This is the treaty where Prussia got most of Swedish Pomerania
And Fredersdorf becomes a Prussian citizen. Otherwise, he and Fritz would never have met, so this is an important historical date!
So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.
Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable. Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
And Fredersdorf becomes a Prussian citizen. Otherwise, he and Fritz would never have met,
Probably would never have met. Let's remember the amount of conflict FW had with his neighbors over his recruiting practices re tall soldiers. ;)
But yes, was totally thinking of 12-yo Fredersdorf becoming Prussian on that fateful day!
Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
He was definitely always the opposite of financially sound, so we can't rule this out, but I'll try to do a write-up this weekend on why I don't think that's what we're seeing here.
Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable.
This century, no, but this decade was special! The entire diplomatic picture of Europe in approximately 1716-1731 was so topsy-turvy that it's been called a diplomatic revolution of its own. France and England were allied, and eventually so were Austria and Spain. These were very unstable alliances, everyone knew they were unstable, governments planned their diplomatic strategies around trying to remind country A that their ally Country B was their natural enemy, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when things went back to normal in the 1730s.
1715-1720: The South The War of the Spanish Succession ends in 1714. As a reminder, that's England, Austria, and the Dutch against France and Spain.
By 1716, Britain and France are allied.
In Spain, Philip V wants the territory Spain lost in the recent war back. He invades Sardinia and Sicily in 1717-1718, and briefly recaptures them.
In 1717-1718, the British and French get together with the Dutch and the Austrians in the Quadruple Alliance to retake Sardinia and Sicily. This is when Berwick is reluctantly forced to invade Spain, the place where his son is in service and the place where he fought for 10 years to help Philip V keep his throne. This is seen as a highly unnatural war by both Spain and France, where it's unpopular.
By 1720, the War of the Quadruple Alliance has been won, and Philip has been forced to give back all the territory he reconquered.
1715-1720: The North Mewanwhile, the Great Northern War is still going on (since 1700). Prussia has recently entered the war and is allied with Russia, trying to get territory from Sweden (so Fredersdorf can become Prussian).
Britain is busy switching sides. Part of the problem (not the whole problem) is conflicting British and Hanoverian interests. Since the British minister, Stanhope, wins against his Hanoverian rival, we'll simplify matters by presenting this from his POV. (Stanhope is a distant cousin of the Chesterfield Stanhopes. He was most famous for being the leader of the British forces in Spain during the Spanish Succession).
He wants to pry Prussia away from Russia, by creating an anti-Russian bloc in the Baltic: Sweden, Prussia, Britain (navy). Britain is trying to pressure Prussia into signing a treaty. France is acting as the neutral guarantors of peace in the north.
Stanhope is pro-alliance with France:
Stanhope believed that peace in the north (which he deemed necessary for peace in the south) could best be achieved by working with France rather than with Austria and Saxony; France, in turn, urged the importance of co-operation with Prussia.
(France and Prussia had signed a secret alliance in 1716, during Whitworth's first, brief posting in Berlin. Rottembourg was there as French ambassador.)
1718-1720: Whitworth in Berlin In order to try to make the Anglo-Swedish-Prussian treaty happen, Stanhope sent Whitworth to Berlin, and with orders "seek an alliance with Prussia for George as King of Britain, in full communication with the French minister in Berlin." Unless there's another French minister in Berlin, that's Rottembourg.
Now, at this point, before he's left for Berlin, Whitworth is very very skeptical about the new French alliance:
you will see how slippery our new friends on the other side of the water are like to prove … thô they have peace in their mouths they have war in their hearts and encourage Spain to keep their broils on foot … a false friend is often more dangerous than an open Enemy
Then he arrives in Berlin and makes friends with Rottembourg. Who may be bribing him--Whitworth was one of the rare ambassadors not to be independently wealthy (remember that Fritz uses this as an argument for why Peter is not a suitable candidate for envoy), his salary is constantly in arrears, and he's constantly writing apologetic letters to his family asking them to support him and writing angry letters to the government telling them to pay his overdue salary already. But, let's remember:
1. Their countries are allied. 2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg. 3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around: 3a. Rottembourg passing secret information to Whitworth. 3b. Whitworth trying to pressure FW into signing the treaty by confronting him directly, with Rottembourg (whose government wants France to be the guarantors of this treaty) at his side.
So the only thing I have evidence for here is Rottembourg bribing Whitworth into letting Rottembourg help him. ;)
1722-1725: The Congress of Cambrai It's a few years later, and everyone is still at each other's throats. The Congress of Cambrai is called so that Britain and France can mediate between Spain and Austria and get them to accept the distribution of territory that was agreed on in Utrecht at the end of the Spanish Succession.
Both Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted by their governments to Cambrai.
Unfortunately, the Congress is a dismal failure. Charles VI is determined to drag things out as long as possible, because he has everything to lose in a settlement (his Italian territories), and everything to gain by waiting (the Anglo-French alliance is considered unnatural and fragile, and by waiting, he hopes to drive a wedge between them). Both the French and the British have decided that nothing useful is going to happen at Cambrai, and the real negotiation is happening in Paris. It totally doesn't help that Philip V picks 1724 to abdicate.
Whitworth is trying to get actual work done, but his hands are tied. He writes that he likes Rottembourg personally, but the French government isn't keeping R in the loop, and Versailles is being sneaky and is going to screw the British over.
Now, Stanhope died in 1721, and the new British ministers are Townshend and Newcastle. Both are very pro-French alliance. (Not pro-French interests, mind you. Just think that working with France is the way to go.)
Newcastle tells Whitworth and his fellow ambassador that they are not to take any initiative at Cambrai, just let the French take the lead. He repeats this in every single dispatch. Whitworth and his companion find this humiliating. Keep in mind Whitworth has been ambassador for almost twenty-five years now, to the Imperial Diet, St. Petersburg, the Hague, and Berlin, and he's used his initiative a number of times.
The ambassadors have a little scuffle with the ministers back home, but the message from Newcastle and Townshend prevails: "You must let the French take the initiative and follow their lead."
They're nooooot happy.
Btw, just to emphasize the importance of the Anglo-French alliance during this period:
The Jacobites, in fact, had great hopes of armed support from Peter [the Great] in 1723 and 1724 but this never came to anything, not least because Peter valued French friendship in this period and the French, in turn, saw good relations with Britain as their main priority.
1725-1726: Where do I even start? Okay, so 1725-1726 is an eventful time.
Spain and Austria enter an alliance (called a diplomatic revolution by later historians, not sure about contemporaries). But remember, Charles VI still wants to be King of Spain! (He's officially given up, but he still wants to. And while the war may have ended ~1715, he didn't make peace with Spain until 1720.)
There's talk of marrying one of the archduchesses (like maybe MT) to one of the Spanish kids of Philip V and Isabella Farnese.
Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover are allied against Austria and Spain, because they perceive Austria + Spain as a very threatening alliance, especially if the marriage happens. Yes, this is FW allied against his boss Charles VI. Remember this passage from Lavisse:
When he became allied to France and England, in 1725, he reserved to himself the right to furnish to the Emperor the contingent that he owed, in his quality of Elector, at the same time that he assisted the King of France with the number of troops fixed by the treaty. It certainly is to be regretted that this clause had not been put into action, and that Europe had not witnessed this spectacle of the King of Prussia fighting the Elector of Brandenburg.
(Later, FW will leave the alliance and go back to hating on Hanover and supporting the Emperor. Up until he supports the French candidate for the Polish throne and has Hans Heinrich host him, while fighting the French alongside Eugene. Because HRE politics are really something else.)
The Duc de Bourbon sends the Spanish princess back so he can marry Louis to Marie Leszczynska, the Spanish get offended and send the French princess back, Spain and France stop speaking to each other.
The Duc de Bourbon falls from power; Fleury takes over.
Spain and England are in a state of semi-war that's threatening to explode into something bigger, etc.
Isabella Farnese really really really wants Parma and Tuscany for her kids.
1727-1728: Rottembourg in Spain So in 1727, frantic diplomacy is happening. Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, and France, sign preliminary peace agreements, in Paris and in Vienna. But since the Spanish aren't speaking to the French, due to the offense taken over the sending back of the princesses, and are in a state of lowkey war with Britain, there're no Spanish ambassadors around to sign treaties in France or Britain.
So Fleury sends an ambassador to Spain in late 1727 and tells him, "You get Philip and Isabella to agree to this peace!"
That ambassador is Rottembourg. (Whitworth died in 1725, btw, still poor enough that he was lamenting that despite his decades of faithful service to his country, his wife was going to have to petition the crown for support. If Rottembourg gave him money, it was not a lot.)
The British don't have an ambassador in Spain. They have a "consul", Benjamin Keene. This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them." When he wanted subsidies, he sent a credentialed Knyphausen authorized to negotiate.
Anyway. Keene, the British consul, will later play a significant role as diplomat, but right now he's extremely tentative and not sure what on earth is going on or what he's allowed to do. He knows he's not an ambassador.
So Rottembourg takes the initiative, negotiates, gets Keene introduced at court, and presents Philip and Isabella with terms that are favorable to Spain. The Spanish sign off on it, and everyone's happy...until the British ministers, who've been letting the French take the lead in the negotiations in Spain again, find out that Rottembourg granted Spain concessions at British's expense, and that Keene was present at the audience, and that he gave the impression that the British had agreed to this.
Horace Walpole, currently British ambassador to France: Hey, Newcastle, did you hear what just went down in Spain? Can you *believe* the fucking French?
Newcastle: Omg, Keene, you pull anything like that ever again...
Keene: But I'm not even an ambassador! I assumed since we were letting the French take the lead, and they had an actual ambassador who acted like he knew what he was doing, that whatever he did was what I was supposed to do!
Newcastle: Okay, yeah, fair. Fleury, WTF was your guy up to?
Fleury: Fuck. As long as Spain and Austria are still allies, I need the English. Okay, Newcastle, sorry, Rottembourg was *totally* unauthorized to make those concessions! Rottembourg, slap on the wrist, treaty void, start over again.
It's unclear how mad Fleury actually was at Rottembourg; he got publicly reprimanded, but some of my sources indicate the French were actually mad at the English but their hands were tied. And at least the French Secretary of State thought Rottembourg had been unfairly scapegoated, so he insisted the new treaty had to be signed by Rottembourg (i.e. as a sign that he was not in total disgrace).
In March 1728, the Spanish sign the Peace of Pardo on terms that everyone has agreed to. In April, Rottembourg leaves Spain. In July, Philip starts thinking he's a frog. In October, Katte shows up in Paris. (Which is how I totally know Rottembourg was not in Spain when Katte was supposed to be traveling there.)
In conclusion:
- Everything is upside down and inside out in the late 1710s and 1720s. - The tendency of the English ministers for a decade to tell their ambassadors to work with the French and to let the French take the lead is why I don't think we have evidence that Rottembourg was bribing Whitworth in 1718-1720.
My impression is that Whitworth liked Rottembourg personally but really didn't like working with the French, and was having a French alliance shoved down his throat by his bosses. (Btw, Newcastle was almost 20 years younger than Whitworth, which was one reason it was so insulting when Newcastle's every letter to Whitworth at Cambrai was like, "And don't take any diplomatic initiative!" "Fuck you, Newcastle, I've been taking diplomatic initiative since you were in petticoats.")
By 1720, the War of the Quadruple Alliance has been won, and Philip has been forced to give back all the territory he reconquered.
Just to connect the dots, this is when Philip's mental health really tanks and he starts talking abdication. In 1724, he finally abdicates. Then he resumes power, tries to abdicate again, Isabella won't let him, and then the really terrible symptoms of which we know start happening in 1727 (year of Rottembourg's first arrival).
1. Their countries are allied. 2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg. 3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
Aha, I chased down one of the sources of the Whitworth volume, and apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
I've sent a request to Royal Patron for a download of this pdf, which is George I and the Northern War, 1909, by James Chance, and which I can read and search but not download. Sigh. I can see it has Løvenørn!
Whitworth, biographer, btw, says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Oh, hey! I was searching Rottembourg's name (it is conveniently likely to turn up him and no one else, unlike *some* names I could mention), and I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.
Allow me to doubt not that he'd been beating Fritz but the iron forks with two prongs vs three pronged silver fork thing, because as far as I recall the three pronged fork first was introduced to the German territories in the reign of Maximilian I., several centuries earlier. (Luther bitched about it as Latin decadence.) Which makes me feel a two forked iron vs three forked silver conflict in 1727 would have been pretty late. Otoh, I can imagine a French envoy making that crack on a similar note like reporting AW didn't know to read or write before Fritz came on the throne (which we know for sure not to be true, not least because there are letters from child AW available); he's making a point about FW being an uncultured barbarian.
I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
The forks, to make that once more clear, NOT that FW was already hitting Fritz in 1727. But honestly, I think a more likely cause would be something like finding Fritz' table manners or hygiene sloppy. Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike. Who wouldn't have been Fritz. Like I said: I suspect Rottembourg heard something about FW hitting Fritz because he objected to his table manners and changed that into an anecdote for the French court that also made FW look even worse.
Re: Whitworth and Rottembourg, you've convinced me!
Ahh, interesting! I knew that there was a transition, but not when it was.
I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
All my googling of random unreliable websites is telling me that the upper classes tried to introduce the three-tined fork, and then there was a lag of centuries before it caught on with everyone. But I'm getting wildly different dates on when the three tines caught on in Germany. Everyone agrees, though, that the farther north you go, the longer it took to catch on. It was a sign of Italian effeminacy for a long time. (In the British lower classes, apparently as late as 1897!)
Also, apparently forks were used for different purposes at different times, and using a fork the way we would use it, to put food on and stick in your mouth, rather than just stabbing your meat while carving, took much longer to catch on, and that the usage was tied to the number of tines.
One site claims, "As Ferdinand Braudel notes in The Structure of Everyday Life, around the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV forbade his children to eat with the forks that their tutor had encouraged them to use."
But I'm already questioning that, because by the early 18th century, Louis XIV's children had children who had children!
But yeah, since our source isn't even a dispatch by Rottembourg, but a memoir by Villars, I'm fully prepared for the story to have grown in the telling, even if Rottembourg said something completely different. And if Rottembourg did exaggerate, as you noted, he was no fan of FW!
So possibly true, possibly fake.
Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike.
This is the part I don't find totally convincing: FW is an abuser, and punishing people for things they weren't strictly responsible for is part of abuse. Even if you assume the account in Wilhelmine where she and Fritz got plates thrown at them for Friederike Luise's backtalk is an exaggeration, and Catt's account of how FW beat both the tutor and small child Fritz for Fritz learning Latin is Catt making things up, I'd be surprised if FW never hit Fritz for the adults having him do things FW didn't want him doing.
This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them."
Heh, Fritz.
...Although um if you have told me about the Great Northern War I have completely forgotten; can I have a relatively short recap?
Although um if you have told me about the Great Northern War I have completely forgotten; can I have a relatively short recap?
I have not! What I've said is that having finished the War of the Spanish Succession, I would like to learn about the Great Northern War, which is how I got onto Whitworth in the first place. It's a complicated twenty-year war involving tons of countries and principalities, and shifting alliances, and I barely know anything about it, so my recap will be sketchy in both quality and quantity, but here goes.
17th century Sweden was a significant military power, dominating the Baltic on both land and sea. In 1700, their neighbors, including Peter the Great in Russia, decide to take advantage of the fact that the new king is an inexperienced 18-yo and try to get some land back. Unfortunately, that 18-yo is Charles XII, who will be a famous, if ultimately unsuccessful, general.
He wins a bunch of battles. Storms through Poland, kicks August of Saxony off the throne and installs Stanislas Leszczynski. Stanislas' first reign of Poland only lasts a few years, just like his second reign in the 1730s.
Charles XII invades Russia, but as we discussed in the War of the Spanish Succession, ends up trying to live off the land during the great winter of 1708/1709. 1709, the year of Malplaquet, is also the year of Poltava, the big battle where Peter the Great's forces kick Charles' butt, and put an end to Sweden's superpower days. Also to Stanislas' days as King of Poland.
But the war is only halfway over, and more countries get involved. Brandenburg-Prussia and Hanover both want strategically located territory. Hanover wants Bremen-Verden to connect them to the Baltic.
FW wants Swedish Pomerania and especially Stettin.
He'll end up getting the southern part of Pomerania to go with the Pomerania he already owns. Take a look at the blue area on the map that's between the orange parts. That's the part he gets. You'll see Stettin, and if you go south along the river a bit, you'll see Gartz, Fredersdorf's hometown.
If you go way up north in the blue and off the to the west, you'll see Stralsund. The siege here is where FW met and decided he liked Seckendorff and Duhan. Duhan was so brave that FW immediately decided to enlist him as tutor for Fritz (Fritz is 3 years old at this point, in 1715), causing adult Fritz to snark about how unusual it is to engage a tutor in a trench. Also, FW totally missed the mark on this one too, as usual, thinking that a good soldier can't also be a cultured man of French manners! (I see the campaign to have Eugene be his role model failed.)
Then Whitworth and Rottembourg show up in Berlin the late 1710s, trying to get FW to reach terms with Sweden and Britain so affairs can be settled in the Baltic. In the end, he gets the parts of Swedish Pomerania he most wanted, and Hanover gets Bremen-Verden.
And one day, if all goes well, you may get a more in-depth dive into this war.
Addendum re: Sweden - one big reason for it's military superpower status at the start of the 18th century lies in the Thirty-Years-War, which ended mid 17th century and which changed so much for European history. Incidentally, Mildred, I know it's not your medium, but there is a pretty good docudrama miniseries Das Eiserne Zeitalter which I've watched in recent weeks on Amazon Prime, a French-German coproduction which introduced me among other things to the fact we have the diaries of a mercenary from the Thirty Years War, Peter Altendorf. He was one of the few who could read and write, and he survived the entire war. He himself as a Lutheran but mostly served in Catholic armies. The diary won't be able to explain to you the big picture, but if you want to read something about the day to day life, then, going by the excerpts, it's ideal.
Anyway: the first Northern European country to intervene in the 30 Years War on the Protestant side was Denmark, which was soundly beaten, but then the Swedes showed up, and their King Gustav Adolf was one of those hardcore military talents who came this close to conquering his way all the way to Vienna. (Wallenstein could then distract him not by defending Vienna but by scouring Saxony (allied to Gustav Adolf), which also threatened to cut him off from his supply lines, so the Swedes had to turn back. Gustav Adolf later died in battle, undefeated unlike Charles XII later, but he died. This didn't mean the Swedes left the war, though. By the time the war had ended Sweden had gone from also ran to top European power, definitely one of the most feared military powers, with a large say so in trade. Bear in mind that Sweden itself, the territory, had seen no battle, since most of the war took place in the HRE, i.e. mostly, though not exclusively, the German speaking principalities. And it had been so brutal and devastating that a third of the population was gone, most cities were at least partly damaged and had to be rebuild. You may or may not recall the Great Elector of Brandenburg (FW's grandfather) spent years as a child in Küstrin because it was one of the few fortresses his parents deemed safe. One reason why both FW and Fritz actively advertised for settlers was that the population was still recovering, even in the next century, from the long term effects of the 30 Years War devastation. Trying to get territory from Sweden, which had immensely profitted in terms of finances, power and economy from the same war, also falls into that larger context.
we have the diaries of a mercenary from the Thirty Years War, Peter Altendorf.
Thanks, will keep this in mind if I manage to get the big picture of the Thirty Years' War *and* adequate German to be able to find the interesting parts quickly.
Meanwhile, Der Kaiser reist inkognito is perfect, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through! Slow going just because work has been so demanding lately, but exactly what I was looking for, thank you. <3
I just ran across Rottembourg's instructions from Versailles before his first mission to Berlin, 1714. Louis' goal is to get Prussia to stop allying with Austria and Hanover and switch to the French side.
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
Printz is this guy, who, among other things, was the envoy to Russia responsible for getting the new Prussian kingdom recognized by Russia just a few months after F1's crowning. (Remember that the French don't recognize it until about 1714.)
Unfortunately, Rottembourg's mission was unsuccessful: FW ended up in an alliance with Russia against Sweden.
Do we know how much Seckendorff offered Grumbkow a few years later? I'm wondering if the French were just not paying enough, or if Grumbkow was less receptive to Rottembourg. Of course, I don't even know whether Rottembourg found an opportunity to offer any of his authorized bribes, so we can't draw hard conclusions.
Also, apparently during this negotiation, Rottembourg became part of a conspiracy ("complot") with the British (not yet Whitworth, though), Swedish, and Holstein ministers in Berlin to try to win FW over, but to no avail.
I'm currently extracting information from a book and a dissertation on the British involvement in the Great Northern War (1709-1721), which will get me one step closer to being able to being able to explain the Northern War.
(I really need better sources on the Swedish perspective, though. I have a book, but it's only the military history, and it's super technical.)
Re: Seckendorff, alas, I don't know. Regarding the books we already have access to which we could consult: the first Seckendorff biography sure as hell wouldn't include it, since it's written in praise of him as the greatest hero of the century after the Immortal Eugene. Horowitz might have the sum, but that's a thick volume to look up, and I'm in Bamberg right now, while my copy is in Munich. Koser or Voltz could have it in the footnotes somewhere?
Incidentally, I do wonder whether anyone ever did a collected volume of Seckendorff's correspondence with Vienna, which would be both his official reports to the Chancellery and the separate reports to Eugene. I know many a collection of Fritzian documents quotes these letters because they're a goldmine especially for 1730 - 1733, but is there a separate edition, something like the Stratemann volume?
It may also be that Grumbkow didn't trust either Louis or Rottembourg or both to actually pay up, especially since the long term costs of Louis' eternal wars to France must have been obvious by 1714, whereas he did believe he'd get his money from Vienna & Seckendorff. I mean, evidently he did, given he paid his champagne and the best cook in Berlin with it...
(cahn, after Grumbkow dies, Horowitz finishes the relevant chapter by quoting SD's letter to Fritz notifying him of this event. Says SD that after Grumbkow's death, FW hired his cook. "Since then, we're eating better.")
(Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken. So Grumbkow having access to enough Champagne to notoriously cook his ham in says a lot about just how wealthy he was, and you bet it wasn't by whatever FW paid him officially.)
Did Rottembourg ever consider offering FW some tall guys?
Horowitz might have the sum, but that's a thick volume to look up, and I'm in Bamberg right now, while my copy is in Munich.
But my copy is digitized and searchable! Except for being split into about 10 different chunks, that is. I should get them united into a single pdf for searching. Have added that to my Trello list.
I do wonder whether anyone ever did a collected volume of Seckendorff's correspondence with Vienna, which would be both his official reports to the Chancellery and the separate reports to Eugene.
I had at most 5 minutes to search, so maybe something better will turn up later, but Arneth came to mind, so I searched "Arneth Seckendorff", and found a three volume bio of Eugene, with end notes heavy on archival sources, and there is a fair bit of Eugene-Seckendorff correspondence. Much of it is merely cited, not quoted, alas, and it's hardly a Stratemann-like collection, but I think it has some new-to-us stuff. Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Somewhere in volume 3 might be something on bribing Grumbkow, but between your lack of time, my lack of time, and my lack of German, it may be some time before we find out. Anyway. 3 volumes in the library, under Biographies, Lives, Histories/Arneth_.
(Note to self, keep at German so you can stop asking Selena for help all the time. So many books, so little proficiency!)
It may also be that Grumbkow didn't trust either Louis or Rottembourg or both to actually pay up, especially since the long term costs of Louis' eternal wars to France must have been obvious by 1714, whereas he did believe he'd get his money from Vienna & Seckendorff.
It's also possible Rottembourg just didn't have time. Cross-referencing with our chronology (<3 our chronology), he arrived April 27, and the treaty was signed June 12. Even if one of those is O.S., that still means negotiations must have been pretty far advanced by the time he showed up.
Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken.
Which is how the "Grumbkow drinks" chapter opens! Grumbkow trying to transport lots of champagne for his drinking bout with August the Strong (the one that will kill the latter, and I read somewhere that Grumbkow never fully regained his health after that), and being a bundle of nerves because champagne was prone to exploding in transport in the 18th century.
Did Rottembourg ever consider offering FW some tall guys?
I'm sure he did! I can't point to a specific example, but I'll keep my eyes out. (I also haven't Google translated his full instructions for his 3 missions to Berlin and read them carefully, unlike the Spain ones.)
I know Whitworth offered FW 15 "great Irish recruits," though, trying to get FW to SIGN THE TREATY ALREADY, and it didn't work. So tall guys were not a guarantee of success! As you'd expect; I think everyone knew to offer them, so the competition was stiff. :P
I also had just a short time for looking at the three volume Arneth bio, or rather, at the preface and the lead up to 1730 and 1730 sections with footnotes. Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position where almost all 19th century readers/writers have adopted the Hohenzollern narrative. Which means not only is he correcting but he sometimes goes over the top in defending. Some examples for both:
Clement affair (remember, the guy had sold FW on a Eugene masterminded scheme where FW gets killed or kidnapped at Wusterhausen and Fritz gets raised as a Catholic and controlled by Vienna): bonkers. Says a lot about FW that he actually believed this, and even after Clement admitted the forgery thought it was more likely Clement recanted out of fear and had originally said the truth. Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor. Because Seckendorff was a bona fide general (and successful as such), and FW knew and approved of him since Stralsund, and because he was able to keep a poker face and didn't let himself be rattled, Seckendorff was deemed ideal for this tricky job.
FW in general: let's get one thing straight, Prussians. For all your insistence that honest honest poor FW was hoodwinked by Team Austria, "honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering and also, good lord, that temper. Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture. He was the A plus combination of what's best of French and German traits. Whereas FW... Well, okay. He did make Prussia rich and solvent this way and created a good army.
So far, so good. But then.
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Hohenzollern family politics: Look here, Prussians, all these complaints that Seckendorff is to blame for enlarging the rift between FW and his two oldest kids are totally unfair. On the contrary, lemme quote Eugen's letters instructing Seckendorff to get tight with the Crown Prince as well because Eugene knew FW could die of a stroke any time and then it would have been bad to start with an Austria-hating new monarch. Seckendorff was to signal friendliness and willingness to reconcile father and son. Okay, Seckendorff was also instructed to work against the English marriages, but that was politics! Oh, and fyi, shut up with all the "how dare Team Austria intervene with Fritz' and Wilhelmine's marriages, what business was that of theirs" - I never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now. Marriages of future royalty were ALWAYS politics, and so every other monarch minded and commented and pushed. Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts. Speaking of England:
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
FW/G2 reconciliation happens.
Eugene: Go figure. That man is so unreliable. Any news on the "make the kid like us" front, Seckendorff? Seckendorff: Well, he's taking money from me, but if you want my opinion, that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here, and he's the future monarch.
(Arneth: SEE!!!!)
Eugene: Still, maybe it can't hurt to make nice with the Brits ourselves.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
Eugene: Perfidious Albion. Firstly, no one in their right mind would believe FW would ever go for such a marriage. But he WOULD be incredibly insulted if such a clause is in a treaty anyway. Secondly, us refusing to include such a clause will undoubtedly be useful as propaganda claiming we intend this marriage. I'm getting too old for this crap.
Arneth: SEEEEEEE!!!!!
Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene), but yeah, that's what it amounts to, i.e. the final conclusion is that the Punctae show pre-death sentence Katte must have been a flatterer goading Fritz against his father in an already incindiary situation, and maybe he is better off dead. BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
Letters quoted in the footnotes of interest:
Eugene to Seckendorff, Sept. 20th 1727: ...it would be very good if you'd manage a good standing with the Queen and the Crown Prince, especially the later. Do anything reasonable to win him over, and convert him to good principles bit by bit, but in a decent way, and you'll know to be careful enough not to expose yourself too much with the Queen...
Seckendorff to Eugene, Sept. 14th 1728: The King's discontent about the Crown Prince and the Princess Royal's (Kronprinzessin, not Kronprinz, i.e. Wilhemine) displeasure caused by their Lord Father rises more by the day, for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
This is nearly two years before the flight attempt, note. In a letter from October to Eugene, Seckendorff claims to have reconciled father and son. Which, well, if he did does not last long, as Seckendorff himself documents. Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Seckendorff to Eugene, December 3rd 1729: I have to tell your grace in deepest confidence that yesterday in the morning, the King has grabbed the Crown Prince at his hair and dragged him around since (FW) had noticed that (Fritz) hadn't been clean and well dressed enough. After the Crown Prince had been finally released, he talked to Lieutenant Colonel Rochow who has been assigned to him about this with tears in his eyes. Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Anyway, Arneth quotes all this as proof Seckendorff wasn't campaigning to deepen the rift between FW and Fritz but tried to help Fritz. (Not selflessly but in order to gain a good standing with the next monarch, but he did try.) Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them. But what he doesn't say and what is undoubtedly also true is that Team HRE throwing their weight against the British marriages at a point where FW was pro HRE did inevitably contribute to make things worse for Fritz and Wilhelmine since their mother had made the English marriages not only their filial duty to her but presented them as their own possible escape from FW.
Eugene to Seckendorff, September 20th 1730 (i.e. post arrest, pre execution): It is the Emperor's opinion and order that you behave in this matter that has evolved between the King and the Crown Prince as delicatedly and sensibly as possible, to prevent any further escalation, to pour water into the fire, to help and assist the Prince as much as you possibly can...
Seckendorff to Eugene, October 9th 1730 (still before the execution, but after a lot of interrogations): Due to the Crown Prince's very false, secretive and malicious temper, I have little faith regarding a continuation of the Imperial Alliance in the future.
Eugene's reply letter is dated October 31st 1730 and says that while such a temper as Seckendorff ascribes to the Crown Prince probably won't know gratitude, and Fritz is undoubtedly still in the France/England Yay! mindframe he's been indoctrinated with by his mother: "His Imperial Majesty is not deterred by this from insisting on you following the instructions as given through me, for this matter has to end one way or another, and it is therefore better if his Imperial Majesty gets the credit, especially since your Excellency reports that the Queen and the entire Prussian cabinet seems to believe the Emperor alone would be able to mediate and reconcile the Crown Prince with the King, and if this doesn't happen all the evilminded people will spread the word that the Emperor rejoices in this disaster and that he has advised the King to be relentless. Eugene also expresses the hope that even if Seckendorff is right about Fritz now, he's still very young and has years to learn better, and also, he (Eugene, not Fritz) has read the interrogation protocol forwarded to him by Grumbkow & Seckendorf and thoughtt hat: The King's questions were put very sharply, while the Prince's replies were given rather modestly and with short sentences just as the King prefers.
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
You always say you're not going to have time to read, and it's always a lie. :DD
Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position
Obvious, cahn, because Arneth was an Austrian. He was the head of the state archives, and he published reams of historical documentation, including a 10-volume bio of MT and a ton of correspondence, which is how we know MT did not, in fact, write to Madame Pompadour. That's the reason he came to mind when Selena said "collection of Seckendorff's envoy reports and letters to Eugene."
Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor.
Ahhh! I love when pieces fall together like this.
Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture.
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon.
ARGH and as archivist I know you must have known!
and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
This is very true. When Whitworth, who does not come across as a particularly slimy diplomat--although again, my perspective is skewed by the filter his biographer presented--showed up in Russia, he wrote back home, "Look, you know what the problem is? My predecessors (the tobacco contractors, because actual political representation in Russia wasn't important to the Brits in this period) didn't suck up to Menshikov enough, and they didn't bribe the right ministers. Let me show you how a professional does it."
(Menshikov is Peter the Great's Grumbkow, only they probably had sex.)
never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now.
I had actually run across this, but I forget where. Lavisse, maybe.
Reminder: the 1725 Treaty of Hanover, which formed an alliance between Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover (later including Sweden and the Netherlands), was in response to the Spanish-Austrian alliance, which was when the MT/Don Carlos marriage idea was tossed around. (Charles VI was never going to do it, but he kept Philip and Isabella dangling with hints, and the rest of Europe was worried he was serious.)
1728: FW defected and signed a secret treaty with Charles. Which:
"honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering
Yep. All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
Hahaha. This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Well spotted!
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here
Hope springs eternal, as I always like to say.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene)
Right, yes, I remember that now! (I remember being surprised that it had made its way all the way to Austria.) This got lost not in translation from German to me, but from my memory to my write-up. The problem with being at the decipherment stage of German is that I have to commit to memory whatever I read that I want to talk about, because I can't glance at the page while writing. One day!
BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
We did! Wilhelmine says so! It's actually the first sentence in her Katte episode:
Sekendorff also attempted to save Katt; but the king remained inflexible.
I remember it in particular because Thiebault's doctored memoirs also opened that way, and as you may recall, I did a line-by-line textual criticism comparison of the passages before realizing Thiebault's were doctored:
Seckendorf also wanted to save Katte, and he was joined by an assortment of people of the highest rank.
(At least *some* texts I can commit to memory!)
Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain! The one where he got knocked to the ground and chewed out for hygiene and had to appear on parade in front of everyone in dishevelled hair and uniform. It was a different one? Poor Fritz. Note that he had tried to run with Peter (and not yet Katte) just the month before, and a month later, he'll still be trying to run away and that's why Peter gets sent to Wesel.
Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them.
Fritz/Amalia, maybe not, but you don't think there was a chance for Wilhelmine/FoW? FW seemed more inclined to allow that, as I recall, and it was the Brits insisting on double-or-nothing, and Hotham trying to blacken Grumbkow, that ruined it. (Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.)
Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts.
But FW was worried that his kids (esp. Fritz) were Brit-friendly because of their mother, and I could see him worrying that the same would happen with the grandkids. As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Ahahaha. Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
Say what you want about Seckendorff, but he definitely was up to the task. That is, I suspect FW never entirely was able to let go of the suspicion a dastardly scheme against him was foiled in 1719, but Seckendorff certainly had his hear more often than not until the last minute turnaround on the English/Braunschweig marriage projects in 1733, which wasn't Seckendorff's fault. so: good choice of envoy, Eugene!
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
Arneth's "compare and contrast" of FW and Eugene at times was so close to Sophie's letters that I wondered whether he read them, but if so, he'd have to read them in the Prussian State Archive, as they hadn't been published yet. BTW, the way he sees FW's attitude to Eugene is:
Crown Prince FW: Hero worship because 'twas the era for fanboying Eugene. Young King FW: *hears a Eugene critique about promised Pussian support showing up, is insulted* =>cooling down, but still respect. Arneth says FW was constitutionally incapable of ever accepting he might have done something wrong, of course. FW in Clement Plot era and shortly thereafter: ET TU, EUGENE? I see through you now! FW post Seckendorff's arrival through the 1730s: Eugene: still the man... I guess. I'm sending animals for his menagerie as presents and tokens of respect because he won't accept any money, jewelry or silver drinking cups like August. But much as he's a military legend, he's also a Catholic, and I'm still not sure whether he wouldn't have kidnapped and assassinated me back in 1719 to get his hands on Fritz...
Eugene's attitude to FW throughout: I respect him as a monarch who actually works. But as I am the type of general who thinks parades are boring, I don't get his thing for them. As for his much praised army, I suspect the first time they see actual battle instead of parades and maneuvres, a full third of them will desert. And good lord, that temper!
All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
Which is why you can feel Arneth's frustration that the Prussians succesfully grabbed the narrative and made everyone pity poor, honest FW whose unrequited loyalty to his Emperor gets constantly exploited by the evil and slimy Austrians. Or by perfidioius Albion, if the writers are closer to the end of the 19th century and the German/British rivalry is heating up. But either way, the image is "FW might have been shouty and brutal, but he was Prussian honesty and reliability personified! Most honest man of the 18th century"
This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
And Manteuffel went WTF?!? at him for it, yes.
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Evidently. Which reminds me, someone still ought to do a separate Rheinsberg entry on the implication of Katte and Fritz diverging in their testimony on this one particular point and how now one ever seems to have realized this means Fritz point blank lied to Katte as part of persuading him to join the escape plan.
We did! Wilhelmine says so!
Mea culpa, but it's so like you to recall every detail of her Katte relevant statements. :)
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain!
Me too, but evidently FW did it more than once. It's also interesting and telling about the social norms of the time that Seckendorff, who isn't a fan of young Fritz, still considers both the earlier verbal abuse ("titles worse than the most low-born man would shower his son with") and the hair dragging and chewing out beyond the pale. (So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.
That is true, though it has to be said that the Princess G2 ended up marrying Fritz of Wales to came from a far less important German principality and brought practically nothing to the table but being impeccably Protestant. Where I'm going with this: while FW might have okay'd Wilhelmine/FoW if the Brits had been willing to take her on her own, one shouldn't discount that one reason why both G2 and Caroline dragged out marrying off their eldest wasn't that they were hoping for a good alliance - honestly, in terms of available Protestant princesses at the time, I think Wilhelmine would have been the best match bar none, even without counting the fact she'd been literally educated from birth with this end goal in mind - but because their relationship with Fritz of Wales got worse and worse, and there was the not so hidden hope he'd die without an heir so favourite son Bill Cumberland would become King after all. I mean, even before FoW had set one foot on British soil, i.e. at a point where he really could not have done anything yet to piss them off, they were investigating possibilities to change the succession or at least split Hannover from Britain so Cumberland could inherit at least one. And if they'd gone ahead and married Wilhelmine to Fritz of Wales, say, in early 1730, the last point when it seemed still possible, this would have strenghtened unfave's FoW's position, especially if FW had given her a decent dowry after all, but even if not. She wasn't a shy wallflower like Augusta would be, she was a top educated woman of whom it could be expected to do well in establishing a rival court (much like Caroline herself had done when G2 had been Prince of Wales), and because her mother had been so fertile, she'd have been considered likely to reproduce at once, too. Paradoxically, all those qualities usually plusses in the royal marriage market might have worked as negatives with parents who really did not like their eldest son and didn't want him as successor.
As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
He did. Though having now read the letters of young SD and FW to Sophie and Sophie's to them, I have to say this is FW rewriting the past somewhat. Sure, F1 made much of his new daughter-in-law and surrounded her with luxury, but that was F1. SD herself says she's getting spoiled, i.e. this is not the norm of what she was used to from her Hannover childhood. And Schnath says that G1 as Prince Elector of Hannover wasn't a big money spender. (SD was already married by the time her father became King of England.) Now undoubtedly she was used to a more princely style than what FW would eventually offer, but not to, say, something like what the mistresses of August the Strong got, let alone Versailles.
Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you: since Fritz wasn't privy to these letters between Eugene and Seckendorff - how much did he, personally, blame Seckendorff and Team Vienna in general for his late 1720s/early 1730s miseries? You mentioned his anti-Seckendorff outburst in a letter to Suhm; does this offer a good indication of this?
It is always so lovely (and extremely entertaining!) to get your writeups! :D
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Lol! I can sense salon gnashing its teeth :D So is the conclusion then that Seckendorff's bribes were way bigger than everyone else's?
"how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!"
Ha! Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
AHAHAHAHA yeah, like mildred says, you are cursed for your doubts! :D
for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
eeeeeek. Oh Fritz :( When Seckendorff thinks you're going too far...
Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Ugh, again! (Although as usual I appreciate your translation notes!)
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
(hi! I'm back from vacation and limited internet, finally! hoping to be more present now...)
Says SD that after Grumbkow's death, FW hired his cook. "Since then, we're eating better."
Aw, man. This made me laugh, but also is kind of poignant given what I have learned about FW's table :P
(Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken. So Grumbkow having access to enough Champagne to notoriously cook his ham in says a lot about just how wealthy he was, and you bet it wasn't by whatever FW paid him officially.)
Ohhhh! I would not have thought of that and that is interesting!
Do we know how much Seckendorff offered Grumbkow a few years later?
Ran into this in Förster, part of Seckendorff's Gesandschafts-Rechnungen (Bd. 3, p. 231, also has some sums that Fritz and Wilhelmine got):
General Grumbkow got paid his previously had pension of 1000 ducats for the year 1732. So if the same should be continued despite the continuous highest grace of 40,000 Gulden [!?] now received, he is due 1000 ducats per anno 1733. If anyone in the world deserves grace, it is this man.
Also: The pension of 6000 Gulden for the year 1732 was only paid to the Electoral Saxon Minister, Count Manteufel, on August 15, 1733, and therefore the pension of 6000 Gulden per anno 1733 is due to him, which is very much deserved due to his diligence, zeal and varied secret correspondence.
So, we have some numbers, but all in different currencies! I think Dukaten are more than Gulden, but I have no idea by how much, let alone how the French Livres would fit in there.
Oh, nice find! *applauds* And thank goodness for Selena's find. I remember researching currencies a couple years ago to compare Algarotti's salary to someone else's (Maupertuis? I forget), and it was a pain! Euro ftw.
As the resident numbers person, I'll try to do the math if no one else does, but might not be till this weekend. German is calling!
I can do numbers, I just am not sure about the German or the history :P That is to say, I'm assuming that the Rhenish Gulden is the same as the Reichsgulden, and then the conversion isn't bad given Selena's sheet. It's 4 ducats to the imperial gulden, and 2.2 to 2.5 silver livres to the Rhenish Gulden (which hopefully is the same thing).
So that would make Grumbkow's yearly bribe 4000 guldens, less than Manteuffel's, but then again he had that 40,000... I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
So this would be between ~6000-6800 guldens Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, and ~4800-5500 guldens to Ilgen and Printz. (Depending on what the silver to gold exchange rate was at that time, I suppose; and I'm rounding to the nearest hundred.)
(This was a fascinating sheet, by the way -- thank you Selena! I'm so used to reading about currencies in books and having no idea how much any of them actually are with respect to everything else.)
I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
If only I knew! This is the original German: Wenn also selbige [1000 ducats], ohngeachtet der nunmehr empfangenen beständigen allerhöchsten Begnadigung von 40,000 Gulden, dennoch sollte continuieret werden. Without the "beständigen" (= steady/constant/continuous) in there, I might have said it was a one-off payment, but this way, I guess it's "this is how much's gotten so far" after all. On the other hand, it looks like Seckendorff wants him to keep getting money, so why would he bring up "he already accumulated this much over the years" and in a different currency no less? Beats me.
re: Reichsgulden/Rheinischer Gulden/Gulden (Fl.) - again, no idea. Seckendorff seems to use Gulden and Fl. interchangeably but definitely has them as silver money (and Ducats as gold). I tried to read the German wiki entries on the different Guldens and got lost very quickly, but I do think that for our time period they might indeed be roughly in the exchange ballpark that Selena's link had, and that it's basically the southern equivalent to the Reichsthaler, which was used mostly in the northern countries of the Empire. (As in: the Reichthaler (Rth.) is the usual currency in Prussia and the salaries Fritz pays tend to be in Rth., as are all his box bills. Exchange rate, just so we have it all in one place: 1 Reichsthaler = 1.5 Gulden.)
Also, taking a closer look at Förster, I found more interesting bribery facts, in a handy list, with a couple of names we know:
Count Manteuffel: 6000 Gulden Reichenbach [Prussian Resident in London, for furthering a bad relationship between England and Prussia]: 900 Gulden Irishman Murnay in Potsdam [?]: 60 Gulden Duhan [!]: 1200 Gulden [for two years, he got 600 per year, from 1732 on]
Reading some of Seckendorff's accompanying letters, it seems like it's actually true that he was involved in getting Duhan the position in Wolfenbüttel and that he payed him money, because he thought he'd have influence on Fritz after FW's death. (Same goes for Wilhelmine.)
And given the Eversmann payment, I'm sure wondering if Fredersdorf ever showed up on any lists... (Selena's "Learning Frederick" makes a good case for it! :D)
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Re: Tiny bit of Rottembourg
And Fredersdorf becomes a Prussian citizen. Otherwise, he and Fritz would never have met, so this is an important historical date!
So Rottembourg is totally passing on secrets to his buddy Whitworth, the English diplomat.
Given that French/English relations were no warmer in this century than they were in most centuries, I find this extra remarkable. Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
Re: Tiny bit of Rottembourg
Probably would never have met. Let's remember the amount of conflict FW had with his neighbors over his recruiting practices re tall soldiers. ;)
But yes, was totally thinking of 12-yo Fredersdorf becoming Prussian on that fateful day!
Was Withworth financially sound, or could his sympathy for Rottembourg have come with some financial encouragement?
He was definitely always the opposite of financially sound, so we can't rule this out, but I'll try to do a write-up this weekend on why I don't think that's what we're seeing here.
The other diplomatic revolution(s)
This century, no, but this decade was special! The entire diplomatic picture of Europe in approximately 1716-1731 was so topsy-turvy that it's been called a diplomatic revolution of its own. France and England were allied, and eventually so were Austria and Spain. These were very unstable alliances, everyone knew they were unstable, governments planned their diplomatic strategies around trying to remind country A that their ally Country B was their natural enemy, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief when things went back to normal in the 1730s.
1715-1720: The South
The War of the Spanish Succession ends in 1714. As a reminder, that's England, Austria, and the Dutch against France and Spain.
By 1716, Britain and France are allied.
In Spain, Philip V wants the territory Spain lost in the recent war back. He invades Sardinia and Sicily in 1717-1718, and briefly recaptures them.
In 1717-1718, the British and French get together with the Dutch and the Austrians in the Quadruple Alliance to retake Sardinia and Sicily. This is when Berwick is reluctantly forced to invade Spain, the place where his son is in service and the place where he fought for 10 years to help Philip V keep his throne. This is seen as a highly unnatural war by both Spain and France, where it's unpopular.
By 1720, the War of the Quadruple Alliance has been won, and Philip has been forced to give back all the territory he reconquered.
1715-1720: The North
Mewanwhile, the Great Northern War is still going on (since 1700). Prussia has recently entered the war and is allied with Russia, trying to get territory from Sweden (so Fredersdorf can become Prussian).
Britain is busy switching sides. Part of the problem (not the whole problem) is conflicting British and Hanoverian interests. Since the British minister, Stanhope, wins against his Hanoverian rival, we'll simplify matters by presenting this from his POV. (Stanhope is a distant cousin of the Chesterfield Stanhopes. He was most famous for being the leader of the British forces in Spain during the Spanish Succession).
He wants to pry Prussia away from Russia, by creating an anti-Russian bloc in the Baltic: Sweden, Prussia, Britain (navy). Britain is trying to pressure Prussia into signing a treaty. France is acting as the neutral guarantors of peace in the north.
Stanhope is pro-alliance with France:
Stanhope believed that peace in the north (which he deemed necessary for peace in the south) could best be achieved by working with France rather than with Austria and Saxony; France, in turn, urged the importance of co-operation with Prussia.
(France and Prussia had signed a secret alliance in 1716, during Whitworth's first, brief posting in Berlin. Rottembourg was there as French ambassador.)
1718-1720: Whitworth in Berlin
In order to try to make the Anglo-Swedish-Prussian treaty happen, Stanhope sent Whitworth to Berlin, and with orders "seek an alliance with Prussia for George as King of Britain, in full communication with the French minister in Berlin." Unless there's another French minister in Berlin, that's Rottembourg.
Now, at this point, before he's left for Berlin, Whitworth is very very skeptical about the new French alliance:
you will see how slippery our new friends on the other side of the water are like to prove … thô they have peace in their mouths they have war in their hearts and encourage Spain to keep their broils on foot … a false friend is often more dangerous than an open Enemy
Then he arrives in Berlin and makes friends with Rottembourg. Who may be bribing him--Whitworth was one of the rare ambassadors not to be independently wealthy (remember that Fritz uses this as an argument for why Peter is not a suitable candidate for envoy), his salary is constantly in arrears, and he's constantly writing apologetic letters to his family asking them to support him and writing angry letters to the government telling them to pay his overdue salary already. But, let's remember:
1. Their countries are allied.
2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg.
3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
3a. Rottembourg passing secret information to Whitworth.
3b. Whitworth trying to pressure FW into signing the treaty by confronting him directly, with Rottembourg (whose government wants France to be the guarantors of this treaty) at his side.
So the only thing I have evidence for here is Rottembourg bribing Whitworth into letting Rottembourg help him. ;)
1722-1725: The Congress of Cambrai
It's a few years later, and everyone is still at each other's throats. The Congress of Cambrai is called so that Britain and France can mediate between Spain and Austria and get them to accept the distribution of territory that was agreed on in Utrecht at the end of the Spanish Succession.
Both Whitworth and Rottembourg are posted by their governments to Cambrai.
Unfortunately, the Congress is a dismal failure. Charles VI is determined to drag things out as long as possible, because he has everything to lose in a settlement (his Italian territories), and everything to gain by waiting (the Anglo-French alliance is considered unnatural and fragile, and by waiting, he hopes to drive a wedge between them). Both the French and the British have decided that nothing useful is going to happen at Cambrai, and the real negotiation is happening in Paris. It totally doesn't help that Philip V picks 1724 to abdicate.
Whitworth is trying to get actual work done, but his hands are tied. He writes that he likes Rottembourg personally, but the French government isn't keeping R in the loop, and Versailles is being sneaky and is going to screw the British over.
Now, Stanhope died in 1721, and the new British ministers are Townshend and Newcastle. Both are very pro-French alliance. (Not pro-French interests, mind you. Just think that working with France is the way to go.)
Newcastle tells Whitworth and his fellow ambassador that they are not to take any initiative at Cambrai, just let the French take the lead. He repeats this in every single dispatch. Whitworth and his companion find this humiliating. Keep in mind Whitworth has been ambassador for almost twenty-five years now, to the Imperial Diet, St. Petersburg, the Hague, and Berlin, and he's used his initiative a number of times.
The ambassadors have a little scuffle with the ministers back home, but the message from Newcastle and Townshend prevails: "You must let the French take the initiative and follow their lead."
They're nooooot happy.
Btw, just to emphasize the importance of the Anglo-French alliance during this period:
The Jacobites, in fact, had great hopes of armed support from Peter [the Great] in 1723 and 1724 but this never came to anything, not least because Peter valued French friendship in this period and the French, in turn, saw good relations with Britain as their main priority.
1725-1726: Where do I even start?
Okay, so 1725-1726 is an eventful time.
Spain and Austria enter an alliance (called a diplomatic revolution by later historians, not sure about contemporaries). But remember, Charles VI still wants to be King of Spain! (He's officially given up, but he still wants to. And while the war may have ended ~1715, he didn't make peace with Spain until 1720.)
There's talk of marrying one of the archduchesses (like maybe MT) to one of the Spanish kids of Philip V and Isabella Farnese.
Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover are allied against Austria and Spain, because they perceive Austria + Spain as a very threatening alliance, especially if the marriage happens. Yes, this is FW allied against his boss Charles VI. Remember this passage from Lavisse:
When he became allied to France and England, in 1725, he reserved to himself the right to furnish to the Emperor the contingent that he owed, in his quality of Elector, at the same time that he assisted the King of France with the number of troops fixed by the treaty. It certainly is to be regretted that this clause had not been put into action, and that Europe had not witnessed this spectacle of the King of Prussia fighting the Elector of Brandenburg.
(Later, FW will leave the alliance and go back to hating on Hanover and supporting the Emperor. Up until he supports the French candidate for the Polish throne and has Hans Heinrich host him, while fighting the French alongside Eugene. Because HRE politics are really something else.)
The Duc de Bourbon sends the Spanish princess back so he can marry Louis to Marie Leszczynska, the Spanish get offended and send the French princess back, Spain and France stop speaking to each other.
The Duc de Bourbon falls from power; Fleury takes over.
Spain and England are in a state of semi-war that's threatening to explode into something bigger, etc.
Isabella Farnese really really really wants Parma and Tuscany for her kids.
1727-1728: Rottembourg in Spain
So in 1727, frantic diplomacy is happening. Britain, the Netherlands, Austria, and France, sign preliminary peace agreements, in Paris and in Vienna. But since the Spanish aren't speaking to the French, due to the offense taken over the sending back of the princesses, and are in a state of lowkey war with Britain, there're no Spanish ambassadors around to sign treaties in France or Britain.
So Fleury sends an ambassador to Spain in late 1727 and tells him, "You get Philip and Isabella to agree to this peace!"
That ambassador is Rottembourg. (Whitworth died in 1725, btw, still poor enough that he was lamenting that despite his decades of faithful service to his country, his wife was going to have to petition the crown for support. If Rottembourg gave him money, it was not a lot.)
The British don't have an ambassador in Spain. They have a "consul", Benjamin Keene. This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them." When he wanted subsidies, he sent a credentialed Knyphausen authorized to negotiate.
Anyway. Keene, the British consul, will later play a significant role as diplomat, but right now he's extremely tentative and not sure what on earth is going on or what he's allowed to do. He knows he's not an ambassador.
So Rottembourg takes the initiative, negotiates, gets Keene introduced at court, and presents Philip and Isabella with terms that are favorable to Spain. The Spanish sign off on it, and everyone's happy...until the British ministers, who've been letting the French take the lead in the negotiations in Spain again, find out that Rottembourg granted Spain concessions at British's expense, and that Keene was present at the audience, and that he gave the impression that the British had agreed to this.
Horace Walpole, currently British ambassador to France: Hey, Newcastle, did you hear what just went down in Spain? Can you *believe* the fucking French?
Newcastle: Omg, Keene, you pull anything like that ever again...
Keene: But I'm not even an ambassador! I assumed since we were letting the French take the lead, and they had an actual ambassador who acted like he knew what he was doing, that whatever he did was what I was supposed to do!
Newcastle: Okay, yeah, fair. Fleury, WTF was your guy up to?
Fleury: Fuck. As long as Spain and Austria are still allies, I need the English. Okay, Newcastle, sorry, Rottembourg was *totally* unauthorized to make those concessions! Rottembourg, slap on the wrist, treaty void, start over again.
It's unclear how mad Fleury actually was at Rottembourg; he got publicly reprimanded, but some of my sources indicate the French were actually mad at the English but their hands were tied. And at least the French Secretary of State thought Rottembourg had been unfairly scapegoated, so he insisted the new treaty had to be signed by Rottembourg (i.e. as a sign that he was not in total disgrace).
In March 1728, the Spanish sign the Peace of Pardo on terms that everyone has agreed to. In April, Rottembourg leaves Spain. In July, Philip starts thinking he's a frog. In October, Katte shows up in Paris. (Which is how I totally know Rottembourg was not in Spain when Katte was supposed to be traveling there.)
In conclusion:
- Everything is upside down and inside out in the late 1710s and 1720s.
- The tendency of the English ministers for a decade to tell their ambassadors to work with the French and to let the French take the lead is why I don't think we have evidence that Rottembourg was bribing Whitworth in 1718-1720.
My impression is that Whitworth liked Rottembourg personally but really didn't like working with the French, and was having a French alliance shoved down his throat by his bosses. (Btw, Newcastle was almost 20 years younger than Whitworth, which was one reason it was so insulting when Newcastle's every letter to Whitworth at Cambrai was like, "And don't take any diplomatic initiative!" "Fuck you, Newcastle, I've been taking diplomatic initiative since you were in petticoats.")
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s)
Just to connect the dots, this is when Philip's mental health really tanks and he starts talking abdication. In 1724, he finally abdicates. Then he resumes power, tries to abdicate again, Isabella won't let him, and then the really terrible symptoms of which we know start happening in 1727 (year of Rottembourg's first arrival).
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s): Addendum
2. Whitworth's under orders from Chief Minister Stanhope to work in concert with Rottembourg.
3. The two instances of him and Rottembourg working in concert are Rottembourg helping *him* rather than the other way around:
Aha, I chased down one of the sources of the Whitworth volume, and apparently, according to Whitworth, Rottembourg said that during the episode in which he got his hands on a draft of the proposed secret treaty between Prussia and Russia, he told Ilgen that if it contained anything against the king of England, according to his instructions from Versailles, he would have to tell Whitworth.
And Whitworth wrote all this to Stanhope and requested extreme secrecy, because if word got out that Rottembourg was passing him info, R would be compromised and unable to pass any more info on.
Also, apparently Rottembourg was in his bed and half asleep when he got the delivery meant for the Russian minister, saw what it was, closed it again, and sent it to the Russian minister.
I've sent a request to Royal Patron for a download of this pdf, which is George I and the Northern War, 1909, by James Chance, and which I can read and search but not download. Sigh. I can see it has Løvenørn!
Whitworth, biographer, btw, says Rottembourg was born in Italy, but then also says he was a Brandenburger who entered French service, when the Chance volume agrees with all my other sources that it was his father who did that. So grain of salt.
Oh, hey! I was searching Rottembourg's name (it is conveniently likely to turn up him and no one else, unlike *some* names I could mention), and I found the source for a story I'd encountered in several places: the memoirs of Marshal Villars (French commander at Malplaquet) say that it was Rottembourg who reported that FW beat Fritz for a "surprising reason": FW had ordered his family to eat with iron forks with two prongs, and he caught Fritz eating with a three-pronged silver fork, which enraged him and caused him to beat Fritz. This is 1727, btw, in case anyone tries to tell you FW only beat him in 1730. He'd been beating Fritz for quite some time at that point.
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s): Addendum
I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
The forks, to make that once more clear, NOT that FW was already hitting Fritz in 1727. But honestly, I think a more likely cause would be something like finding Fritz' table manners or hygiene sloppy. Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike. Who wouldn't have been Fritz. Like I said: I suspect Rottembourg heard something about FW hitting Fritz because he objected to his table manners and changed that into an anecdote for the French court that also made FW look even worse.
Re: Whitworth and Rottembourg, you've convinced me!
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s): Addendum
I could be wrong, of course; googling tells me that the use of the fork among wider swathes of the population in Germany only happened near the end of the 17th century, though it was earlier used in court circles. Which could, in theory, mean that wanting-to-live-as-a-burgher FW could insist on his family using two pronged iron forks over three pronged silver forks thirty years later. But it still sounds a bit fake to me.
All my googling of random unreliable websites is telling me that the upper classes tried to introduce the three-tined fork, and then there was a lag of centuries before it caught on with everyone. But I'm getting wildly different dates on when the three tines caught on in Germany. Everyone agrees, though, that the farther north you go, the longer it took to catch on. It was a sign of Italian effeminacy for a long time. (In the British lower classes, apparently as late as 1897!)
Also, apparently forks were used for different purposes at different times, and using a fork the way we would use it, to put food on and stick in your mouth, rather than just stabbing your meat while carving, took much longer to catch on, and that the usage was tied to the number of tines.
One site claims, "As Ferdinand Braudel notes in The Structure of Everyday Life, around the beginning of the 18th century, Louis XIV forbade his children to eat with the forks that their tutor had encouraged them to use."
But I'm already questioning that, because by the early 18th century, Louis XIV's children had children who had children!
But yeah, since our source isn't even a dispatch by Rottembourg, but a memoir by Villars, I'm fully prepared for the story to have grown in the telling, even if Rottembourg said something completely different. And if Rottembourg did exaggerate, as you noted, he was no fan of FW!
So possibly true, possibly fake.
Which would also be easier to blame Fritz for, using FW type of logic, than which table wear he uses, because that's actually not a decision for fifteen years old Fritz to make. It's something decided by whoever is in charge of the household where he's staying, Wusterhausen, Potsdam and Monbijou alike.
This is the part I don't find totally convincing: FW is an abuser, and punishing people for things they weren't strictly responsible for is part of abuse. Even if you assume the account in Wilhelmine where she and Fritz got plates thrown at them for Friederike Luise's backtalk is an exaggeration, and Catt's account of how FW beat both the tutor and small child Fritz for Fritz learning Latin is Catt making things up, I'd be surprised if FW never hit Fritz for the adults having him do things FW didn't want him doing.
Re: The other diplomatic revolution(s)
This is fairly usual, btw; if you're not on speaking terms with a country, or if you're just not interested in negotiating something specific, you might not pay an ambassador to hang out fiddling his thumbs (Whitworth would argue that they don't pay you even when you are negotiating); but leave his secretary or somesuch there to be your lower-paid point of contact and send you info. But because this secretary isn't credentialed, they don't have authority to negotiate. France did this with Prussia after Rottembourg left the last time. It's what Fritz was doing when he refused to replace the ambassador in Britain with Peter Keith and left the guy who probably hadn't even sworn loyalty to Prussia there; he was not saying, "I prefer this guy to Peter," he was saying, "I prefer no diplomatic representation in Britain because I'm more interested in insulting them this year than negotiating with them."
Heh, Fritz.
...Although um if you have told me about the Great Northern War I have completely forgotten; can I have a relatively short recap?
The Great Northern War
I have not! What I've said is that having finished the War of the Spanish Succession, I would like to learn about the Great Northern War, which is how I got onto Whitworth in the first place. It's a complicated twenty-year war involving tons of countries and principalities, and shifting alliances, and I barely know anything about it, so my recap will be sketchy in both quality and quantity, but here goes.
17th century Sweden was a significant military power, dominating the Baltic on both land and sea. In 1700, their neighbors, including Peter the Great in Russia, decide to take advantage of the fact that the new king is an inexperienced 18-yo and try to get some land back. Unfortunately, that 18-yo is Charles XII, who will be a famous, if ultimately unsuccessful, general.
He wins a bunch of battles. Storms through Poland, kicks August of Saxony off the throne and installs Stanislas Leszczynski. Stanislas' first reign of Poland only lasts a few years, just like his second reign in the 1730s.
Charles XII invades Russia, but as we discussed in the War of the Spanish Succession, ends up trying to live off the land during the great winter of 1708/1709. 1709, the year of Malplaquet, is also the year of Poltava, the big battle where Peter the Great's forces kick Charles' butt, and put an end to Sweden's superpower days. Also to Stanislas' days as King of Poland.
But the war is only halfway over, and more countries get involved. Brandenburg-Prussia and Hanover both want strategically located territory. Hanover wants Bremen-Verden to connect them to the Baltic.
FW wants Swedish Pomerania and especially Stettin.
He'll end up getting the southern part of Pomerania to go with the Pomerania he already owns. Take a look at the blue area on the map that's between the orange parts. That's the part he gets. You'll see Stettin, and if you go south along the river a bit, you'll see Gartz, Fredersdorf's hometown.
If you go way up north in the blue and off the to the west, you'll see Stralsund. The siege here is where FW met and decided he liked Seckendorff and Duhan. Duhan was so brave that FW immediately decided to enlist him as tutor for Fritz (Fritz is 3 years old at this point, in 1715), causing adult Fritz to snark about how unusual it is to engage a tutor in a trench. Also, FW totally missed the mark on this one too, as usual, thinking that a good soldier can't also be a cultured man of French manners! (I see the campaign to have Eugene be his role model failed.)
Then Whitworth and Rottembourg show up in Berlin the late 1710s, trying to get FW to reach terms with Sweden and Britain so affairs can be settled in the Baltic. In the end, he gets the parts of Swedish Pomerania he most wanted, and Hanover gets Bremen-Verden.
And one day, if all goes well, you may get a more in-depth dive into this war.
Re: The Great Northern War
Anyway: the first Northern European country to intervene in the 30 Years War on the Protestant side was Denmark, which was soundly beaten, but then the Swedes showed up, and their King Gustav Adolf was one of those hardcore military talents who came this close to conquering his way all the way to Vienna. (Wallenstein could then distract him not by defending Vienna but by scouring Saxony (allied to Gustav Adolf), which also threatened to cut him off from his supply lines, so the Swedes had to turn back. Gustav Adolf later died in battle, undefeated unlike Charles XII later, but he died. This didn't mean the Swedes left the war, though. By the time the war had ended Sweden had gone from also ran to top European power, definitely one of the most feared military powers, with a large say so in trade. Bear in mind that Sweden itself, the territory, had seen no battle, since most of the war took place in the HRE, i.e. mostly, though not exclusively, the German speaking principalities. And it had been so brutal and devastating that a third of the population was gone, most cities were at least partly damaged and had to be rebuild. You may or may not recall the Great Elector of Brandenburg (FW's grandfather) spent years as a child in Küstrin because it was one of the few fortresses his parents deemed safe. One reason why both FW and Fritz actively advertised for settlers was that the population was still recovering, even in the next century, from the long term effects of the 30 Years War devastation. Trying to get territory from Sweden, which had immensely profitted in terms of finances, power and economy from the same war, also falls into that larger context.
Re: The Great Northern War
Thanks, will keep this in mind if I manage to get the big picture of the Thirty Years' War *and* adequate German to be able to find the interesting parts quickly.
Meanwhile, Der Kaiser reist inkognito is perfect, and I'm about 1/3 of the way through! Slow going just because work has been so demanding lately, but exactly what I was looking for, thank you. <3
Rottembourg's bribery attempts
I just ran across Rottembourg's instructions from Versailles before his first mission to Berlin, 1714. Louis' goal is to get Prussia to stop allying with Austria and Hanover and switch to the French side.
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
Printz is this guy, who, among other things, was the envoy to Russia responsible for getting the new Prussian kingdom recognized by Russia just a few months after F1's crowning. (Remember that the French don't recognize it until about 1714.)
Unfortunately, Rottembourg's mission was unsuccessful: FW ended up in an alliance with Russia against Sweden.
Do we know how much Seckendorff offered Grumbkow a few years later? I'm wondering if the French were just not paying enough, or if Grumbkow was less receptive to Rottembourg. Of course, I don't even know whether Rottembourg found an opportunity to offer any of his authorized bribes, so we can't draw hard conclusions.
Also, apparently during this negotiation, Rottembourg became part of a conspiracy ("complot") with the British (not yet Whitworth, though), Swedish, and Holstein ministers in Berlin to try to win FW over, but to no avail.
I'm currently extracting information from a book and a dissertation on the British involvement in the Great Northern War (1709-1721), which will get me one step closer to being able to being able to explain the Northern War.
(I really need better sources on the Swedish perspective, though. I have a book, but it's only the military history, and it's super technical.)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Incidentally, I do wonder whether anyone ever did a collected volume of Seckendorff's correspondence with Vienna, which would be both his official reports to the Chancellery and the separate reports to Eugene. I know many a collection of Fritzian documents quotes these letters because they're a goldmine especially for 1730 - 1733, but is there a separate edition, something like the Stratemann volume?
It may also be that Grumbkow didn't trust either Louis or Rottembourg or both to actually pay up, especially since the long term costs of Louis' eternal wars to France must have been obvious by 1714, whereas he did believe he'd get his money from Vienna & Seckendorff. I mean, evidently he did, given he paid his champagne and the best cook in Berlin with it...
(
(Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken. So Grumbkow having access to enough Champagne to notoriously cook his ham in says a lot about just how wealthy he was, and you bet it wasn't by whatever FW paid him officially.)
Did Rottembourg ever consider offering FW some tall guys?
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
But my copy is digitized and searchable! Except for being split into about 10 different chunks, that is. I should get them united into a single pdf for searching. Have added that to my Trello list.
I do wonder whether anyone ever did a collected volume of Seckendorff's correspondence with Vienna, which would be both his official reports to the Chancellery and the separate reports to Eugene.
I had at most 5 minutes to search, so maybe something better will turn up later, but Arneth came to mind, so I searched "Arneth Seckendorff", and found a three volume bio of Eugene, with end notes heavy on archival sources, and there is a fair bit of Eugene-Seckendorff correspondence. Much of it is merely cited, not quoted, alas, and it's hardly a Stratemann-like collection, but I think it has some new-to-us stuff. Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Somewhere in volume 3 might be something on bribing Grumbkow, but between your lack of time, my lack of time, and my lack of German, it may be some time before we find out. Anyway. 3 volumes in the library, under Biographies, Lives, Histories/Arneth_.
(Note to self, keep at German so you can stop asking Selena for help all the time. So many books, so little proficiency!)
It may also be that Grumbkow didn't trust either Louis or Rottembourg or both to actually pay up, especially since the long term costs of Louis' eternal wars to France must have been obvious by 1714, whereas he did believe he'd get his money from Vienna & Seckendorff.
It's also possible Rottembourg just didn't have time. Cross-referencing with our chronology (<3 our chronology), he arrived April 27, and the treaty was signed June 12. Even if one of those is O.S., that still means negotiations must have been pretty far advanced by the time he showed up.
Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken.
Which is how the "Grumbkow drinks" chapter opens! Grumbkow trying to transport lots of champagne for his drinking bout with August the Strong (the one that will kill the latter, and I read somewhere that Grumbkow never fully regained his health after that), and being a bundle of nerves because champagne was prone to exploding in transport in the 18th century.
Did Rottembourg ever consider offering FW some tall guys?
I'm sure he did! I can't point to a specific example, but I'll keep my eyes out. (I also haven't Google translated his full instructions for his 3 missions to Berlin and read them carefully, unlike the Spain ones.)
I know Whitworth offered FW 15 "great Irish recruits," though, trying to get FW to SIGN THE TREATY ALREADY, and it didn't work. So tall guys were not a guarantee of success! As you'd expect; I think everyone knew to offer them, so the competition was stiff. :P
Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Clement affair (remember, the guy had sold FW on a Eugene masterminded scheme where FW gets killed or kidnapped at Wusterhausen and Fritz gets raised as a Catholic and controlled by Vienna): bonkers. Says a lot about FW that he actually believed this, and even after Clement admitted the forgery thought it was more likely Clement recanted out of fear and had originally said the truth. Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor. Because Seckendorff was a bona fide general (and successful as such), and FW knew and approved of him since Stralsund, and because he was able to keep a poker face and didn't let himself be rattled, Seckendorff was deemed ideal for this tricky job.
FW in general: let's get one thing straight, Prussians. For all your insistence that honest honest poor FW was hoodwinked by Team Austria, "honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering and also, good lord, that temper. Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture. He was the A plus combination of what's best of French and German traits. Whereas FW... Well, okay. He did make Prussia rich and solvent this way and created a good army.
So far, so good. But then.
Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Hohenzollern family politics: Look here, Prussians, all these complaints that Seckendorff is to blame for enlarging the rift between FW and his two oldest kids are totally unfair. On the contrary, lemme quote Eugen's letters instructing Seckendorff to get tight with the Crown Prince as well because Eugene knew FW could die of a stroke any time and then it would have been bad to start with an Austria-hating new monarch. Seckendorff was to signal friendliness and willingness to reconcile father and son. Okay, Seckendorff was also instructed to work against the English marriages, but that was politics! Oh, and fyi, shut up with all the "how dare Team Austria intervene with Fritz' and Wilhelmine's marriages, what business was that of theirs" - I never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now. Marriages of future royalty were ALWAYS politics, and so every other monarch minded and commented and pushed. Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts. Speaking of England:
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
FW/G2 reconciliation happens.
Eugene: Go figure. That man is so unreliable. Any news on the "make the kid like us" front, Seckendorff?
Seckendorff: Well, he's taking money from me, but if you want my opinion, that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here, and he's the future monarch.
(Arneth: SEE!!!!)
Eugene: Still, maybe it can't hurt to make nice with the Brits ourselves.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
(
Eugene: Perfidious Albion. Firstly, no one in their right mind would believe FW would ever go for such a marriage. But he WOULD be incredibly insulted if such a clause is in a treaty anyway. Secondly, us refusing to include such a clause will undoubtedly be useful as propaganda claiming we intend this marriage. I'm getting too old for this crap.
Arneth: SEEEEEEE!!!!!
Including S's reaction to Katte's execution! Which seems to be a three parter: 1) "I really hope FW listens to 80-yo Grandpa Wartensleben and me and spares Katte's life." 2) "Welp, after all that executing Katte and especially under Fritz's eyes, FW can expect his reputation to take a hit, especially in England." 3) "I just had a look at the Punctae, where Katte tells Fritz to be obedient to his father and not to buy into flattery. Which, if you read between the lines, tells you a lot about what Katte was up to before,"...and then the endless sentence went on and I ran out of time to finish it, but my impression is, "Maybe it was for the best."
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene), but yeah, that's what it amounts to, i.e. the final conclusion is that the Punctae show pre-death sentence Katte must have been a flatterer goading Fritz against his father in an already incindiary situation, and maybe he is better off dead. BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
Letters quoted in the footnotes of interest:
Eugene to Seckendorff, Sept. 20th 1727: ...it would be very good if you'd manage a good standing with the Queen and the Crown Prince, especially the later. Do anything reasonable to win him over, and convert him to good principles bit by bit, but in a decent way, and you'll know to be careful enough not to expose yourself too much with the Queen...
Seckendorff to Eugene, Sept. 14th 1728: The King's discontent about the Crown Prince and the Princess Royal's (Kronprinzessin, not Kronprinz, i.e. Wilhemine) displeasure caused by their Lord Father rises more by the day, for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
This is nearly two years before the flight attempt, note. In a letter from October to Eugene, Seckendorff claims to have reconciled father and son. Which, well, if he did does not last long, as Seckendorff himself documents. Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Seckendorff to Eugene, December 3rd 1729: I have to tell your grace in deepest confidence that yesterday in the morning, the King has grabbed the Crown Prince at his hair and dragged him around since (FW) had noticed that (Fritz) hadn't been clean and well dressed enough. After the Crown Prince had been finally released, he talked to Lieutenant Colonel Rochow who has been assigned to him about this with tears in his eyes. Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Anyway, Arneth quotes all this as proof Seckendorff wasn't campaigning to deepen the rift between FW and Fritz but tried to help Fritz. (Not selflessly but in order to gain a good standing with the next monarch, but he did try.) Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them. But what he doesn't say and what is undoubtedly also true is that Team HRE throwing their weight against the British marriages at a point where FW was pro HRE did inevitably contribute to make things worse for Fritz and Wilhelmine since their mother had made the English marriages not only their filial duty to her but presented them as their own possible escape from FW.
Eugene to Seckendorff, September 20th 1730 (i.e. post arrest, pre execution): It is the Emperor's opinion and order that you behave in this matter that has evolved between the King and the Crown Prince as delicatedly and sensibly as possible, to prevent any further escalation, to pour water into the fire, to help and assist the Prince as much as you possibly can...
Seckendorff to Eugene, October 9th 1730 (still before the execution, but after a lot of interrogations): Due to the Crown Prince's very false, secretive and malicious temper, I have little faith regarding a continuation of the Imperial Alliance in the future.
Eugene's reply letter is dated October 31st 1730 and says that while such a temper as Seckendorff ascribes to the Crown Prince probably won't know gratitude, and Fritz is undoubtedly still in the France/England Yay! mindframe he's been indoctrinated with by his mother: "His Imperial Majesty is not deterred by this from insisting on you following the instructions as given through me, for this matter has to end one way or another, and it is therefore better if his Imperial Majesty gets the credit, especially since your Excellency reports that the Queen and the entire Prussian cabinet seems to believe the Emperor alone would be able to mediate and reconcile the Crown Prince with the King, and if this doesn't happen all the evilminded people will spread the word that the Emperor rejoices in this disaster and that he has advised the King to be relentless. Eugene also expresses the hope that even if Seckendorff is right about Fritz now, he's still very young and has years to learn better, and also, he (Eugene, not Fritz) has read the interrogation protocol forwarded to him by Grumbkow & Seckendorf and thoughtt hat: The King's questions were put very sharply, while the Prince's replies were given rather modestly and with short sentences just as the King prefers.
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Arneth is writing this very obviously from a defensive position
Obvious,
Incidentally, the Clement Affair and another minor issue led to Seckendorff's appointment as envoy in Berlin. Eugene had picked him explicitly to get FW out of his paranoid "Team Habsburg and Eugene wanted to kidnap/assassinate me and raise my kid!" mind frame and back to (at least mostly) supporting his Emperor.
Ahhh! I love when pieces fall together like this.
Also, my guy Eugene was an actual military hero who nonetheless didn't shout abuse at people and kick them, he was super generous instead of miserly, and he loved culture.
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon.
ARGH and as archivist I know you must have known!
and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
This is very true. When Whitworth, who does not come across as a particularly slimy diplomat--although again, my perspective is skewed by the filter his biographer presented--showed up in Russia, he wrote back home, "Look, you know what the problem is? My predecessors (the tobacco contractors, because actual political representation in Russia wasn't important to the Brits in this period) didn't suck up to Menshikov enough, and they didn't bribe the right ministers. Let me show you how a professional does it."
(Menshikov is Peter the Great's Grumbkow, only they probably had sex.)
never hear you asking "how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!" That never gets quoted by you, does it? Which is why I'm quoting it now.
I had actually run across this, but I forget where. Lavisse, maybe.
Reminder: the 1725 Treaty of Hanover, which formed an alliance between Prussia, France, Britain, and Hanover (later including Sweden and the Netherlands), was in response to the Spanish-Austrian alliance, which was when the MT/Don Carlos marriage idea was tossed around. (Charles VI was never going to do it, but he kept Philip and Isabella dangling with hints, and the rest of Europe was worried he was serious.)
1728: FW defected and signed a secret treaty with Charles. Which:
"honest" FW kept making contradictory treaties with both sides and kept wavering
Yep. All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
FW/G2 almost duel crisis of 1729:
Eugene: Thumbs up! I like it. That G2 is getting way to big for his breeches and Prince Elector of Hanover. Seckendorff, tell FW if there's war, I'm totally joining in .
Hahaha. This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
that kid is evil (böse) and false (falsch) to the core, and if you're hoping for gratitude once FW kicks the bucket, forget it.
Well spotted!
Eugene: ...Keep trying to reconcile them anyway. I'm trying to be an optimist here
Hope springs eternal, as I always like to say.
Brits: We want it in writing that you're never, ever, going to marry MT to Fritz.
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Having read it, the later two reactions are from Eugene, not Seckendorff (seems Grumbkow sent a copy of the Punctae to Eugene)
Right, yes, I remember that now! (I remember being surprised that it had made its way all the way to Austria.) This got lost not in translation from German to me, but from my memory to my write-up. The problem with being at the decipherment stage of German is that I have to commit to memory whatever I read that I want to talk about, because I can't glance at the page while writing. One day!
BTw, did we know Seckendorff pleaded for Katte's life before? I don't think we did.
We did! Wilhelmine says so! It's actually the first sentence in her Katte episode:
Sekendorff also attempted to save Katt; but the king remained inflexible.
I remember it in particular because Thiebault's doctored memoirs also opened that way, and as you may recall, I did a line-by-line textual criticism comparison of the passages before realizing Thiebault's were doctored:
Seckendorf also wanted to save Katte, and he was joined by an assortment of people of the highest rank.
(At least *some* texts I can commit to memory!)
Seckendorff also testifies the famous hair dragging event:
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain! The one where he got knocked to the ground and chewed out for hygiene and had to appear on parade in front of everyone in dishevelled hair and uniform. It was a different one? Poor Fritz. Note that he had tried to run with Peter (and not yet Katte) just the month before, and a month later, he'll still be trying to run away and that's why Peter gets sent to Wesel.
Arneth also has a point that FW's dislike of G2 would have ensured the British marriages would not have happened in any case, even without the Austrians campaigning against them.
Fritz/Amalia, maybe not, but you don't think there was a chance for Wilhelmine/FoW? FW seemed more inclined to allow that, as I recall, and it was the Brits insisting on double-or-nothing, and Hotham trying to blacken Grumbkow, that ruined it. (Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.)
Though btw, why FW thought marrying his kids to the Brits would make them too Brit friendly and why Eugene & Seckendorff thought the same is beyond me, given that FW's own marriage was the primary example of how you can be married to the sister of the King of England and still hate his guts.
But FW was worried that his kids (esp. Fritz) were Brit-friendly because of their mother, and I could see him worrying that the same would happen with the grandkids. As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
Ahahaha. Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
Re: Arneth-Eugene-Seckendorff
Say what you want about Seckendorff, but he definitely was up to the task. That is, I suspect FW never entirely was able to let go of the suspicion a dastardly scheme against him was foiled in 1719, but Seckendorff certainly had his hear more often than not until the last minute turnaround on the English/Braunschweig marriage projects in 1733, which wasn't Seckendorff's fault. so: good choice of envoy, Eugene!
Sophie of Hanover is with you on that, Arneth! Alas, Campaign Make Eugene FW's Role Model failed.
Arneth's "compare and contrast" of FW and Eugene at times was so close to Sophie's letters that I wondered whether he read them, but if so, he'd have to read them in the Prussian State Archive, as they hadn't been published yet. BTW, the way he sees FW's attitude to Eugene is:
Crown Prince FW: Hero worship because 'twas the era for fanboying Eugene.
Young King FW: *hears a Eugene critique about promised Pussian support showing up, is insulted* =>cooling down, but still respect. Arneth says FW was constitutionally incapable of ever accepting he might have done something wrong, of course.
FW in Clement Plot era and shortly thereafter: ET TU, EUGENE? I see through you now!
FW post Seckendorff's arrival through the 1730s: Eugene: still the man... I guess. I'm sending animals for his menagerie as presents and tokens of respect because he won't accept any money, jewelry or silver drinking cups like August. But much as he's a military legend, he's also a Catholic, and I'm still not sure whether he wouldn't have kidnapped and assassinated me back in 1719 to get his hands on Fritz...
Eugene's attitude to FW throughout: I respect him as a monarch who actually works. But as I am the type of general who thinks parades are boring, I don't get his thing for them. As for his much praised army, I suspect the first time they see actual battle instead of parades and maneuvres, a full third of them will desert. And good lord, that temper!
All my sources on diplomacy from 1700-1731 show diplomats and heads of state constantly complaining about the unreliable and indecisive FW.
Which is why you can feel Arneth's frustration that the Prussians succesfully grabbed the narrative and made everyone pity poor, honest FW whose unrequited loyalty to his Emperor gets constantly exploited by the evil and slimy Austrians. Or by perfidioius Albion, if the writers are closer to the end of the 19th century and the German/British rivalry is heating up. But either way, the image is "FW might have been shouty and brutal, but he was Prussian honesty and reliability personified! Most honest man of the 18th century"
This is the one where Suhm offered Saxon mediation, iirc?
And Manteuffel went WTF?!? at him for it, yes.
It's your karma for doubting the MT series! ;) References to this marriage-that-didn't-happen are going to keep following you around!
Evidently. Which reminds me, someone still ought to do a separate Rheinsberg entry on the implication of Katte and Fritz diverging in their testimony on this one particular point and how now one ever seems to have realized this means Fritz point blank lied to Katte as part of persuading him to join the escape plan.
We did! Wilhelmine says so!
Mea culpa, but it's so like you to recall every detail of her Katte relevant statements. :)
Aww, man. I thought that was at Zeithain!
Me too, but evidently FW did it more than once. It's also interesting and telling about the social norms of the time that Seckendorff, who isn't a fan of young Fritz, still considers both the earlier verbal abuse ("titles worse than the most low-born man would shower his son with") and the hair dragging and chewing out beyond the pale. (So much for "FW was just acting like a normal German Hausvater".)
Both parties had everything to gain from a future queen on the throne of the other country, and little to gain from limiting the possibilities for alliances for their own heir.
That is true, though it has to be said that the Princess G2 ended up marrying Fritz of Wales to came from a far less important German principality and brought practically nothing to the table but being impeccably Protestant. Where I'm going with this: while FW might have okay'd Wilhelmine/FoW if the Brits had been willing to take her on her own, one shouldn't discount that one reason why both G2 and Caroline dragged out marrying off their eldest wasn't that they were hoping for a good alliance - honestly, in terms of available Protestant princesses at the time, I think Wilhelmine would have been the best match bar none, even without counting the fact she'd been literally educated from birth with this end goal in mind - but because their relationship with Fritz of Wales got worse and worse, and there was the not so hidden hope he'd die without an heir so favourite son Bill Cumberland would become King after all. I mean, even before FoW had set one foot on British soil, i.e. at a point where he really could not have done anything yet to piss them off, they were investigating possibilities to change the succession or at least split Hannover from Britain so Cumberland could inherit at least one. And if they'd gone ahead and married Wilhelmine to Fritz of Wales, say, in early 1730, the last point when it seemed still possible, this would have strenghtened unfave's FoW's position, especially if FW had given her a decent dowry after all, but even if not. She wasn't a shy wallflower like Augusta would be, she was a top educated woman of whom it could be expected to do well in establishing a rival court (much like Caroline herself had done when G2 had been Prince of Wales), and because her mother had been so fertile, she'd have been considered likely to reproduce at once, too. Paradoxically, all those qualities usually plusses in the royal marriage market might have worked as negatives with parents who really did not like their eldest son and didn't want him as successor.
As I recall, he also said that Amalia was going to encourage Fritz in a love of luxury so she could have things more like she was used to (like SD).
He did. Though having now read the letters of young SD and FW to Sophie and Sophie's to them, I have to say this is FW rewriting the past somewhat. Sure, F1 made much of his new daughter-in-law and surrounded her with luxury, but that was F1. SD herself says she's getting spoiled, i.e. this is not the norm of what she was used to from her Hannover childhood. And Schnath says that G1 as Prince Elector of Hannover wasn't a big money spender. (SD was already married by the time her father became King of England.) Now undoubtedly she was used to a more princely style than what FW would eventually offer, but not to, say, something like what the mistresses of August the Strong got, let alone Versailles.
Well, I'm glad you at least weren't expecting to get the 1730s money back, which makes it true that you weren't a usurer where he was concerned. ;)
This reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you: since Fritz wasn't privy to these letters between Eugene and Seckendorff - how much did he, personally, blame Seckendorff and Team Vienna in general for his late 1720s/early 1730s miseries? You mentioned his anti-Seckendorff outburst in a letter to Suhm; does this offer a good indication of this?
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Bribery: Okay. Yeah. Seckendorff was instructed to bribe everyone, and Grumbkow was the best example, except I don't mention any sums because I want to frustrate the salon. I do mention sums of everyone else's briberies, because EVERYONE was bribing officials in that century, see Louis offering sum x, Peter the Great sum Y, and also this and also that, and why are we the ones getting stuck with the "slimy bribery guys" reputation, is what I want to know.
Lol! I can sense salon gnashing its teeth :D So is the conclusion then that Seckendorff's bribes were way bigger than everyone else's?
"how dare FW say he'd rather lose his country and his people than allow MT to marry Don Carlos of Spain!"
Ha! Okay, I must ask: which Don Carlos is this? (European royalty, WHY must you name all your kids the same thing??) (I know it's not the one Schiller/Verdi referenced, but I don't know the rest of them.)
([personal profile] selenak: REALLY? Did I read this?)
AHAHAHAHA yeah, like mildred says, you are cursed for your doubts! :D
for the King doesn't hesitate at public meals to shower the Crown Prince with such titles as the most common and low of men would hesitate to give to his son.
eeeeeek. Oh Fritz :( When Seckendorff thinks you're going too far...
Rochow, following my advice, has decided to admonish the King somewhat on this matter. ("dem König Vorstellungen darüber zu machen" is difficult to translate. It's not "chiding", which Rochow can't do to his monarch, but it's stronger than just "talk to him about".)
Ugh, again! (Although as usual I appreciate your translation notes!)
Seckendorff in 1759, kidnapped and locked up in Magdeburg: I stand by my opinion on Fritz' temper.
HA.
The 18th century Don Carlos
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Says SD that after Grumbkow's death, FW hired his cook. "Since then, we're eating better."
Aw, man. This made me laugh, but also is kind of poignant given what I have learned about FW's table :P
(Also, Champagne was really expensive, if you remember how difficult it must have been to transport those bottles on 18th century roads with 18th century transport means unbroken. So Grumbkow having access to enough Champagne to notoriously cook his ham in says a lot about just how wealthy he was, and you bet it wasn't by whatever FW paid him officially.)
Ohhhh! I would not have thought of that and that is interesting!
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Yaaaay! Welcome back!
Ohhhh! I would not have thought of that and that is interesting!
Horowski is FULL of this kind of thing!
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Ran into this in Förster, part of Seckendorff's Gesandschafts-Rechnungen (Bd. 3, p. 231, also has some sums that Fritz and Wilhelmine got):
General Grumbkow got paid his previously had pension of 1000 ducats for the year 1732. So if the same should be continued despite the continuous highest grace of 40,000 Gulden [!?] now received, he is due 1000 ducats per anno 1733. If anyone in the world deserves grace, it is this man.
Also: The pension of 6000 Gulden for the year 1732 was only paid to the Electoral Saxon Minister, Count Manteufel, on August 15, 1733, and therefore the pension of 6000 Gulden per anno 1733 is due to him, which is very much deserved due to his diligence, zeal and varied secret correspondence.
So, we have some numbers, but all in different currencies! I think Dukaten are more than Gulden, but I have no idea by how much, let alone how the French Livres would fit in there.
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A helpful website.
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As the resident numbers person, I'll try to do the math if no one else does, but might not be till this weekend. German is calling!
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So that would make Grumbkow's yearly bribe 4000 guldens, less than Manteuffel's, but then again he had that 40,000... I couldn't figure out what that meant from your translation, felis? Was it a lump sum payment in the past or how much he'd collected so far?
To procure success, Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, if he found fit opportunity, a pension of 15,000 livres, and annual "gratifications" to Ilgen and Printz of 12,000, but this must be done very cautiously.
So this would be between ~6000-6800 guldens Rottembourg might offer to Grumbkow, and ~4800-5500 guldens to Ilgen and Printz. (Depending on what the silver to gold exchange rate was at that time, I suppose; and I'm rounding to the nearest hundred.)
(This was a fascinating sheet, by the way -- thank you Selena! I'm so used to reading about currencies in books and having no idea how much any of them actually are with respect to everything else.)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
If only I knew! This is the original German: Wenn also selbige [1000 ducats], ohngeachtet der nunmehr empfangenen beständigen allerhöchsten Begnadigung von 40,000 Gulden, dennoch sollte continuieret werden. Without the "beständigen" (= steady/constant/continuous) in there, I might have said it was a one-off payment, but this way, I guess it's "this is how much's gotten so far" after all. On the other hand, it looks like Seckendorff wants him to keep getting money, so why would he bring up "he already accumulated this much over the years" and in a different currency no less? Beats me.
re: Reichsgulden/Rheinischer Gulden/Gulden (Fl.) - again, no idea. Seckendorff seems to use Gulden and Fl. interchangeably but definitely has them as silver money (and Ducats as gold). I tried to read the German wiki entries on the different Guldens and got lost very quickly, but I do think that for our time period they might indeed be roughly in the exchange ballpark that Selena's link had, and that it's basically the southern equivalent to the Reichsthaler, which was used mostly in the northern countries of the Empire. (As in: the Reichthaler (Rth.) is the usual currency in Prussia and the salaries Fritz pays tend to be in Rth., as are all his box bills. Exchange rate, just so we have it all in one place: 1 Reichsthaler = 1.5 Gulden.)
Also, taking a closer look at Förster, I found more interesting bribery facts, in a handy list, with a couple of names we know:
Secret Expenses [partly 1733, partly 1734]
Ducaten
Crown Prince: 3000 Ducaten
Hereditary Princess of Bayreuth: 1000 Ducaten
Grumbkow: 1000 Ducaten
Eversmann: 100 Ducaten
Silver Money
Count Manteuffel: 6000 Gulden
Reichenbach [Prussian Resident in London, for furthering a bad relationship between England and Prussia]: 900 Gulden
Irishman Murnay in Potsdam [?]: 60 Gulden
Duhan [!]: 1200 Gulden [for two years, he got 600 per year, from 1732 on]
Reading some of Seckendorff's accompanying letters, it seems like it's actually true that he was involved in getting Duhan the position in Wolfenbüttel and that he payed him money, because he thought he'd have influence on Fritz after FW's death. (Same goes for Wilhelmine.)
And given the Eversmann payment, I'm sure wondering if Fredersdorf ever showed up on any lists... (Selena's "Learning Frederick" makes a good case for it! :D)
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts
Re: Rottembourg's bribery attempts