Volz: It is a collection of documents (some of which are excerpts of memoirs, granted), and yes, thus would fit better in the documents folder.
And I salute the royal detective for finding yet another source for us! Have only read the preface and am mightly amused, because:
Preface writer: Seckendorff rocked! No other envoy in this century has accomplished as much as he!
Ghost of Seckendorff *smugly*: Told you so.
Preface writer: as a warrior-diplomat combo, he was unequalled!
All the other envoys: still got imprisoned twice, and once by his own team. We didn't, except Poniatowski.
Poniatowski: I was the victim of a love triangle involving me, Poland and Catherine, what with me loving both passionately and both turning out to demand opposing goals from me. Fall and imprisonment resulting from this is the meat of which tragedies are made. Seckendorff, otoh, got locked up twice because he had made himself enemies, and because the Margrave of Brandenburg was nothing but a gangster with good PR. You can't compare this!
Mitchell: while I can't claim to be a soldier myself, I did survive battles. It also occurs to me that given his missions to the Czarina Catherine, Prince Henry should count as a warrior-diplomat combination as well, and frankly, I would back his soldier credentials against Seckendorff's any time. He also did not have to get the Czarina drunk in order to accomplish the first division of Poland to mutual benefits.
Poniatowski: *sobs*
More seriously, going by the preface, this was the first serious Seckendorff biography, with two previous attempts being anti-Seckendorff pamphlets by enemies, and our preface writer swears he's used all the material he could find. Note that as the book was published in 1792, this can't include Wilhelmine's memoirs. (Or for that matter Lehndorff's entertaining diary entry on paying a visit to old Seckendorff in Magdeburg where he's making an acid remark about the way Fritz describes him in the "History of the House of Brandenburg". But: the biography writer would have been able to interview people who'd actually known Seckendorff in his later years, and have had access to print media long since lost, newspaper accunts, pamphlets and the like.
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Re: Seckendorff
Date: 2020-10-13 05:57 am (UTC)And I salute the royal detective for finding yet another source for us! Have only read the preface and am mightly amused, because:
Preface writer: Seckendorff rocked! No other envoy in this century has accomplished as much as he!
Ghost of Seckendorff *smugly*: Told you so.
Preface writer: as a warrior-diplomat combo, he was unequalled!
All the other envoys: still got imprisoned twice, and once by his own team. We didn't, except Poniatowski.
Poniatowski: I was the victim of a love triangle involving me, Poland and Catherine, what with me loving both passionately and both turning out to demand opposing goals from me. Fall and imprisonment resulting from this is the meat of which tragedies are made. Seckendorff, otoh, got locked up twice because he had made himself enemies, and because the Margrave of Brandenburg was nothing but a gangster with good PR. You can't compare this!
Mitchell: while I can't claim to be a soldier myself, I did survive battles. It also occurs to me that given his missions to the Czarina Catherine, Prince Henry should count as a warrior-diplomat combination as well, and frankly, I would back his soldier credentials against Seckendorff's any time. He also did not have to get the Czarina drunk in order to accomplish the first division of Poland to mutual benefits.
Poniatowski: *sobs*
More seriously, going by the preface, this was the first serious Seckendorff biography, with two previous attempts being anti-Seckendorff pamphlets by enemies, and our preface writer swears he's used all the material he could find. Note that as the book was published in 1792, this can't include Wilhelmine's memoirs. (Or for that matter Lehndorff's entertaining diary entry on paying a visit to old Seckendorff in Magdeburg where he's making an acid remark about the way Fritz describes him in the "History of the House of Brandenburg". But: the biography writer would have been able to interview people who'd actually known Seckendorff in his later years, and have had access to print media long since lost, newspaper accunts, pamphlets and the like.