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Frederick the Great discussion post 12
Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!
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rheinsberg :)
All the good stuff continues to be archived at
rheinsberg :)
Trenck!
This consists of a lengthy text in which Volz skewers Trenck's various claims similar to Koser skewing Henri de Catt, and then of the documents themselves which he refers to in the text already. I only had time to read the text. Overall summary: Trenck is a lying lying who lies, but both Fritz and the Austrians did weird stuff (unmentioned by Trenck) that makes the entire affair even more confusing.
In detail: Volz shows that Trenck's entry in the Prussian army and early promotions by Fritz as reported in the memoirs did not happen; according to the officer's list, he joined the army two years later than he claims to have done (1744 instead of 1742). (Volz also points out that Trenck's claim to have been buddies with Voltaire, La Mettrie and Maupertuis is nonsense, which was guessable. During Voltaire's 1743 visit, Trenck wasn't in Berlin, La Mettrie didn't move to Potsdam until 1745, and Maupertuis in 1748.
Trenck is recorded as being part of the army fighting the second Silesian War on 15th August 1744. He's also participating in the batlte of Hohenfriedberg the next year on June 4th. But before the month of June is over, he gets arrested and locked up in Glatz, where he's recorded as being delivered as a prisoner on June 28th. Which means that his claim to have been with Fritz during the battle of Soor (September 30th) is completely invented.
So is Trenck a liar who had no contact with Fritz at all? This is where it gets intriguing and confusing.
Documented are: order by Fritz on June 28th to the commandant of Glatz, Generalmajor Fouqué, to keep Trenck prisoner, with the added comment in Fritz' own handwriting "be very strict to this scoundrel; he had wanted to become a Pandur at his uncle's."
"Uncle" refers to Cousin Austrian Trenck. Prussian Generalauditor Pawlowsky confirms Trenck is in Glatz because of "illegal correspondance". Now, Trenck does mention (harmless) letters with Austrian Trenck as well as one forgery. We don't have the letters themselves but Volz points to a relation of Trenck's, the brother of his brother-in-law von Meyerentz, who says it happened thusly:
Austrian Trenck writes to Prussian Trenck, offering him to join the Austrian side. Prussian Trenck shows the letter to Fritz. Fritz says to report any further correspondance immediately. More letters arrive, but don't get reported. Fritz has one of his generals ask Trenck point blank whether there were more letters, and, should Trenck deny them, have him arrested at once. Thus it happened, according to the relative.
Trenck tries to flee a couple of times: while the memoirs beef this up, he did try and eventually, one year later (November 1746), succeed. Then on April 12th 1747, Trenck (and Schell, one of the Glatz staff, who let his door unlocked and went with him are condemmed by a war tribunal for desertion in absentia and in effigy (yep, that again, ask Peter). Also the Trenck estate Groß-Scharlach in East Prussia gets confiscated and only returned in 1752 to his brother Ludwig when Ludwig petitions for it.
Trenck, as we know, ends up in Vienna. And now it gets fascinating.
Trenck memoirs: So I met the Prussian Ambassador, Podewils (author of the MT: Hot or Not? report), who told me Fritz was only testing me and would have let me go after a year, and wants me to come back. I said no way, my loyal heart was too mishandled by him. And that was that.
Podewils report dated December 1752, adressed to Fritz: Guess whom I met? Yep, the Trenck boy. He said he only did a runner because he was told you'd have had him locked up for eternity. HE's really really sorry and asks you for a pardon. Also he just inherited 600 000 Taler from Austrian Trenck and if you let him return to East Prussia, he will, of course, bring that money along. If you pardon him, that is.
Fritz to Podewils, dated December 22nd 1752: I had absolutely reason to lock that boy up, but okay, he can come home. I'm just that nice. Provided he stays in East Prussia and never tries to join my army again.
Now this was the first reveal that really stunned me. I mean. Say what? Which other deserter - I mean, Peter Keith excepted - gets offered a pardon and a return by Fritz?
Podewils to Fritz: It's a deal. He's really grateful and says just three or four weeks more to wrap up his business in Vienna, and then he comes home to Prussia.
For reasons Volz can't explain, after all this, Trenck does NOT go home. Instead, he joins the Austrian army, rank of Rittmeister, in the Hungarian Kürassierregiment Cordova.
1749: Renewed and even more strict order to arrest known deserters abroad.
Trenck's mother Maria Charlotte dies in Danzig on December 25th 1753. On June 12th, 1754, the Prussian Resident in Danzig, Reimer, reports to the ministry that former Prussian Cornett Trenck is in town on family business and is mostly seen near or in the residence of Austrian Resident in Danzig, Abramson. He wants to know whether he should ignore Trenck's presence in Danzig or ask the city council of Danzig whether he can arrest him as a deserter.
This is a tricky business, not least because Trenck was now a member of the Austrian army, and Austria & Prussia were at least nominally at peace. Also Danzig = Free City.
Trenck's memoirs: That bastard Abramson and Reimer conspired against me and had me practically kidnapped.
Volz: Did not. Abramson was a total champ for you and did everything in his power to help you. And Reimer went out of his way to handle this delicate situation legally. Fritz was handed Reimer's request for directives on June 27th. On the 29th, Fritz ordered that Reimer was to petition the city of Danzig as discreetly as possible but without delay to hand over Trenck.
July 2nd: official petition by the Prussian ministry to the City of Danzig to hand over the deserter Trecnk, wanted for "enormous crimes" beyond desertion.
Danzig City Council: we're cool with that.
Night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested. However, earlier that same day, Reimer, his wife and his secretary attended a party at the Austrian resident's where they met and talked to Trenck, who had no idea of his impending doom.
Abramson, the Austrian resident, learns from Trenck's servant of Trenck's arrest and immeditely, the same night, writes to the City Representatives, protesting, and asks for Trenck to be handed over to him. This first petition is denied. Abramson writes another one, asking for a delay until the Austrian and the Prussian court can come to terms re: Trenck; supposedly, negotiations have already started. Trenck himself writes a petition dated July 9th to the city officials asking for help and pointing out that the arrest goes against the freeness of the city of Danzig. However, on July 8th, the City Council has already signed off to agreeing to Fritz' extradition request. And it's off with Trenck to Prussia. The Commander of Berlin notifies Fritz on July 22nd that Trenck has arrived, and is told to transport him to Magdeburg immediately. Magdeburg at this point is commanded Generallietenant von Borcke, not, as Trenck claims in his memoirs, by EC's brother Ferd of Braunschweig.
(While he's at it, Volz also skewers the story Trenck tells that evil Austrians have warned Fritz, supposedly visiting East Prussia for military revue reasons, that Trenck was on his way; Fritz wasn't in East Prussia in 1754, and he learned about Trenck's presence in Danzig from Reimer.)
Far from conspiring with the Prussians, the Austrians actually continued to go on the mat for Trenck. No sooner is he in Magdeburg that the official Austrian envoy in Berlin, Count Puebla, officially protests against what's done to Trenck with the Prussian cabinet and says that Trenck having fallen out of favour with Fritz does not justify his arrest and treatment as a criminal. Fritz writes to his ministers to tell Count Puebla he's amazed that Trenck was accepted into the Austrian army to begin with, since a proper war tribunal has condemmed the guy first and made him infamous that way. He also asks that a copy of the war tribunal's judgment against Trenck from 1747should be forwarded to Puebla, which it is.
So far, so Fritzian. And now comes another stunner. On November 1st that same year, Fritz makes a confidential request to the French envoy in Berlin (at this point, it's La Touche) and asks him whether the French government could do him a favour and take a Prussian prisoner of state and transport him overseas to their colonial possession. IN this document, the person in question is described as a young man of noble birth who has behaved badly against Fritz. Fritz wishes him far away from Prussia both due to his, the King's own interests, and those of Trenck's family. However, he doesn't want the guy to remain locked up overseas, far from it, no. The young man in question, says Fritz, knows how to use his sword, he has wit and courage, and could be really really useful if the French take him into their service - but in the colonies. Far from here.
La Touche is down with that, but unfortunately, the ships on which this swashbuckling guy of wit, courage and bad behavior towards his King is to be transported on leave for St. Maurice in January 1755, but the winter in Prussia is so heavy that and early that Trenck can't be transported to France to be put on one of those ships. (Document No. 27.) (By the next year, 1756, the French government isn't in a mood to do Fritz favours anymore, and Fritz dosn't ask anyway.)
At which point, Volz says, yes, reader, I'm confused, too. How come Fritz is offering a pardon in 1750 and demands Trenck's extradition four years later, why, if he has him arrested and brought to Magdeburg, is he then ready to have him shipped off to the French colonies with basically a recommendation letter? But it's not really a paradox, reader: the pardon was offered before Trenck joined the Austrian army. Trenck joining the Austrian army after that one means Fritz would never forgive him again. Handing him over to the French would have meant a face saving way of defusing the diplomatic situation with the Austrian s in 1755, which was tense enough already, that's all.
Trenck in Magdeburg: no tombstone with his name to sit on, says Volz, but his proof for this is just an indignant letter to a newspaper upon the publication of Trenck's memoirs, with the letter writer calling himself "A Brandenburg patriot" who says he was employed in Magdeburg fortress at that time and there was no tombstone.
Trenck then tries to flee a couple of times, and we get documents again, proving a certain Ruckard, who used to be Austrian Trenck's quartermaster with the Pandurs, is sending 1000 Taler bribery money to the guards. However, all of Trenck's escape attempts fail (the memoirs name more than can be proven, but he did, Volz admits, try several times), which leads to the order to have him chained.
Trenck becomes an Austrian-Prussian object of discussion again after the 7 Years War ends, and the peace treaty of Hubertusburg explicitly includes an article offering amnesty to both MT's and Fritz' subjects. There's a note from Vienna to the peace negotiator, Hofrat von Collenbach, that this clause should be extended to Trenck as well. As with Puebla's protest 9 years earlier, Fritz replies he doesn't understand why the Austrians would want to intervene for "a man of that type". (Document No. 36.) Things get moving again when the first Austrian post war envoy, Freiherr von Ried, arrives in Berlin. He asks Graf Finckenstein how to approach the Trenck subject without causing the King's displeasure, but really, MT wants Trenck released. Finckenstein tells him to wait for Fritz moving from Potsdam to Berlin for the carnival and ask nicely then. Ried does so. Fritz points him back to Finckenstein. Finckenstein gets another visit from Ried and asks Fritz himself. Fritz tells Finckenstein fine, but only because MT asked nicely and he wants to do her a favour. Under the condition Trenck never puts his foot on Prussian soil again and is forbidden the Austrians to say anything about Fritz in either written or oral form ever. Exit Trenck from Madgeburg to Prague.
As for Trenck/Amalie, Volz points out Trenck gets the date of Ulrike's wedding festivities (where according to the memoirs Amalie and Trenck met) wrong and that the obvious reason is that he claims a three years love affair when his later entry into the army and the later wedding mean it can't have lasted nearly that long, if it ever did. Volz' main reason for not believing it ever did is that the same royal familiy who even brings up Barbarina in their letters never ever gossips about Trenck, this despite the fact Amalie with her sharp tongue at different points has various other family members very pissed off at her. And yet, never a "remember that Trenck guy?" kind of needling. No one mentions Trenck at all.
He does concide some of Trenck's poetry - yes, he published some - is adressed to Amalie but says this was standard for the day, and Trenck also adressed poems to EC. Yes, one of Trenck's daughters became Amalie's goddaughter, with Amalie accepting godmother status, but the accepting letter was by her secetary, not her. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.) Lastly, the fact that Trenck in the first volume swears never to reveal the name of his high born lady, and in volume 3, when both Fritz and Amalie are dead, says "it was totally Amalie" makes the claim even less credible. Volz, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
In conclusion: we know more than previously, but it's no less confusing. Especially the bit with the pardon and the French overseas handover that almost happened. And the Austrian championing of Trenck (who later did nothing but complain about lack of support from Vienna). So, my current take:
Spy or no spy: must have done some spying, otherwise I really fail to understand why they didn't leave him to rot.
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: could explain the pardon offer. Like I said - who, other than Peter, gets pardoned for desertion from the Prussian army? Yes, Trenck is offering to bring his Austrian inheritance money along, but a few taxes more aren't that crucial, surely.
Trenck discussion
I KNEW if we got our hands on this book, it would reveal hitherto unguessed-at secrets to us! Koser and Volz are our new historical heroes, for facts if not opinions (Koser at least being dicey on the "abuse is justified!" opinion side).
During Voltaire's 1743 visit, Trenck wasn't in Berlin, La Mettrie didn't move to Potsdam until 1745, and Maupertuis in 1748.
The Maupertuis dates seem off. He moved to Berlin in 1740, got captured at Mollwitz in 1741, left for Paris, and returned in 1745 or 1746 (my sources keep differing, but definitely by 1746).
Now, was Trenck BFFs with him in 1740-1741? I'm sure he wasn't. But 1748 seems much too late a date for Maupertuis' arrival in Berlin, unless all my sources are very much mistaken.
Which means that his claim to have been with Fritz during the battle of Soor (September 30th) is completely invented.
Damn. So no Fritz batman at all? Time to mark "Care and Feeding" an AU! (See, this is why I'm starting to think *all* historical fiction should be marked an AU, whether you know in what way it's an AU when you write it or not.)
Funny thing, original version of that story had a nameless batman, and I threw in Trenck at the last minute because you had done your memorable memoir summary in between when I wrote this fic (October) and when I posted it (two days before Yuletide closed in December).
Then on April 12th 1747, Trenck (and Schell, one of the Glatz staff, who let his door unlocked and went with him
Oh, wow!
No one left Katte's door unlocked. :`-(Now this was the first reveal that really stunned me. I mean. Say what? Which other deserter - I mean, Peter Keith excepted - gets offered a pardon and a return by Fritz?
During wartime, it wasn't uncommon. Asprey even says he offered a mass pardon for deserters in late 1744, as long as they returned within 6 months and rejoined the army. And I've seen sources saying that in the Seven Years' War, when manpower was at a premium, returning after deserting meant all was forgiven.
In 1752, yeah, that feels weird. That said, Prades was released from prison after the war, after having been imprisoned for espionage, and told to stay in Silesia, so Fritz telling him to stay in East Prussia and behave himself sounds maybe in character? TBD.
the Prussian Resident in Danzig,
Ah, of course, I should have remembered that there would have been a Prussian resident in a city as major as Danzig. Also, would Trenck have had to show identification papers before entering? (You know, the thing that got Fritz & co. arrested in Strasbourg when their papers didn't check out. :P)
Danzig City Council: we're cool with that.
Night from July 5th to July 6th: Trenck gets arrested.
Well, this is a definite step up from the Frankfurt arrest so far!
How come Fritz is offering a pardon in 1750 and demands Trenck's extradition four years later, why, if he has him arrested and brought to Magdeburg
I'm confused primarily by the dates in this write-up. You originally had the pardon offer being made in 1752, followed by a stricter order to round up deserters in 1749, followed by a demand for extradition in 1754. Now you have the pardon offer in 1750.
Can you clarify? Was 1752 a typo?
*some time later*
It was! I found the letter from Fritz in the political correspondence, dated December 22, 1750. Okay, all is clear, then. And so you were putting the 1749 order in to highlight that Fritz has *just* indicated that he really cares about capturing deserters, and yet he's willing to pardon Trenck?
The young man in question, says Fritz, knows how to use his sword, he has wit and courage
The "wit" makes it sound like Fritz met him at least once and found him memorable, though perhaps he's just going by report.
Trenck in Magdeburg: no tombstone with his name to sit on, says Volz, but his proof for this is just an indignant letter to a newspaper upon the publication of Trenck's memoirs, with the letter writer calling himself "A Brandenburg patriot" who says he was employed in Magdeburg fortress at that time and there was no tombstone.
Random patriot has a teeeensy bit more credibility than Trenck at this point, but! this reminds me of credibility-less Nicolai having Fritz watch the execution, and receiving an indignant letter from Münchow saying he was residing in the fortress at the time and Fritz *totally* didn't have to watch! "I who am writing this watched Katte's blood spray high." Five years later: "Oh, wait, yes, he did."
So only a teensy bit more credibility.
Volz, of course, lives a century before the "great familiarity" indicating letter is found.
So you know my question at this point is going to be: is there a copy of this letter we can read somewhere and judge for ourselves whether we think he "totally scored"? Have you read it?
Spy or no spy: must have done some spying, otherwise I really fail to understand why they didn't leave him to rot.
Sounds convincing to me!
Sex or at least flirt with one or both siblings: could explain the pardon offer. Like I said - who, other than Peter, gets pardoned for desertion from the Prussian army?
I would hesitate to put too much weight on this argument from personal ignorance of peacetime pardons. Fritz supposedly (biographer alert!) pardoned/downgraded the sentence of at least one general who was cashiered for surrendering during the Seven Years' War and sentenced to death after the war, and Fritz was reeeeeally cheesed off at that general.
I feel like I would need to read a dedicated work on the subject of Fritz's judicial track record to get a sense of what was and wasn't in character.
Anyway, amaaaaazing write-up. Another one for
the agesRe: Trenck discussion
Maupertuis: I misread Volz saying "letzerer" - it's 1745 for Maupertuis and 1748 for La Mettrie according to him.
Speaking of dates, yes, 1749 mentioned after 1750 (by both Volz and me) to clarify that just after putting out an "wanted for arrest and harsh punishment: all deserters on foreign soil!" order in 1749, Fritz is ready to issue a pardon in 1750 - not 1752, typing dates quickly is haaaard -.
No batman: not at Soor, at any rate. Volz doesn't say what position Trenck held other than "Cornett", but he does believe Trenck's in-law's brother (described, naturally, as a total soulless bastard in Trenck's memoirs) story which has Trenck show Fritz the first of the letters from Austrian Trenck. As in, show Fritz personally, not his next superior officer who then shows Fritz. Now, this doesn't have to mean Trenck was on talking terms with Fritz before that - maybe he even thought reporting a letter form his Austrian cousin wuld get him the King's attention! - , but it could mean that.
That said, Prades was released from prison after the war, after having been imprisoned for espionage, and told to stay in Silesia, so Fritz telling him to stay in East Prussia and behave himself sounds maybe in character? TBD.
Yes, but Prades was a) a civilian, while Trenck had been a Prussian officer, b) a French citizen, not a Prussian citizen, and c) an actual member of the church - yes, he'd been temporarily excommunicated, but he had been accepted back into the Church. The "Abbé" wasn't just for show, and whether or not you could condemn clerics the same way as laymen was still not completely settled by universal law. Much as Fritz was into mocking Catholicism, a sizable part of his subjects, courtesy of Silesia, were now Catholics, and he needed goodwill to rebuild.
Now, Trenck was also an officer of the Austrian army and as Kaunitz himself (! saw this when having a quick look) told his people to argue a citizen of Austria, not Prussia anymore, but he'd been Prussian first. Mind you, I doubt Fritz would have been amused if, say, Uncle George had George Keith, Lord Marishal arrested at Versailles on the rationale that Keith was a British subject and deserter, then had him extradited to GB. Ahem.
Speaking of Keith, seems Trenck in a OMG HELP! letter from Danzig to another officer of his current Austrian regiment thinks "Mylord Keith" will help him, but the footnote by Volz tells me he means Robert Keith, current British envoy in Vienna. HOW MANY GODDAM KEITHS ARE THERE?
The "wit" makes it sound like Fritz met him at least once and found him memorable, though perhaps he's just going by report.
Direct quote form the letter: "Il ny's sera pas tout-à-fait inutile, vu que c'est proprement un homme d'épée, ne manquant pas d'esprit ni de bravoure."
Now it could just be, like Volz suggests, he wants to make Trenck someone else's problem and thereby defuse the situaton with the Austrians. But "defusing the situation with the Austrians" and "Fritz" do not go usually in the same sentence, especially pre 7 Years War. What it does refute, though, is the idea that Fritz absolutely wanted to see Trenck suffer by any means at this point. Also that there had been no trial, for that matter, since there had been a war tribunal post escape from Glatz, complete with sentence.
No one left Katte's door unlocked. :`-(FW was scarier? Actually, I do have a theory, because glancing at the war tribunal sentence for both Trenck and Schell, I see that Schell isn't from Prussia. He's from "Müncherode in Swabia" according to the judgment. Google didn't give me a Müncherode in Swabia, but it did give me one in Thuringia, near Jena (at this point, belonging to the Dukedom Sachsen-Weimar, the one unborn great nephew Carl August will rule one day. Either way, it's not Prussia. At a guess: maybe Schell had the dubious joy of being forcibly recruited into Prussian service, like so many others. And thought this was a great opportunity for his very own "Fuck you, Fritz!"
Letter to Amalie: I've only seen the mention by German wiki, providing this citation:
Christopher Frey: Friedrich von der Trencks Beziehung zu Prinzessin Amalie von Preußen sowie ein bisher unbekannter Brief Trencks. In: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 116. Band, Heft 1–2 (2008), S. 146–158.
German wiki, btw, does have the correct date for Trenck joining the army (1744, not 1742 as the memoirs claim), but is also sure he did become a batman in 1745. Then again, German wiki, like English wiki, thinks Fredersdorf embezzled, so...
Oh! One of the documents is the secretary-written letter from Amalie accepting the godmotherhood which Volz mentions:
Berlin, 116 mars 1771/ Je vous félicite, Monsieur, de la naissance de votre fille, et comme je me suis toujours intéressée à votre sort, j'accepte avec plaisir d'etre sa marraine, vous assurant que je prends part à tout les evenenments heureux qui vous surviennent, étant avec estime, Monsieur, votre affectionée, Amèlie.
Okay, here I have to slightly disagree with Volz in that while it's not a love letter, it also doesn't sound like just a letter to someone she never met or heard of before, either. I would say it sounds as if the very least they've met in ye olde pre Magdeburg days.
Re: Trenck discussion
It is! As I well know.
Now, this doesn't have to mean Trenck was on talking terms with Fritz before that - maybe he even thought reporting a letter form his Austrian cousin wuld get him the King's attention! - , but it could mean that.
Hmm, okay. I guess it's no longer clear whether Trenck counts as evidence for Fritz's witty pretties that turned out to be no good.
At the very least, we have to cross at least one item off the list of "Fritz and the very upsetting week of winning the Battle of Soor":
- dogs gone
- flute gone
- older sister met with arch nemesis
- younger sister has been getting it on with batman
- batman possibly Austrian spy
- MT Empress now due to having crowned FS at Frankfurt.
And depending on how the Trenck/Amalie thing went and when Fritz found out and whether he was the batman at all, possibly two items.
Yes, but Prades was a) a civilian, while Trenck had been a Prussian officer, b) a French citizen, not a Prussian citizen, and c) an actual member of the church
True. Though as noted, he supposedly offered pardons to Prussian deserters during wartime.
Speaking of Keith, seems Trenck in a OMG HELP! letter from Danzig to another officer of his current Austrian regiment thinks "Mylord Keith" will help him, but the footnote by Volz tells me he means Robert Keith, current British envoy in Vienna. HOW MANY GODDAM KEITHS ARE THERE?
Robert Keith the envoy is mentioned in the Confusion of Keiths write-up! (Oh, man, that reminds me I need to update that post to include the fact that Kloosterhuis' documentary evidence does *not* support Peter's younger brother, betrayer of escape plans to FW, being named Robert Keith. Notwithstanding all the biographies that do name him that.)
There are actually even more Keiths, since both Peter and James have kids, and I think it's James' kid who shows up in the letters between Fritz and Maria Antonia, but so far, they haven't caused problems for us yet. ;)
But "defusing the situation with the Austrians" and "Fritz" do not go usually in the same sentence, especially pre 7 Years War.
Trufax. I laughed.
Also that there had been no trial, for that matter, since there had been a war tribunal post escape from Glatz, complete with sentence.
But there had been no trial for the initial imprisonment, am I right?
FW was scarier?
What I was thinking. As much as Fritz enjoyed ruining your life, he was pretty reluctant to chop off heads, whereas FW not only chopped off your head, he made sure everyone watched, especially if they cared about you.
At a guess: maybe Schell had the dubious joy of being forcibly recruited into Prussian service, like so many others. And thought this was a great opportunity for his very own "Fuck you, Fritz!"
Very likely! Good thinking.
I would say it sounds as if the very least they've met in ye olde pre Magdeburg days.
Agreed.
Re: Trenck discussion
The Rittmeister (i.e. Trenck) showed no restraint whatsoever and told everyone his name, rank and service, he visited me day in and day out. Yesterday this officer showed up in the middle of the night around twelve, delivered a letter signed by the King in (!) Prussia‘s own hand to the City Council, and thus two officers and several grenadiers were sent to his quarters, which were at the boatsmen‘s guildhouse, to arrest him, and he was brought to a local prison via a Porte-Chaise. An hour later, this was told to me through his servant.
Then Abramson protested with the city fathers, etc., to no avail. In the next letter to Kaunitz, he describes further attempts to provent Trenck getting sent to Prussia, and sighs: I do not know what on earth made the Baron of Trenck consider this journey, all the more so since I have reminded him of the danger he was in many times during my daily interactions with him. Still he believed himself safe, and did not want to show the least bit of caution. After his arrest, his servant, named Kayser, who along with a hunter and a footman of his is still here, has told me that he (Trenck) didn‘t have any money with him and that this had been the reason why he had to remain in Danzig for so long; he (Kayser) had advised him repeateadly to open up to me about this. But (Trenck) supposedly replied every time that he wasn‘t afraid of anything and was utterly safe here. By now I‘ve discovered that a brother of his brother-in-law, named v. Meyerentz, who is staying here as a Polish Lt. Colonel, has denounced him to Berlin as a revengfe for the refused payment of 200 Ducats which the Baron of Trenck owes him as well as due to various quarrels from their time in Vienna, thus causing this arrest. I‘ve written all of this with today‘s mail to the Marquis de La Puebla. I await the Empress-Queen‘s orders how to behave towards the city council from now on.
As we‘ve said before, it‘s a miracle Trenck lived long enough to get beheaded in Paris when in his 70s.
Re: war tribunals - yes, one after the escape from Glatz, but not before that. So whatever cousin Austrian Trenck wrote might not have been available as evidence? Or maybe Fritz just didn‘t bother. Incidentally, for all his lying, the documents do prove Trenck did make a couple of inventive escape attempts from both prisons before in one case succeeding and in the other not so much, so if nothing else, he was a terrier, too.
Another quote, this one from Ried to Finckenstein in 1763: Le cas de Trenck est differént: S.M. L‘Impératrice, par un simple mouvement de pitíe, m‘a recommandé fortement de tacher d‘ effectuer sa liberté. Ma souveraine est bien éloignée de contredire S.M. Le Roi sur la conduite et la charactère de Trenck. Tout le monde connait que c‘est un mauvais garnement. Cependant à tout pécheur rémission! Si on considère la longueuer du temps qu‘ il est déjà en prison, et qu, lorsqu‘il fut arrété a Danzig, il était actuellement dans le service de L‘Impératrice, il pairait qu‘il ne devrait pas etre impossible de fléchir S.M. Le Roi.
At the same time, Ried writes to Kaunitz in German: Regarding Trenck, (...) it just depends on finding a good moment to petition the King. For now, I haven‘t achieved anything beyond making his imprisonment somewhat more bearable for him, and gotten permission to allow him to improve his conditions through third parties sending him money now and then. This man‘s regular behavior, however, is so badly that one can‘t take his party in public, for as soon as he sees the slightest hope to expect some help, he starts with his debaucheries. Not withstanding this, I still hope to free him; for those who have his fate in their hands are as much invested in his cause as I am.
Now I knew noble prisoners paid for their imprisonment (food, creature comfort etc.), but - debaucheries? And Ried writes „Ausschweifungen“ ? What is going on in Magdeburg? I mean, beyond Prades cleaning everyone out with card games. (BTW, Trenck did not make up being chained to a wall, there is among the documents a Fritz signed order to that effect after his first three escape attempts.)
Also, I do wonder what he did for the Austrians to deserve all this, or maybe I‘m too cynical and Mt did just feel sorry for him. I mean, it‘s not like even if he got letters from Austrian Trenck and wrote back „yep, on your side now!“, they got much out of this. And since he got arrested at the end of June, and Soor wasn‘t until the end of September, he can‘t have told them that Eichel and the war chest would be around, either...
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Now I'm curious too!
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Ried (via messenger, he was in Berlin, after all, not Magdeburg): Trenck, good news! We're working on your case, and here's some money from your sister and other friends so you can buy yourself some nice cushions and maybe some books.
Trenck: Cushions nothing. I haven't gotten laid in nine years. Get me some Magdeburg working girls, stat.
Then again: as Lehndorff's diaries constantly tell me, (war time) imprisonment for nobles who weren't Trenck didn't prevent them from getting visits (like he shows up at old Seckendorff's) and to a degree socialize with the local Prussian nobility, at least the officers. (Hence lots of Austrian and French officers flirting with the Prussian court ladies and dancing with them at balls before being returned to their fortresses.) Now peace time imprisonment is probably a different issue, not to mention that someone like Trenck, with his jail break record, probably would be suspected to make a run for it even in his last few months if they let him out of Magedburg Fortress, but maybe he was allowed to hang out with the other prisoners now?
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Clarification for
Historically, the cornet, like his infantry equivalent the ensign, was responsible for carrying the flag for his unit. By the 18th century, though, there wasn't a 1-1 relationship between cornets/ensigns and standard-bearers.
Lol, I just discovered a neat thing. There's this one book I read in second grade that's what I always think of when I think of carrying a flag. It's called Did You Carry the Flag Today, Charley?, and it's about a boy who wants to be chosen to carry the flag at school. Amazon tells me the protagonist is named Charley Cornett. I can tell you that flew right past me when I was seven!
Re: Trenck discussion
Schell, the guy who leaves Trenck's door in Glatz unlocked and deserts with him, whom I suspect of having been gangpressed into Prussian service due to him not having been a Prussian, is a Lieutenant.
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Hmmm, yeah. Looks like he skipped right over second lieutenant and first lieutenant.
I want to know what exactly he contributed to the Austrian cause more than ever.
Circumstantial evidence is certainly damning!
Schell, the guy who leaves Trenck's door in Glatz unlocked and deserts with him, whom I suspect of having been gangpressed into Prussian service due to him not having been a Prussian, is a Lieutenant.
I don't know enough about impressment practices: were foreign noblemen impressed as officers? He is a von Schell and he is a lieutenant. I could be wrong, but it strikes me as dangerous to have your officers serving involuntarily, and impressing noblemen is probably going to cause a hue and cry that impressing lower and middle classes isn't.
Googling around, I'm not finding evidence that noblemen and officers were impressed, and am finding statements that press gangs worked the lower and middle classes, and that noblemen were exempt. I remember Duffy saying that Prussian recruiters would trick people into enlisting voluntarily by telling them they would be officers, and then when they signed up, they were forced into service as common soldiers and not allowed to leave. But if you know of any examples where nobles were impressed as officers, let me know. It's hard to prove a negative after a few minutes of googling.
While googling, I ran across something else that backed up my sense that pardons for desertion were common: "Desertion was to be punished by death. Yet, most deserters were in fact not executed but often enough pardoned and re-admitted to the service if they requested a pardon." This is from Prussian Army Soldiers and the Seven Years' War: The Psychology of Honour, a scholarly volume that was published in 2019, costs $80, and has something like 12 footnotes per page. This particular line has a footnote citing a 1996 scholarly volume. So it looks legit. Again, the book is about the Seven Years' War, but this particular page seems to be talking about practices in general, including peacetime practices. The citation is Disziplin und Desertion: Strukturprobleme militärischer Organisation im 18. Jahrhundert (Historische Forschungen), page 288, which would probably tell us everything we ever wanted to know about how exceptional Trenck's pardon offer was (my sense without reading it is: not enough to warrant concluding that he slept or at least flirted with one of the royal siblings).
Btw, Google is giving me Müncherode as an acceptable alternate spelling for Rot_an_der_Rot Abbey in Swabia, and Wikipedia tells me the town developed out of the abbey, so I'm guessing Schell's from the town called Rot an der Rot today.
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Hey, I have access to that! Thank you for introducing this to me!
There's lots of stuff on the structure of the Prussian army, recruitment, the role of women and Africans in the army, primary sources etc. Here's just some stuff I found interesting, not necessarily about Friedrich. I'm smashing together quotes from the book:
Tidbits about the recruitment of the army:
The majority of Prussian soldiers were Kantonisten, draftees from the recruiting districts (Kantone) of the regiments. They were the second, third or fourth sons of peasants and craftsmen, coming from the centre of Prussian society. Most of them were Lutheran Protestants of the Pietist brand, who believed that the faithful and professional fulfillment of their duties would secure them a place in heaven. The regiment as the basic organizational unit had its own area of recruitment. There, all male peasants, artisans and small traders who reached a certain height and were not only sons were enrolled at the age of thirteen and drilled for two months during the summer each year once they reached the age of twenty. When it was war time, who was actually called up was decided by the regiment together with the local authorities. More than half of those who had been enrolled were able to evade service. Rich merchants and certain religious minorities such as Jews, Quakers, and Mennonites were excluded from the draft.
The other soldiers were Ausländer (foreigners), which were not always foreigners in the modern sense of the word. The term meant that the person came from outside the Kanton, or was a mercenary, who came from the Kanton but was not required to serve. The Ausländer who volunteered signed six year contracts. But many were not volunteers, and were forcibly recruited by violence, deceit and press gangs.
Tidbits about the role of women:
A soldier did not need to marry a woman for her to be formally recognised as a companion. Direct quote: "Sweethearts: A Prussian idiosyncrasy was the legalization of the Liebsten (sweethearts). Soldiers, who were not allowed to marry due to a lack of money or permission by their master, could get a Liebstenschein (sweetheart diploma). With this, the army recognized the girlfriend of a soldier as a legitimate companion, cared for the women in times of war and made the relationship honourable." Basically, just like wives, they were Soldatenfrauen ("soldiers' women") who could travel between the army and the Kanton if they desired. Or send letters. Friedrich established a free postal service so soldiers and their families could communicate. Women in most soldiers' families needed to take on paid work in addition to housework, and soldiers often took on second jobs. Soldiers’ wives could also take over the military duties of their absent men, such as guard duties or supervising the cleaning of stables. Up to 72 women were allowed to accompany each Prussian regiment in wartime, and they cooked, mended uniforms, sold looted goods, etc.
The Potsdam Orphanage:
"One of the darkest chapters of the Prussian army’s history was the handling of the military orphanage in Potsdam. While Frederick William I had carefully built up the orphanage and provided the inmates with spiritual guidance and a good education by Pietist chaplains and musical instructors, Frederick II sent the children to the arms factories, where many of them perished due to a harsh labour regime and long working hours."
Later in the book, when talking about musicians in the Prussian army: "Some the drummers also came from the military orphanage in Potsdam. During the reign of the Soldier King, orphaned boys were taught to play the drum by older invalid drummers and at the same time taught to write and read in order to join one of the regiments of the elite Potsdam garrison. Under Frederick II, the orphanage degenerated and became a prison-like institution which supplied cheap labour to the nearby factories. The king was not interested in educating the orphans and music and drumming lessons were abandoned."
Sympathy to the author:
The pains of historical scholarship: "(...)but the documents were missing. Unfortunately, the Household Archive could not be accessed at the time of writing as the heirs of the Prince of Stolberg-Wernigerode and the state of Sachsen-Anhalt are involved in a legal dispute about the further use of the Archive."
Sorbs:
Frederick II – and some of his generals – valued soldiers from Magdeburg, Pomerania and Brandenburg greatly. Officers seem to have agreed that men from the West Slavic minority of the Sorbs, who lived in Brandenburg, were ‘the best infantrymen in the world’, as they were totally obedient to their king.
Child soldiers:
Child soldiers were used by the Prussians in siege of Schweidnitz in 1762:
"the regiments used to besiege the fortress were amongst the worst of the entire army and almost entirely composed of children. One day, the garrison staged a sortie and some of the Prussian soldiers began to cry. The colonel commanding the trenches feared that they might do something worse [flee, K. & S.M.], [but] did not abuse them, not even with words but shouted: ‘Cry as much as you want, my children, but open fire and do not run away.’ His gentle behaviour made them fight as good soldiers."
Former slaves in the Prussian army:
I think I remember Mildred being curious, at some point, about the status of black people in Prussia - after she read about a 're-naming ceremony' in Count Lehndorff's diaries? This book provides some answers in the military sense:
"Some of the musicians [in the Prussian army] were black Africans. For example, the Pfeifer (fifers) of the Potsdam Giants were slaves bought in the Netherlands or England. Upon their arrival in Prussia, they were taught German, baptized and given German names. Legally, they were freed and theoretically had the same rights as other non-noble subjects of the king. There were twenty-three of these former slaves in the army at the end of Frederick William’s reign."
This blogpost has visual illustrations of African musicians in the Prussian army, in Friedrich's lifetime. It's an interesting article overall.
Related, here's Friedrich's own opinions about the slave trade, found in Christopher Duffy's biography:
'He replied with angry sarcasm to one of his customs officials who asked for leave for his brother, a Bordeaux merchant, to go slaving under the Prussian flag:
I have always been of the opinion that the trade in negroes is a blight on the human race. Never shall I do anything to authorise or promote it. However, if this business is so attractive to you, you have only to go back to France to be able to indulge your taste. May God keep you in his holy and fond care! (Preuss, 1832-4. IV. 296).'
(But Fredersdorf bought an entire plantation didn't he...??? Fritz????)
Re: Trenck discussion
Potsdam orphanage: that is terrible. And a really black mark against Friedrich.
Incidentally, re: socially beneficial institutions founded by FW, the most famous of these which is still ongoing is the Charité, the famous Berlin hospital. (Though it became famous for its high medical standards only in the later half of the 19th century.)
Citation for Fredersdorf buying a plantation? Is it in this book? Because I don't recall it mentioned in the sources we've had so far. As far as I know, over the years he bought additional estates once given Zernikow in 1740, which became the Fredersdorfischen Güter, but these were all within Brandenburg. Don't know whether directly attached to Zernikow. I'm ready to stand corrected - any additional information is welcome!
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The source is not this book, but I explicitly remember reading that he bought a plantation in Mexico. This newspaper article mentions that Fredersdorf "bought a plantation in South America", and I'm assuming they're drawing from the same source I read that I can't remember. Giles MacDonogh writes that he had a 'colony' in the East Indies. His doesn't quote sources for each sentence but has a list of sources for the paragraph about Fredersdorf, in the frustrating truncated way he lays out his references. Since that information is in the first sentence, and the first reference in the list is Johannes Richter "Die Briefe Friedrichs des Grossen an seinen vormaligen Kammerdiener Fredersdorf" 1979, pages 20-21, I'm assuming the information is there.
Fredersdorf
His doesn't quote sources for each sentence but has a list of sources for the paragraph about Fredersdorf, in the frustrating truncated way he lays out his references.
MacDonogh is terribly unreliable about his sources actually saying what he says they say, but in this case, he's got it in one. Richter, page 20, "...kaufte Fredersdorf später noch mehrere Besitzungen hinzu, ja er wurde sogar, wie wir aus der früher erwähnten Urkunde des Grafen Schlitz wissen, Besitzer einer 'Kolonie' in Ostindien."
Aaaand, it does appear that the slave trade was thriving in the 18th century in the East Indies (about which I know virtually nothing and had to check).
:(
Nothing in Richter on South America or Mexico, or even the West Indies, that I can see, but I'm hindered by my rudimentary German. Still.
The past is a terrible place, I mean we already knew that. :( A few props to Fritz for speaking out about the slave trade, I guess, though Fredersdorf has some splainin to do.
Oh,
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Yeah! I'll offer up some more public domain Volz from archive.org that doesn't seem to be on there yet - it's the Grumbkow-Hille-Wolden correspondence, which gives insight into Friedrich's mindset/behaviour at Küstrin as well as other things.
My German is rudimentary too, but I see a pretty sad entry on pages 15 to 16:
Hille to Grumbkow, 23rd of December 1730
"[You?] will have heard from the King from the relay sent yesterday that the Crown Prince had two attacks of Wechselfieber [malaria]. So much excitement, grief and fear must have had a violent effect on his body. Thank God it didn't result in anything more serious(...)" (cont but Google Translate struggles)
I suppose it would be better to post about it on the new discussion topic, hah.
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ETA: Oh, I see you already found the sentence. The „earlier mentioned document“ refers to the one in which Fredersdorf‘s widow doesn‘t sign herself „von“, which is how Richter concludes Fredersdorf wasn‘t ennobled. Also, belatedly it’s occured to me that before the demise of the East India Trading Company it‘s not British India yet, but in terms of 18th century use of the term „Ostindien“ in the fictional texts I‘ve seen it in, it was employed for the continent and not the islands. Again: „I could be wrong“ caveat, big time.
Fredersdorf
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Ooh, you lucky dog!
A Prussian idiosyncrasy was the legalization of the Liebsten (sweethearts).
Did not know about that! Or that the women could take over some of the military duties. I did know about the free postal service and that both soldiers and their wives worked for extra pay to supplement their meager income from serving.
I knew Fritz's wartime practices were indefensible, but did not know that about the children, ouch. It's worse because from everything I've seen, his labor conditions in his porcelain factory were *above* average for the time, but "win at all costs" Fritz during wartime is a different beast than Fritz during peacetime, and this isn't the first time I've had occasion to make that observation.
I think I remember Mildred being curious, at some point, about the status of black people in Prussia - after she read about a 're-naming ceremony' in Count Lehndorff's diaries?
It's definitely something we discussed before.
I second
This book sounds interesting--I wish it weren't $82! Or that I could read library books. But thank you for sharing cool details with us!
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Christopher Frey: Friedrich von der Trencks Beziehung zu Prinzessin Amalie von Preußen sowie ein bisher unbekannter Brief Trencks. In: Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 116. Band, Heft 1–2 (2008), S. 146–158.
Check the library!
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And since he got arrested at the end of June, and Soor wasn‘t until the end of September, he can‘t have told them that Eichel and the war chest would be around, either...
True, and also my impression is that the plundering of the Prussian camp and train was not an organized effort carried out under orders from superiors, but the officers losing control of the hussars, which happened more than once during Fritz's wars. Loot was seen as one of the major perks of being a soldier, and the hussars were "irregulars" anyway.
It might also be worth adding to
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Amalie‘s physical state: no, I only mentioned near blindness before the end, not the difficulties of moving after what appears to have been a stroke or a series of short ones.
Frey also has some other interesting stuff, including that Thièbault, who is the one having worked for Fritz memoirist who subscribes to the Trenck/Amalie sotry, hadn‘t just read Trenck‘s memoirs, as I had guessed from even the rewritten into two volumes version of Thiebault‘s book, but had met Trenck himself, in 1789 in Paris, and talked to him about this. Unfortunately, this makes the entire thing not more or less plausible, since again, Trenck is Thièbault‘s only source, but it‘s possibly worth noting that Thièbault, who knew Fritz for 20 years, is willing to buy the story.
Then again, Trenck must have been enormously convincing. I mean, he got FW2 to actually order that Trenck was to be paid a pension as an officer of the Prussian army. With retroactive payment covering the Magdeburg years. (Might have been because of FW2‘s general „think about what Uncle Fritz would do, then do the opposite“ mantra, of course.)
Oh, and this happened, since Trenck also got an Austrian pension. Bear in mind he was in Paris twice, once when the Revolution started and once in the middle of the Terreur, when he got himself beheaded.
Trenck: *returns in 1790 from Paris*: Vive la Revolution! A bas les aristocrats! Wow, events in Paris are just awesome. I‘m totally going to publish about this.
Leopold: Who do you think you are, Prinz Heinrich? I might not be willing to commit troops to saving my sister Marie Antoinette, but that kind of thing is not okay. Say farewell to your Austrian pension, Trenck.
Trenck: Habsburg bastard! Fine! I‘m going back to the wonderful land of liberty. While still boasting of my royal connections.
The. Dumbest. Gryffindor.
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I agree it's pears and oranges, but I disagree that makes it completely useless. Because imagine if we didn't have that example. Imagine if desertion were SUCH an unforgivable crime that you had to execute people for it even when you had a good reason for keeping them around as cannon fodder. Then we'd really only have Peter and Trenck as the exceptions, and the Trenck exception of forgiveness for desertion + initial crime would be mind-blowing.
As it is, there's an abundance of precedent for pardoning of desertion, possibly even during peacetime, and it's plausible that if Fritz can find a reason for letting someone come back, he will. And no, Trenck isn't joining the army again (because of his initial crime that predated the desertion), but he's bringing some money with him, which might not be a lot, but in peacetime might be the equivalent of "one more piece of fodder for cannon." Especially if they are allowing pardons and rejoins in peacetime as well, which means "one more potential piece of fodder in the event we go to war again (which I don't think we are) and you're still here."
The. Dumbest. Gryffindor.
No contest!
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It had two magic K words, what can I say? :D I dropped everything.
ETA: Also, I should add that you did already mention in
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I am really rather pleased to find out that Trenck is a lying liar who lies :D I never liked that whole "it was totally Amalie!" thing or the Fritz!batman thing.
Yes, one of Trenck's daughters became Amalie's goddaughter, with Amalie accepting godmother status, but the accepting letter was by her secetary, not her. (Remember, Trenck also tried to get Joseph to become his son's godfather and got a "no thanks" letter back.)
HAHAHAHHA lol.
Volz, you are my hero!