cahn | Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

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frederick the great

Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community,

rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

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Okay, this is my first draft. I tried to keep it concise. It went against the grain. :P Tell me what you think I should put in and take out. Thanks to the fact that it will go up in a post, not a comment, it will remain editable in the future (thank goodness!).

1709: Wilhelmine, older and most beloved sister of Friedrich, born July 3.
1710: Future Louis XV of France born February 15.
1712: Friedrich born January 24.
1713: Friedrich I of Prussia dies February 25. Friedrich Wilhelm I becomes king.
1715: Louis XIV of France dies September 1. His great-grandson becomes Louis XV.
1722: Augustus Wilhelm, second son of Friedrich Wilhelm I, born August 9.
1726: Heinrich, third son of Friedrich Wilhelm, born January 18.
1727: George I dies June 11.
1730: Crown Prince Friedrich tries to escape his abusive father August 5, is caught and imprisoned at Küstrin. He is required to watch his friend and probable lover Katte executed as an accomplice November 6. Friedrich is pardoned later in the month, but kept under house arrest at Küstrin.
1731: Friedrich remains imprisoned all year. He meets Fredersdorf, future valet and unofficial first minister of Prussia, some time during this year. Wilhelmine marries the son of the Margrave of Bayreuth November 20.
1732: Friedrich is released from Küstrin in February and given his own regiment at Neuruppin.
1733: Under duress, Friedrich marries Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick.
1736: Friedrich moves to Rheinsberg. He begins corresponding with Voltaire.
1740: Friedrich Wilhelm dies May 31. Friedrich becomes Friedrich II. He invites a number of musicians, intellectuals, and artists to his court, including Francesco Algarotti, whom he makes a count. He meets Voltaire in person but does not yet offer him a permanent place at court. Voltaire pays a brief visit to the Prussian court. The Anti-Machiavel, Friedrich's pamphlet on being an honorable ruler, is published by Voltaire in the fall. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI dies October 20. Due to the Pragmatic Sanction, his daughter Maria Theresia is supposed to be recognized as heir to the kingdom and her husband Franz supposed to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. However their rule is immediately challenged. Friedrich invades Silesia December 16, beginning the War of the Austrian Succession. It will be over 7 years before all the powers of Europe recognize the Pragmatic Sanction.
1741: Algarotti leaves Prussia for the first time. Joseph, the son of Maria Theresia and future Joseph II, is born March 13. Elizabeth I seizes power in Russia in a coup December 6.
1742: The First Silesian War ends June 11, leaving Prussia in control of Silesia.
1743: Voltaire visits the Prussian court briefly.
1744-1745: The Second Silesian War begins August 15. Friedrich's younger sister Ulrike marries the Crown Prince and future King of Sweden. Future Friedrich Wilhelm II, son of Augustus Wilhelm and nephew of Friedrich, born September 25.
1745: End of the Second Silesian War December 25. Prussian control of Silesia is recognized. Franz is elected Holy Roman Emperor Franz I September 13. Wilhelmine has lunch with Maria Theresia in Bayreuth, thus deepening an already existing rift between her and her brother Friedrich.
1746: Friedrich begins building Sanssouci. Reconciliation with Wilhelmine.
1747: Algarotti returns to Prussia.
1748: War of the Austrian Succession ends with the Pragmatic Sanction recognized.
1750: Voltaire joins the Prussian court.
1752: Heinrich forced to marry.
1753: Voltaire and Friedrich have fought so much for three years that Voltaire leaves Prussia, never to see Friedrich again. Briefly detained in Frankfurt on Friedrich's orders. Algarotti returns to Italy, never to see Friedrich again.
1755: Friedrich makes an incognito trip to Netherlands. There, he meets Henri de Catt, his future reader for 25 years.
1756: Start of the Seven Years' War: Austria, Russia, France, and Sweden against Prussia and a loosely allied Great Britain. Prussia instigates the war by invading and occupying Saxony in August.
1757: Fredersdorf retires due to bad health. Major Prussian defeat at Kolin June 18. Queen Mother Sophia Dorothea dies June 28. Augustus Wilhelm disgraced July 29 over his military decisions and cashiered. Major Prussian victory at Rossbach November 5. Major Prussian victory at Leuthen December 5.
1758: Fredersdorf dies January 12. Augustus Wilhelm dies June 12. Wilhelmine dies October 14. Major Prussian defeat at Hochkirch October 14.
1760: Major Prussian defeat at Kunersdorf August 12. George II dies October 25. His grandson becomes George III.
1762: Elizabeth of Russia dies January 5. Her nephew becomes Peter III. Under Peter III, Russia switches sides in the war and joins Prussia. A coup overthrows Peter III July 9. His wife becomes Catherine II, future Catherine the Great. Peter III dies in captivity July 17. Russia withdraws from the war.
1763: The Seven Years' War ends February 15 in a status quo ante bellum. Prussia remains in control of Silesia.
1764: Algarotti dies May 3.
1765: Franz I dies August 18. His son becomes Joseph II.
1769: First meeting between Joseph II and Friedrich, at Neisse, August 25.
1772: The First Partition of Poland divides part of Poland among Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
1774: Louis XV dies May 10. His son becomes Louis XVI.
1778: Voltaire dies May 30.
1778 - 1779: Joseph attempts to claim Bavaria. Friedrich opposes him. The largely desultory and bloodless War of the Bavarian Succession is eventually concluded by diplomacy.
1780: Maria Theresia dies November 29.
1782: Catt is dismissed from service as Friedrich's reader for financial irregularities.
1786: Friedrich dies August 17. His nephew becomes Friedrich Wilhelm II.

Okay, some tiny suggestions:

1730: ~~Heinrich moves into AW's household.~~ Peter Keith escapes (after explaining who Peter is), because you want to post something on the Keiths, and thus it is relevant.

1745: "Wilhelmine has lunch with Maria Theresia in Emsdorf" (not Bayreuth itself) or "Passing through the principality of Bayreuth on her way to the Frankfurt coronation, Maria Theresia has lunch with Wilhelmine, which deepens the enstrangement etc."

1746: Add "Conflict between Friedrich and younger brother Heinrich over the page Marwitz". Also, possibly: "Friedrich appoints 19 years old E.A. von Lehndorff as chamberlain to Elisabeth Christine".

In the late 1760s, early 1770s possibly some Swedish dates. At least 1771: Gustav becomes King, Ulrike visits Prussia, surviving Hohenzollern siblings unite (and argue), something along that line. It's referred to in several posts.

Those are my ideas for now.

Sounds good. Can I say "near Bayreuth" so as not to confuse readers with too much detail?

Absolutely!

I like these! DEFINITELY the one on Lehndorff :D (I mean, yes, want to keep it brief, but also it's our chronology so we get to put in the stuff that's important to us and Lehndorff definitely is :D )

Lehndorff it shall be! When does Lehndorff leave EC's service?

Okay, chronology is up! Because I can edit, I can add Lehndorff's departure date and anything anyone else wants at any time. But for now, we have something to point people to.

I didn't tag people's names, because then *everyone* would have to be tagged, lol.

I stickied it! :D

Sweet, thanks!

1775 for Lehndorff‘s resignation as chamberlain!

Updated!

Oh, I really like this! Good job keeping it brief :) And man, this is invaluable for looking at when I'm reading letters :D

(Also I'm seeing what you mean by chronology as characterization. 1762, man. I mean you guys had told me that already but it's something to see the dates just all laid out like that.)

I'd also like birth dates of Fritz's other siblings, not just our problematic faves :)

1727: Is this George I of England? Add in that George II becomes king?

SO MANY SIBLINGS. (The only way for FW to get laid, lol.) Okay, all the siblings it shall be. Death dates too?

George: Yes, I meant to include George II, good catch! Thanks.

Having just seen the superb result, just one more thing - make clear that Peter's widow gets the money in recompense for losing Jägerhof per annum, not as a one time only thing.

Yep, should have included that. Fixed, thanks!

Okay, Peter now has his own chronology, appended to the Keiths post on Rheinsberg.

I was trying to put together a more comprehensive chronology, and then I quickly got daunted, as you might expect, haha. Then I started thinking we should each do mini-chronologies on specific people/topics in our own areas of interest. So we'd have neat little topical chronologies, and when we're done, we could also combine them into a giant ALL THE THINGS chronology! And then people could use either version as needed.

What do you guys think?

Edited 2020-01-28 00:39 (UTC)

The problem with too many chronology posts that I see is that if we put them all up at the start, it might put people off? Though otoh they could certainly be useful.

What if we didn't put them in Rheinsberg yet, but started composing them elsewhere and making suggestions to each other and answering each other's questions about when things happened, and then we put the final product all in one post, each mini-chronology behind a cut? I think it would be useful to have more chronologies, I just don't want to do them all myself without help, especially the things I only know about from you.

I was thinking that we could just sticky the general brief chronology and possibly the ginormous huge chronology, and all other mini-chronology posts just tag, since there's not a real reason they need to be stickied anyway.

I agree with not stickying, but even if we just post them, unless we back-date them, they'll still flood the first page of entries, and I can see where that would be off-putting ~~to people who are not me~~.

We could back-date them, of course. But I'd be in favor of a joint effort working through rough drafts first, and then we can figure out what we want to do with the final products.

I definitely like the idea of working through rough drafts first! (Though I of course have much less of a dog in this fight, given that the only chronology I could possibly contribute to would be Emilie's.) But I kinda have been assuming that whenever they get posted, in another week or two we'd have another set of posts ~~probably on Katte~~ knocking the chronology posts off the first page :)

Why would we have another set of posts on Katte within a week? Who would do such a thing? :PPP

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Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

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