cahn: Wait, a biographer says he didn't love her?? I mean, I could see if you only, like, read the letters where he was mad at her. But!!
Indeed. It's in Jürgen Luh's biography Der Große which is in general a "he didn't love anyone, except possibly Fredersdorf, he was too emotionally crippled for that and all those letters (not just to Wilhelmine but also to his friends) saying otherwise are just rethorical posing" takedown. Which strikes me as the reverse of the 19th century worship Preuss engages in, and just about as insightful in the complexity of human emotions.
Spreaking of Preuß, though: good grief. Every time I take a look, I'm thrown out again by the sheer mid 19th century nationalism of it all. Starting when after explaining with Fritz & family were raised with French as a primary language, he assures his 19th century readers that while Fritz may have loved French literature as a result, he despised "alles Welsche und die Welschen" - which term, as used in 19th century Germany, covers not just the French but also the Italians and any Latin-European people. Says the man who will soon list all those various Frederician friendships with Frenchmen and Italians.
And later on, he laments how the One King keeps getting maligned as an aggressor, when really, he never was the aggressor in a single war in his life. It was all either righting wrongs to Prussia (Silesia 1), defending his allies (Silesia 2) or defending German freedom (guess what). The later, btw, is a case in point of how attitudes had shifted from one century to the next. Fritz himself certainly sold the 7-Years-War as him defending German freedom of religion in his propaganda, among other things, i.e. himself as the champion of Protestantism which otherwise would be crushed under Habsburg tyranny. When triying to get the other German principalities on your side, that's the smartest argument to make, given that the 30 Years War is still just a century plus ago. But "freedom of religion" is no longer the selling argument in a century in which national feelings start to get increasingly more toxic all around, preparing the ground for the hell of the 20th century, which is why I find it hard to take the dispassionate attitude which is necesssary when such paragraphs keep coming up. Preuß is here ascribing ideas of nationalism to a mid 18th century mindset that just weren't there.
I was morbidly curious how invading Saxony is defending German freedom, but of ourse it's because the Saxons secretly are already yearning to become Prussian citizens and it's just the corrupt aristocracy, i.e. Saxon PM Brühl & Co., that's at fault for forcing Fritz to invade them. Bear in mind here what we've mentioned about the Saxon regiments forced into Prussian service who promptly deserted. At Prague, they even shot their Prussian officers while doing so. Mind you, Fritz won Prague regardless. But: Dead Prussians: 14 300 men. Dead Austrians: a thousand soldiers less. All of which was already well known at the time of Preuß' writing. Whereas, say, a contemporary loyal Prussian subject like Lehndorff who doesn't doubt the "the King was right, he had to attack first, the Saxons would have stabbed us in the back otherwise" and the "the King is a genius!" premise, is also able to later in the war (which of course he sees the results of first hand) go "so maybe the King shouldn't have insulted all the powerful women in Europe all the time?" and "the Austrian generals are called cowards by us, but can't help but notice they lose way less people and have provoked the King in some rash costly battles" . And of course when the dust is settled, Lehndorff, with all the relief and joy about the war ending and all the admiration for the the King and Dearest of All Princes he has, can make a diary entry (February 5th 1763) saying: Thus all our misery is over. But if one recalls the countless victims this war has cost, how many provinces were devastated, how many families have been ruined, and all just so that all the rulers can go back the status quo ante, one wants to scream. Now the question of the coinage has to be solved. If the King doesn't help with this as quickly as possible, we're all ruined. The prices for all goods have all risen so far that we're facing a permanent state of debt.
And when you compare this to one century later Preuß - and not just him - going on about how wonderful and heroic and necessary the war was, having learned all the wrong lessons from it, and you know, as a reader, it will just get worse, you want to scream, too.
Seriously, just one sentence or two wondering whether it was all worth it on Preuß' part would make this easier for me to stomach. He can still root for Fritz! (Lehndorff does, too.) Just - good lord, man, stop trying to sell this as having benefited the then non-existing German nation.
And speaking of historical attitudes, unsurprisingly, Preuß is also one for slut-shaming. With the Marquise de Pompadour and Elisaveta, naturally (he can't with MT and in general has a sort of begrudging Frederician respect for her, but SHE WAS WRONG and couldn't see Fritz' historic mission). When he's sneering about Louis XV along the lines of "and then that woman even became some de facto minister - and what kind of a man gives his commoner paramour he's not even sleeping with anymore important governing responsibilities, huh?", the, err, Prussian parallel does not seem to occur to him, but well, join the club, Preuß. He's also snide about Émilie. None of this is surprising in a 19th century historian, I know, I know, and I've often come across this before, but for some reason, this time around it just keeps throwing me out. In conclusion, it will be a long while till I properly read that multi volume biography.
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Some biographers, ugh
Date: 2020-01-25 11:07 am (UTC)Indeed. It's in Jürgen Luh's biography Der Große which is in general a "he didn't love anyone, except possibly Fredersdorf, he was too emotionally crippled for that and all those letters (not just to Wilhelmine but also to his friends) saying otherwise are just rethorical posing" takedown. Which strikes me as the reverse of the 19th century worship Preuss engages in, and just about as insightful in the complexity of human emotions.
Spreaking of Preuß, though: good grief. Every time I take a look, I'm thrown out again by the sheer mid 19th century nationalism of it all. Starting when after explaining with Fritz & family were raised with French as a primary language, he assures his 19th century readers that while Fritz may have loved French literature as a result, he despised "alles Welsche und die Welschen" - which term, as used in 19th century Germany, covers not just the French but also the Italians and any Latin-European people. Says the man who will soon list all those various Frederician friendships with Frenchmen and Italians.
And later on, he laments how the One King keeps getting maligned as an aggressor, when really, he never was the aggressor in a single war in his life. It was all either righting wrongs to Prussia (Silesia 1), defending his allies (Silesia 2) or defending German freedom (guess what). The later, btw, is a case in point of how attitudes had shifted from one century to the next. Fritz himself certainly sold the 7-Years-War as him defending German freedom of religion in his propaganda, among other things, i.e. himself as the champion of Protestantism which otherwise would be crushed under Habsburg tyranny. When triying to get the other German principalities on your side, that's the smartest argument to make, given that the 30 Years War is still just a century plus ago. But "freedom of religion" is no longer the selling argument in a century in which national feelings start to get increasingly more toxic all around, preparing the ground for the hell of the 20th century, which is why I find it hard to take the dispassionate attitude which is necesssary when such paragraphs keep coming up. Preuß is here ascribing ideas of nationalism to a mid 18th century mindset that just weren't there.
I was morbidly curious how invading Saxony is defending German freedom, but of ourse it's because the Saxons secretly are already yearning to become Prussian citizens and it's just the corrupt aristocracy, i.e. Saxon PM Brühl & Co., that's at fault for forcing Fritz to invade them. Bear in mind here what we've mentioned about the Saxon regiments forced into Prussian service who promptly deserted. At Prague, they even shot their Prussian officers while doing so. Mind you, Fritz won Prague regardless. But: Dead Prussians: 14 300 men. Dead Austrians: a thousand soldiers less. All of which was already well known at the time of Preuß' writing. Whereas, say, a contemporary loyal Prussian subject like Lehndorff who doesn't doubt the "the King was right, he had to attack first, the Saxons would have stabbed us in the back otherwise" and the "the King is a genius!" premise, is also able to later in the war (which of course he sees the results of first hand) go "so maybe the King shouldn't have insulted all the powerful women in Europe all the time?" and "the Austrian generals are called cowards by us, but can't help but notice they lose way less people and have provoked the King in some rash costly battles" . And of course when the dust is settled, Lehndorff, with all the relief and joy about the war ending and all the admiration for the the King and Dearest of All Princes he has, can make a diary entry (February 5th 1763) saying: Thus all our misery is over. But if one recalls the countless victims this war has cost, how many provinces were devastated, how many families have been ruined, and all just so that all the rulers can go back the status quo ante, one wants to scream. Now the question of the coinage has to be solved. If the King doesn't help with this as quickly as possible, we're all ruined. The prices for all goods have all risen so far that we're facing a permanent state of debt.
And when you compare this to one century later Preuß - and not just him - going on about how wonderful and heroic and necessary the war was, having learned all the wrong lessons from it, and you know, as a reader, it will just get worse, you want to scream, too.
Seriously, just one sentence or two wondering whether it was all worth it on Preuß' part would make this easier for me to stomach. He can still root for Fritz! (Lehndorff does, too.) Just - good lord, man, stop trying to sell this as having benefited the then non-existing German nation.
And speaking of historical attitudes, unsurprisingly, Preuß is also one for slut-shaming. With the Marquise de Pompadour and Elisaveta, naturally (he can't with MT and in general has a sort of begrudging Frederician respect for her, but SHE WAS WRONG and couldn't see Fritz' historic mission). When he's sneering about Louis XV along the lines of "and then that woman even became some de facto minister - and what kind of a man gives his commoner paramour he's not even sleeping with anymore important governing responsibilities, huh?", the, err, Prussian parallel does not seem to occur to him, but well, join the club, Preuß. He's also snide about Émilie. None of this is surprising in a 19th century historian, I know, I know, and I've often come across this before, but for some reason, this time around it just keeps throwing me out. In conclusion, it will be a long while till I properly read that multi volume biography.