Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 30
Sep. 8th, 2021 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnIn which, despite the title, I would like to be told about the English Revolution, which is yet another casualty of my extremely poor history education :P :)
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Also, this is probably the place to say that RMSE opened with three Fritz-fics, all of which I think are readable with minimum canon knowledge:
The Boy Who Lived - if you knew about the doomed escape-from-Prussia-that-didn't happen and tragic death of Fritz's boyfriend Hans Hermann von Katte, you may not have known about Peter Keith, the third young man who conspired to escape Prussia -- and the only one who actually did. This is his story. I think readable without canon knowledge except what I just said here.
Challenge Yourself to Relax - My gift, I posted about this before! Corporate AU with my problematic fave, Fritz' brother Heinrich, who's still Fritz's l'autre moi-meme even in corporate AU. Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with the corporate world and the dysfunctions thereof.
The Rise and Fall of the RendezvousWithFame Exchange - Fandom AU with BNF fanfic writer Voltaire, exchange mod Fritz, and the inevitable meltdown. (I wrote this one and am quite proud of the terrible physics-adjacent pun contained within.) Readable without canon knowledge if one has familiarity with fandom and the dysfunctions thereof :P
Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-26 05:04 am (UTC)Things I want to be true:
-Count Emanuel da Silva-Tarouca being engaged to critique her
-"Historically, the best way to [remind the various delegates of whom they have committed themselves to] was to plant a large, imposing army just outside the imperial city of Frankfurt, where the voting took place." Lol!
-Was Haugwitz really that cool?
-"Look, it's the Queen of Hungary's husband!" I don't need this to be a true story, but I imagine it's at least a reasonably-sourced anecdote, which is hilarious to me :)
-Was MT really the first to think of taxing nobles and the Church?
-Kaunitz! I hope he was that cool too!
Random things, including asking for confirmation:
-Seriously, MT, with the pregnancies and the iron constitution
-Aww Maria Anna, all of that I hadn't known before <3 :( (and wouldn't have thoguht about how she and MT were so close in age and all)
-What's this thing about Fritz pawning his chandeliers? (Argh, I should read Blanning next -- yes, I still haven't read it despite being in this fandom for two years, lol.)
-Heh, central consolidation for armies! I can see that being a good thing, lol.
-"of 600 babies delivered annually, only 20 survived." Holy cow.
-Heh, I like that she brought up the chastity commission
-Was MT more anti-Semitic than, idk, the average person on the street? Were her closest councillors trying to modulate it?
-Huh, I didn't know that about Washington, did he really sign a confession admitting to murder without realizing that was what he was doing?
Things I am majorly side-eyeing. There's... a lot.
-"Frederick's charming new philosophy of military opportunism... had already caught on and sparked imitation." I, um. Don't think Fritz invented the idea of military opportunism. (With another author I might assume they mean in this particular situation, but I never know with her??)
-Philip V's government being controlled by Elizabeth, didn't we have a whole salon thread on this
-"the brave king of Prussia, who had started this whole mess, had escaped back to the comfort and safety of Berlin." I know you don't like him AND he's in the wrong here, Goldstone, but, um, he's actually... kind of known for being brave??
more so than for his relationship with Voltaire, I bet actuallyThere's like a famous painting and stuff??-"She did not covet the imperial throne for herself... it was only right that Francis should have it. She coudln't retrieve Lorraine for her husband... but she could do this for him." UM. I FEEL LIKE SHE IS MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY. (Goldstone, I mean, not MT.) And, I mean, she even says later "there was not a person... in all of Europe... who did not understand that it was in fact MT, and not her husband, who wielded and embodied the power of the imperial office." So I don't even understand where she gets this thing about what the little lady can do for her man?? It's really offputting.
-"education... had stagnated... largely owing to the prevalence of Jesuit teaching." Now hold on just a moment. If Jesuit teaching was good enough to produce a Voltaire, it's good enough for me :P (I'm willing to believe that maybe these particular Jesuits sucked?? Maybe?? But, like, my osmosis was that Jesuits had a reputation for scholasticism that lasted well into the twentieth century??)
-Side-eyeing "making [Mme Pompadour] feel as thoguh she was an integral component of the balance of power in Europe" -- makes it sound like she WASN'T? IDK, the 18th C was misogynistic enough, I feel like Goldstone seems bound and determined to add a bunch of weird US 1960's misogynistic tropes to it too, like MT being the little woman trying to make her man happy and Mme Pompadour helping Austria beause Kaunitz flattered her into thinking she was all that??
-My favorite bit in these chapters: "[Fritz] had even succeeded in coaxing the eminent Voltaire to his court, only to then fall out with him. When the French philosopher finally contrived to escape his uncongenial host, Frederick had him pursued, arrested, and thrown into prison in Frankfurt." BWAHAHAHA. That's... one way of characterizing that whole thing, and I know whose way it is, too. Someone has been totally uncritically believing Voltaire's version of events again, as Selena said back in Ch 1!
-Fritz had a "series of special... young men"?? (I'm not doubting he had any, and there's Marwitz and all, but she makes it sound like -- *goes to look it up* -- like the Ruspanti, or something.) ETA: Was she talking about Fredersdorf?? She was probably talking at least partially about Fredersdorf and Voltaire's description of same, wasn't she. (I don't think of him as one of a series of "special young men," so it didn't even occur to me when writing the comment.)
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-26 07:10 am (UTC)Yes, I think that's at least partly based on Voltaire's description of Fredersdorf both in the pamphlet and the memoirs. Because Fredersdorf is the only one to whom "court offices" would really apply. Unless we're counting the likes of Algarotti and being made Chamberlain, as Voltaire himself was. The occasional handsome hussar like Georgii or the suicidal Degen long after Fredersdorf's death didn't get a court office. Maybe Glasow counts in that he saw himself as Fredersdorf's successor, but as we've seen, he only was as valet - as Treasurer, someone else got the job. And he certainly didn't inherit being head of spy business or Secret Councillor. Burgdorf, he of "Fritz was totally gay, nothing but gay, never touched a woman in his life and was platonic life long pen pals with Orzelska" insistence, calls Fredersdorf "the Prussian Pompadour", and doesn't Blanning reference him, Mildred? (Not having read Blanning myself, I don't know.)
Jewelled snuff boxes, btw, were a standard Fritz gift for people he liked, but not just handsome young men. His siblings got their share, too.
Not a complaint, just an observation: the selected Goethe quotes about FS' coronation miss out that the text in totem is Goethe looking back on the HRE already crumbling big time back then, with such ceremonies as FS' coronation a charming anachronism, and he follows this up by describing the coronation he himself witnessed as a boy, that of Joseph (which I quoted you from - remember, old moth-eaten clothing, too large, Joseph very unhappy?).
Was MT really the first to think of taxing nobles and the Church?
No, but within Austria the first in a good long while. Within the HRE, things differed from state to state, but remember, tax privileges were usually the first thing an Emperor handed out to nobility in order to get their support in the Middle Ages, and once given, these privileges remained. Also there wasn't just one church.
Kaunitz was pretty cool and full of excentricities and capability in the books I've read earlier, too. Fritz was usually fuming about him, but then, he would be.
Was MT more anti-Semitic than, idk, the average person on the street?
Hard to say, since the avarage person on the street didn't have the power to tax Jews or make them leave. Note Goldstone qualifies her own assessment a bit in a footnote and a comparison to England. I think what you could argue made MT's antisemitism more noticable at this particular point in time is that it was old school religiously connotated. We aren't yet in the 19th century where antisemitism becomes new school racism connotated and converting to Christianity makes no difference to the antisemites, but the 18th century is a transition time. Remember, we talked about what Moses Mendelssohn had to go through in Frederician Prussia, which was a progressive state for its time but still had appalling laws for Jews. One big reason why Heinrich Heine was such a Napoleon fanboy was that the Code Napoleon for the first time gave the Jews equal citizen status in all the German states where France de facto ruled, and that was more than half a century later.
Anyway, Goldstone pointing out the antisemitism and the chastity commission is a reasonable attempt to show her subject's darker sides, though how far or how little the chastity commission was related to FS' infidelities is entirely speculative. MT's contemporaries drew the connection at once, nost least because Fritz openly wisecracked about it, but it is speculation and Goldstone gets in the novelistic vein again when talking about it as fact.
Mind you, I do think she's on to something when talking about how all the pregnancies and the weight gain must have left their traces in MT; the connection between the physical and the emotional/psychological is something older biographiers often overlook. Otoh, re "the fat one" - she joked about this herself, signing a letter to her favourite lady-in-waiting with "Therese la Grosse" (and it wasn't a depressed letter). Now maybe she was covering up her resentment and pre-empting the joke by making it herself; but it could also be she at the point of the letter (when she's in her mid 50s), she doesn't mind anymore.
Speaking of the footnotes, I see FS' business sense and accomplishments is banished to one as well. If you read the main texts of these chapters, you have the impression he never did anything but hunting and wenching.
I'm with you in finding the whole "she made it it up to FS about the Lorraine by letting him be Emperor" thing annoying. Especially since she literally couldn't have been Empress without him being Emperor due to the Salic law. She was Empress-Consort. (Also why Joseph had to be crowned and had to co-reign with her after his father's death.) Making FS Emperor was in her own self interest. Now there was actually an ongoing discussion in MT's family whether or not Joseph should be made King of the Romans and thus candidate for Emperor, or whether they should just let this go (and stick to Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and the other Habsburg-inherited countries) but not least because Karl Albrecht the Wittelsbach guy had demonstrated even a weak Emperor from another family could still contribute to a very real threat of those other countries, the decision was that the Habsburg(-Lorraine) family needed to keep the Imperial title, too.
Jesuit education: well, it's complicated. The Jesuits started out with a stellar reputation as scholars, and they would regain it after the reformation of the order once it became legal again, plus of course the standards were different from country to country. But it's certainly true that the Austrian Jesuits in the late 17th and in the 18th century were refusing to deal with any of the new thoughts and developments, with the result that their education really was hopelessly outdated and old fashioned. (In other German states, it depended on the state. Leopold Mozart in Augsburg was the first of his family to attend a grammar school, loved it, hugely benefited from it being a Jesuit school complete with school plays in which he acted and played music, and retained a life long affection from it.) Of course, the Jesuits weren't the only order to be culprits there. One reason why Joseph's reforms would take the education entirely out of the hand of the church.
re: Pompadour, I'm with you, though I like Goldstone's description of all the many things she had to be at that court in addition to being Louis' lover (jester, councillor, art patron, "part snake-charmer", etc.), all so Louis would never get bored. Being and remaining Maitresse-en-titre was a gruelling job which had very little to do with how good or bad you were at sex.
Washington: I wouldn't now, you two are way better versed in the ways of US founding fathers.
More later, off to breakfast.
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-26 08:50 pm (UTC)Blanning does reference Burgdorf, if that's what you mean. He also talks about Fredersdorf at great length, including this line that I've always enjoyed: "Frederick's numerous letters to Fredersdorf are intimate in tone and substance--what one might expect from a doting husband."
Washington: I wouldn't now, you two are way better versed in the ways of US founding fathers.
You'd think, but if it wasn't covered in school, I don't know it, because I never studied the American Revolution outside of school. And I gather from you two not knowing it that it's not in Hamilton. ;)
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-27 05:38 am (UTC)Hamilton was too young to be involved in the French and Indian War :) (when this alleged incident occurred.)
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-27 05:32 am (UTC)And porcelain snuffboxes! (Which I'm not likely to forget, after watching Mildred figure out how to structure the reveal of her fic around that porcelain snuffbox ;) )
Mind you, I do think she's on to something when talking about how all the pregnancies and the weight gain must have left their traces in MT; the connection between the physical and the emotional/psychological is something older biographiers often overlook.
Yeah, that's a good point!
Speaking of the footnotes, I see FS' business sense and accomplishments is banished to one as well. If you read the main texts of these chapters, you have the impression he never did anything but hunting and wenching.
UGH, yes, I forgot to mention that! I had a VERY different view of FS from what you've told me than the one that I'd get just from reading the main text here.
re: Pompadour, I'm with you, though I like Goldstone's description of all the many things she had to be at that court in addition to being Louis' lover (jester, councillor, art patron, "part snake-charmer", etc.), all so Louis would never get bored. Being and remaining Maitresse-en-titre was a gruelling job which had very little to do with how good or bad you were at sex.
Ha, yes, I did like that part :D
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-29 01:27 pm (UTC)Well! So while I know that Fritz was big into giving out snuffboxes, and he was Mister Porcelain, so at some point he surely gave out porcelain snuffboxes, I don't know that for sure. Chekov's porcelain snuffbox happened because I was looking at 18C snuffboxes on Google images for inspiration, and when I saw that they made snuffboxes out of porcelain, I had to use it, because Fritz had *just* occupied Meissen and helped himself to everything he could get his hands on.
So that was actually creative license that's probably historically accurate, not a fact I know to be true! (But I will not be surprised if
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-29 02:36 pm (UTC)Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-26 08:45 pm (UTC)-Count Emanuel da Silva-Tarouca being engaged to critique her
Not sure. SR says she asked him for advice and he was one of the few people she trusted not to be a flatterer, and SR repeats at greath length the schedule he came up with for MT, but my German is weeeeaak, and so if SR also says she formally employed him to critique her on a regular basis as opposed to treated him as a trusted advisor whose criticism she was willing to listen to...that could very well be. Talk to me in a year when I can read German better. :P
-Was Haugwitz really that cool?
Hahaha, well, Haugwitz shows up largely in the reforms section of SR, which as you recall is the section I struggled with for a while before giving up and moving on. Talk to me in a year when I can read German better. :P
-What's this thing about Fritz pawning his chandeliers?
Not ringing a bell, but I haven't got to this part yet, so I'll keep an eye out for it.
-Was MT more anti-Semitic than, idk, the average person on the street? Were her closest councillors trying to modulate it?
Like Selena says, hard to tell. As 18th century rulers go, there were definitely some who were more anti-Semitic and some who were less anti-Semitic. She may have been more passionate and outspoken about it, because of her sense of a religious mission, as opposed to "Well of course Jews suck and we don't want them around if we can help it" (e.g., Fritz)? It's also possible that her religious convictions also made her less willing to compromise than other anti-Semites who were tempted by the thought of $$$. But I couldn't say. (My vague, vague memory from SR was that MT was pretty hardcore about her anti-Semitism, but don't hold me to that.)
-Huh, I didn't know that about Washington, did he really sign a confession admitting to murder without realizing that was what he was doing?
I haven't got to this part, but this is news to me!
-"Frederick's charming new philosophy of military opportunism... had already caught on and sparked imitation." I, um. Don't think Fritz invented the idea of military opportunism.
Okay SO. There's going to be a thread on this. :P
(With another author I might assume they mean in this particular situation, but I never know with her??)
Even if she means this particular situation, I'm reminded of Macaulay's:
On the head of Frederick is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe—the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils produced by this wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown; and, in order that he might rob a neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.
which made both Selena's and my jaw drop. Fritz made the first move in the war, therefore he is to blame for everyone else's actions, including those that predated his existence (like colonialism and Jacobitism). Fritz is to blame for his own actions, not everyone else's!
-Philip V's government being controlled by Elizabeth, didn't we have a whole salon thread on this
We did, but I'm not going to fault Goldstone for this, because 1) she's in the majority, I've only seen one person question the standard take, 2) Spain isn't what she's writing about, 3) her casual take on Elizabeth dominating Philip beats Blanning's mental-illness-stigmatizing diatribe by a mile.
-"the brave king of Prussia, who had started this whole mess, had escaped back to the comfort and safety of Berlin." I know you don't like him AND he's in the wrong here, Goldstone, but, um, he's actually... kind of known for being brave??
Right, and I got to this part, and like, she's talking about December? I.e., winter quarters? When the campaigning season was over and people who could afford to went on leave? The brave part is sticking around for the campaigning season and participating in the battles, which he did!
more so than for his relationship with Voltaire, I bet actuallyHAHAHA.
There's like a famous painting and stuff??
Oooh, look at you knowing stuff! *applauds* Felis, she's talking about Röchling's Zorndorf painting.
-"She did not covet the imperial throne for herself... it was only right that Francis should have it. She coudln't retrieve Lorraine for her husband... but she could do this for him." UM. I FEEL LIKE SHE IS MISSING THE POINT ENTIRELY.
ZOMG. SR has a whole part where MT adopted the imperial insignia for herself, which she points out would be treason if anyone else did it, but FS chose not to prosecute. :P And yeah, wielded the power, and was referred to as the Holy Roman Empress as if in her own right. And as Selena said, she couldn't have gotten the title without a man to act as the figurehead! (Goldstone: "She did not covet the imperial throne for herself." Yes. Yes, she did.)
There *was* a part where getting FS the title solved a whole lot of protocol problems and meant less ongoing humilation for him, made it easier for MT and FS to appear in public together, etc., but that also had nothing to do with Lorraine. I mean, the whole idea was that he would give up Lorraine because he was the heir apparent to the empire via his marriage to her, but Goldstone makes it sound like Lorraine was gratuitously taken away from him and then MT had to comfort his hurt feelings.
BALANCE OF POWER.
(Which incidentally has a lot to do with why various parties in Fritz's wars didn't exterminate each other or support each other as fully as they could. Fritz wanted Silesia, he didn't want France dominating Germany at the expense of Austria. Ditto how France felt about him. And in the Seven Years' War, there are reasons the Russians didn't destroy Prussia, and one of them had to do with not wanting to turn Austria into a superpower. Etc. ("His first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary. His second was that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself," is hilariously phrased, but really means "balance of power."))
-Side-eyeing "making [Mme Pompadour] feel as thoguh she was an integral component of the balance of power in Europe" -- makes it sound like she WASN'T?
Oh, look, she knows the phrase "balance of power", she just doesn't know how to apply it to actual developments!
Okay, so, I haven't got to this part yet, but since it sounds like we're talking about the Diplomatic Revolution...I initially always learned that Pompadour was the driving force behind that, and then Blanning (I think) came along and said it's unknown whether she had any influence on foreign policy or was just blamed for unpopular moves like siding with France's archenemy. And then Horowski repeatedly said the mistresses in France were blamed for any unpopular move made by the king or made by anyone else and not overridden by the king. So I don't actually know any more. But the way she phrases it in your quote definitely sets my teeth on edge. Blanning at least "we don't know."
BWAHAHAHA. That's... one way of characterizing that whole thing, and I know whose way it is, too.
Hahahaha. To be fair, this is the case where there was a definite imbalance of power, and whatever Voltaire did or said about Fritz, he didn't have the ability to lock him up arbitrarily. Buuuut, yeah, Voltaire was no angel during the 1750-1753 period! Which you would totally miss from that summary.
But it's certainly true that the Austrian Jesuits in the late 17th and in the 18th century were refusing to deal with any of the new thoughts and developments, with the result that their education really was hopelessly outdated and old fashioned.
What I was going to say.
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-28 04:40 am (UTC)Yeah, I was like ????
Okay, so, I haven't got to this part yet, but since it sounds like we're talking about the Diplomatic Revolution...I initially always learned that Pompadour was the driving force behind that, and then Blanning (I think) came along and said it's unknown whether she had any influence on foreign policy or was just blamed for unpopular moves like siding with France's archenemy. And then Horowski repeatedly said the mistresses in France were blamed for any unpopular move made by the king or made by anyone else and not overridden by the king. So I don't actually know any more. But the way she phrases it in your quote definitely sets my teeth on edge. Blanning at least "we don't know."
Yeah, the thing is. It's not so much whether Mme Pompadour was the driving force or not (although! I would like to know this!) and more Goldstone's phrasing which implies that all of this happened because Kaunitz flattered her into "feeling" that she was powerful. I think if it hadn't been for all the MT "don't want the throne for myself" stuff this wouldn't have pinged me so hard, but it's like Goldstone can't actually let women wield power in the spheres in which they could in fact wield power, it's really weird!
To be fair, this is the case where there was a definite imbalance of power, and whatever Voltaire did or said about Fritz, he didn't have the ability to lock him up arbitrarily. Buuuut, yeah, Voltaire was no angel during the 1750-1753 period! Which you would totally miss from that summary.
That is totally fair, but I also think this is absolutely hilarious because in fact Goldstone's summary of Voltaire-and-Fritz is actually a rather accurate summary of Pamela, all these things just happening to an aggrieved Voltaire :) It's not wrong, it's just... leaving out a lot. In a particular direction :)
ETA: Of course, as Selena said, Goldstone does leave out all Voltaire's lines about how Fritz seduced him, etc. and I agree, Voltaire would have been disappointed! Also, I hadn't noticed this before, but now that Selena reminded me about Alcina, Voltaire does bring up Alcine references a couple of times, lol.
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-29 04:05 pm (UTC)More seriously, it's not her main subject, and only losely connected, so her taking Voltaire's summary on faith is way more okay than the kitchen psychology applied to the MT/FS marriage which is far more central to her story. I.e. I mind that FS's letter on marriage to Leopold indicating his own attitude to marriage and what he thought a husband should be didn't make the cut (so far), while I'm just amused at the rendition of the grand Fritz/Voltaire fallout (and that she seems to think this was it for their relationship).
Something else: all this insistence that MT knew Fritz would come again for her sooner or later, so she came for him first (by building a trap): is again as biased as the pro Prussian versions where Fritz was all innocence, wanting to live out the rest of his life in blissful peace, when the evil woman provokes him into war. And possibly even less realistic. I mean, I can buy MT thought that he would. Though mainly I think her motivation remained what it had been: getting Silesia back. (My Dad: SHE BROKE EVERY TREATY SHE SIGNED WITH HIM. WHY IS VALORY CALLING HIM A LIAR AND NOT HER?!?) Not preventing a future Fritz attack. Otoh, as to whether Fritz would have started another war with Austria on his own initiative without the Diplomatic Revolution - you know, I don't think so. Not because he would have wanted to live in peace for the rest of his life, but because the specific territory he had his eyes on - Saxony and the parts of Poland between East Prussia and the main realm - were not MT's property.
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-30 05:01 am (UTC)YES THIS. I have to admit that with the Fritz/Voltaire thing I mostly think it's hilarious that Voltaire has managed to troll this hard across time and space :D But UGH I am really annoyed that Goldstone is writing about MT and can't manage to give her the credit of actually being a powerful woman and not someone who is always sucking up to her husband about something that, if he'd actually been sulking about it his whole life, would have made him a total brat (which he wasn't! and that awesome letter that you bring up!). The actual facts are way more interesting than the kitchen psychology!
Something else: all this insistence that MT knew Fritz would come again for her sooner or later, so she came for him first (by building a trap): is again as biased as the pro Prussian versions where Fritz was all innocence, wanting to live out the rest of his life in blissful peace, when the evil woman provokes him into war. And possibly even less realistic.
Ah! I'm glad you weighed in here -- I got a little confused by what to believe in this part. Also, lol your dad! <3 But seriously -- I got lost here too, maybe I was reading too fast but I got the impression from Goldstone that MT didn't break the treaty she signed with Fritz because Fritz attacked her side first? But that's not true?
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-09-30 05:11 am (UTC)The big difference of Goldstone's claim is that she had to do this because Fritz otherwise would have attacked her anyway. And that's, imo, pretty unlikely, not because of the goodness of his nature but because he had his eyes on non-Austrian territory, like I said. Why not say MT did it because she wanted Silesia back (and Fritz defeated, preferably as powerless as possible) without the "preemptive protection" claim? Too unsympathetic for an US audience?
The Great Northern War opens
Date: 2021-09-26 09:30 pm (UTC)The 17th century was Sweden's glory days. Here is the best map I've been able to find for my purposes. Yellow is the Swedish empire.
Notice how they control:
- The eastern Baltic, all the way around the edge and down to the south (Livland=Latvia)
- Swedish Pomerania (Pommern)
- Bremen (southwest of Denmark)
Notice how these are coastal territories. That is highly desirable real estate. The parts I've pointed out will mostly get taken away from them by one power or another by the end of the war. All of this land has been contested for centuries. Sweden's been enemies with Moscow and Novgorod since the 13th century, fighting over this coastal land so they can have ports. Denmark and Sweden have been trying to kill each other since the fifteenth century. (One of my sources says they've fought at total of thirty wars.) Etc.
But right now, it's 1700, and Sweden is top dog. They control most of the really good ports, the islands, and the seas. Russia has no ports that will give them access to the Atlantic! (They have one, Archangel, way east in the Arctic, which is iced up 6 months out of the year and therefore only semi-useful. This is the remote place where Ivan VI was supposed to be sent, but Elizaveta worried it was too inaccessible, so she kept him slightly upriver. Not desirable real estate, is what I'm saying.)
Peter the Great wants that tiny strip of land on the east coast of the Baltic so he can have ports and shipping and trade and a functional economy, just like his heroes the Dutch and British! Denmark wants the tiny bit of land at the tip of Sweden that they used to control for a while before the ongoing Danish-Swedish tug-of-war gave it back to Sweden in the 17th century. They also want Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp. August the Strong, who just became king of Poland in 1697, wants to break the Swedish monopoly in the Baltic so he can ship his exports abroad and make money. And he wants better ports, like Lavonia (Livland in that Swedish map, Lavonia in 18th century English, Latvia today).
In 1697, Charles XII becomes king of Sweden. He's 14 years old. All his neighbors are like, "Sweet. We can take all the land we want. He's fourteen! What's he gonna do about it?"
(MT: They said, "She's a woman! What's she gonna do about it?")
So thinking that it would take the combined powers of Denmark, Saxony+Poland, and Russia about 5 minutes to divide up a Swedish empire run by a teenager, August the Strong, Frederik IV, and Peter the soon-to-be-Great start forming an alliance.
Except that this happened:
When Peter got back to Moscow from one of his many trips, he had two embassies waiting for him.
Embassy A: Charles XII's Very Official Swedish Embassy, asking to renew the existing peace treaty between Sweden and Russia.
Embassy B: August's Top-Secret Polish Embassy, asking Peter to join August and Frederik in partitioning the Swedish empire.
(Poland: "Some days you partition, some days you are partitioned.")
Knowing that he wants to go with Secret Partitioning Alliance, Peter plots with them while keeping a straight face in renewing the peace with Sweden.
To quote from Massie (he who is writing a bio of Peter that's generally pretty positive, so I'm going to assume this isn't just enemy propaganda):
The Swedes were aware of [the Polish ambassador's] presence and knew that some kind of treaty was being discussed, but thought it was a peaceful treaty and suspected nothing of the truth. To avoid arousing suspicions, the Swedes were received with honor by Peter, to whom they presented a full-length picture of their new young King on horseback. And to bolster the deception, Peter went through the formality of confirming the previous treaties with Sweden, but, as a slight salve to his conscience, he avoided kissing the cross at the ceremony of signature. When the Swedish ambassadors noticed the omission and complained, Peter said that he had already taken an oath to observe all treaties when he came to the throne and that it was the Russian custom not to repeat it. On November 24, the Swedish ambassadors had a final audience with the Tsar. Peter was genial and gave them a formal letter from himself to King Charles XII confirming the treaties of peace between Sweden and Russia.
Shortly thereafter, Sweden is pounced on by Frederik, Peter, and August.
The only reason it doesn't go down faster is that Charles XII is a military genius.
The reason it eventually goes down, is that Charles XII doesn't believe in compromise with people who've attacked you, he believes in total annihilation of your faithless enemies. He bites off more than he can chew. And so it is that Charles discovers why
getting involved in a land war in Asiainvading Russia in the winter is a bad idea; Peter builds St. Petersburg on the east coast of the Baltic; FW gets part of Swedish Pomerania, complete with Fredersdorf's hometown; George I gets Bremen; a greatly reduced Sweden becomes a constitutional monarchy (until Gustav), etc., etc.This war and how it started is also why Charles XII deposes August and puts Stanislas on the throne of Poland for a while. To quote Charles, when everyone is going, "Okay, we underestimated you, but the Russians have conquered Livonia, is Poland really your highest priority?!" he replies,
“Even if I should have to remain here fifty years, I would not leave this country until Augustus is dethroned. Believe that I would give Augustus peace immediately if I could trust his word. But as soon as peace is made and we are on our march toward Muscovy, he would accept Russian money and attack us in the back and then our task would be even more difficult than it is now.”
This is in 1703, when future inventor of military opportunism was -9 years old. :P
Hey, Goldstone provided me with a good opportunity to talk about the Great Northern War. I will continue learning more about it and will pass things on as I can!
Re: The Great Northern War opens
Date: 2021-10-01 04:08 am (UTC)The 17th century was Sweden's glory days.
until their time/date-keeping became so bad that they didn't know when to show up for battles and got annihilated --oh wait, sorry, you're going to tell me what actually happened(Poland: "Some days you partition, some days you are partitioned.")
LOL, omg.
Re: The Great Northern War opens
Date: 2021-10-01 04:49 pm (UTC)Absolutely! And me being me, you will hear about them. :D (He's not as much of a problematic fave as Fritz, but I *am* enjoying him.)
until their time/date-keeping became so bad that they didn't know when to show up for battles and got annihilated-- oh wait, sorry, you're going to tell me what actually happenedLOLOLOL, I had forgotten you'd said that!
Yes, I will tell you, but not just yet. I'm still early in the learning stages. I'm finally unblocked, though, thanks to Massie (thanks to Selena)! Massie's ~900 page book is great because he will actually take the time to spend pages and pages on people who aren't his hero, like Charles XII, Louis XIV, William III. There are entire chapters from Charles' POV, and they're very sympathetic ones, too. I may not trust all the anecdotes and I may be frustrated by the lack of footnotes, but I am getting the reader-friendly overview of the Great Northern War that is unlocking more dense books for me.
Aaaand, guess what! Hatton's bio of Charles XII that I've had my eye on for a year now, but didn't want to pay $50 for sight-unseen, is freely available for borrowing on archive.org! The interface is abysmal, but hey, it's free. It's how I made it through the Philip V bio and decided it was worth buying.
Also on archive.org (I really need to learn to check whenever I want a book): Hatton's bio of G1 (the one with Melusine and Petronella info), and, volume 1 of Derek Beales' 2-volume bio of Joseph II! (For some reason, not volume 2, but if I want volume 1 enough to buy it, I'll get 2 too. This at least allows me to see whether I want to pay for it, which is the main thing.)
All this is, uh, why I only finished chapter 5 and read chapter 6 of Goldstone this morning when I saw you had finished chapter 9, and I only skimmed.
The one thing Goldstone is doing is making me really wish I had finished the SR bio and had the ability to reread and look things up more easily. It's a good incentive to buckle down on my German!
Re: The Great Northern War opens
Date: 2021-10-05 04:54 am (UTC)Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-10-01 05:00 pm (UTC)Asprey, who's most likely to have this kind of detail, says the chandeliers were made of silver so they could be melted down. He says nothing about whether Frederick *did*, but that I'll believe! Melting down your silver in time of war is and always has been a thing.
But of course neither Goldstone nor Asprey cites a source, so our only hope is that great citer of sources,
Re: Goldstone Ch 5-6
Date: 2021-10-02 01:08 pm (UTC)