cahn

Quite. I was thrilled when I found this one; Henckel delivers on other occasions as well, such as during Fritz' early outbursts against AW followed by the officers starting to mutter he's scapegoating as soon as his back is turned. Come the 19th century, these kind of scenes were ignored because they did not it with the whole national hero image, until Koser (who unearthed a great number of sources) brought them back - he uses Henckel's diary as a source, - though not without chiding him as biased against Fritz due to being Heinrich's AD in the early part of the war and a friend of his in general. It's telling that when Koser describes the same scene (Fritz returning from Kolin) in his Frederick-the-Great biography, he actually uses Henckel's descripton almost verbatim at first, though, just slightly paraphrased, only adding a bit in late 19th century pseudo Wagnerian style - "sein helles Auge, das sonst jedem erstrahlte, nun war es umwölkt" - and censoring the kiss. (Oh, and Henckel's sharp "der sich noch vor wenigen Tagen für den Eroberer der Welt gehalten hatte".)

Henri de Catt hears about the same event from Henckel a few years later, and it shows up in his diary partly in Latin, though not, I think, in his memoirs. BTW, the reason why Heinrich had a retreat plan ready to be okay'd was that as soon as he'd heard what had happened from the messenger Fritz had sent ahead, he figured they'd need one and worked one out. This is the kind of thing that makes an alter ego.