Glasow was the son of a "Zeugleutnant" of a Zeughaus in Brieg, Silesia. He had joined the infantry regiment at Brief when still a very young man of 16 years. The King took him out of it due to his advantageous form, made him a chamber hussar and planned to educate this young man, whom he also had taught by various teachers. He liked him enormously, and thus usually called him by his first name: Karlchen
(Mes amies, you know that Karlchen is little Charles, a form of address hat denotes affection, right? Much like FW, in a good mood, occasionally speaks of Fritzchen, so noted by Seckendorf Jr. early in his diary.)
When the King had to take to the field in 1756, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf couldn't join the King on his campaign due to his long term illness of which he did die not too long thereafter. So the King transferred everything to Glasow, whom he made his valet on this occasion, had tailored some very beautiful civilian clothing for him, and gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household, despite Glasow still being very young.
For a few days, the King told him personally how he had to run everything; especially, he taught him how to do the accounts about the income and expenditure of the royal household. Now there was a particular secretary in charge of this, but that one remained with Fredersdorf, and wasn't called to Dresden until the opening of the next campaign on the following year in the spring of 1757; until then Völker, who was a smart fellow, administrated this office together with Glasow.
(Not to spoil anything, but Völker will be the villain of this tale. It's the first time I've heard of his existence; he's introduced only in the previous page as "a man named Völker" who supposedly did the much rumored poison attempt together with Glasow, a story Niicolai sets out to rectify. How Völker got into this story pre Nicolai, I have no idea; note that neither Lehndorff nor Kalckreuth nor Münchow nor von Henckel mention him at all. I haven't seen mention of any "Völker" in 20th century biographies, either, Mildred, have you?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner" as Glasow's good friend who got also arrested and condemned to running the gauntlet. Okay then, and apologies, Nicolai, there was indeed a second person involved./ETA
The King showed even more grace to Glasow, and often made him large presents; but Glasow was not always grateful. When the King had his winter quarters in Dresden in the winter of 1756, Glasow started to consort with two women. The King didn't like his people to have this kind of relationships at all; and in this particular case, additional circumstances were there why these relationships should be suspicious and dislikeable to the King for political reasons.
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
He therefore strictly forbade Glasow this kind of consorting, but the later didn't stop doing it. Glasow, whom the King had sleeping in the room next to his, wasn't in his bed for entire nights, and when he was missing, the King could easily guess where he had to be spending his time. Now the man who encouraged young Glasow in this kind of loose living because he could take advantage from his wastefulness was the King's Kammerlakei and Treasurer Völker.
The King knew very well about the connection between these two men, and thus blamed Völker for Glasow's debauchings, as he knew Völker as an otherwise not at all foolish man, and held him to be the seducer of the young and inexperienced Glasow. Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments, his affairs grew steadily worse when the King near the end of March 1757 took his main quarters at Lockwitz, a small mile away from Dresden. Glasow continued to keep up his relationships in Dresden. Nearly every night, he rode to Dresden. The King couldn't fail to notice this and grew even more disgruntled. However, as Glasow otherwise was still in favor with the King, it was all too understandable that no one dared the tell the King about the exact nature of the consorting this favourite was doing.
Glasow took into his service a fellow named B*** who until then had been in service with an officer from the Garde du Corps who lived near Berlin, but then kicked him out in disgrace some time later. This B*** subsequently went to his old master. B*** now started to talk very loudly about Glasow's suspcious relationships in Dresden, and that Völker was seducing him into them, and added that if the King only knew the true circumstances, whom he should be told about, both of them would suffer evil consequences.
Völker knew that what this fellow was saying was the truth, and he grew greatly afraid that through either him or his master the King should find out the true circumstances. He therefore persuaded Glasow that it was necessary to get rid of this fellow for their shared safety's sake.
Through Völker's persuasions, the young and inconsiderate Glasow was seduced to start a very serious enterprise worthy of punishment. Völker wrote an order of arrest to the commander of Magdeburg in the name of the King, Glasow used the King's small seal, B*** was arrested, and sent via transport to Magdeburg.
The commander in Magdeburg thought the order of arrest which hadn't been signed by the King to be suspicious. Some claim that it had been signed by the King's name, but in an unreadable fashion. The Commander now sent the original arrest warrant to the King, and asked whether the King truly wished the arrestant to be brought to this fortress.
The King was not a little amazed about this turn of events. He investigated further, and Vöker's own handwriting testified against him, and proved he had seduced Glasow into such a punishable abuse of the royal authority. The King was incensed. He ordered that the prisoner was to be released at once. He sent Glasow for a year to the fortress Spandau, and Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times, and later was put into the third bataillon of the guard as a common soldier. The type of punishment alone proves enough that a crime such a poisoning can't have beeen an issue. Also, people who are well informed have testified the complete truth of all of the above named circumstances to me.
The King had to punish the irresponsible abuse of his authority by Glasow, but he still kept being fond of him, as he seemed to be convinced that Glasow as a young man had simply been seduced, and hadn't acted out of malice. He even asked how (Glasow) was doing during his imprisonment. If Glasow had survived the time of his arrest, there can't be any doubt that he'd been accepted back into the King's favour, and might even have been put back on his old posts. However, he died in Spandau three weeks before his term of imprisonment was over. When the King heard about his death, he cried a few tears, and was even more angry with Völker, whom he saw as the seducer of the poor young man.
Völker accepted his fate, and during the war became a sutler. After the war, he found opportunity to leave the army through the fact hat he could create Russian leather, got his dismissal, and started to work in the Russian leather factory of the manufacturer Schneider in Berlin. As he didn't have luck in this art, he then found a way to get a job in Prussia via the recently installed tobacco administration. Carelessly, he signed a report which ended up being read by the King. The King noticed the name. He asked, and when he learned that this was the same man who had been in his service, he had him casheered at once and ordered to put im into a garnison regiment, where Völker died only a few years ago.
This ends the Nicolai version of the tale of Glasow (and Völker). If you want to refresh your memory on what people at the time it happened (i.e. 1750s) or shortly thereafter wrote about Glasow, the relevent Rheinsberg collection is here. There are just enough common elements to show Nicolai got his story from people who themselves had at least some part of the tale, but the differences are still startling and fascinating.
Most of all, of course, "Völker". Now, see above, I just saw there was not a "Völker" but a "Wöllner, the King's footman and coffeemaker" who got indeed arrested and punished along with Glasow according to Henckel von Donnersmarck, Heinrich's AD who was around at the time. However, Henckel seems to have had no doubt that Glasow was the main culprit, and far from being a seduced youth manipulated by someone else was "the tyrant of the Royal Household" in the post-Fredersdorf era. Sadly, Nicolai doesn't say where he has the story from, other than that the people are trustworthy. The other pro-Glasow source we have is Kalckreuth, but Kalckreuth blames Glasow's dismissed servant for wrongly accusing him and doesn't say anything about Völker/Wöllner at all, so I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former boyfriend AD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.)
Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
As we now know due to the state archive letters from Fredesdorf's actual successor to Fredersdorf, Glasow did indeed abuse a seal, only it was Fredersdorf's, not Fritz'. And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment, but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself -, and he's far less blatant than Kalckreuth or Lehndorff about Glasow's good looks originally getting him noticed by Fritz, but he does mention it. Otoh, Nicolai unlike Lehndorff and writing with the hindsight of knowing Fredersdorf would die does not mention the possibility of jealousy and presents it as straightforward that Glasow got the valet job because Frederdorf was too ill.
So, friends, what do you think? Were Glasow's shady actions due to manipulations by Völker/Wöllner or was the later just a confederate? Is it significant that Völker/Wöllner was the coffeemaker (though I still think an actual poison attempt would have had far more serious consequences)? And who were Nicolai's absolutely trustworthy sources he can't name by name? (Very much as opposed to his sources elsewhere about other things, including the Katte anecdotes, where he gives the names each time.)
Good to see that Nicolai didn't actually fall for something entirely made-up here, aside from details like the probable Karlchen confusion. No Völker mention in the digital part of the state archive (also, that name is really impractical as a search term), but I saw that Preuss in his Fritz-bio sums it up in a very no-nonsense way, saying about the poisoning stories that "[t]his is all made up. Glasow abused the governement seal [he says Regierungssiegel, not the King's, so I suspect he read the state archive letters, too] to issue some orders in the King's name, with the help of the Kaffetier Völker." So no mention of seduced Glasow, which means he isn't just following Nicolai I'd say.
The other thing about all this? I'm amused that "Kaffetier" is an official job description. (And probably one that aided the poisoning rumours.)
Well, I learned the story from you for the first time, and then saw it on tumblr, so...
Mind you: I dimly seem to recall Münchow Jr. might have mentioned something like this in one of his two letters. Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing, because it sounds like the type of anecdote he'd include.
Well, I learned the story from you for the first time, and then saw it on tumblr, so...
Well, I learned it in high school [ETA: not literally in my terrible school, as you know, but during that period when I was reading everything on the 18th century I could get my hands on at the public and occasionally university library], so...*facepalm*
MacDonogh mentions it, citing both Thiebault and a 1997 article in the endnote to this paragraph. Now, Thiebault I would believe (despite his reliability issues, he did know Fritz for twenty years), but unfortunately, I'm not seeing coffee with mustard on the page cited (he says everything had to be very spicy, even the soup, but nothing about coffee), which means it may come from:
Hans-Joachim Neumann, ‘Friedrich der Grosse: ein medizinhistorischer Beitrag über seine Krankheiten und seine ärzte’, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, July 1997,
if anyone has access to that.
Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing
Völker is a terrible name for searching! As Preuss had access to the state archives, it makes sense he'd have looked it up. (Especially since a sensational story like "poison attempt on our glorious King by his evil enemies via a minion!" actually would have been a Prussian propaganda friendly story.
....mind you, I do think there might have been more to it than just Glasow (and friend) helping themselves to money and issuing fake orders, because Lehndorff, Henckel and Kalckreuth (who is pro Glasow and thinks he got framed!) all mention he hand contact with the Countess Brühl, and if you're the second most important lady of Saxony, with still ample cash at your disposal, you don't hang out with a valet to the King who has just invaded because you just feel like it. So he might have sold some copies of letters to the Saxons as well, stuff like that.
I'm still curious as to who Nicolai's source was, and why they were so insistant that Glasow was "seduced" and just a naive young man (of 22, as of the mercy petition his father wrote to Fritz) while the true villain was Völker. Like I said, Nicolai elsewhere usually names his sources, which is really helpful. If he is vague about this one, then the only idea I have is that they might still be serving in the current (i.e. FW2) royal household. Which would surprise me, though; anyone who knew Glasow - who died in 1757 - would have been really old in 1792, plus I doubt FW2 used any of Fritz' staff (as opposed to letting them retire honorably) - he had had his own for years and years as Prince of Prussia.
(Incidentally, Mildred - the term Nicolai keeps using is indeed "verführen" and "verführt", same as when FW asks Fritz whether he seduced Katte or vice versa.)
Now Lehndorff, Henckel and Kalckreuth - who all had seen him in person - all agree that Glasow was extremely handsome, and this was how he caught Fritz' eye originally. Lehndorff and Henckel see him as a high-handed guy throwing his weight around as the new Fredersdorf (in his own eyes) (and as an ungrateful treacherous bastard), while Kalckreuth thinks he was a good egg and it framed by his dismissed servant who had it in for him. (Whereas said dismissed servant is the hero of the tale in the other accounts, even in Nicolai's.) None of them think that Glasow was seduced and manipulated by the coffee maker.
Conclusion: could whoever told the story to Nioolai maybe a) have fallen for young Glasow himself back in the day, and/or b) bear a grudge against Völker/Wöllner?
Or, crazy out there theory: Nicolai was born in 1733, which means that when Glasow rose to prominence in 1755 (when he is Fritz' companion on the incognito trip to the Netherlands), he was Glasow's age - maybe he himself had fallen for the dashing young Glasow, wants to believe the best of his youthful crush and that's why he can't name sources when he does so everywhere else?
Haha, when I first saw this name, my immediate reaction was, "Detective or not, *I'm* not putting that name in Google! It's worse than Jägerhof. :PP"
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself
I agree, that was my reading too.
Conclusion: could whoever told the story to Nioolai maybe a) have fallen for young Glasow himself back in the day, and/or b) bear a grudge against Völker/Wöllner?
Or, crazy out there theory: Nicolai was born in 1733, which means that when Glasow rose to prominence in 1755 (when he is Fritz' companion on the incognito trip to the Netherlands), he was Glasow's age - maybe he himself had fallen for the dashing young Glasow, wants to believe the best of his youthful crush and that's why he can't name sources when he does so everywhere else?
I had been wondering if it was something like this, yeah.
Mes amies, you know that Karlchen is little Charles, a form of address hat denotes affection, right?
I'm not sure I've seen Karlchen in particular, but I definitely would have deduced it based on all the other uses of -chen I've seen. The reason my ability to read German so far outstrips my ability to skim German is that I've acquired a bunch of really common roots and affixes, and I'm frequently capable of putting them together in context and figuring out what they mean, but the number of words I can recognize instantaneously without thinking is very small.
Back when I was reading Stollberg-Rilinger, I noticed I kept clicking on "translate", and half a second before the window with the translation opened, the meaning would occur to me.
gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household
So, personal treasury as opposed to royal treasury? I mean, it is normal to let your valet manage your household accounts, but I think we'd decided Glasow did *not* have Fredersdorf's treasurer job?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner"
I would not have remembered that, so good for you for turning it up in your reread!
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
Makes sense to me!
Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments
As my fic points out, this may have been not just effect but contributing cause of Glasow's bad behavior. Fritz was not necessarily your dream boss.
Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times
Twenty-four?! I thought that much less than that was fatal, like two or three. It was impressive if you could make it to the end of one without collapsing. Maybe it was like flogging, and if they didn't want to kill you, they spaced out the punishment so that you didn't get the total number of lashes at once, but had a few days to recover and get medical treatment in between floggings. Still, if you're running a gauntlet 24 times, you're going to need months if you're going to survive that.
Okay, German Wikipedia says:
Running the gauntlet six times by 300 men on three days with a double run each day was equal to the death penalty and usually resulted in death.
Maybe Völker had shorter gauntlets? I have a lot of questions about this.
I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former boyfriend AD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.
Both arguments make sense to me.
Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
Yes, this makes lots of sense and I also suspect this is what happened!
And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment
Agreed.
but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Also agreed.
In related news, I see that Völker is mentioned in Büsching. Ooh, it looks like he's saying Völker has been mixed up with Glasow. Völker was the coffee maker, but he didn't hand the coffee to Fritz, but to Glasow, who would hand it to Fritz. Büsching says he consulted with secret councilor Schöning, who said that Völker was too smart to try to poison Fritz or even to advise it. What really happened, says Büsching, is that Völker wrote some orders and Glasow sealed them with the King's seal, and so they both got in trouble.
It looooks like Büsching is refuting an anecdote about the poisoning that he read in a collection by Unger (this guy?), which I think I've tried to find before and haven't succeeded.
Okay, wait, I've mostly got it. Stabi has most of the 19 (!) volumes, but not the one we're looking for (volume 18). Hathitrust has it in a combined 17-19 volume, but Hathitrust isn't downloadable except by Royal Patron. And this 3-volume combination is 400 pages and not searchable. Well, I'll see if I can get it out of RP this weekend.
Meanwhile, we have Büsching, Zuverlässige Beyträge, pages 35-36 of the appendix. Supposedly also his Charakter book, page 198, but he says that's the second edition and since I don't see it on page 198 of our copy, we seem to have the first edition (also the title page says nothing about an edition, so this is presumably the first).
Oh, wait, because I can kind-of-sort-of read German (I actually sort of skimmed! In blackletter!), I found it a few pages before. 187-188. Oh, interesting, Büsching (in Charakter) also says Fritz would have let him go around the time of his death. Oh, no wait, he says "Man saget," "it is said that." Well, yes, apparently Nicolai says that too!
Okay, Büsching more or less agrees with Nicolai, in far less detail. And I now have *counts* 32 tabs open. :P
And I think I need to end replying to this comment here (I actually did all this research and wrote this comment this morning, then got sucked into a very eventful 3 hours in the middle of the day, and now need to stop), but I'll be back tomorrow!
And thanks to my insomnia and a late-night text exchange with Royal Patron, the Unger volume is now in the library. The poisoning version of the Glasow episode is supposedly somewhere in volume 18.
Büsching: following your lead, I looked it up in "Charakter" and lo, it's right after Büsching's account of the tale of suicidal (and kicked) Kammerhussar Deesen, aka the other handsome hussar who committed suicide over Fritz (and since Fredersdorf had been dead for decades, he really can't have been the cause). Which is Büsching starts with "another"; I'll translate it for our archive:
Another favourite of the King, named Glasow, whom he had in Saxony with him in 1756 or 1757, was of a very amorous nature, and allowed himself to be talked into stealing a letter from the King's pocket by a woman and to hand it over to her. When this became known, the King sent him to Spandau, where he died after half a year. It is said that (the King) had intended to release him around the time of his death, and was sad about this.
No mention of an accomplice here, or of the financiai shenanigans which according to the archive letters to Fredersdorf definitely were an issue; the seducing is being done by "a woman". One thing that both Nicolai and Büsching feature is that it was a one time only offense by Glasow; with Nicolai, the forging and sealing of a letter (to arrest servant B.), with Büsching, the stealing of a letter. Meanwhile, all three contemporary accounts (Lehndorff, Kalkreuth, Henckel ovn Donnersmarck) as well as the archive letters talk about repeated offenses.
Büsching in "Beiträge" disses Zimmermann's fragments by starting with a Fritz quote from the letter to Charlotte that Nicolai printed: "Le medicin de Hannover a voulu se faire valoir chez nous", Friedrich II. wrote to his sister in Braunschweig on August 10 1786. The sharp-minded monarch correctly deduced that it is a main trait in the character of this gentleman to se faire valoir. It's the eviscerating review of Zimmermann's book for which I think we got this volume in the first place, as Büsching quotes the "Generalchirurgus und Hofrat Dr. Gottlieb Engel" who'd been in charge of cleaning up Fritz' body for the funeral and who gives it to Büsching in writing in a letter dated April 2nd, 1790, that the Fritzian penis was not deformed or broken but a normal piece of male equipment. Now, here's the passage Mildred found in which Büsching addresses Völker:
In the story of the attempted poisoning of the King (Sammlung 16, p. 69 f.) Völker has been confused with Glasow. (See my book about the King's character, p. 189 of the second edition.) Völker had been the coffee maker, but he didn't hand over the coffee to the King, that was done by chamber hussar Glasow, and the King only played the flute after having drunk coffee, not before. I put the story to Secret Councillor Schöning to judgment, and his take is that Völker was much too smart to contribute something to an assassination attempt on the King, let alone to advise it. His crime supposedly consisted of playing secretary for Glasow and writing some orders in the name of the King which Glasow then sealed with the King's small seal, and through this, both of them caused their misery.
Note that this is essentially the same story as Nicolai, but without making Völker the instigator/seducer, and also with the admittance that this happened more than once. Schöning shows up up a lot in this appendix, as he appears to be Büsching's (and possibly Nicolai's?) main source for all the "Fritz and servants" tales. So who is Schöning? Well, he shows up among other things in none other than Dr. Zmmermann's book, not the "Fragments" but an earlier book by Zimmermannn's, "Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredung mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode", as the Chamber Hussar who tells the good doctor that Fritz isn't taking the medicine which the royal physician Dr. Seele ordered him to take at all, except for a digestive made of "Rhabarber und Glaubersalz". Schöning, at least after his death, appears also have joined the ranks of Fritz memoirists, for I found this review of a book of his, full title: "Friedrich der Zweite, König von Preußen. Über seine Person und sein Privatleben. Ein berichtigender Nachtrag zur Charakteristik desselbem, vom verstorbenen Geheimen Rathe Schöning. 1808."
The reviewer says that the authenticity of this essay, which was presented to the publisher by the late Schöning who started out as Chamber Hussar to Fritz before becoming a Geheimer Rat can be no doubt, even though it was thought lost for some years. The reviewer says it's too short to quote from and mainly deals with contradicting some published stories in other anecdote collections, such as: no, Fritz wasn't into Burgunder as a wine, and no, he wasn't so cheap that he wore his coats turned inside out, but he did have them stitched up a lot, and also the servants got really measly salaries, that's true. This essay, otoh, includes the Schöning-told anecdote that Fritz was so cheap that he only had torn up shirts available at the time of his death, so in order to bury him in a new and clean one, Schöning had to donate one of his, and gives the source of this story: Caspar H: 300 Jahre Friedrich II. Schöngeist und wüste Tischsitten. Brandenburger Blätter, Historie, Natur, Gegenwart. Nr. 225, 10.08.2012.
Now, what all of this says about Schöning's cedibilility as a source: on the one hand, definitely a member of the royal household, knew Fritz up close. On the other hand, if he was chamber hussar in 1786, a job for which I had previously assumed you needed to be relatively young and strong, I doubt he was already around in the Glasow years (1755-1757), which means his recounting of the Glasow affair is likely hearsay, derived from stories from older members of Fritz' staff.
Otoh: if felis finds us a life and employment date for Geheimer Rat Schöning, ex chamber hussar, that shows he was already serving in 1755-1757, he's clearly a first hand witness!
Either way: he's also clearly prone to talk to journalists, err, memoirsts and anecdote collectors, after Fritz' death.
Unger: will report when I find it. ETA: could it be you have the wrong volumes? Because Büsching in his above quoted refutation says "volume 16", not 18, and my search machine doesn't find Glasow at all in the volume we now have.../ETA
Running the gauntlet 24 times: yes, that made me raise an eyebrow as well. Henckel mentions Völker/Wöllner had to run the gauntlet, but doesn't say anything about him having to do it more than once. Büsching doesn't mention any gauntlet running at all, but then, he doesn't present Völker as the villain who manipulated gullible Glasow, either, and since Nicolai (or his source) wants to get across Fritz being just and seeing Völker as the main culprit, Völker has to be punished extra hard, I guess, and so one gauntlet running becomes 24?
This essay, otoh, includes the Schöning-told anecdote that Fritz was so cheap that he only had torn up shirts available at the time of his death, so in order to bury him in a new and clean one, Schöning had to donate one of his, and gives the source of this story: Caspar H: 300 Jahre Friedrich II. Schöngeist und wüste Tischsitten. Brandenburger Blätter, Historie, Natur, Gegenwart. Nr. 225, 10.08.2012.
This all goes back to Büsching's Character as well actually, the Caspar guy quotes him. Relevant part from Büsching:
Because none of the shirts of the deceased king were good, but all torn, none of them could be put on his body. But one could not take the time to have a new one made, and so the current Geheime Kriegsrat Schöning gave one of his unused shirts, which his bride had given him, and in this the body was buried. I found this credibly told fact to be true when I examined it closely.
also, endnotes: Schöning, Geheimer Kriegsrath, former Kammerhusar [...] contributed a lot to this book
Since we were talking about that in another thread, he also mentions that Schöning said the king had expressed disgust at the idea of an autopsy.
Schöning shows up quite a bit in the Schatullrechnungen - as chamber husar - between 1783 and 1786, and the index includes a note saying that there's a Schöning listed as a "barber husar" between 1771 and 1772 in the state archive, but it's unclear if that's the same guy. Among the things Schöning apparently got/payed money for are Glaubersalz, leeches ("Blutigel" :D - this shows up quite often, did they do the bleeding that way?), scissors, a wooden medicine case, enema syringes, white paint for his room, and money for poor people (quite often!).
I haven't found a copy of Schöning's own book, but a very thorough Volz review - Friedrich der Große und sein Kammerdiener Schöning. Ein Beitrag zur Anekdotenliteratur - which is almost as good. Volz doesn't just talk about Schöning, but also puts him in perspective and calls him reliable, saying that Unger for example included every absurd thing he could find, whereas Büsching owed a lot to Schöning, even has parts in his book that show up almost verbatim in Schöning's, so Büsching's "he contributed a lot" is apparently well earned and Büsching already had the manuscript that was published in 1808 and seems to have been directed mostly against Unger (and Zimmermann!).
Volz also gives some more information on Schöning: With Fritz since 1766 as a footman (so NOT a first hand witness for Glasow) and chamber husar since 1769 and - as the Schatullrechnungen corroborate as well - he seems to have been responsible for Fritz' medical care towards the end, also corresponding with Selle for example. FWII made him Geh. Kriegsrath for his loyal services. Volz says he seems to have been well educated, knew French and used Latin expressions. In his book, Schöning also included anecdotes that Fritz used to tell at the table and Volz quotes a few of those, adding extensive notes.
Finally, a quote from Schöning's book which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks: Frederick II was about 5 feet 5 inches tall. The strength of the body was appropriate for his medium size. His stature was well proportioned, the chest raised and broad, the body not at all skinny, not fat, and the head hanging a little to the right, which probably came from playing the flute. The nose was long but well built; the eyes not too big, not too small, but lively and fiery; the gait a little sloppy, but quick and proud. The king had a very good memory, a very fluent tongue, saw quite well up close, but he had to get glasses for distant objects. But he didn't need glasses to read and write.
Probably. I mean, I always tend to imagine they did it by using a knife and cups to collect the blood, but that's probably because of the movies. Leeches are more hygeniec than rokoko knives, I guess, and you don't have to wipe up the blood or pour it away afterwards. Still: ewwww.
Go you for finding the Schatullrechnungen and the Volz review! That does sound like Schöning is a good source in general (twenty years serving Fritz are nothing to sneeze at!), despite not having been present for the Glasow (and Völker) disaster himself. Presumably he did not know either guy in person (since Glasow was dead and Völker persona non grata in the King's household), but heard others (including Fritz?) talking about them.
If he was such a key source for Büsching, I assume the story about Handsome Suicidal Hussar No.2 is also from him.
Volz says he seems to have been well educated, knew French and used Latin expressions.
This is interesting because Büsching also says that nearly of of Fritz' personal servants were uneducated to illiterate near the end, because he'd gotten paranoid about being spied at. Clearly, if so, Schöning was an exception.
This is interesting because Büsching also says that nearly of of Fritz' personal servants were uneducated to illiterate near the end, because he'd gotten paranoid about being spied at. Clearly, if so, Schöning was an exception.
Oh, Fritz. Maybe if he trusted you not to spy on him, he liked the company? He was getting kind of lonely at the end, even with Lucchesini.
OK, that's rather an interesting story about the shirt. That does seem like Fritz to me, not bothering to get new shirts, lol.
Schöning said the king had expressed disgust at the idea of an autopsy.
I need to go back to the other thread (which thank you for answering my questions there!) but let me just say here that this is still fascinating to me that it's such a big deal for them, control even after death.
I'm charmed that Fritz's glasses show up in Schöning's book!
Neither have I, just a physical copy in the Munich university library (as well as various other libraries in Germany). Not sure if even post-pandemic Selena has access to that library.
Also an 1809 review, which is...somehow not in a ridiculous font??
The Munich uni library calls him Kurd von Schöning, but they seem to be confusing him with the later military history writer Kurd von Schöning who was born in 1789 and whom I turned up in my searches earlier.
Felis, do you have non-pandemic access to a physical library that I should be including in my searches?
leeches ("Blutigel" :D - this shows up quite often, did they do the bleeding that way?)
I know they did sometimes! Wikipedia tells me leeches really took off in the early 19th century, but they'd been around in the 18th as well. (They'd been *around* forever, since ancient Egypt, but were still in use in the 18C.)
But he didn't need glasses to read and write.
Huh. I thought we'd established that he did (hence that making it into my fanfic), but perhaps we extrapolated that from me (and Selena?) needing glasses to read and right. I pushed my glasses up on my head just now, and I had to increase the font size up to 300% just to be able to make out DW text with a lot of difficulty, and at 500% it was still noticeably blurry and hard to read. And 500% is as high as Chrome will take me. :P
Otoh, as I remember Selena pointing out, it was the 18th century, and everyone was holding the page up to their nose, because lighting was terrible!
Also, if he wasn't far-sighted at all by 74, that's impressive.
which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks
Additional info via Volz: this was apparently slightly edited by the 1808 editor (after Schöning's death) and is based on several things Schöning wrote - for Büsching, against Unger/Zimmermann, ... - starting right after Fritz' death. In the state archive, Volz also found a 1795 manuscript Schöning sent to one of FWII's ministers in 1795 (per request), which contains a mix of all that. The quotes that Volz gives in the article I linked above are (mostly) anecdotes from the 1795 manuscript that aren't in the published 1808 one.
The 1809 review is the one that Selena linked above, see "The reviewer..."
And yeah, I saw the Kurd von Schöning confusion as well. Volz doesn't give a first name either, and he says that we don't know much about him - I mentioned most of it - and nothing about his life before 1766. Haven't read the actual Schöning book yet, but I doubt there's more in that one, or Volz would probably have mentioned it.
Felis, do you have non-pandemic access to a physical library that I should be including in my searches?
Sadly, no.
which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks
Ooh. Where is this?
Huh, I thought I'd mentioned it before, but maybe not. Another Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch essay (truly a treasure trove), Die äußere Erscheinung Friedrichs des Großen, which I just realized is actually written by two people instead of one: first part by Koser, who collects a lot of quotes about Fritz' looks, starting with F1's comments about baby Fritz, second part by Seidel about Fritz paintings and sculptures etc.
Good to have Voltaire's number more or less confirmed! I think, given the 34 years between Voltaire's figure and the end of Fritz's life, we can account for the loss of an inch or two via spinal compression, as we've discussed. (This is more probable than the 5 inches between 5'7" and 5'2" that previously needed to be accounted for!)
Furthermore, Davidson tells me that Voltaire says he himself was 5'2" in English inches, which is 5'6" in English inches.
One, this means we now have Napoleon, Fritz, and Voltaire at pretty much exactly the same height.
Two, it makes it even more likely that Voltaire's number is reasonably precise: because if you know how tall you are, and someone else is about the same height as you, you're more likely to guess within an inch, than if someone is several inches taller or shorter than you and you're eyeballing it.
Of course, if you're mad at them and writing an anonymous pamphlet *while* employed by them, you might shave off an inch or two, but it doesn't seem like Voltaire did that. ;)
Büsching: following your lead, I looked it up in "Charakter" and lo, it's right after Büsching's account of the tale of suicidal (and kicked) Kammerhussar Deesen, aka the other handsome hussar who committed suicide over Fritz
I was very surprised to see you write this, because I distinctly remember saying that! But I don't see it in my write-up. I guess that fell victim to the internet difficulties I was having while composing this post--the tab got closed and reopened, and...oh, look, here's the draft I copy-pasted outside of DW before closing the tab, but didn't cross-check when reopening the tab to see if my draft matched the one DW had saved, and sure enough, the more complete draft says:
(Because I can sort-of read German, I can tell this is right around the anecdote of the servant who shot himself in the 1770s and Fritz expressed surprise that he'd have the courage to go through with it.)
Anyway, yes, it is! I saw that passage and immediately remarked on it, because I think that actually may be why I got this volume in the first place.
Dr. Zmmermann's book, not the "Fragments" but an earlier book by Zimmermannn's, "Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredung mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode"
Which is now in our library.
Caspar H: 300 Jahre Friedrich II. Schöngeist und wüste Tischsitten. Brandenburger Blätter, Historie, Natur, Gegenwart. Nr. 225, 10.08.2012.
Can't find it online, but you can ILL it via Stabi, so I added it to our sticky list in Rheinsberg.
ETA: could it be you have the wrong volumes? Because Büsching in his above quoted refutation says "volume 16", not 18, and my search machine doesn't find Glasow at all in the volume we now have.../ETA
*facepalm* Yes, I see what happened. The Glasow passage says "Collection 16," and I was like, "...Collection 16 of what?" and when I looked around in the book to find out what collection, the first citation, the one that names Unger, is the 18th volume. And apparently that's the one I fixated on when I went searching. WELL THEN.
The 16th volume is even harder to find than the 18th, alas. Stabi only goes up to 13, and Hathitrust only has 17-19. Google books has a record of it but not an e-copy. Argh. No luck. :/ The nearest physical library copy to Munich I could find in WorldCat was in Tübingen.
Now, what all of this says about Schöning's cedibilility as a source: on the one hand, definitely a member of the royal household, knew Fritz up close. On the other hand, if he was chamber hussar in 1786, a job for which I had previously assumed you needed to be relatively young and strong, I doubt he was already around in the Glasow years (1755-1757), which means his recounting of the Glasow affair is likely hearsay, derived from stories from older members of Fritz' staff.
I would tend to agree with this, but maybe felis will find him! The only Geheimer Rat Schöning I could find is too early: 1717-1787. But admittedly I do need to move on to Nicolai on 1730, so I did stop sooner than I often do when hunting people down.
Völker has to be punished extra hard, I guess, and so one gauntlet running becomes 24?
Maybe? It does sound like an exaggeration, though I don't know for sure. (Maybe there were short gauntlets you could run 24 times.)
Oh, no, wait, we're wrong! The heavily-footnoted and scholarly (and thanks to my scanning, searchable) Möbius volume on the Prussian army says:
The punishments meted out to disobedient soldiers could be draconic indeed. A Prussian soldier could be disciplined by running the gauntlet (twenty times through 200 men) for arguing with his superiors
Man, I would be in so much trouble. I always argue with my superiors!
But anyway. Wow. 20 times through 200 men! Maybe with mitigating factors such as mentioned by Wikipedia, like no edged weapons or allowing the culprit/victim to protect his head with his hands?
Oh, nice, I found the primary source! The authors cite the Prussian infantry reglement of 1743, page 437, and there it is. For arguing with your officers, on duty or off duty, with a rifle or without a rifle, hard punishment by the gauntlet. But especially if the guy has his rifle when he's arguing, he should be arrested on the spot and put 20 times through a gauntlet of 200 men the next day. That's my guess. Help on wann er mit(??) im Gewehr mit einem Wort raisonniret, please?
Both infantry and cavalry reglements now in the library, btw.
ETA: Oh, and please tell me you can see the image. *fingers crossed*
ETA2: And glancing at the second part, it looks to me like you get shot without pardon for opposition (refusing to follow orders, I assume?) or threatening your officers with a rifle.
And glancing at the second part, it looks to me like you get shot without pardon for opposition (refusing to follow orders, I assume?) or threatening your officers with a rifle.
This is actually incorporated in the entertainingly trashy Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria; it's how Saxon ingenue Pepita's first love dies (he spends the night with her, is chewed out by his superior officer the next day, puts his hand on his weapon, realises what he's done but too late, and that's it) and why she hates Fritz and later comes up with the kidnapping scheme against him.
"im Gewehr mit einem Wort raisoniert" - old fashioned German for "if he argues with a rifle in his hand".
Anyway - if that's the punishment simply for argueing, I'm now inclined to believe Völker was in for 24 times, though maybe indeed provided with a few days pause in between so he could survive it (as he evidently did).
felis identified Schöning for us, see above, with the help of Gustav Volz!
Not sure if this was directed at me (selenak seems to have no problem seeing your images in general) but yes I can see it! :D (Also the previous pic that I replied to, obviously, and I am also seeing some maps that you posted today :D )
Help on wann er mit(??) im Gewehr mit einem Wort raisonniret, please?
Waaaait, does that word I heavily question-marked say "nur"? I couldn't make sense of "mit", but if it's "nur", then "if he talks back even one single word with his rifle in hand," makes the whole sentence make sense.
Woooow this is an amazing, um, I guess I shouldn't call it "flight of fancy," but that's sort of how it reads to me given everything else you guys have told me / uncovered about Glasow :) (And it does rather seem now that I've glanced at the entire thread that, well.)
(I did not know about Karlchen, so thank you for clarifying -- now that you mention it I am pretty sure I've seen the diminutive in one place or another, but as we have well established by now my ability to make cross-connections is not nearly as advanced as mildred's.)
(Also, aww, I have a soft spot for Henckel and I was delighted to see him show up again in this comment :) )
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timeasmymeasure
Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-23 09:46 am (UTC)(Mes amies, you know that Karlchen is little Charles, a form of address hat denotes affection, right? Much like FW, in a good mood, occasionally speaks of Fritzchen, so noted by Seckendorf Jr. early in his diary.)
When the King had to take to the field in 1756, the Secret Chamberlain Fredersdorf couldn't join the King on his campaign due to his long term illness of which he did die not too long thereafter. So the King transferred everything to Glasow, whom he made his valet on this occasion, had tailored some very beautiful civilian clothing for him, and gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household, despite Glasow still being very young.
For a few days, the King told him personally how he had to run everything; especially, he taught him how to do the accounts about the income and expenditure of the royal household. Now there was a particular secretary in charge of this, but that one remained with Fredersdorf, and wasn't called to Dresden until the opening of the next campaign on the following year in the spring of 1757; until then Völker, who was a smart fellow, administrated this office together with Glasow.
(Not to spoil anything, but Völker will be the villain of this tale. It's the first time I've heard of his existence; he's introduced only in the previous page as "a man named Völker" who supposedly did the much rumored poison attempt together with Glasow, a story Niicolai sets out to rectify. How Völker got into this story pre Nicolai, I have no idea; note that neither Lehndorff nor Kalckreuth nor Münchow nor von Henckel mention him at all. I haven't seen mention of any "Völker" in 20th century biographies, either, Mildred, have you?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner" as Glasow's good friend who got also arrested and condemned to running the gauntlet. Okay then, and apologies, Nicolai, there was indeed a second person involved./ETA
The King showed even more grace to Glasow, and often made him large presents; but Glasow was not always grateful. When the King had his winter quarters in Dresden in the winter of 1756, Glasow started to consort with two women. The King didn't like his people to have this kind of relationships at all; and in this particular case, additional circumstances were there why these relationships should be suspicious and dislikeable to the King for political reasons.
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
He therefore strictly forbade Glasow this kind of consorting, but the later didn't stop doing it. Glasow, whom the King had sleeping in the room next to his, wasn't in his bed for entire nights, and when he was missing, the King could easily guess where he had to be spending his time. Now the man who encouraged young Glasow in this kind of loose living because he could take advantage from his wastefulness was the King's Kammerlakei and Treasurer Völker.
The King knew very well about the connection between these two men, and thus blamed Völker for Glasow's debauchings, as he knew Völker as an otherwise not at all foolish man, and held him to be the seducer of the young and inexperienced Glasow.
Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments, his affairs grew steadily worse when the King near the end of March 1757 took his main quarters at Lockwitz, a small mile away from Dresden. Glasow continued to keep up his relationships in Dresden. Nearly every night, he rode to Dresden. The King couldn't fail to notice this and grew even more disgruntled. However, as Glasow otherwise was still in favor with the King, it was all too understandable that no one dared the tell the King about the exact nature of the consorting this favourite was doing.
Glasow took into his service a fellow named B*** who until then had been in service with an officer from the Garde du Corps who lived near Berlin, but then kicked him out in disgrace some time later. This B*** subsequently went to his old master. B*** now started to talk very loudly about Glasow's suspcious relationships in Dresden, and that Völker was seducing him into them, and added that if the King only knew the true circumstances, whom he should be told about, both of them would suffer evil consequences.
Völker knew that what this fellow was saying was the truth, and he grew greatly afraid that through either him or his master the King should find out the true circumstances. He therefore persuaded Glasow that it was necessary to get rid of this fellow for their shared safety's sake.
Through Völker's persuasions, the young and inconsiderate Glasow was seduced to start a very serious enterprise worthy of punishment. Völker wrote an order of arrest to the commander of Magdeburg in the name of the King, Glasow used the King's small seal, B*** was arrested, and sent via transport to Magdeburg.
The commander in Magdeburg thought the order of arrest which hadn't been signed by the King to be suspicious. Some claim that it had been signed by the King's name, but in an unreadable fashion. The Commander now sent the original arrest warrant to the King, and asked whether the King truly wished the arrestant to be brought to this fortress.
The King was not a little amazed about this turn of events. He investigated further, and Vöker's own handwriting testified against him, and proved he had seduced Glasow into such a punishable abuse of the royal authority. The King was incensed. He ordered that the prisoner was to be released at once. He sent Glasow for a year to the fortress Spandau, and Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times, and later was put into the third bataillon of the guard as a common soldier. The type of punishment alone proves enough that a crime such a poisoning can't have beeen an issue. Also, people who are well informed have testified the complete truth of all of the above named circumstances to me.
The King had to punish the irresponsible abuse of his authority by Glasow, but he still kept being fond of him, as he seemed to be convinced that Glasow as a young man had simply been seduced, and hadn't acted out of malice. He even asked how (Glasow) was doing during his imprisonment. If Glasow had survived the time of his arrest, there can't be any doubt that he'd been accepted back into the King's favour, and might even have been put back on his old posts. However, he died in Spandau three weeks before his term of imprisonment was over. When the King heard about his death, he cried a few tears, and was even more angry with Völker, whom he saw as the seducer of the poor young man.
Völker accepted his fate, and during the war became a sutler. After the war, he found opportunity to leave the army through the fact hat he could create Russian leather, got his dismissal, and started to work in the Russian leather factory of the manufacturer Schneider in Berlin. As he didn't have luck in this art, he then found a way to get a job in Prussia via the recently installed tobacco administration. Carelessly, he signed a report which ended up being read by the King. The King noticed the name. He asked, and when he learned that this was the same man who had been in his service, he had him casheered at once and ordered to put im into a garnison regiment, where Völker died only a few years ago.
This ends the Nicolai version of the tale of Glasow (and Völker). If you want to refresh your memory on what people at the time it happened (i.e. 1750s) or shortly thereafter wrote about Glasow, the relevent Rheinsberg collection is here. There are just enough common elements to show Nicolai got his story from people who themselves had at least some part of the tale, but the differences are still startling and fascinating.
Most of all, of course, "Völker". Now, see above, I just saw there was not a "Völker" but a "Wöllner, the King's footman and coffeemaker" who got indeed arrested and punished along with Glasow according to Henckel von Donnersmarck, Heinrich's AD who was around at the time. However, Henckel seems to have had no doubt that Glasow was the main culprit, and far from being a seduced youth manipulated by someone else was "the tyrant of the Royal Household" in the post-Fredersdorf era. Sadly, Nicolai doesn't say where he has the story from, other than that the people are trustworthy. The other pro-Glasow source we have is Kalckreuth, but Kalckreuth blames Glasow's dismissed servant for wrongly accusing him and doesn't say anything about Völker/Wöllner at all, so I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former
boyfriendAD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.)Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
As we now know due to the state archive letters from Fredesdorf's actual successor to Fredersdorf, Glasow did indeed abuse a seal, only it was Fredersdorf's, not Fritz'. And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment, but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself -, and he's far less blatant than Kalckreuth or Lehndorff about Glasow's good looks originally getting him noticed by Fritz, but he does mention it. Otoh, Nicolai unlike Lehndorff and writing with the hindsight of knowing Fredersdorf would die does not mention the possibility of jealousy and presents it as straightforward that Glasow got the valet job because Frederdorf was too ill.
So, friends, what do you think? Were Glasow's shady actions due to manipulations by Völker/Wöllner or was the later just a confederate? Is it significant that Völker/Wöllner was the coffeemaker (though I still think an actual poison attempt would have had far more serious consequences)? And who were Nicolai's absolutely trustworthy sources he can't name by name? (Very much as opposed to his sources elsewhere about other things, including the Katte anecdotes, where he gives the names each time.)
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-23 07:29 pm (UTC)The other thing about all this? I'm amused that "Kaffetier" is an official job description. (And probably one that aided the poisoning rumours.)
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-24 12:58 am (UTC)That does make sense!
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-24 08:11 am (UTC)Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 12:51 am (UTC)Brilliant!
Fritz: My servant put poison in my coffee!
Everyone else: What's the difference?
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 12:54 am (UTC)The Fritz of my youth and the Fritz of salon are slowly turning into a Ship of Theseus paradox...
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 06:06 am (UTC)Mind you: I dimly seem to recall Münchow Jr. might have mentioned something like this in one of his two letters. Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing, because it sounds like the type of anecdote he'd include.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-25 01:33 pm (UTC)Well, I learned it in high school [ETA: not literally in my terrible school, as you know, but during that period when I was reading everything on the 18th century I could get my hands on at the public and occasionally university library], so...*facepalm*
MacDonogh mentions it, citing both Thiebault and a 1997 article in the endnote to this paragraph. Now, Thiebault I would believe (despite his reliability issues, he did know Fritz for twenty years), but unfortunately, I'm not seeing coffee with mustard on the page cited (he says everything had to be very spicy, even the soup, but nothing about coffee), which means it may come from:
Hans-Joachim Neumann, ‘Friedrich der Grosse: ein medizinhistorischer Beitrag über seine Krankheiten und seine ärzte’, in Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte Berlins, July 1997,
if anyone has access to that.
Also, I'll now start a more thorough Nicolai reread after my hasty browsing
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Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
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From:Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-24 08:42 am (UTC)....mind you, I do think there might have been more to it than just Glasow (and friend) helping themselves to money and issuing fake orders, because Lehndorff, Henckel and Kalckreuth (who is pro Glasow and thinks he got framed!) all mention he hand contact with the Countess Brühl, and if you're the second most important lady of Saxony, with still ample cash at your disposal, you don't hang out with a valet to the King who has just invaded because you just feel like it. So he might have sold some copies of letters to the Saxons as well, stuff like that.
I'm still curious as to who Nicolai's source was, and why they were so insistant that Glasow was "seduced" and just a naive young man (of 22, as of the mercy petition his father wrote to Fritz) while the true villain was Völker. Like I said, Nicolai elsewhere usually names his sources, which is really helpful. If he is vague about this one, then the only idea I have is that they might still be serving in the current (i.e. FW2) royal household. Which would surprise me, though; anyone who knew Glasow - who died in 1757 - would have been really old in 1792, plus I doubt FW2 used any of Fritz' staff (as opposed to letting them retire honorably) - he had had his own for years and years as Prince of Prussia.
(Incidentally, Mildred - the term Nicolai keeps using is indeed "verführen" and "verführt", same as when FW asks Fritz whether he seduced Katte or vice versa.)
Now Lehndorff, Henckel and Kalckreuth - who all had seen him in person - all agree that Glasow was extremely handsome, and this was how he caught Fritz' eye originally. Lehndorff and Henckel see him as a high-handed guy throwing his weight around as the new Fredersdorf (in his own eyes) (and as an ungrateful treacherous bastard), while Kalckreuth thinks he was a good egg and it framed by his dismissed servant who had it in for him. (Whereas said dismissed servant is the hero of the tale in the other accounts, even in Nicolai's.) None of them think that Glasow was seduced and manipulated by the coffee maker.
Conclusion: could whoever told the story to Nioolai maybe a) have fallen for young Glasow himself back in the day, and/or b) bear a grudge against Völker/Wöllner?
Or, crazy out there theory: Nicolai was born in 1733, which means that when Glasow rose to prominence in 1755 (when he is Fritz' companion on the incognito trip to the Netherlands), he was Glasow's age - maybe he himself had fallen for the dashing young Glasow, wants to believe the best of his youthful crush and that's why he can't name sources when he does so everywhere else?
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 07:57 pm (UTC)Haha, when I first saw this name, my immediate reaction was, "Detective or not, *I'm* not putting that name in Google! It's worse than Jägerhof. :PP"
Lastly: Fritz objecting to Glasow's "consorting with women", and noticing Glasow's nightly absence: I don't think Nicolai is trying to insinuate something - as valet, it would have been Glasow's duty to be available next door or in the King's room itself
I agree, that was my reading too.
Conclusion: could whoever told the story to Nioolai maybe a) have fallen for young Glasow himself back in the day, and/or b) bear a grudge against Völker/Wöllner?
Or, crazy out there theory: Nicolai was born in 1733, which means that when Glasow rose to prominence in 1755 (when he is Fritz' companion on the incognito trip to the Netherlands), he was Glasow's age - maybe he himself had fallen for the dashing young Glasow, wants to believe the best of his youthful crush and that's why he can't name sources when he does so everywhere else?
I had been wondering if it was something like this, yeah.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-26 09:51 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I've seen Karlchen in particular, but I definitely would have deduced it based on all the other uses of -chen I've seen. The reason my ability to read German so far outstrips my ability to skim German is that I've acquired a bunch of really common roots and affixes, and I'm frequently capable of putting them together in context and figuring out what they mean, but the number of words I can recognize instantaneously without thinking is very small.
Back when I was reading Stollberg-Rilinger, I noticed I kept clicking on "translate", and half a second before the window with the translation opened, the meaning would occur to me.
gave him his personal treasury and the supervision about his household
So, personal treasury as opposed to royal treasury? I mean, it is normal to let your valet manage your household accounts, but I think we'd decided Glasow did *not* have Fredersdorf's treasurer job?
ETA: Aha and shame on me. Not Völker, but Henckel von Donnersmarck, reading his journal entry again, which I just linked to, does mention a "Wöllner"
I would not have remembered that, so good for you for turning it up in your reread!
(Interestingly, Nicolai does not name the Countess Brühl, as opposed to Henckel, Lehndorff and Kalckreuth. Possibly because they are nobles writing their diaries and dictating memoirs and thus not having to fear law suits, whereas Nicolai is a commoner writing for publication?)
Makes sense to me!
Now despite the King tried to improve his valet's behavior through harsh reprimands, threats and punishments
As my fic points out, this may have been not just effect but contributing cause of Glasow's bad behavior. Fritz was not necessarily your dream boss.
Völker had to run the gauntlet twentyfour times
Twenty-four?! I thought that much less than that was fatal, like two or three. It was impressive if you could make it to the end of one without collapsing. Maybe it was like flogging, and if they didn't want to kill you, they spaced out the punishment so that you didn't get the total number of lashes at once, but had a few days to recover and get medical treatment in between floggings. Still, if you're running a gauntlet 24 times, you're going to need months if you're going to survive that.
Okay, German Wikipedia says:
Running the gauntlet six times by 300 men on three days with a double run each day was equal to the death penalty and usually resulted in death.
Maybe Völker had shorter gauntlets? I have a lot of questions about this.
I don't think Kalkreuth is Nicolai's source. (My other reason for doubting it is that Heinrich doesn't get mentioned once in six volumes of anecdotes, and I think if Nicolai had an in with Heinrich's former boyfriend AD, there's be some stories at least co-starring him.
Both arguments make sense to me.
Next: "Karlchen". Glasow's first two names were Christian Friedrich, without a "Carl" (or Karl). However, there was, of course, Carl "Carel" the favoured page, and I suspect in the retellings, he and Glasow might have gotten mixed up somewhat. (It was also Carel who got the teachers.)
Yes, this makes lots of sense and I also suspect this is what happened!
And Nicolai was right in that a poisoning attempt is unlikely to have happened if you look at the punishment
Agreed.
but nothing in Fritz' granting mercy in reaction to Glasow's father's petition makes it sound as if Glasow would only have been in Spandau for a year if he hadn't died.
Also agreed.
In related news, I see that Völker is mentioned in Büsching. Ooh, it looks like he's saying Völker has been mixed up with Glasow. Völker was the coffee maker, but he didn't hand the coffee to Fritz, but to Glasow, who would hand it to Fritz. Büsching says he consulted with secret councilor Schöning, who said that Völker was too smart to try to poison Fritz or even to advise it. What really happened, says Büsching, is that Völker wrote some orders and Glasow sealed them with the King's seal, and so they both got in trouble.
It looooks like Büsching is refuting an anecdote about the poisoning that he read in a collection by Unger (this guy?), which I think I've tried to find before and haven't succeeded.
Okay, wait, I've mostly got it. Stabi has most of the 19 (!) volumes, but not the one we're looking for (volume 18). Hathitrust has it in a combined 17-19 volume, but Hathitrust isn't downloadable except by Royal Patron. And this 3-volume combination is 400 pages and not searchable. Well, I'll see if I can get it out of RP this weekend.
Meanwhile, we have Büsching, Zuverlässige Beyträge, pages 35-36 of the appendix. Supposedly also his Charakter book, page 198, but he says that's the second edition and since I don't see it on page 198 of our copy, we seem to have the first edition (also the title page says nothing about an edition, so this is presumably the first).
Oh, wait, because I can kind-of-sort-of read German (I actually sort of skimmed! In blackletter!), I found it a few pages before. 187-188. Oh, interesting, Büsching (in Charakter) also says Fritz would have let him go around the time of his death. Oh, no wait, he says "Man saget," "it is said that." Well, yes, apparently Nicolai says that too!
Okay, Büsching more or less agrees with Nicolai, in far less detail. And I now have *counts* 32 tabs open. :P
And I think I need to end replying to this comment here (I actually did all this research and wrote this comment this morning, then got sucked into a very eventful 3 hours in the middle of the day, and now need to stop), but I'll be back tomorrow!
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 05:10 am (UTC)Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 07:26 am (UTC)Another favourite of the King, named Glasow, whom he had in Saxony with him in 1756 or 1757, was of a very amorous nature, and allowed himself to be talked into stealing a letter from the King's pocket by a woman and to hand it over to her. When this became known, the King sent him to Spandau, where he died after half a year. It is said that (the King) had intended to release him around the time of his death, and was sad about this.
No mention of an accomplice here, or of the financiai shenanigans which according to the archive letters to Fredersdorf definitely were an issue; the seducing is being done by "a woman". One thing that both Nicolai and Büsching feature is that it was a one time only offense by Glasow; with Nicolai, the forging and sealing of a letter (to arrest servant B.), with Büsching, the stealing of a letter. Meanwhile, all three contemporary accounts (Lehndorff, Kalkreuth, Henckel ovn Donnersmarck) as well as the archive letters talk about repeated offenses.
Büsching in "Beiträge" disses Zimmermann's fragments by starting with a Fritz quote from the letter to Charlotte that Nicolai printed: "Le medicin de Hannover a voulu se faire valoir chez nous", Friedrich II. wrote to his sister in Braunschweig on August 10 1786. The sharp-minded monarch correctly deduced that it is a main trait in the character of this gentleman to se faire valoir. It's the eviscerating review of Zimmermann's book for which I think we got this volume in the first place, as Büsching quotes the "Generalchirurgus und Hofrat Dr. Gottlieb Engel" who'd been in charge of cleaning up Fritz' body for the funeral and who gives it to Büsching in writing in a letter dated April 2nd, 1790, that the Fritzian penis was not deformed or broken but a normal piece of male equipment. Now, here's the passage Mildred found in which Büsching addresses Völker:
In the story of the attempted poisoning of the King (Sammlung 16, p. 69 f.) Völker has been confused with Glasow. (See my book about the King's character, p. 189 of the second edition.) Völker had been the coffee maker, but he didn't hand over the coffee to the King, that was done by chamber hussar Glasow, and the King only played the flute after having drunk coffee, not before. I put the story to Secret Councillor Schöning to judgment, and his take is that Völker was much too smart to contribute something to an assassination attempt on the King, let alone to advise it. His crime supposedly consisted of playing secretary for Glasow and writing some orders in the name of the King which Glasow then sealed with the King's small seal, and through this, both of them caused their misery.
Note that this is essentially the same story as Nicolai, but without making Völker the instigator/seducer, and also with the admittance that this happened more than once. Schöning shows up up a lot in this appendix, as he appears to be Büsching's (and possibly Nicolai's?) main source for all the "Fritz and servants" tales. So who is Schöning? Well, he shows up among other things in none other than Dr. Zmmermann's book, not the "Fragments" but an earlier book by Zimmermannn's, "Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredung mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode", as the Chamber Hussar who tells the good doctor that Fritz isn't taking the medicine which the royal physician Dr. Seele ordered him to take at all, except for a digestive made of "Rhabarber und Glaubersalz". Schöning, at least after his death, appears also have joined the ranks of Fritz memoirists, for I found this review of a book of his, full title: "Friedrich der Zweite, König von Preußen. Über seine Person und sein Privatleben. Ein berichtigender Nachtrag zur Charakteristik desselbem, vom verstorbenen Geheimen Rathe Schöning. 1808."
The reviewer says that the authenticity of this essay, which was presented to the publisher by the late Schöning who started out as Chamber Hussar to Fritz before becoming a Geheimer Rat can be no doubt, even though it was thought lost for some years. The reviewer says it's too short to quote from and mainly deals with contradicting some published stories in other anecdote collections, such as: no, Fritz wasn't into Burgunder as a wine, and no, he wasn't so cheap that he wore his coats turned inside out, but he did have them stitched up a lot, and also the servants got really measly salaries, that's true. This essay, otoh, includes the Schöning-told anecdote that Fritz was so cheap that he only had torn up shirts available at the time of his death, so in order to bury him in a new and clean one, Schöning had to donate one of his, and gives the source of this story: Caspar H: 300 Jahre Friedrich II. Schöngeist und wüste Tischsitten. Brandenburger Blätter, Historie, Natur, Gegenwart. Nr. 225, 10.08.2012.
Now, what all of this says about Schöning's cedibilility as a source: on the one hand, definitely a member of the royal household, knew Fritz up close. On the other hand, if he was chamber hussar in 1786, a job for which I had previously assumed you needed to be relatively young and strong, I doubt he was already around in the Glasow years (1755-1757), which means his recounting of the Glasow affair is likely hearsay, derived from stories from older members of Fritz' staff.
Otoh: if
Either way: he's also clearly prone to talk to journalists, err, memoirsts and anecdote collectors, after Fritz' death.
Unger: will report when I find it. ETA: could it be you have the wrong volumes? Because Büsching in his above quoted refutation says "volume 16", not 18, and my search machine doesn't find Glasow at all in the volume we now have.../ETA
Running the gauntlet 24 times: yes, that made me raise an eyebrow as well. Henckel mentions Völker/Wöllner had to run the gauntlet, but doesn't say anything about him having to do it more than once. Büsching doesn't mention any gauntlet running at all, but then, he doesn't present Völker as the villain who manipulated gullible Glasow, either, and since Nicolai (or his source) wants to get across Fritz being just and seeing Völker as the main culprit, Völker has to be punished extra hard, I guess, and so one gauntlet running becomes 24?
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 12:56 pm (UTC)This all goes back to Büsching's Character as well actually, the Caspar guy quotes him. Relevant part from Büsching:
Because none of the shirts of the deceased king were good, but all torn, none of them could be put on his body. But one could not take the time to have a new one made, and so the current Geheime Kriegsrat Schöning gave one of his unused shirts, which his bride had given him, and in this the body was buried. I found this credibly told fact to be true when I examined it closely.
also, endnotes: Schöning, Geheimer Kriegsrath, former Kammerhusar [...] contributed a lot to this book
Since we were talking about that in another thread, he also mentions that Schöning said the king had expressed disgust at the idea of an autopsy.
Schöning shows up quite a bit in the Schatullrechnungen - as chamber husar - between 1783 and 1786, and the index includes a note saying that there's a Schöning listed as a "barber husar" between 1771 and 1772 in the state archive, but it's unclear if that's the same guy. Among the things Schöning apparently got/payed money for are Glaubersalz, leeches ("Blutigel" :D - this shows up quite often, did they do the bleeding that way?), scissors, a wooden medicine case, enema syringes, white paint for his room, and money for poor people (quite often!).
I haven't found a copy of Schöning's own book, but a very thorough Volz review - Friedrich der Große und sein Kammerdiener Schöning. Ein Beitrag zur Anekdotenliteratur - which is almost as good. Volz doesn't just talk about Schöning, but also puts him in perspective and calls him reliable, saying that Unger for example included every absurd thing he could find, whereas Büsching owed a lot to Schöning, even has parts in his book that show up almost verbatim in Schöning's, so Büsching's "he contributed a lot" is apparently well earned and Büsching already had the manuscript that was published in 1808 and seems to have been directed mostly against Unger (and Zimmermann!).
Volz also gives some more information on Schöning: With Fritz since 1766 as a footman (so NOT a first hand witness for Glasow) and chamber husar since 1769 and - as the Schatullrechnungen corroborate as well - he seems to have been responsible for Fritz' medical care towards the end, also corresponding with Selle for example. FWII made him Geh. Kriegsrath for his loyal services. Volz says he seems to have been well educated, knew French and used Latin expressions. In his book, Schöning also included anecdotes that Fritz used to tell at the table and Volz quotes a few of those, adding extensive notes.
Finally, a quote from Schöning's book which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks: Frederick II was about 5 feet 5 inches tall. The strength of the body was appropriate for his medium size. His stature was well proportioned, the chest raised and broad, the body not at all skinny, not fat, and the head hanging a little to the right, which probably came from playing the flute. The nose was long but well built; the eyes not too big, not too small, but lively and fiery; the gait a little sloppy, but quick and proud. The king had a very good memory, a very fluent tongue, saw quite well up close, but he had to get glasses for distant objects. But he didn't need glasses to read and write.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 05:17 pm (UTC)Probably. I mean, I always tend to imagine they did it by using a knife and cups to collect the blood, but that's probably because of the movies. Leeches are more hygeniec than rokoko knives, I guess, and you don't have to wipe up the blood or pour it away afterwards. Still: ewwww.
Go you for finding the Schatullrechnungen and the Volz review! That does sound like Schöning is a good source in general (twenty years serving Fritz are nothing to sneeze at!), despite not having been present for the Glasow (and Völker) disaster himself. Presumably he did not know either guy in person (since Glasow was dead and Völker persona non grata in the King's household), but heard others (including Fritz?) talking about them.
If he was such a key source for Büsching, I assume the story about Handsome Suicidal Hussar No.2 is also from him.
Volz says he seems to have been well educated, knew French and used Latin expressions.
This is interesting because Büsching also says that nearly of of Fritz' personal servants were uneducated to illiterate near the end, because he'd gotten paranoid about being spied at. Clearly, if so, Schöning was an exception.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 08:08 pm (UTC)Oh, Fritz. Maybe if he trusted you not to spy on him, he liked the company? He was getting kind of lonely at the end, even with Lucchesini.
I say again: oh, Fritz.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 06:03 pm (UTC)Schöning said the king had expressed disgust at the idea of an autopsy.
I need to go back to the other thread (which thank you for answering my questions there!) but let me just say here that this is still fascinating to me that it's such a big deal for them, control even after death.
I'm charmed that Fritz's glasses show up in Schöning's book!
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 08:05 pm (UTC)I haven't found a copy of Schöning's own book
Neither have I, just a physical copy in the Munich university library (as well as various other libraries in Germany). Not sure if even post-pandemic Selena has access to that library.
Also an 1809 review, which is...somehow not in a ridiculous font??
The Munich uni library calls him Kurd von Schöning, but they seem to be confusing him with the later military history writer Kurd von Schöning who was born in 1789 and whom I turned up in my searches earlier.
Felis, do you have non-pandemic access to a physical library that I should be including in my searches?
leeches ("Blutigel" :D - this shows up quite often, did they do the bleeding that way?)
I know they did sometimes! Wikipedia tells me leeches really took off in the early 19th century, but they'd been around in the 18th as well. (They'd been *around* forever, since ancient Egypt, but were still in use in the 18C.)
But he didn't need glasses to read and write.
Huh. I thought we'd established that he did (hence that making it into my fanfic), but perhaps we extrapolated that from me (and Selena?) needing glasses to read and right. I pushed my glasses up on my head just now, and I had to increase the font size up to 300% just to be able to make out DW text with a lot of difficulty, and at 500% it was still noticeably blurry and hard to read. And 500% is as high as Chrome will take me. :P
Otoh, as I remember Selena pointing out, it was the 18th century, and everyone was holding the page up to their nose, because lighting was terrible!
Also, if he wasn't far-sighted at all by 74, that's impressive.
which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks
Ooh. Where is this?
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 09:59 pm (UTC)Additional info via Volz: this was apparently slightly edited by the 1808 editor (after Schöning's death) and is based on several things Schöning wrote - for Büsching, against Unger/Zimmermann, ... - starting right after Fritz' death. In the state archive, Volz also found a 1795 manuscript Schöning sent to one of FWII's ministers in 1795 (per request), which contains a mix of all that. The quotes that Volz gives in the article I linked above are (mostly) anecdotes from the 1795 manuscript that aren't in the published 1808 one.
The 1809 review is the one that Selena linked above, see "The reviewer..."
And yeah, I saw the Kurd von Schöning confusion as well. Volz doesn't give a first name either, and he says that we don't know much about him - I mentioned most of it - and nothing about his life before 1766. Haven't read the actual Schöning book yet, but I doubt there's more in that one, or Volz would probably have mentioned it.
Felis, do you have non-pandemic access to a physical library that I should be including in my searches?
Sadly, no.
which is included in Seidel's essay about Fritz' looks
Ooh. Where is this?
Huh, I thought I'd mentioned it before, but maybe not. Another Hohenzollern-Jahrbuch essay (truly a treasure trove), Die äußere Erscheinung Friedrichs des Großen, which I just realized is actually written by two people instead of one: first part by Koser, who collects a lot of quotes about Fritz' looks, starting with F1's comments about baby Fritz, second part by Seidel about Fritz paintings and sculptures etc.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
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From:Heights, again
Date: 2021-03-01 10:28 pm (UTC)Good to have Voltaire's number more or less confirmed! I think, given the 34 years between Voltaire's figure and the end of Fritz's life, we can account for the loss of an inch or two via spinal compression, as we've discussed. (This is more probable than the 5 inches between 5'7" and 5'2" that previously needed to be accounted for!)
Furthermore, Davidson tells me that Voltaire says he himself was 5'2" in English inches, which is 5'6" in English inches.
One, this means we now have Napoleon, Fritz, and Voltaire at pretty much exactly the same height.
Two, it makes it even more likely that Voltaire's number is reasonably precise: because if you know how tall you are, and someone else is about the same height as you, you're more likely to guess within an inch, than if someone is several inches taller or shorter than you and you're eyeballing it.
Of course, if you're mad at them and writing an anonymous pamphlet *while* employed by them, you might shave off an inch or two, but it doesn't seem like Voltaire did that. ;)
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 03:05 pm (UTC)I was very surprised to see you write this, because I distinctly remember saying that! But I don't see it in my write-up. I guess that fell victim to the internet difficulties I was having while composing this post--the tab got closed and reopened, and...oh, look, here's the draft I copy-pasted outside of DW before closing the tab, but didn't cross-check when reopening the tab to see if my draft matched the one DW had saved, and sure enough, the more complete draft says:
(Because I can sort-of read German, I can tell this is right around the anecdote of the servant who shot himself in the 1770s and Fritz expressed surprise that he'd have the courage to go through with it.)
Anyway, yes, it is! I saw that passage and immediately remarked on it, because I think that actually may be why I got this volume in the first place.
Dr. Zmmermann's book, not the "Fragments" but an earlier book by Zimmermannn's, "Über Friedrich den Großen und meine Unterredung mit ihm kurz vor seinem Tode"
Which is now in our library.
Caspar H: 300 Jahre Friedrich II. Schöngeist und wüste Tischsitten. Brandenburger Blätter, Historie, Natur, Gegenwart. Nr. 225, 10.08.2012.
Can't find it online, but you can ILL it via Stabi, so I added it to our sticky list in Rheinsberg.
ETA: could it be you have the wrong volumes? Because Büsching in his above quoted refutation says "volume 16", not 18, and my search machine doesn't find Glasow at all in the volume we now have.../ETA
*facepalm* Yes, I see what happened. The Glasow passage says "Collection 16," and I was like, "...Collection 16 of what?" and when I looked around in the book to find out what collection, the first citation, the one that names Unger, is the 18th volume. And apparently that's the one I fixated on when I went searching. WELL THEN.
The 16th volume is even harder to find than the 18th, alas. Stabi only goes up to 13, and Hathitrust only has 17-19. Google books has a record of it but not an e-copy. Argh. No luck. :/ The nearest physical library copy to Munich I could find in WorldCat was in Tübingen.
Now, what all of this says about Schöning's cedibilility as a source: on the one hand, definitely a member of the royal household, knew Fritz up close. On the other hand, if he was chamber hussar in 1786, a job for which I had previously assumed you needed to be relatively young and strong, I doubt he was already around in the Glasow years (1755-1757), which means his recounting of the Glasow affair is likely hearsay, derived from stories from older members of Fritz' staff.
I would tend to agree with this, but maybe
Völker has to be punished extra hard, I guess, and so one gauntlet running becomes 24?
Maybe? It does sound like an exaggeration, though I don't know for sure. (Maybe there were short gauntlets you could run 24 times.)
Oh, no, wait, we're wrong! The heavily-footnoted and scholarly (and thanks to my scanning, searchable) Möbius volume on the Prussian army says:
The punishments meted out to disobedient soldiers could be draconic indeed. A Prussian soldier could be disciplined by running the gauntlet (twenty times through 200 men) for arguing with his superiors
Man, I would be in so much trouble. I always argue with my superiors!
But anyway. Wow. 20 times through 200 men! Maybe with mitigating factors such as mentioned by Wikipedia, like no edged weapons or allowing the culprit/victim to protect his head with his hands?
Oh, nice, I found the primary source! The authors cite the Prussian infantry reglement of 1743, page 437, and there it is. For arguing with your officers, on duty or off duty, with a rifle or without a rifle, hard punishment by the gauntlet. But especially if the guy has his rifle when he's arguing, he should be arrested on the spot and put 20 times through a gauntlet of 200 men the next day. That's my guess. Help on wann er mit(??) im Gewehr mit einem Wort raisonniret, please?
Both infantry and cavalry reglements now in the library, btw.
ETA: Oh, and please tell me you can see the image. *fingers crossed*
ETA2: And glancing at the second part, it looks to me like you get shot without pardon for opposition (refusing to follow orders, I assume?) or threatening your officers with a rifle.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
Date: 2021-02-27 04:51 pm (UTC)This is actually incorporated in the entertainingly trashy Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria; it's how Saxon ingenue Pepita's first love dies (he spends the night with her, is chewed out by his superior officer the next day, puts his hand on his weapon, realises what he's done but too late, and that's it) and why she hates Fritz and later comes up with the kidnapping scheme against him.
"im Gewehr mit einem Wort raisoniert" - old fashioned German for "if he argues with a rifle in his hand".
Anyway - if that's the punishment simply for argueing, I'm now inclined to believe Völker was in for 24 times, though maybe indeed provided with a few days pause in between so he could survive it (as he evidently did).
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Date: 2021-02-28 01:15 am (UTC)Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
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Date: 2021-02-28 10:11 pm (UTC)Waaaait, does that word I heavily question-marked say "nur"? I couldn't make sense of "mit", but if it's "nur", then "if he talks back even one single word with his rifle in hand," makes the whole sentence make sense.
WHY, FONT. WHY.
Re: Glasow: the Nicolai version
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Date: 2021-02-27 05:55 pm (UTC)(I did not know about Karlchen, so thank you for clarifying -- now that you mention it I am pretty sure I've seen the diminutive in one place or another, but as we have well established by now my ability to make cross-connections is not nearly as advanced as mildred's.)
(Also, aww, I have a soft spot for Henckel and I was delighted to see him show up again in this comment :) )