guys, I am a bit lost, "auf Werbung gehen" could mean going to woo, or going to recruit, or going to advertise, but I'm going with "recruit because when in doubt, assume a military context in Prussia
In numerous secondary sources, I've seen references to Katte trying and failing to get leave to go recruiting in the western domains, as a ploy to get himself close to the French or Dutch border, so I think you're spot on here.
before I even knew I'd join the trip to Saxony
cahn, this is the "pleasure camp" at Zeithain (also called the camp of Mühlberg), where Augustus the Strong showed that he knew how to throw a party. It lasted the entire month of June 1730, and the purpose was to do a review of the troops to show off the military prowess of Saxony, while simultaneously throwing a really, really big party (think entire opera house built for the purpose) to show off the wealth and high culture of Saxony.
Remember that Saxony, like Prussia, had started out a third-rate power that had only recently become a second-rate one, with Augustus and F1 getting royal titles. Conspicuous consumption played just as big a role in Augustus's plans to get taken seriously by the first-rate powers like France as it had for spendthrift F1 (despised by son FW and grandson Fritz for just this reason). If you're aware that Saxony was one of Prussia's biggest rivals, as well as next-door neighbor, it puts both FW's actions in the War of the Polish Succession as well as Fritz's war crimes into context.
He wanted to talk to Count Hoym
cahn, this is a different Count Hoym than the one you'll see in Blanning as the corrupt minister of Silesia. Wikipedia tells me this was the Saxon ambassador to Versailles, who had recently returned to Saxony. He apparently had many enemies there and in other courts (including Berlin and Vienna), and was imprisoned three times, before finally committing suicide in prison in 1736. Wikipedia tells me one of the charges, which it believes is trumped-up, was impregnating his niece--which goes some way toward answering my question as to how scandalous Voltaire and (the non-impregnated) Madame Denis would have been to contemporaries!
about a journey I should make to Leipzig incognito
Geography is important here: Leipzig is in Saxony, so outside FW's domains and in the domains of the somewhat-friendlier-to-Fritz Elector-King Augustus, and located due west of the pleasure camp, so on the way to France.
Chronology is also important:
June 1730: month-long extravagant military-review-cum-pleasure-camp in Saxony, where FW gives Fritz his most public humiliation. Katte recounts in the species facti how Fritz was already making plans to escape via Leipzig. July 12, 1730: Hotham gives up on the double marriage project and goes back to England. August 5, 1730: Fritz snaps and makes his escape attempt near the French border (but not near enough), while he and FW are on a royal tour in the west. August 15, 1731: FW tells Fritz he abused him especially badly in the camp at Saxony to get him to love him! As recounted in the Grumbkow-Seckendorff submission protocol recently given in full by selenak.
I remained in the camp with Colonel Katte - this would be his cousin, who'd later forward the letter to FW
Would it? Everyone gives letter-forwarder's rank as Rittmeister (captain), not Oberst (colonel), in the secondary biographies, and Wikipedia agrees that he wasn't an Oberst until 1743, or even an Oberstleutnant (which is sometimes called Oberst for short by contemporaries) until 1739.
But I can't find any of the other cousins being that highly ranked in 1730; they're all much too young. And Hans Heinrich got promoted from Oberst to Generalmajor in 1718, so it can't be him. I'm not sure who this is. One more distant cousin, David Levin von Katte, will join the Danish service as a major in 1739, then become a colonel, but that's too late. Okay, his older brother, Christoph Friedrich, is also in the Danish service and makes it as far as Obristleutnant, but my source doesn't say when he gets that rank. He may be old enough, born in 1678.
Oh, wait. There's a Saxon-Polish Obrist Hans Christoph von Katte, who's doing something (without using Google Translate, my guess is completing the building of some baroque manor?) in 1727. I wish I could be certain they're using his rank of 1727 and not his final rank, because a Saxon colonel would definitely be on site at the pleasure camp.
Ooh, I think it's him. Kloosterhuis has a mention of him, also gives him the title Obrist, and he's the guy who later recounts the anecdote that at the pleasure camp, Fritz and Katte were talking about the mistress of the Saxon officer who was murdered for his sake, and that's when Fritz and Katte have the "Se non fu vero, fu bene trovato" exchange where Katte says, "Of course, death is the fruit of loyalty."
Okay, if he was both on site and hanging out with Fritz and Katte during the camp, and both my sources give him as an Obrist, I'm going with: it was Hans Christoph von Katte, the Saxon colonel, not Johann Friedrich von Katte, the Prussian captain, that Katte was staying with that evening.
Now the obvious question: how does this guy fit into the Katte family tree? And sadly, I haven't yet found that out. There are apparently 5 Hans Christophs in Martin Katte's family tree, of which he only carries over 3 that I can see in his memoirs.
Hmm. There's one genealogy site that gives me a Hans Christoph von Katte who dies in Berlin in 1766. He is a...5th cousin once removed of Hans Hermann. But I have no way of knowing if it's the same guy.
Okay, I've done what I can! Moving on.
Katte was threatened by torture if he didn't confess all, and of course he knew the punishment for desertion under FW if this was what it was judged to be and wanted to live, so with that caveat, here's what he said happened:
Yeah, he protests his innocence about as much as Trenck. :P When I was tracking this down, some 19th or 20th historian said it seemed basically accurate, except for overstating the extent to which Katte wanted NO PART in all this, no sir, no part at all.
Re: Katte - Species Facti 1
In numerous secondary sources, I've seen references to Katte trying and failing to get leave to go recruiting in the western domains, as a ploy to get himself close to the French or Dutch border, so I think you're spot on here.
before I even knew I'd join the trip to Saxony
Remember that Saxony, like Prussia, had started out a third-rate power that had only recently become a second-rate one, with Augustus and F1 getting royal titles. Conspicuous consumption played just as big a role in Augustus's plans to get taken seriously by the first-rate powers like France as it had for spendthrift F1 (despised by son FW and grandson Fritz for just this reason). If you're aware that Saxony was one of Prussia's biggest rivals, as well as next-door neighbor, it puts both FW's actions in the War of the Polish Succession as well as Fritz's war crimes into context.
He wanted to talk to Count Hoym
about a journey I should make to Leipzig incognito
Geography is important here: Leipzig is in Saxony, so outside FW's domains and in the domains of the somewhat-friendlier-to-Fritz Elector-King Augustus, and located due west of the pleasure camp, so on the way to France.
Chronology is also important:
June 1730: month-long extravagant military-review-cum-pleasure-camp in Saxony, where FW gives Fritz his most public humiliation. Katte recounts in the species facti how Fritz was already making plans to escape via Leipzig.
July 12, 1730: Hotham gives up on the double marriage project and goes back to England.
August 5, 1730: Fritz snaps and makes his escape attempt near the French border (but not near enough), while he and FW are on a royal tour in the west.
August 15, 1731: FW tells Fritz he abused him especially badly in the camp at Saxony to get him to love him! As recounted in the Grumbkow-Seckendorff submission protocol recently given in full by
I remained in the camp with Colonel Katte - this would be his cousin, who'd later forward the letter to FW
Would it? Everyone gives letter-forwarder's rank as Rittmeister (captain), not Oberst (colonel), in the secondary biographies, and Wikipedia agrees that he wasn't an Oberst until 1743, or even an Oberstleutnant (which is sometimes called Oberst for short by contemporaries) until 1739.
But I can't find any of the other cousins being that highly ranked in 1730; they're all much too young. And Hans Heinrich got promoted from Oberst to Generalmajor in 1718, so it can't be him. I'm not sure who this is. One more distant cousin, David Levin von Katte, will join the Danish service as a major in 1739, then become a colonel, but that's too late. Okay, his older brother, Christoph Friedrich, is also in the Danish service and makes it as far as Obristleutnant, but my source doesn't say when he gets that rank. He may be old enough, born in 1678.
Oh, wait. There's a Saxon-Polish Obrist Hans Christoph von Katte, who's doing something (without using Google Translate, my guess is completing the building of some baroque manor?) in 1727. I wish I could be certain they're using his rank of 1727 and not his final rank, because a Saxon colonel would definitely be on site at the pleasure camp.
Ooh, I think it's him. Kloosterhuis has a mention of him, also gives him the title Obrist, and he's the guy who later recounts the anecdote that at the pleasure camp, Fritz and Katte were talking about the mistress of the Saxon officer who was murdered for his sake, and that's when Fritz and Katte have the "Se non fu vero, fu bene trovato" exchange where Katte says, "Of course, death is the fruit of loyalty."
Okay, if he was both on site and hanging out with Fritz and Katte during the camp, and both my sources give him as an Obrist, I'm going with: it was Hans Christoph von Katte, the Saxon colonel, not Johann Friedrich von Katte, the Prussian captain, that Katte was staying with that evening.
Now the obvious question: how does this guy fit into the Katte family tree? And sadly, I haven't yet found that out. There are apparently 5 Hans Christophs in Martin Katte's family tree, of which he only carries over 3 that I can see in his memoirs.
Hmm. There's one genealogy site that gives me a Hans Christoph von Katte who dies in Berlin in 1766. He is a...5th cousin once removed of Hans Hermann. But I have no way of knowing if it's the same guy.
Okay, I've done what I can! Moving on.
Katte was threatened by torture if he didn't confess all, and of course he knew the punishment for desertion under FW if this was what it was judged to be and wanted to live, so with that caveat, here's what he said happened:
Yeah, he protests his innocence about as much as Trenck. :P When I was tracking this down, some 19th or 20th historian said it seemed basically accurate, except for overstating the extent to which Katte wanted NO PART in all this, no sir, no part at all.
Poor Katte. :(