Werner Schmidt: So in a short while after very soon to be F1 returns amidst reassurances, has a lengthy talk with Dad and is officially reconciled with him, though how deep that went is anyone's guess, the Elector dies. My guy becomes F3 at first, since he's not King yet but Elector. Now, let's talk money! And buildings! And cultural foundations! I'm simply incensed at the double standards everyone has. Take two of F1's contemporaries: Max Emmanuel of Bavaria and August the Strong. Both pump a lot of money into baroque palaces and parties. selenak can show you her pics of Nymphenburg which Max Emmanuel built in Munich, and you've seen Dresden, where August left his mark. Both Max Emmanuel and August also weren't content with being Princes Elector, they wanted to become Kings. Hell, Max Emmanuel wanted to be Emperor! That's how he ended up on the French side in the Spanish War of Succession and Eugene & Marlborough kicked his butt at Blenheim/Blindheim/Höchstedt! Which is in Bavaria, and Bavaria suffered for those armies marching through just half a century after the 30 Years War, which was hardly recovery time! As for August, he changed his religion to get his hands on Poland. That's how eager he was to all himself King! And then he pissed off Charles XII, which resulted in the Scouring of Saxony (Swedish variation). What I'm getting at: August and Max Emmanuel get called art loving powerful Baroque princes.My guy Friedrich, by contrast, gets bashed as a ridiculous money wasting prince making himself the laughing stock of Europe with his wanting to become a King. Yet are the baroque buildings from the F1 era any lesser than those in Bavaria and Saxony, huh? While Brandenburg never ever suffered from being scoured or marched through (until grandson's time anyway). Not for lack of war. F1 was participating in wars for 22 of the 25 years of his rule, which is way more than son and grandson put together. But he participated in other people's wars, ELSEWHERE, and got a crown out of it because the Emperor really needed those Prussian troops. To return to my point: Max Emmanuel, August and F1 were all big baroque spenders. Only Bavarians and Saxons suffered while this was going on, while Prussians profited, yet my guy...
Frank Göse: Excuse me. I also think he got understimated and that he needs to be compared to his contemporaries, not to his son and grandson, but we have to acknowledge that his subjects did suffer in the three W era, despite the lack of an invasion.
Werner Schmidt:. But we're not there yet! For the first 13 years of F1's rule, his PM was Danckelmann. As in, former shouty teacher, prodigy, austere proto Prussian. Since he started as an ordinary citizen, the nobility hated his guts. The Secret Council was jealous as hell, and lobbied against him. But what really did him in was one woman's hate. Yes, Figuelotte, I'm blaming this one on you! Welll, on you and F1's unresolved issues with a teacher he'd admired and feared and who made him translate "Fritz will always be an ass" into Latin.
Frank Göse: While I wouldn't deny Sophie Charlotte came to dislike Danckelmann intensely, I think her part in his downfall was exaggarated by later Hohenzollern historians. As was her political influence in general, as opposed to her cultural one. She also disliked Danckelmann's successor Wartenberg, and Wartenberg remained on top till the last two years of F1's life, and it was her son who did him in.
Werner Schmidt: You're far too easy on her. Let's state for the record she hated Danckelmann because he saw through her. Remember how we've said that primogeniture hadn't become the self evident princple in the German principalities yet and that the Elector near the end of his life was trying to get a secondogeniture thing going? Well, Hannover, newly coined electorate that it was, also had the problem of lots of sons. However, Sophie's husband Ernst August had no intention of letting his newly united realm be hacked into tiny principality pieces once he died. Which is why he changed the law so that his oldest, George Louis, future G1, would inherit it all. Now, this was not in Prussia's interest, since until then Hannover & Brandenburg had been in the same playing field, but an undivided with that intriguing British prospect on the horizon would be more powerful. So Danckelmann encouraged some Hannoverian councillors to make a move preventing primogeniture to become law in Hannover. However, Figuelotte learned about this and warned Mom and Dad what was coming, thereby proving she loved Hannover more. Since Dad had one of the councillors executed, which ended opposition to primogeniture becoming law in Hannover, she also had blood on her hands! And when Danckelmann basically called her a treacherous bitch, she dared to resent him for it!
Frank Göse: I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
Werner Schmidt: That's what she claimed in her letters to Mom, but I don't believe her. She was being hysterical and trying to justify her hate. Not very philosophical of this so-called "Philosopher Queen".
Frank Göse: My point stands: while she undoubtedly cheered when Danckelmann fell, she wasn't the primary mover, nor did she profit from it. The guy moving into that power vacuum was Wartenberg, not Sophie Charlotte.
Werner Schmidt: I'm also blaming her for this. If she'd just shown more political interest, F1, who adored her, would not have needed Wartenberg and listened to her instead. But no! Madame preferred having debates with Leipniz and getting on with her Athens-on-the-Spree program .
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
Werner Schmidt: I also do the psychological thing which you don't and declare that the way Danckelmann fell, the arrest, the years locked up before he was released, the multiple accusations which were plainly ridiculous were not only the the work of his enemies but of F1's subconscious. Freud would have totally gone for the delayed oedipal father figure killing explanation there. Moving on to the three W's. They were scum.
Frank Göse: Beg to differ.
Werner Schmidt: They were! Exploiting my fave woobie because he needed affection and respect and sure as hell wasn't getting it from his wife.
Frank Göse: Incidentally, we both agree that while F1 loved Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte after the first few years did not love him, only I see this not as coldness on her part but the result of both of them being very different. And growing up. Remember, she'd been only sixteen when she married him. She'd liked him, and he might even have been a romantic figure to her - the persecuted, grieving prince - , papering over the fact he was handicapped, not physically attractive to her, not as quick verbally, a devout Calvinist where she was more into philosophy, someone who rose early while she was a night owl, who loved ceremonies which bored her. In short, he was the EC to her Fritz, only the power differential was the reverse. So she took some tobacco to snuff while he had his coronation ceremony at Königsberg to make fun of all the earnest pomposity -
Werner Schmidt: The most meaningful achievement of his life to him! She hardly could have hurt him more!
Frank Göse: That's your speculation, and you don't provide any quote from him to prove he was hurt.
Werner Schmidt: I don't need it, I know his soul. I also completely believe that story about her making fun of his size and don't consider it apocryphal, unlike you. After all, we do have her calling him "my Aesop" in one of her few preserved letters, and given Aesop had a hunchback, that just shows how she was. Like her grandson, indeed. But let's get on to the scum. Wartenberg:. the worst of the worst. Typical evil favourite. The only good thing he ever did as PM was uniting the various parts of Berlin with each other and making it the Berlin it was in Fritz' time. Otherwise, he just took money and offices, unlike Danckelmann was careful enough to let himself be made Reichsgraf, which meant he was a peer of the HRE, not just Prussia, which meant that when he did fall, he couldn't end up locked up as well. He also promoted his buddies at his side, like awful Wittgenstein, who was already deeply in debt when Wartenberg hired him, and that scum Wartensleben the Katte Granddad.
Frank Göse: Wartensleben wasn't like the other two Ws. My guy FW's liking for him testifies to that! He only got bitched about initially because the local military noblemen were totally jealous that he got promoted to head of the army over their heads.
Werner Schmidt: I don't think so. Watch me tear Granddad Wartensleben a new one while describing him thus to my readers: Wartensleben reccommended himself through the "galant courtier's life as a condottieri he'd lived" (Koch). He'd fought for and against the French, against the Turks and for the Venetians and finally ended up as leader of the army of Saxe-Gotha. Such a flexible and amoral mind ata the head of the (Prussian) army was for Wartenberg the ideal replacement of a stubborn straight-talker like Barfus.
Frank Göse: As for Wartenberg himself: agreed that he was corrupt. But no more so than the top guys at any Baroque court. Can we agree that contrary to what the gossips claimed and what since got repeated by people through the ages, he did not pimp out his wife as a mistress to F1?
Werner Schmidt: Most def. F1 never slept with her, and no, he didn't take her as a titular mistress, either. That woman was scum, though. After Wartenberg died, she plied her trade in Brussels and died a whore. You know how she and Wartenberg met? She was the daughter of a customs inspector, which legend made an innkeeper. Then she married a royal valet who brought her to Berlin, where she became Wartenberg's mistress. Then Danckelmann made Wartenberg marry her, which was the TRUE reason why Wartenberg hated Danckelmann and jointed the rest of the council who wanted to tumble him.
Frank Göse: Not so. I say these are legends. Sure, the woman loved splendor and power, which as the Pm's wife she had, but might I point out Sophie received her in Hannover? Would Sophie have done that if she'd thought La Wartenberg had been her son-in-law's mistress and the rival of her late beloved daughter?
Werner Schmidt: Sophie also received her own husband's mistress and those of her son and grandson, so that's not exactly a good argument.
Frank Göse: Still, her overall positive description of the Countess paints a more differentiated picture.
Werner Schmidt: Still a female Don Juan, though. Though she said that while her conquests were many, the King, much as she'd liked to, never was among them.
Frank Göse: Let's go back to the part where Figuelotte dies young, only in her early 30s, son FW married SD, and then F1 marries for the third time to secure the succession.
Werner Schmidt: we both agree this last marriage was a tragedy. The poor girl was evidently unstable from the get go. Also a fanatic Lutheran. She told F1 he would go to hell because only Lutherans, not Calvinists, went to heaven. And after the White Woman of the Hohenzollern incident, well, that was that. She died insane in Mecklenburg.
Frank Göse: RIP. Let's say something of grandson's two more famous accusations, to wit, that F1 while pumping money into courtly splendour and art didn't give any to his subjects suffering from the plague.
Werner Schmidt: Total slander and untrue. He provided 100 000 Taler, which are 20 Million Deutsche Marks in modern currency (that I don't use Euros tells you my book can't have been published for the first time in 2003), for the plague victims' families and rebuilding of Prussia. Grandson's claim that F1 oppressed the poor to feed the rich is also - well, rich. Look, F2, F1 had his luxury goods made in Brandenburg if at all possible, and thus encouraged the local economy, which took a hit at first when FW took over and immediately cut off all court orders. Also, someone who built his palaces with Silesian marble and brought three wars on Prussia is not in a position to talk about taking care of the poor, F2!
Frank Göse: With you except that we have to grant that the administration was in a terrible state when Wartenberg was toppled and FW needed a lot of work to make up for that. Also, he solved the problem of no more work for artisans, craftsmen, tailors, bakeries etc. by increasing the need for army supplies as we all now.
Werner Schmnidt: Oh, and as for grandson F2 quipping that if only the priests had offered F1 more ceremonies, F1 wouldn't have remained a Calvinist but converted, that just shows you how he sacrificed truth for a quip, truly his grandmother's grandson in this. a) F1 would never have converted. The Pope, having succeeded in making August the Strong a Catholic as the prize for making him a king, did try, holding out the lure of a papal coronation, and F1 said never. He was sincere in his faith.
Frank Göse: So he was. Also, b) you can't beat the Catholics for ceremony, especially for coronations, just ask MT or Joseph. So what's this "if the priests had offered more ceremonies"? F1 knew all about those ceremonies and said no anyway. Grandson was just incapable of granting him a single virtue, even that of sincere religion.
Werner Schmidt: Should we say something about F1's relationship with FW? You do it, because I'm oddly silent on the subject. While you're going on to become an FW specialist.
Frank Göse: Err. Well. I don't say much. Because we don't have much material to judge it on. No famous arguments, unlike in any other generation of Hohenzollern. F1 left the arguing with teachers and the instructing of same to Sophie Charlotte. He worried about his son and was proud of him, but he was a distant Dad, though no more so than usual for a king and a prince. As FW got older, it became ever more blatant they did not enjoy the same things, and FW was drawn to people like Old Young Dessaur who could provide him with all the manly military stuff his father lacked, but there were no insults said about the father from the son or from the father about the sun. Basically, Crown Prince FW was at Wusterhausen living the country life most of the time. I do think he was more emotionally invested in his mother, for all that he believed in the patriarchy.
Werner Schmidt: I'm ending my book by saying that this lonely man who never found true love again after his first wife died, and who was ridiculed as a cripple all his life - "Humpback Fritz", the people called him - still managed to create a kingdom and solidify it at an age where Louis the supreme honcho of France just kept ruining his with his endless wars, August and Max Emmanuel, see above, and the Medici, let's not even go there. Long live Wobbie F1!
Edited 2021-08-04 14:31 (UTC)
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Wow, this was amaaaazing. Did you have as much fun writing it this way as I did reading it? More scholarship should be presented this way, it would be a lot more readable!
has a lengthy talk with Dad and is officially reconciled with him, though how deep that went is anyone's guess
Myeah, we've seen exactly how shallow reconciliations can be.
To return to my point: Max Emmanuel, August and F1 were all big baroque spenders. Only Bavarians and Saxons suffered while this was going on, while Prussians profited, yet my guy...
Look, Fritz had issues to work out.
Welll, on you and F1's unresolved issues with a teacher he'd admired and feared and who made him translate "Fritz will always be an ass" into Latin.
I'm finding it hard to criticize his unresolved issues...
Frank Göse: I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
Lol! I would have some objections too!
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
Good one!
Frank Göse: Wartensleben wasn't like the other two Ws. My guy FW's liking for him testifies to that!
Does Göse present any actual evidence? We've seen what an A+ judge of character FW was.
Werner Schmidt: we both agree this last marriage was a tragedy. The poor girl was evidently unstable from the get go. Also a fanatic Lutheran. She told F1 he would go to hell because only Lutherans, not Calvinists, went to heaven.
Oh, wow. That's hardcore!
Werner Schmidt: Should we say something about F1's relationship with FW? You do it, because I'm oddly silent on the subject. While you're going on to become an FW specialist.
Frank Göse: Err. Well. I don't say much.
Ha!
I do think he was more emotionally invested in his mother, for all that he believed in the patriarchy.
That is very interesting and possibly true!
Werner Schmidt: I'm ending my book by saying that this lonely man who never found true love again after his first wife died, and who was ridiculed as a cripple all his life - "Humpback Fritz", the people called him - still managed to create a kingdom and solidify it at an age where Louis the supreme honcho of France just kept ruining his with his endless wars, August and Max Emmanuel, see above, and the Medici, let's not even go there. Long live Wobbie F1!
Long live the One Man Defense Squad! And long live the Royal Reader, who does a truly royal job of reading and writing!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
So no one has to look it up, this is what Sophie Charlotte wrote to Sophie in November 1697:
(F1) now - thanks be to God - has seen so much through him that he has confided all of (Danckelmann's) slander which the later kept muttering against me, firstly by claiming I was more concerned with the house from which I hail than with the one into which I married; secondly he claims I'm arrogant and power mad and yet entirely susceptible to the influences of my surroundings, especially by Count Dohna and Frau von Bülow; and furthely, that nothing good could come out of my son's education if Count Dohna conducted it in the Hannover way. (...) And it wasn't just my son's education where he acted like a true criminal! For he has given him to a governor, who neglected him in accordance with Danckelmann's son and counteracted all the efforts of Count Dohna. Instead of teaching (FW) something good, they both took every effort to encourage his bad moods, and then in order to wash their hands in innocence claimed my son was so viciously disposed that one couldn't possibly achieve anything with him. He's been so neglected in his education that until eight weeks ago he couldn't read or write!
It's worth pointing out - and you bet Werner Schmidt does - that FW upon ascending to the throne rehabilitated Danckelmann. Then again, it was for the charges of corruption etc., not re: anything about his education.
Does Göse present any actual evidence? We've seen what an A+ judge of character FW was.
He says that the two high ranking military guys who resigned in protest when Wartensleben was appointed head of the army clearly were jealous of an outsider being promoted (given that Wartensleben until then had served elsewhere), and that the army was FW's beloved and holy grail, so if he'd been under the impression that Wartensleben, once in command, had fucked with the army, he would never have let it go as opposed to keeping the guy around and treating him like a man of honor. And FW did investigate the three Ws rather thoroughly.
This said, I do like the image of a younger Granddad Wartensleben having been a condottieri with good manners. It also explains something odd I've seen somewhere, I can't remember where, which I kept forgetting to talk with you about, i.e. that it was Granddad Wartensleben who wanted Hans Herrmann to join the army originally while Dad Hans Heinrich's first idea for a career for his son was the law, not the other way around. (Of course, once Katte was in the regiment Gens' D'Armes, Dad was keen on him staying here. But that it had been Gramps who first pushed for the army for grandson. If that was how he himself had made his fortune (literally - let's not forget, Katte's mother had been an heiress), it's not surprising.
That's hardcore!
Indeed. Because the Hohenzollern were Calvinists while the majority of German Protestant were Lutherans, wife 3. had at first been expected to convert ahead of marriage, but when told she didn't want to, F1 had handwaved it, since Lutherans were godly people, too. Finding out quite how seriously she took her faith and the going to hell bit, he found out while taking a stroll with her through the gardens. He refered to someone dead as "der selige" (the late in English, but literally "the blessed"; it's an old fashioned way in German to refer to dead people by now, but my mother still does it on occasion, for example when referring to her parents), and his new Queen corrected him, saying X couldn't possibly be selig since X had been a Calvinist. F1, somewhat stunned: "So if I died, how would you refer to me? You would not call me blessed?"
Queen 3: "Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
That is very interesting and possibly true!
FW and his parents are really a bit of a riddle. I mean, one the one hand, you can draw conclusions from how they were, as a woman and wife and as a man, husband and monarch, exactly how he didn't think a woman and a man should be, and his life style and the way he wanted his kids to be taught was a direct rejection of theirs. Otoh, he didn't critisize them (and FW was never one to hide his feelings for long) in public, we don't have any letters (say, to his buddy Dessauer) where he rants about them in private, either, just the unreliable story from Morgenstern of a young drunk FW shortly after his coronation saying F1 hadn't been his father and how could anyone believe such a weak man had been, only to be cautioned by a general that in this case,FW would not a legal monarch, which since it supposedly took place decades before Morgenstern came to court really is very unlikely. And FW did try to make his parents happy while they lived (and beyond, in F1's case with the funeral). For his mother, this included hunting down some paintings he thought she'd like in the Netherlands, and reading French novels she wanted to discuss with him (an activity he immediately stopped once she was dead; he certainly didn't do it for SD!). Plus of course, FW and his parents had one circumstance all the other combinations did not, which was him as an only son. Only child, almost, save for F1's daughter from his first marriage who, like her mother, died young and just a few years after marrying, and FW hadn't really been raised with her between the age gap, him spending early childhood time at Hannover and her marrying early.) Parents & only child make for a different dynamic than a family with lots of siblings.
Long live the One Man Defense Squad! And long live the Royal Reader, who does a truly royal job of reading and writing!
*bows*
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
It also explains something odd I've seen somewhere, I can't remember where, which I kept forgetting to talk with you about, i.e. that it was Granddad Wartensleben who wanted Hans Herrmann to join the army originally while Dad Hans Heinrich's first idea for a career for his son was the law, not the other way around.
Ooh, that is odd. I mean, I already had it in my head (from Wilhelmine?) that HH wanted his son to go into law, but I didn't have any idea what Wartensleben's opinion was. But if that's how he'd made his fortune, that does make sense, yep!
F1, somewhat stunned: "So if I died, how would you refer to me? You would not call me blessed?"
Queen 3: "Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
I would be rather stunned, yes!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Huh, I wonder how FW turned out so much like how he did. I suppose nature has to be blamed for some of it, but do we blame Danckelmann for the rest? (It sounds like Göse does..)
Instead of teaching (FW) something good, they both took every effort to encourage his bad moods, and then in order to wash their hands in innocence claimed my son was so viciously disposed that one couldn't possibly achieve anything with him. He's been so neglected in his education that until eight weeks ago he couldn't read or write!
I mean, this does sound pretty damning.
"Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
So I feel like my reaction to this maybe a bit nonstandard -- I thought it was hilarious. ...Probably because I spent a couple of my high school years being told I was going to hell (not... super seriously, but several of my friends went to a Baptist church that taught that you would go to hell unless you were a Baptist AND baptized in exactly the way that this church did it; our other Baptist friends were also going to hell. Mormons were Right Out, of course. We joked that hell was going to be WAY more fun!)
(That is to say, if someone told me that they would refer to me as the dear departed and not the blessed today, in 2021, I would be rather amused -- but I can see that it was a much bigger deal back then.)
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
I suppose nature has to be blamed for some of it, but do we blame Danckelmann for the rest?
Well, some of it, sure, especially since Danckelmann's preached principles (austerity, monogamy, discipline, work, work, work) align with FW's. Though it should be noted Danckelmann was busy being PM and governing the country, i.e. he wasn't FW's teacher directly the way he'd been F1's, he was in charge of choosing the teachers. And it's also possible Figuelotte was exaggarating with the "didn't know how to read and write until eight weeks ago", though I'm perfectly willing to believe he was way behind schedule and that the teachers pretended otherwise until called to task, because they didn't know how to handle a hyperactive prince capable of beating up his older cousin and (though this had not happened yet but would in the future when he was 15 and strong enough) throughing one of them out of the window. Never forget this is a highly tricky situation because this isn't a student like any other, he's socially above them, their future lord and master and knows it, and he's the only prince around. The only heir. If anything happens to him, they're screwed. All reasons to hesitate disciplining the child the way it happened to Third Son F1.
Conversely, someone managed to make the kid dance ballet, evidently, and sit still to pose for pictures, both things he did not want to do but did nonetheless. Though I think timing wise that was the teacher after the Danckelmann appointments, the one who lastingly put the fear of God and predestination into Tiny Terror FW. And let's not forget - the first teacher was the governess Madame de Roucoulles, the very one he'd later make Fritz' governess as well. Having had the same goveness still did not produce identical results in FW and Fritz, any more than Danckelmann had the same effect on F1 and FW.
Only Lutherans go to heaven: well, I smiled, too, while understanding that F1 - not the youngest anymore, plagued by a weak constitution his entire life, i.e. aware he might die sooner rather than later - did not.
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Ohh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense; even these days my understanding is that there can be quite a lot of... lack of discipline of rich kids in private school.
Yeah, I can see that F1 would... not like that very much!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
(I'm back! :D ) This is amazing, I absolutely adored the author convo :D
I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
I MEAN. Who wouldn't resent him for that??
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
heeeee! Thank you for pointing this out, Göse :D
In short, he was the EC to her Fritz, only the power differential was the reverse.
Oh, huh, that's interesting.
Werner Schmidt: I don't need it, I know his soul. BWAHAHAHAHA! Okay, if biographers actually said that when they were saying unsourced things, reading biographies would be a lot more fun!
After all, we do have her calling him "my Aesop" in one of her few preserved letters, and given Aesop had a hunchback, that just shows how she was.
But... but... Aesop is known for other things other than having a hunchback! I'm just saying, Schmidt.
and as for grandson F2 quipping that if only the priests had offered F1 more ceremonies Me: But... I may not know history, but I have been to a few different churches in my time, and Catholics are all about really fancy ceremonies! Lots of them! Way more than the Lutherans! Göse: I hear you.
but there were no insults said about the father from the son or from the father about the son.
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Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Frank Göse: Excuse me. I also think he got understimated and that he needs to be compared to his contemporaries, not to his son and grandson, but we have to acknowledge that his subjects did suffer in the three W era, despite the lack of an invasion.
Werner Schmidt:. But we're not there yet! For the first 13 years of F1's rule, his PM was Danckelmann. As in, former shouty teacher, prodigy, austere proto Prussian. Since he started as an ordinary citizen, the nobility hated his guts. The Secret Council was jealous as hell, and lobbied against him. But what really did him in was one woman's hate. Yes, Figuelotte, I'm blaming this one on you! Welll, on you and F1's unresolved issues with a teacher he'd admired and feared and who made him translate "Fritz will always be an ass" into Latin.
Frank Göse: While I wouldn't deny Sophie Charlotte came to dislike Danckelmann intensely, I think her part in his downfall was exaggarated by later Hohenzollern historians. As was her political influence in general, as opposed to her cultural one. She also disliked Danckelmann's successor Wartenberg, and Wartenberg remained on top till the last two years of F1's life, and it was her son who did him in.
Werner Schmidt: You're far too easy on her. Let's state for the record she hated Danckelmann because he saw through her. Remember how we've said that primogeniture hadn't become the self evident princple in the German principalities yet and that the Elector near the end of his life was trying to get a secondogeniture thing going? Well, Hannover, newly coined electorate that it was, also had the problem of lots of sons. However, Sophie's husband Ernst August had no intention of letting his newly united realm be hacked into tiny principality pieces once he died. Which is why he changed the law so that his oldest, George Louis, future G1, would inherit it all. Now, this was not in Prussia's interest, since until then Hannover & Brandenburg had been in the same playing field, but an undivided with that intriguing British prospect on the horizon would be more powerful. So Danckelmann encouraged some Hannoverian councillors to make a move preventing primogeniture to become law in Hannover. However, Figuelotte learned about this and warned Mom and Dad what was coming, thereby proving she loved Hannover more. Since Dad had one of the councillors executed, which ended opposition to primogeniture becoming law in Hannover, she also had blood on her hands! And when Danckelmann basically called her a treacherous bitch, she dared to resent him for it!
Frank Göse: I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
Werner Schmidt: That's what she claimed in her letters to Mom, but I don't believe her. She was being hysterical and trying to justify her hate. Not very philosophical of this so-called "Philosopher Queen".
Frank Göse: My point stands: while she undoubtedly cheered when Danckelmann fell, she wasn't the primary mover, nor did she profit from it. The guy moving into that power vacuum was Wartenberg, not Sophie Charlotte.
Werner Schmidt: I'm also blaming her for this. If she'd just shown more political interest, F1, who adored her, would not have needed Wartenberg and listened to her instead. But no! Madame preferred having debates with Leipniz and getting on with her Athens-on-the-Spree program .
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
Werner Schmidt: I also do the psychological thing which you don't and declare that the way Danckelmann fell, the arrest, the years locked up before he was released, the multiple accusations which were plainly ridiculous were not only the the work of his enemies but of F1's subconscious. Freud would have totally gone for the delayed oedipal father figure killing explanation there. Moving on to the three W's. They were scum.
Frank Göse: Beg to differ.
Werner Schmidt: They were! Exploiting my fave woobie because he needed affection and respect and sure as hell wasn't getting it from his wife.
Frank Göse: Incidentally, we both agree that while F1 loved Sophie Charlotte, Figuelotte after the first few years did not love him, only I see this not as coldness on her part but the result of both of them being very different. And growing up. Remember, she'd been only sixteen when she married him. She'd liked him, and he might even have been a romantic figure to her - the persecuted, grieving prince - , papering over the fact he was handicapped, not physically attractive to her, not as quick verbally, a devout Calvinist where she was more into philosophy, someone who rose early while she was a night owl, who loved ceremonies which bored her. In short, he was the EC to her Fritz, only the power differential was the reverse. So she took some tobacco to snuff while he had his coronation ceremony at Königsberg to make fun of all the earnest pomposity -
Werner Schmidt: The most meaningful achievement of his life to him! She hardly could have hurt him more!
Frank Göse: That's your speculation, and you don't provide any quote from him to prove he was hurt.
Werner Schmidt: I don't need it, I know his soul. I also completely believe that story about her making fun of his size and don't consider it apocryphal, unlike you. After all, we do have her calling him "my Aesop" in one of her few preserved letters, and given Aesop had a hunchback, that just shows how she was. Like her grandson, indeed. But let's get on to the scum. Wartenberg:. the worst of the worst. Typical evil favourite. The only good thing he ever did as PM was uniting the various parts of Berlin with each other and making it the Berlin it was in Fritz' time. Otherwise, he just took money and offices, unlike Danckelmann was careful enough to let himself be made Reichsgraf, which meant he was a peer of the HRE, not just Prussia, which meant that when he did fall, he couldn't end up locked up as well. He also promoted his buddies at his side, like awful Wittgenstein, who was already deeply in debt when Wartenberg hired him, and that scum Wartensleben the Katte Granddad.
Frank Göse: Wartensleben wasn't like the other two Ws. My guy FW's liking for him testifies to that! He only got bitched about initially because the local military noblemen were totally jealous that he got promoted to head of the army over their heads.
Werner Schmidt: I don't think so. Watch me tear Granddad Wartensleben a new one while describing him thus to my readers: Wartensleben reccommended himself through the "galant courtier's life as a condottieri he'd lived" (Koch). He'd fought for and against the French, against the Turks and for the Venetians and finally ended up as leader of the army of Saxe-Gotha. Such a flexible and amoral mind ata the head of the (Prussian) army was for Wartenberg the ideal replacement of a stubborn straight-talker like Barfus.
Frank Göse: As for Wartenberg himself: agreed that he was corrupt. But no more so than the top guys at any Baroque court. Can we agree that contrary to what the gossips claimed and what since got repeated by people through the ages, he did not pimp out his wife as a mistress to F1?
Werner Schmidt: Most def. F1 never slept with her, and no, he didn't take her as a titular mistress, either. That woman was scum, though. After Wartenberg died, she plied her trade in Brussels and died a whore. You know how she and Wartenberg met? She was the daughter of a customs inspector, which legend made an innkeeper. Then she married a royal valet who brought her to Berlin, where she became Wartenberg's mistress. Then Danckelmann made Wartenberg marry her, which was the TRUE reason why Wartenberg hated Danckelmann and jointed the rest of the council who wanted to tumble him.
Frank Göse: Not so. I say these are legends. Sure, the woman loved splendor and power, which as the Pm's wife she had, but might I point out Sophie received her in Hannover? Would Sophie have done that if she'd thought La Wartenberg had been her son-in-law's mistress and the rival of her late beloved daughter?
Werner Schmidt: Sophie also received her own husband's mistress and those of her son and grandson, so that's not exactly a good argument.
Frank Göse: Still, her overall positive description of the Countess paints a more differentiated picture.
Werner Schmidt: Still a female Don Juan, though. Though she said that while her conquests were many, the King, much as she'd liked to, never was among them.
Frank Göse: Let's go back to the part where Figuelotte dies young, only in her early 30s, son FW married SD, and then F1 marries for the third time to secure the succession.
Werner Schmidt: we both agree this last marriage was a tragedy. The poor girl was evidently unstable from the get go. Also a fanatic Lutheran. She told F1 he would go to hell because only Lutherans, not Calvinists, went to heaven. And after the White Woman of the Hohenzollern incident, well, that was that. She died insane in Mecklenburg.
Frank Göse: RIP. Let's say something of grandson's two more famous accusations, to wit, that F1 while pumping money into courtly splendour and art didn't give any to his subjects suffering from the plague.
Werner Schmidt: Total slander and untrue. He provided 100 000 Taler, which are 20 Million Deutsche Marks in modern currency (that I don't use Euros tells you my book can't have been published for the first time in 2003), for the plague victims' families and rebuilding of Prussia. Grandson's claim that F1 oppressed the poor to feed the rich is also - well, rich. Look, F2, F1 had his luxury goods made in Brandenburg if at all possible, and thus encouraged the local economy, which took a hit at first when FW took over and immediately cut off all court orders. Also, someone who built his palaces with Silesian marble and brought three wars on Prussia is not in a position to talk about taking care of the poor, F2!
Frank Göse: With you except that we have to grant that the administration was in a terrible state when Wartenberg was toppled and FW needed a lot of work to make up for that. Also, he solved the problem of no more work for artisans, craftsmen, tailors, bakeries etc. by increasing the need for army supplies as we all now.
Werner Schmnidt: Oh, and as for grandson F2 quipping that if only the priests had offered F1 more ceremonies, F1 wouldn't have remained a Calvinist but converted, that just shows you how he sacrificed truth for a quip, truly his grandmother's grandson in this. a) F1 would never have converted. The Pope, having succeeded in making August the Strong a Catholic as the prize for making him a king, did try, holding out the lure of a papal coronation, and F1 said never. He was sincere in his faith.
Frank Göse: So he was. Also, b) you can't beat the Catholics for ceremony, especially for coronations, just ask MT or Joseph. So what's this "if the priests had offered more ceremonies"? F1 knew all about those ceremonies and said no anyway. Grandson was just incapable of granting him a single virtue, even that of sincere religion.
Werner Schmidt: Should we say something about F1's relationship with FW? You do it, because I'm oddly silent on the subject. While you're going on to become an FW specialist.
Frank Göse: Err. Well. I don't say much. Because we don't have much material to judge it on. No famous arguments, unlike in any other generation of Hohenzollern. F1 left the arguing with teachers and the instructing of same to Sophie Charlotte. He worried about his son and was proud of him, but he was a distant Dad, though no more so than usual for a king and a prince. As FW got older, it became ever more blatant they did not enjoy the same things, and FW was drawn to people like
OldYoung Dessaur who could provide him with all the manly military stuff his father lacked, but there were no insults said about the father from the son or from the father about the sun. Basically, Crown Prince FW was at Wusterhausen living the country life most of the time. I do think he was more emotionally invested in his mother, for all that he believed in the patriarchy.Werner Schmidt: I'm ending my book by saying that this lonely man who never found true love again after his first wife died, and who was ridiculed as a cripple all his life - "Humpback Fritz", the people called him - still managed to create a kingdom and solidify it at an age where Louis the supreme honcho of France just kept ruining his with his endless wars, August and Max Emmanuel, see above, and the Medici, let's not even go there. Long live Wobbie F1!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
has a lengthy talk with Dad and is officially reconciled with him, though how deep that went is anyone's guess
Myeah, we've seen exactly how shallow reconciliations can be.
To return to my point: Max Emmanuel, August and F1 were all big baroque spenders. Only Bavarians and Saxons suffered while this was going on, while Prussians profited, yet my guy...
Look, Fritz had issues to work out.
Welll, on you and F1's unresolved issues with a teacher he'd admired and feared and who made him translate "Fritz will always be an ass" into Latin.
I'm finding it hard to criticize his unresolved issues...
Frank Göse: I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
Lol! I would have some objections too!
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
Good one!
Frank Göse: Wartensleben wasn't like the other two Ws. My guy FW's liking for him testifies to that!
Does Göse present any actual evidence? We've seen what an A+ judge of character FW was.
Werner Schmidt: we both agree this last marriage was a tragedy. The poor girl was evidently unstable from the get go. Also a fanatic Lutheran. She told F1 he would go to hell because only Lutherans, not Calvinists, went to heaven.
Oh, wow. That's hardcore!
Werner Schmidt: Should we say something about F1's relationship with FW? You do it, because I'm oddly silent on the subject. While you're going on to become an FW specialist.
Frank Göse: Err. Well. I don't say much.
Ha!
I do think he was more emotionally invested in his mother, for all that he believed in the patriarchy.
That is very interesting and possibly true!
Werner Schmidt: I'm ending my book by saying that this lonely man who never found true love again after his first wife died, and who was ridiculed as a cripple all his life - "Humpback Fritz", the people called him - still managed to create a kingdom and solidify it at an age where Louis the supreme honcho of France just kept ruining his with his endless wars, August and Max Emmanuel, see above, and the Medici, let's not even go there. Long live Wobbie F1!
Long live the One Man Defense Squad! And long live the Royal Reader, who does a truly royal job of reading and writing!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
So no one has to look it up, this is what Sophie Charlotte wrote to Sophie in November 1697:
(F1) now - thanks be to God - has seen so much through him that he has confided all of (Danckelmann's) slander which the later kept muttering against me, firstly by claiming I was more concerned with the house from which I hail than with the one into which I married; secondly he claims I'm arrogant and power mad and yet entirely susceptible to the influences of my surroundings, especially by Count Dohna and Frau von Bülow; and furthely, that nothing good could come out of my son's education if Count Dohna conducted it in the Hannover way. (...) And it wasn't just my son's education where he acted like a true criminal! For he has given him to a governor, who neglected him in accordance with Danckelmann's son and counteracted all the efforts of Count Dohna. Instead of teaching (FW) something good, they both took every effort to encourage his bad moods, and then in order to wash their hands in innocence claimed my son was so viciously disposed that one couldn't possibly achieve anything with him. He's been so neglected in his education that until eight weeks ago he couldn't read or write!
It's worth pointing out - and you bet Werner Schmidt does - that FW upon ascending to the throne rehabilitated Danckelmann. Then again, it was for the charges of corruption etc., not re: anything about his education.
Does Göse present any actual evidence? We've seen what an A+ judge of character FW was.
He says that the two high ranking military guys who resigned in protest when Wartensleben was appointed head of the army clearly were jealous of an outsider being promoted (given that Wartensleben until then had served elsewhere), and that the army was FW's beloved and holy grail, so if he'd been under the impression that Wartensleben, once in command, had fucked with the army, he would never have let it go as opposed to keeping the guy around and treating him like a man of honor. And FW did investigate the three Ws rather thoroughly.
This said, I do like the image of a younger Granddad Wartensleben having been a condottieri with good manners. It also explains something odd I've seen somewhere, I can't remember where, which I kept forgetting to talk with you about, i.e. that it was Granddad Wartensleben who wanted Hans Herrmann to join the army originally while Dad Hans Heinrich's first idea for a career for his son was the law, not the other way around. (Of course, once Katte was in the regiment Gens' D'Armes, Dad was keen on him staying here. But that it had been Gramps who first pushed for the army for grandson. If that was how he himself had made his fortune (literally - let's not forget, Katte's mother had been an heiress), it's not surprising.
That's hardcore!
Indeed. Because the Hohenzollern were Calvinists while the majority of German Protestant were Lutherans, wife 3. had at first been expected to convert ahead of marriage, but when told she didn't want to, F1 had handwaved it, since Lutherans were godly people, too. Finding out quite how seriously she took her faith and the going to hell bit, he found out while taking a stroll with her through the gardens. He refered to someone dead as "der selige" (the late in English, but literally "the blessed"; it's an old fashioned way in German to refer to dead people by now, but my mother still does it on occasion, for example when referring to her parents), and his new Queen corrected him, saying X couldn't possibly be selig since X had been a Calvinist. F1, somewhat stunned: "So if I died, how would you refer to me? You would not call me blessed?"
Queen 3: "Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
That is very interesting and possibly true!
FW and his parents are really a bit of a riddle. I mean, one the one hand, you can draw conclusions from how they were, as a woman and wife and as a man, husband and monarch, exactly how he didn't think a woman and a man should be, and his life style and the way he wanted his kids to be taught was a direct rejection of theirs. Otoh, he didn't critisize them (and FW was never one to hide his feelings for long) in public, we don't have any letters (say, to his buddy Dessauer) where he rants about them in private, either, just the unreliable story from Morgenstern of a young drunk FW shortly after his coronation saying F1 hadn't been his father and how could anyone believe such a weak man had been, only to be cautioned by a general that in this case,FW would not a legal monarch, which since it supposedly took place decades before Morgenstern came to court really is very unlikely. And FW did try to make his parents happy while they lived (and beyond, in F1's case with the funeral). For his mother, this included hunting down some paintings he thought she'd like in the Netherlands, and reading French novels she wanted to discuss with him (an activity he immediately stopped once she was dead; he certainly didn't do it for SD!). Plus of course, FW and his parents had one circumstance all the other combinations did not, which was him as an only son. Only child, almost, save for F1's daughter from his first marriage who, like her mother, died young and just a few years after marrying, and FW hadn't really been raised with her between the age gap, him spending early childhood time at Hannover and her marrying early.) Parents & only child make for a different dynamic than a family with lots of siblings.
Long live the One Man Defense Squad! And long live the Royal Reader, who does a truly royal job of reading and writing!
*bows*
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Ooh, that is odd. I mean, I already had it in my head (from Wilhelmine?) that HH wanted his son to go into law, but I didn't have any idea what Wartensleben's opinion was. But if that's how he'd made his fortune, that does make sense, yep!
F1, somewhat stunned: "So if I died, how would you refer to me? You would not call me blessed?"
Queen 3: "Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
I would be rather stunned, yes!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Instead of teaching (FW) something good, they both took every effort to encourage his bad moods, and then in order to wash their hands in innocence claimed my son was so viciously disposed that one couldn't possibly achieve anything with him. He's been so neglected in his education that until eight weeks ago he couldn't read or write!
I mean, this does sound pretty damning.
"Indeed not! Only Lutherans go to heaven. I would refer to you as the dear departed."
So I feel like my reaction to this maybe a bit nonstandard -- I thought it was hilarious. ...Probably because I spent a couple of my high school years being told I was going to hell (not... super seriously, but several of my friends went to a Baptist church that taught that you would go to hell unless you were a Baptist AND baptized in exactly the way that this church did it; our other Baptist friends were also going to hell. Mormons were Right Out, of course. We joked that hell was going to be WAY more fun!)
(That is to say, if someone told me that they would refer to me as the dear departed and not the blessed today, in 2021, I would be rather amused -- but I can see that it was a much bigger deal back then.)
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Well, some of it, sure, especially since Danckelmann's preached principles (austerity, monogamy, discipline, work, work, work) align with FW's. Though it should be noted Danckelmann was busy being PM and governing the country, i.e. he wasn't FW's teacher directly the way he'd been F1's, he was in charge of choosing the teachers. And it's also possible Figuelotte was exaggarating with the "didn't know how to read and write until eight weeks ago", though I'm perfectly willing to believe he was way behind schedule and that the teachers pretended otherwise until called to task, because they didn't know how to handle a hyperactive prince capable of beating up his older cousin and (though this had not happened yet but would in the future when he was 15 and strong enough) throughing one of them out of the window. Never forget this is a highly tricky situation because this isn't a student like any other, he's socially above them, their future lord and master and knows it, and he's the only prince around. The only heir. If anything happens to him, they're screwed. All reasons to hesitate disciplining the child the way it happened to Third Son F1.
Conversely, someone managed to make the kid dance ballet, evidently, and sit still to pose for pictures, both things he did not want to do but did nonetheless. Though I think timing wise that was the teacher after the Danckelmann appointments, the one who lastingly put the fear of God and predestination into Tiny Terror FW. And let's not forget - the first teacher was the governess Madame de Roucoulles, the very one he'd later make Fritz' governess as well. Having had the same goveness still did not produce identical results in FW and Fritz, any more than Danckelmann had the same effect on F1 and FW.
Only Lutherans go to heaven: well, I smiled, too, while understanding that F1 - not the youngest anymore, plagued by a weak constitution his entire life, i.e. aware he might die sooner rather than later - did not.
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
Yeah, I can see that F1 would... not like that very much!
Re: Once Upon A Time in Brandenburg: The Lonely King
I dare say she also resented him for being in charge of FW's educational schedule for the first few years, especially once presented with the results, i.e. Tiny Terror FW.
I MEAN. Who wouldn't resent him for that??
Frank Göse: Blaming her both for intervening in the political arena (Danckelmann) and not intervening (Wartenberg) as a way of explaining why she disliked both yet only one fell within her life time is a bit illogical.
heeeee! Thank you for pointing this out, Göse :D
In short, he was the EC to her Fritz, only the power differential was the reverse.
Oh, huh, that's interesting.
Werner Schmidt: I don't need it, I know his soul.
BWAHAHAHAHA! Okay, if biographers actually said that when they were saying unsourced things, reading biographies would be a lot more fun!
After all, we do have her calling him "my Aesop" in one of her few preserved letters, and given Aesop had a hunchback, that just shows how she was.
But... but... Aesop is known for other things other than having a hunchback! I'm just saying, Schmidt.
and as for grandson F2 quipping that if only the priests had offered F1 more ceremonies
Me: But... I may not know history, but I have been to a few different churches in my time, and Catholics are all about really fancy ceremonies! Lots of them! Way more than the Lutherans!
Göse: I hear you.
but there were no insults said about the father from the son or from the father about the son.
Well, that's pretty different, actually, right?