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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 19
Yuletide nominations:
18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)
Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti
18th Century CE Federician RPF
Maria Theresia | Maria Theresa of Austria
Voltaire
Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Ernst Ahasverus von Lehndorff
Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
Catherine II of Russia
Hans Hermann von Katte
Peter Karl Christoph von Keith
Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf
August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758)
Circle of Voltaire RPF
Emilie du Chatelet
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (Madame de Pompadour)
John Hervey (1696-1743)
Marie Louise Mignot Denis
Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
Francesco Algarotti
Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff
Vol. 3 and Vol.4: Seckendorff the envoy
Aaahh, okay. I had noticed 1-2 were continuous narrative, and 3-4 seemed to be mostly envoy-related documents, which is how I concluded 1-2 were the bio and 3-4 the supporting documentation. Splitting it chronologically was not what I expected!
However, the "envoy" volumes also jump from Seckendorff in the early to mid 20s - Poland and Saxony - to the 1730s (hawking the Pragmatic Sanction all over Europe), with his time in Berlin with FW conspiciously avoided.
Also not what I was expecting. Come on, those are the best years! Zomg.
(hawking the Pragmatic Sanction all over Europe)
"Like demented insurance salesmen" in the memorable phrasing of Asprey.
You'll all have heard of him, some of my readers might even have still met this monster, his very name should call loathing and contempt...
*drumroll*
Wow, okay.
It also means I really am postponing a proper reading of this biography, because my interest in Seckendorff's various military campaigns through the decades is limited.
Don't blame you! James Keith's memoirs are also heavily military and *also* don't include the Fritz period, but also they're shorter, in English, and cover two Jacobite campaigns that I'm more interested in, so I'm keeping them in mind, though I have no immediate plans to read them. The Russian stuff might be of more interest to us in this fandom.
This actually wasn't entirely wrong, he did, but look, naturally a man of Seckendorff's experience and years would want to offer some free advice to MT, I mean, she did get him out of prison that one time, and what do you mean, that didn't stop him from signing on to Team Wittelsbach thereafter?
*snort*
(Lehndorff: has no problem visiting Seckendorff in Magdeburg, though is not a military man with Seckendorffian loyalties. Definitely is not under the impression Heinrich called Seckendorff Papa.)
*even more snorting*
Anyway, then MT insisted on exchanging Moritz von Anhalt-Dessau, son of that Most Evil Man Of His Time
Who Wikipedia tells me died of blood poisoning (from his wound in the battle in which he was captured--Hochkirch) soon after his release from captivity. What bad luck!
Like Alexander, like Caesar, like his example and protector, the immortal Eugene, (Seckendorff) had no particular distinguishment in his facial traits or figure
I laughed so hard.
Guess what? Like Alexander, like Caesar, like the immortal Eugene, I too have no particular distinguishment in my facial traits or figure! Or, in the words of Eddie Izzard, "Leonardo da Vinci invented the helicopter...that did...not...work. And so did I!"
Field Marshal Grumbkow, the favourite of Friedrich Wilhelm, was an amazing drinker, and often seduced (Seckendorff) into it.
Huh. The take on this I've always seen is that Seckendorff, who knew that Grumbkow was vulnerable to influence when drunk, used to encourage Grumbkow to drink in order to take advantage of him, and had to drink more than he wanted to in order to keep up. Which is not exactly different from what this author is saying, but with a slightly different slant.
Do we know how this guy is related to Seckendorff?
Meanwhile, I wish someone had rescued that poor dwarf.
With you.
Well, thank you for taking one for the team and dipping into this for us! I now know to side-eye any quotes or claims based on it (and in what way to side-eye it, which is more important).
Also, I enjoyed you using the "advancing the cause of Seckendorff" line I came up with in a sexual context--never has a line been more appropriate in a different context.
Oh,
He was sordidly scheming; his manners were crude and rustic; lying had become so much second nature to him that he had lost the use of the truth. He was a usurer who sometimes appeared in the guise of a soldier, and sometimes in that of a diplomat.
I'm sure Selena won't mind if you tweak that line in "How I Survived Christmas" accordingly. Sorry for the beta fail!
Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff
I know, right? The very years Seckendorff will remain known for when most people won't have heard of the various succession wars other than the Austrian one anymore.
Yes, that's why the anti-Old Dessauer outburst was so unusual and striking. If I ever find the time, I'll translate some of the passage for you, because I did not exaggarate. Mind you, discounting personal animus, one bit I found fascinating was the (roughly contemporary) critique of the brutality of Prussian army training included here. It's a good reminder - like Ulrich Bräker's memoirs - that by no means everyone at the time drank the cool-aid, and it wasn't until the later 19th century that the rest of Germany had adopted the Prussians as role models in this regard, too. Something else that was unusual not just in terms of what came later was that the biographer has no animus against the French. At all. Granted, this is before Napoleon crosses the Rhine, ends the HRE for good and reorders the German principalities, but the 7 Years War already had brought on a lot of proto national poetry along "Go Fritz! Kick French ass!" post Rossbach, and the 1770s and 1780s had seen the explosion in German literature specifically rejecting the French models now (and instead going SHAKESPEARE IS SO MUCH COOLER), which not always came with literary arguments but also sometimes with "booh on the French" ones. But this biographer on the contrary at one point includes a flash forward beyond Seckendorff's life time to say how much the French army, now newly inspired by patriotism and no longer led by overpromoted nobility, recently amazed everyone. (This would be the allied armies aiming to restore the monarchs getting their backsides kicked by the revolutionary army of France.) If you're not Heinrich, this is not a common attitude to take in the 1790s.
(Unless our writer has as sneaking sympathy for the French Revolution and hopes it will spread, but that's not visible otherwise, what with all the talk about what a good Christian Seckendorff was.)
Biographer settling the "Seckendorff: Hot or not?" question with an Eddie Izzard sketch: I know, that's why I translated the statement. :)
Do we know how this guy is related to Seckendorff?
Haven't seen it mentioned anywhere in the passages I skimmed. However, since one of the few critiques he makes on his subject is that Seckendorff wasn't always appreciative enough of all the hard work his devoted nephew (that's the diarist) did after him in Berlin, and on that occasion says said nephew was one of the best, most noble people who ever lived, I'm tempted to assume he might have been this man's son.
Fritz quote on Seckendorff: this is of course the very quote which Seckendorff himself brings up when Lehndorff visits. (Which is in March 1759, if you want to look it up yourself now.) "He can't forgive the King calling him an ursurer in his memoirs. 'At least', he claims, 'I haven't been one towards the King, whom I've given 1500 Ducats which I never saw again.'"
Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff
This is awesome. I am looking forward to this :D
Re: Advancing the Cause of Seckendorff
ahahaha, thank you for this!
The take on this I've always seen is that Seckendorff, who knew that Grumbkow was vulnerable to influence when drunk, used to encourage Grumbkow to drink in order to take advantage of him, and had to drink more than he wanted to in order to keep up. Which is not exactly different from what this author is saying, but with a slightly different slant.
*nods*
He was sordidly scheming; his manners were crude and rustic; lying had become so much second nature to him that he had lost the use of the truth. He was a usurer who sometimes appeared in the guise of a soldier, and sometimes in that of a diplomat.
Ah! Excellent, thank you! (I still haven't put in the fistulas -- I have been busy lately :P One of these days I promise I'll go back and edit these.)