Recently, we were exploring the possibility of an AU where Fritz is captured by the Austrians, put on trial, and defended by Voltaire after attempts by Heinrich to recapture him failed.
selenak asked: "And would it be plausible that he starts an argument when the secret prisoner exchange is on, which is why it doesn't work out, which is why Voltaire can still do the rescue via publicity campaign?"
I replied: "I wish I could find the source, and I will keep an eye out because I feel like it's a letter and not just a novel, I mean biography, but I have a memory of Fritz saying something like, 'If I'm captured, you're not to make any concessions to get me back; the welfare of the state comes first.'"
Well, I found it! Asprey cites the letter, and though he doesn't give me a page number or a date or anything (other than shortly before Mollwitz), he narrowed it down enough that I was able to track it down in the Political Correspondence.
Translation mine:
By the way, I have twice escaped the designs of the Austrian hussars [viz, to capture him]. If I suffer the misfortune of being taken alive, I absolutely order you, and you will answer for it with your head, that in my absence you will not respect my orders, that you will serve as counselor to my brother, and that the state will not take any unworthy action to gain my freedom. On the contrary, I wish and I order that, in this event, the state act even more vigorously than ever.
If I'm killed, I want my body burned and placed in an urn at Rheinsberg [this is 1741, several years before Sanssouci is built]. Knobelsdorff [his architect] should in this case make a monument like that of Horace at Tusculum.
Either Fritz's memory or mine is faulty here: help me out, selenak? I only remember Cicero living at Tusculum (hence the Tusculan Disputations), but I'm more of a Hellenist than a Romanist. I do remember that Horace's villa had turned up by Fritz's time, but not in Tusculum. I also remember that Algarotti's monument later commissioned by Fritz has a phrase from Horace that was popular to put on graves: "non omnis"--meaning the body of the individual is buried here, but their spirit or the memory of them or their works or whatever you consider most important, lives on.
But I am drawing a blank on what specific monument Fritz may be thinking of here.
Anyway! It's quite possible that if there's a prisoner exchange, Fritz is torn between wanting to go free and wanting the state to demand major concessions in return for Joseph.
It's also interesting that there's the "you will not follow any orders I give in captivity" line in there. Clearly he believes that he would cave under pressure and sign orders that as a free man he wouldn't want followed, no matter what the cost to him. His experience caving in Küstrin might be informing this decision. At any rate, it's very psychologically revealing.
I still think that ~1760!Fritz, used to being in command and with 100% control issues, most likely jumps at the chance to get out of prison and back into the saddle, especially if it's a prisoner exchange instead of territorial concessions--long precedent for honorable exchanges of prisoners in warfare. But we at least have this passage to point to if you want him to be torn.
Oh, here's an idea. Maybe Fritz can't imagine that they have Joseph, so when the Austrians are willingly if unofficially letting him go, he imagines that the only reason they would do that is if they got major concessions out of Prussia. So he starts yelling like a maniac at his would-be rescuers, ordering them to go away and hang onto Silesia, or at least pre-1740 Prussia, at all costs, and he'll commit suicide if that's what it takes. And because Fritz has never been the world's greatest listener once he gets an idea into his head, they never have the chance to explain that it's an unofficial prisoner exchange.
So the Prussian officers shrug and decide, "Okay, the king wants us to trade Joseph for Silesia. Makes sense, if you're an amazing Roman Stoic monarch who puts the state first. Heinrich, you'd better build a hell of a monument to commemorate our king's glorious sacrifice!"
Heinrich: Oh, I've got a monument at Rheinsberg in mind. It may not be what you're expecting.
Wanted: Alive or dead
I replied: "I wish I could find the source, and I will keep an eye out because I feel like it's a letter and not just a novel, I mean biography, but I have a memory of Fritz saying something like, 'If I'm captured, you're not to make any concessions to get me back; the welfare of the state comes first.'"
Well, I found it! Asprey cites the letter, and though he doesn't give me a page number or a date or anything (other than shortly before Mollwitz), he narrowed it down enough that I was able to track it down in the Political Correspondence.
Translation mine:
By the way, I have twice escaped the designs of the Austrian hussars [viz, to capture him]. If I suffer the misfortune of being taken alive, I absolutely order you, and you will answer for it with your head, that in my absence you will not respect my orders, that you will serve as counselor to my brother, and that the state will not take any unworthy action to gain my freedom. On the contrary, I wish and I order that, in this event, the state act even more vigorously than ever.
If I'm killed, I want my body burned and placed in an urn at Rheinsberg [this is 1741, several years before Sanssouci is built]. Knobelsdorff [his architect] should in this case make a monument like that of Horace at Tusculum.
Either Fritz's memory or mine is faulty here: help me out,
But I am drawing a blank on what specific monument Fritz may be thinking of here.
Anyway! It's quite possible that if there's a prisoner exchange, Fritz is torn between wanting to go free and wanting the state to demand major concessions in return for Joseph.
It's also interesting that there's the "you will not follow any orders I give in captivity" line in there. Clearly he believes that he would cave under pressure and sign orders that as a free man he wouldn't want followed, no matter what the cost to him. His experience caving in Küstrin might be informing this decision. At any rate, it's very psychologically revealing.
I still think that ~1760!Fritz, used to being in command and with 100% control issues, most likely jumps at the chance to get out of prison and back into the saddle, especially if it's a prisoner exchange instead of territorial concessions--long precedent for honorable exchanges of prisoners in warfare. But we at least have this passage to point to if you want him to be torn.
Oh, here's an idea. Maybe Fritz can't imagine that they have Joseph, so when the Austrians are willingly if unofficially letting him go, he imagines that the only reason they would do that is if they got major concessions out of Prussia. So he starts yelling like a maniac at his would-be rescuers, ordering them to go away and hang onto Silesia, or at least pre-1740 Prussia, at all costs, and he'll commit suicide if that's what it takes. And because Fritz has never been the world's greatest listener once he gets an idea into his head, they never have the chance to explain that it's an unofficial prisoner exchange.
So the Prussian officers shrug and decide, "Okay, the king wants us to trade Joseph for Silesia. Makes sense, if you're an amazing Roman Stoic monarch who puts the state first. Heinrich, you'd better build a hell of a monument to commemorate our king's glorious sacrifice!"
Heinrich: Oh, I've got a monument at Rheinsberg in mind. It may not be what you're expecting.