So I had a look at Dr. Johnson’s Fritz essay, and it’s easy to see why Nicolai eviscerates it, but I found several points of interest to us. Firstly, according to the editor and continuator, Harrison, Johnson published this originally in 1756. However, it only covers the years until the end of the Second Silesian War. Now, presumably the reason for the article was the Diplomatic Revolution, Fritz now being England’s ally and the outbreak of the war. However, what it does tell us is a British attitude to Fritz before Fritzmania struck, for which the editor Harrison frequently takes Dr. Johnson to task. Because Johnson is not impressed by Fritz’ claims to Silesia and has a lot of MT praise for the first two Silesian Wars, our editor constantly footnotes to say that events have shown MT to be an ungrateful bitch allying against the country protecting her (England) on that occasion to whom she owes her survival (errr....), and Fritz was entirely in the right re: Silesia, and if he ditched his French allies, well, they had it coming, etc., etc.
As for the Crown Prince years, good lord. Yes, dreadfully ill informed for hte most part, but it’s telling about what made it into the international papers, since Dr. Johnson did not have access to any other source than that. Though he clearly had read Voltaire’s anymous 1752 pamphlet, because one of the few correct things in this essay is his insistence that Fritz married EC solely at his father’s insistence, and that he strongly suspects the marriage is without any sex whatsoever. (BTW, how's that for humiliation: having your marital sex life, or lack of same, discussed by the international press?) Other factoids making into Johnson’s article, if in distorted form:
- Doris Ritter (!) being whipped publically at FW’s orders (Johnson has Fritz having to be present for this) - FW overriding the tribunal sentence on Katte in order to order the death penalty
Otoh, most things FW (other than his thing for tall fellows) really bear not much resemblence to fact. Most of all that Johnson says FW always was busy without any result of that business showing itself anywhere and that he never did anything for his subjects. Now FW was a terrible human being, but there’s a reason why he’s neck to neck with his son for the “Best Prussian monarch” title and post WWII sometimes winning. Taking a broke and poor kingdom and making it a wealthy one, schools, hospitals, land reforms, and of course the complete changeover of the mentality for better and worse, you name it, he did it. Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck. As to why he didn’t notice the sheer amount of what FW accomplished in Prussia when no less a person than Fritz pointed it out in his History of the House of Brandenburg: I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
As to where the “Karl Friedrich” name came from - beats me.
Most of all that Johnson says FW always was busy without any result of that business showing itself anywhere and that he never did anything for his subjects.
I saw! I didn't comment on it because I knew I didn't have to; you would. It's like when cahn was betaing "Grind", and sometimes I left things out because I didn't have time and I knew she would pick up on them, and she always did. ;)
Anyway, yes, as soon as I saw that, my eyebrows flew up. I'm an FW anti and even I give him more credit than that! Grudgingly, but it's there.
However, what it does tell us is a British attitude to Fritz before Fritzmania struck, for which the editor Harrison frequently takes Dr. Johnson to task.
That does make sense. Mind you, I add that even after Fritzmania, Macaulay of the "Fritz is my problematic fave" has no problem saying Fritz was 100% wrong when he fought against the British (invasion of Silesia, first 2 Silesian wars), and 100% innocent victim of MT when he fought alongside the British (7 Years' War). And what a coincidence. The British are always right!
...Uh huh.
Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck.
LOLOL. Okay, that's a great mental image. :D
I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
Mind you, I add that even after Fritzmania, Macaulay of the "Fritz is my problematic fave" has no problem saying Fritz was 100% wrong when he fought against the British (invasion of Silesia, first 2 Silesian wars), and 100% innocent victim of MT when he fought alongside the British (7 Years' War). And what a coincidence. The British are always right!
...Uh huh.
Naturally. This reminds me of reading a review of the Tory governments of the recent decades changing the more critical takes in school books back again to that image of glorious Britain never having been invaded and conquered since William the Conqueror...:
French who invaded successfully when John was King: *cough* William of Orange and Dutch nation: *major cough*
....never fighting unjust wars:
Everyone else, especially in former colonies: *doesn't stop coughing*
...and winning singlehandedly, see also the way Napoleon's defeat is presented in Britain to how it presented in the rest of Europe (basically: group effort, also the Prussians saved Wellington's butt at Waterloo), not to mention WWII. (Enough said.)
I've also read the theory that the reason why the image of Germans changed from impractical poets and lazy jolly innkeepers (18th century, early 19th century) so super efficient soulless bureacrats and killing machines (later 19th century onwards) wasn't just due to the rise of Prussia to the point where Germany = Prussia in public perception but because the Brits, after the 19th century Franco-Prussian war resulting in France defeated within months, having to explain to themselves why their own wars against the French lasted for (a hundred) years, and hitting on the "the Germans are the most efficient soulless killing machines, that's the only reason!" explanation.
This reminds me of reading a review of the Tory governments of the recent decades changing the more critical takes in school books back again to that image of glorious Britain never having been invaded and conquered since William the Conqueror...:
Huh. I didn't realize this had ever been abandoned in England; it was what I (in the US) was uniformly taught in both school and my reading. William of Orange was passed off by my teacher as an internal revolution (he was invited!) and John who? :P
having to explain to themselves why their own wars against the French lasted for (a hundred) years, and hitting on the "the Germans are the most efficient soulless killing machines, that's the only reason!" explanation.
Speaking of the Hundred Years' War lasting...116 years, one of my history teachers in school was very pro-English and anti-French, and because I was extremely contrary, I would naturally argue the opposite position. One day, after school, we had this exchange:
Teacher: The French were so weaksauce they needed a sixteen-year-old girl to lead them! Me: She was sevent--wait a minute. The English were so weaksauce they got their butts kicked by a sixteen-year-old French girl! Teacher: Don't you have a bus to catch? Me: They ran when they saw her coming! Teacher: Your bus is leaving soon, Mildred!
I say I won that exchange. :P
So yes, I'm in favor of the English needing a reason for why the Germans didn't get their butts kicked by a French teenage girl. ;)
Note: we don't actually know how old Joan of Arc was; like many peasants, she didn't know herself, and she made her best guess at her trial. Young, anyway!
I applaude your debate skills, and you definitely won that exchange!
I once read an (US) book on history as present in the movies, and in one chapter, the author muses on the weirdness of "the same noble English you root for when watching Henry V are the guys you root against not twenty years later in just about any adoption of the Joan of Arc story".
(Well, not La Pucelle, one assumes. BTW, I read in one of the biographies that Voltaire wrote an essay to make it clear he actually respects and admires historical Jeanne, he just had to have a go on the way her legend is used, and I get that, given in Voltaire's day as well as in ours hte most bigoted and nationalistic crowd abuses Joan as a symbol. She and Fritz have Worst Fanboys in common.)
But the English hang-up about the French is really weird. When it's not "rarr rarr Agincourt!" it's "Waterloo!" (presented as a Wellington solo effort, which, see above), or "OMG you surrendered and we stood firm in WWII".
Meanwhile, yours truly: hang on, guys. First you were conquered by Normans. Then you had Angevins ruling you for the next two centuries. Then it was a Welshman majorly supported by French-Breton troops who won at Bosworth. After the Tudors, you got the Stuarts, and as Charles II, one of the few charming ones, put it in "Horrible Histories", "I'm Scottish-French-Italian, a little bit Dane"... Then there was the Dutch interlude. (Statement by Dutch person I know: That time the Netherlands concquered Britain, and no one but a bunch of Northern Irish fundies ever remembers!)
And then we exported the Hannovers to you. As I was reminded just a few months ago, E2's father was the first King of England since the Georges arrived who actually did not marry another German (or Dane, in one case). So, about that unconquered island....
(BTW, how's that for humiliation: having your marital sex life, or lack of same, discussed by the international press?)
I had two reactions to this: a) seems par for the course these days b) I guess it could be worse, it could be Marie Antoinette's marital sex life discussed by the international press? (Which I assume it wasn't.)
Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck.
t could be Marie Antoinette's marital sex life discussed by the international press? (Which I assume it wasn't.)
Not sure about the international press, but the French press writing about her sex life was a flourishing industry that contributed to the sentiment against her in the last years of the monarchy and the first years of the republic (before her beheading). She was presented as a bisexual (without the era having that term already, of course) nymphomaniac who had sex with everyone who moved. (The three accusations that some modern biographers go "maybe?" about are Axel von Fersen - I've told you about him way back when - the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac, which were her two female bffs; Polignac made it out of France alive, and Lamballe's head was torn from her body and literally paraded in front of Marie-Antoinette so she should see it during one of the ugliest episodes of the Terreur.) I think the one story I'm sure at least the English press talked about when she was alive and the revolution hadn't started yet was the affair of the necklace which did so much to ruin her reputation but which she was really 100% innocent about. Short version: con woman and some con men, including Cagliostro, get together to con a Cardinal who has a crush on Marie Antoinette into believing she'll have sex with him if he buys her a necklace husband Louis, as part of his policy to show the French people he understands the country is in trouble and they need to save money, has refused to buy. Main con woman hires actress Marie Antoinette lookalike who rendez-vous with the Cardinal a few times at night in the park, Cardinal buys necklace, hands over necklace, later at Versailles meets Queen and is crushed that she ignores him (as she can't stand him in real life), complains about necklace expense, scandal. The main con woman later made it to England and gave interviews and wrote lurid memoirs saying of course Marie Antoinette did it with the Cardinal and a lot of other people, and she, con woman, was her special confidant for a while. The Brits, out of general anti-French sentiment, ate it up.
(This changed once the revolution had started and Marie Antoinette suddenly was a martyred Queen in the English press, when before she'd been an Austrian-French hussy.)
However, re: her marital sex life of the first seven years, well, there was of course speculation as to why she didn't get pregnant, since the Habsburgs were famously fertile (which not just her mother but also her sisters were proving). But I don't think anyone hit on the truth, not least because the marriage itself having been consumated had been a relatively public affair, with grandfather Louis XV. present, so no one thought young future Louis XVI was impotent per se, and the ejaculation problem was way too intimate for anyone to guesss until Joseph visited. (Especially since young Louis did not have mistresses who could have delivered comparative data.)
Man, poor Marie Antoinette. (And thank you for summarizing the affair of the necklace -- which I am sure I knew once upon a time when Awesome French Teacher was feeding me all the French Revolution books, but which I have totally forgotten by now.)
Heh, yeah, I would definitely not have guessed that problem either!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Johnsonia
As for the Crown Prince years, good lord. Yes, dreadfully ill informed for hte most part, but it’s telling about what made it into the international papers, since Dr. Johnson did not have access to any other source than that. Though he clearly had read Voltaire’s anymous 1752 pamphlet, because one of the few correct things in this essay is his insistence that Fritz married EC solely at his father’s insistence, and that he strongly suspects the marriage is without any sex whatsoever. (BTW, how's that for humiliation: having your marital sex life, or lack of same, discussed by the international press?) Other factoids making into Johnson’s article, if in distorted form:
- Doris Ritter (!) being whipped publically at FW’s orders (Johnson has Fritz having to be present for this)
- FW overriding the tribunal sentence on Katte in order to order the death penalty
Otoh, most things FW (other than his thing for tall fellows) really bear not much resemblence to fact. Most of all that Johnson says FW always was busy without any result of that business showing itself anywhere and that he never did anything for his subjects. Now FW was a terrible human being, but there’s a reason why he’s neck to neck with his son for the “Best Prussian monarch” title and post WWII sometimes winning. Taking a broke and poor kingdom and making it a wealthy one, schools, hospitals, land reforms, and of course the complete changeover of the mentality for better and worse, you name it, he did it. Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck. As to why he didn’t notice the sheer amount of what FW accomplished in Prussia when no less a person than Fritz pointed it out in his History of the House of Brandenburg: I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
As to where the “Karl Friedrich” name came from - beats me.
Re: Johnsonia
I saw! I didn't comment on it because I knew I didn't have to; you would. It's like when
Anyway, yes, as soon as I saw that, my eyebrows flew up. I'm an FW anti and even I give him more credit than that! Grudgingly, but it's there.
However, what it does tell us is a British attitude to Fritz before Fritzmania struck, for which the editor Harrison frequently takes Dr. Johnson to task.
That does make sense. Mind you, I add that even after Fritzmania, Macaulay of the "Fritz is my problematic fave" has no problem saying Fritz was 100% wrong when he fought against the British (invasion of Silesia, first 2 Silesian wars), and 100% innocent victim of MT when he fought alongside the British (7 Years' War). And what a coincidence. The British are always right!
...Uh huh.
Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck.
LOLOL. Okay, that's a great mental image. :D
I do suspect Johnson really didn’t read much more than the Voltairian 1752 pamphlet plus some newspaper reports at the time of the Silesian Wars in terms of research because the article was a hash job written under time pressure when the 7 Years War broke out and some publisher wanted Johnson to tell the English public about their new ally.
Yeah, makes sense.
Re: Johnsonia
...Uh huh.
Naturally. This reminds me of reading a review of the Tory governments of the recent decades changing the more critical takes in school books back again to that image of glorious Britain never having been invaded and conquered since William the Conqueror...:
French who invaded successfully when John was King: *cough*
William of Orange and Dutch nation: *major cough*
....never fighting unjust wars:
Everyone else, especially in former colonies: *doesn't stop coughing*
...and winning singlehandedly, see also the way Napoleon's defeat is presented in Britain to how it presented in the rest of Europe (basically: group effort, also the Prussians saved Wellington's butt at Waterloo), not to mention WWII. (Enough said.)
I've also read the theory that the reason why the image of Germans changed from impractical poets and lazy jolly innkeepers (18th century, early 19th century) so super efficient soulless bureacrats and killing machines (later 19th century onwards) wasn't just due to the rise of Prussia to the point where Germany = Prussia in public perception but because the Brits, after the 19th century Franco-Prussian war resulting in France defeated within months, having to explain to themselves why their own wars against the French lasted for (a hundred) years, and hitting on the "the Germans are the most efficient soulless killing machines, that's the only reason!" explanation.
Re: Johnsonia
Huh. I didn't realize this had ever been abandoned in England; it was what I (in the US) was uniformly taught in both school and my reading. William of Orange was passed off by my teacher as an internal revolution (he was invited!) and John who? :P
having to explain to themselves why their own wars against the French lasted for (a hundred) years, and hitting on the "the Germans are the most efficient soulless killing machines, that's the only reason!" explanation.
Now that's hilarious. I want this to be true!
Re: Johnsonia
Re: Johnsonia
Teacher: The French were so weaksauce they needed a sixteen-year-old girl to lead them!
Me: She was sevent--wait a minute. The English were so weaksauce they got their butts kicked by a sixteen-year-old French girl!
Teacher: Don't you have a bus to catch?
Me: They ran when they saw her coming!
Teacher: Your bus is leaving soon, Mildred!
I say I won that exchange. :P
So yes, I'm in favor of the English needing a reason for why the Germans didn't get their butts kicked by a French teenage girl. ;)
Note: we don't actually know how old Joan of Arc was; like many peasants, she didn't know herself, and she made her best guess at her trial. Young, anyway!
Re: Johnsonia
I once read an (US) book on history as present in the movies, and in one chapter, the author muses on the weirdness of "the same noble English you root for when watching Henry V are the guys you root against not twenty years later in just about any adoption of the Joan of Arc story".
(Well, not La Pucelle, one assumes. BTW, I read in one of the biographies that Voltaire wrote an essay to make it clear he actually respects and admires historical Jeanne, he just had to have a go on the way her legend is used, and I get that, given in Voltaire's day as well as in ours hte most bigoted and nationalistic crowd abuses Joan as a symbol. She and Fritz have Worst Fanboys in common.)
But the English hang-up about the French is really weird. When it's not "rarr rarr Agincourt!" it's "Waterloo!" (presented as a Wellington solo effort, which, see above), or "OMG you surrendered and we stood firm in WWII".
Meanwhile, yours truly: hang on, guys. First you were conquered by Normans. Then you had Angevins ruling you for the next two centuries. Then it was a Welshman majorly supported by French-Breton troops who won at Bosworth. After the Tudors, you got the Stuarts, and as Charles II, one of the few charming ones, put it in "Horrible Histories", "I'm Scottish-French-Italian, a little bit Dane"...
Then there was the Dutch interlude.
(Statement by Dutch person I know: That time the Netherlands concquered Britain, and no one but a bunch of Northern Irish fundies ever remembers!)
And then we exported the Hannovers to you. As I was reminded just a few months ago, E2's father was the first King of England since the Georges arrived who actually did not marry another German (or Dane, in one case). So, about that unconquered island....
Re: Johnsonia
I had two reactions to this: a) seems par for the course these days b) I guess it could be worse, it could be Marie Antoinette's marital sex life discussed by the international press? (Which I assume it wasn't.)
Johnson leaves you with the impression that he gained the money by taxing his poor subjects and never did anything with it but bath in it like Scrooge McDuck.
Heeeeeee! I laughed :D
Re: Johnsonia
Not sure about the international press, but the French press writing about her sex life was a flourishing industry that contributed to the sentiment against her in the last years of the monarchy and the first years of the republic (before her beheading). She was presented as a bisexual (without the era having that term already, of course) nymphomaniac who had sex with everyone who moved. (The three accusations that some modern biographers go "maybe?" about are Axel von Fersen - I've told you about him way back when - the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac, which were her two female bffs; Polignac made it out of France alive, and Lamballe's head was torn from her body and literally paraded in front of Marie-Antoinette so she should see it during one of the ugliest episodes of the Terreur.) I think the one story I'm sure at least the English press talked about when she was alive and the revolution hadn't started yet was the affair of the necklace which did so much to ruin her reputation but which she was really 100% innocent about. Short version: con woman and some con men, including Cagliostro, get together to con a Cardinal who has a crush on Marie Antoinette into believing she'll have sex with him if he buys her a necklace husband Louis, as part of his policy to show the French people he understands the country is in trouble and they need to save money, has refused to buy. Main con woman hires actress Marie Antoinette lookalike who rendez-vous with the Cardinal a few times at night in the park, Cardinal buys necklace, hands over necklace, later at Versailles meets Queen and is crushed that she ignores him (as she can't stand him in real life), complains about necklace expense, scandal. The main con woman later made it to England and gave interviews and wrote lurid memoirs saying of course Marie Antoinette did it with the Cardinal and a lot of other people, and she, con woman, was her special confidant for a while. The Brits, out of general anti-French sentiment, ate it up.
(This changed once the revolution had started and Marie Antoinette suddenly was a martyred Queen in the English press, when before she'd been an Austrian-French hussy.)
However, re: her marital sex life of the first seven years, well, there was of course speculation as to why she didn't get pregnant, since the Habsburgs were famously fertile (which not just her mother but also her sisters were proving). But I don't think anyone hit on the truth, not least because the marriage itself having been consumated had been a relatively public affair, with grandfather Louis XV. present, so no one thought young future Louis XVI was impotent per se, and the ejaculation problem was way too intimate for anyone to guesss until Joseph visited. (Especially since young Louis did not have mistresses who could have delivered comparative data.)
Marie Antoinette
Heh, yeah, I would definitely not have guessed that problem either!