prince Heinrich was.
In the same place where he lived and reigned, created and donated through almost two human age, he is a half-forgotten one, simply because his brother's star is shining before him. And part of that misfortune will remain. But on the other hand, it is not improbable that the next fifty years will bring the merit and sound of the name more into harmony. In a word, the prince was missing the poet until this hour. From the moment that song, narrative, play will take him among their figures, the Prince-Heinrich-Rooms in the Rheinsberg Castle will begin to revitalise, and the castellans of the future will know what will be in this and that window niches happened, who handed over the flower box and under which chestnut tree the prince drank his tea and rose with a joyful "oh soyez le bien venu" when Prince Louis stopped at the castle gate and jumped out of the saddle laughing.*
(*Prince Louis = Louis Ferdinand, son of brother Ferdinand, Heinrich's favourite nephew. Died young, but thankfully after him.)
(...)
It must be admitted (and I have already pointed out in the chapter "The Church of Rheinsberg") that something specifically French in custom, habituation, expression, as well as the small measure of that Brandenburg gruffness that we have in Frederick the Great, despite his Voltaire crush, so clearly recognizable and so admired, will always stand in the way of Prince Heinrich making it into folklore. But he is even missing that more modest part of popularity, to which he has absolute claim. His repliques were not in the style of the older Tauentzien, when Tauentzien was asked to hand over Wroclaw, under threat that "the child will not be spared in the womb".* But if in his answers Heinrich did not resemble Richard Lionheart, who smashed a duty-thick iron with his sword, he was like Saladin, who cut through the silk scarf thrown into the air with his half-moon blade. He was rarely gruff, vulgar never.
(*Tauentzien the Older said "Well, it's a good thing then that none of my men are pregnant.)
(...) (Fontane translates each of the 27 plus AW inscriptions into German)
Thus the names of the twenty-eight who made the prince's election, a choice in which he himself felt that it was partisan. Why he added the following lines to the dedication already quoted, which speaks of the "Prussian heroes":
Leurs noms gravés sur le marbre
Par les mains de l'amité,
Sont le choix d'une estime particuliére
Qui ne porte aucun préjudice
A tout ceux qui comme eux
Ont bien merité de la patrie
Et participent l'estime publique.
Their names engraved on the marble
By the hands of friendship,
Are the choice of a particular esteem
That does not cause any harm
To all those who like them
Have shown their merit for the fatherland well
And share public esteem.
No prejudgment, then, against all those who also took part in the "estime publique". These words of consideration are spoken in the spirit of Prince Heinrich. He gives his opinion and gives it in part (diplomatic enough) only by remaining silent, but even this silence seems to him to be hurtful again, and he adds a mitigating "without prejudgment". This refers to the absence of three names in particular: Winterfeldt, Fouqué and Wedell. On one side there is a "Wedell", but this is an older general of the same name, who fell at Soor as early as 1745, not the Wedell, who was sent off as the king's darling and confidant eater to defeat the advancing Russians count Dohna in the command, and who was beaten the next day, for all his bravery, at Kay. He is missing, as Winterfeldt is missing, whereas all those who have been affected by the disgrace of the king on one occasion or another can be quite sure to see their account balanced at this obelisk. So the Duke of Bevern, von der Marwitz, Colonel of Wobersnow, Prince August Wilhelm himself. Each of these medallion inscriptions is important and, as long as the "critical commentary" that the fronding prince is said to have written about his brother's great book of history remains a mystery, can be regarded as a hint and a brief outline of what is said to be in that "commentary".
The most beautiful words are undoubtedly addressed to Zieten, which is why I cannot help but repeat them here:
"General von Zieten achieved a happy and honorable age. He won in every battle. His belligerent sharpness, united with a heroic bravery, ensured him the happy outcome of every fight. But what lifted him above all was his integrity, his unselfishness, and his contempt for all those who enriched themselves at the expense of the oppressed people."
Intimacy and true veneration speaks from every line. The old Hussar has remained the winner here as well.
Re: Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
Re: Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
OMFG, that is some dishonest scholarship right there. At least I think MacDonogh's "source doesn't actually say that" errors are due to incompetence, not malice.
Fritz: is strict but fair with the casheering.
AW: goes home in even more defeatist gloom and dies.
(Any intermittent verbal abuse by Fritz via correspondance, or refusal to see AW? Does not happen.)
Sadly, this is more or less MacDonogh, over 100 years later.
leaves entirely out anything that makes Fritz sound bad, i.e., the majority of the letter
*spit-take* Yeah, you'd have to! Mind you, we've seen there's kind of an amazing amount of this kind of selectiveness in Preuss's choices for what to include as well.
Since I've got Agatha Christie on the brain: come on, people, if the fact will not fit the theory (Fritz was chill), you let the theory go, not the facts!
Foreign diplomacy? Eh. Heinrich travelled to Sweden just for family reasons, and then Fritz had to practically force him to go to Catherine next, and then he just got feted there, and fine, he and Catherine got along really well, but politically all the action was between Fritz and Catherine and Heinrich was just sort of there. And later he had to be practically forced to go to Russia again.
OMG.
I am very annoyed that I hadn't heard about the invitation earlier; I could have familiarized you with so many issues before hand.
Haha. He could have Fritzplained so many things, Heinrich!
Also: Heinrich's entire foreign policy, says Hamilton, can be summed up by "alliance with France" (since comments on Russia and Sweden on his part do not exist in Hamilton's world, neither before nor after Fritz' death), and the sole reason why he was advising this even post revolution was because he was such a Francophile that even a French Revolution was okay by him.
Okaaaay. I'm with you that both AW and Heinrich learned a thing or two about the downsides of absolute monarchy even in a financially solvent country.
Now, in the first volume, dealing with Fritz in Rheinsberg, this doesn't matter. Also, Hamilton has a fluent, and often amusing style.
Yep, I have been using it a reference for some of my Crown Prince research, if not to rely on facts then at least to orient myself on who the minor players are and what's going on.
There's just the occasional eyeroll inducing observation (Émilie is "greedy and selfish" when keeping Voltaire from Fritz, dontcha know, for example)
Hahaha, well, remember! Fritz is not the other man in this relationship, he is Der einzige Mann.
while otoh there's a lovely write up about Fritz/Suhm (though not as lovely as Mildred's, naturally).
Thank you. :) I drew partly on this volume (for things like FW and his sudden love of syllogisms), but mostly on the correspondence.
Though you may raise an eyebrow or two when he assures us that Fritz totally intended to live happily after with Elisabeth Christine.
Not only did I raise an eyebrow, I mocked him anonymously in my no homo write-up.
Just for the record, no one is gay in my volumes. Certainly not Fritz the chill. Heinrich might be, I'm using some coded language here, but mostly these favourites are examples of his inner weakness. Not at all comparable to those wonderful friendships mentioned in volume 1! Warped guy will have his favourites, what can I say.
OMGGGG, the double standards, they boggle! Wow, Hamilton, you're even better at double standards than Fritz, who thinks other people's grief isn't real if it's too showy, and Wilhelmine is too quick to worry about being forgotten.
(Can't help pointing out that Fritz's favorites were better, though. :P)
Andrew Hamilton, Brit or American (couldn't tell):
Based on the -our spellings and the book being published in London, I'm going to guess Brit.
In conclusion: read the first volume for your Rheinsberg research, skip the second.
Exactly what I had been doing, but now I'm doing it on principle instead of because I'm more into researching the boyfriends (hi, Suhm!) than the family. I put up volume 2 mostly for you. So thank you for the warning! And the informative and entertaining write-up, as always. :D
Re: Andrew Hamilton: Rheinsberg
Ha, I remembered that! :) Mostly because it was so WTF.