Frederick the Great and Other 18th-C Characters, Discussion Post 31

[cahn]

And in this post:

-luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!

-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!

-mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War

(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)

-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D

Comments

Re: The Backstory for the '45

[mildred_of_midgard]

Thanks for this! I will dutifully avoid getting sucked into my addiction too much Jacobite commentary and will instead help cahn out with some date repetition.

Failed Jacobite attempt of 1708:
France: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D

This is the War of the Spanish Succession, a few years after Marlborough wins at Blenheim and a year before the biggest and bloodiest battle of 18th century Europe: Malplaquet.

Second Jacobite Rebellion, in 1715:

The one that got the Keith brothers exiled.

Speaking of which, luzula, our Fritzian library has a copy of James Keith's (rather sparse) memoirs, which cover the '15 and '19, if that's of any interest to you. They're not the most exciting memoirs ever, but there they are.

Abortive Jacobite attempt, in 1719:
Spain: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D

This is after the War of the Spanish Succession. In the Peace of Utrecht that ended that war, Spain gave up a lot of territory, including Gibraltar to Britain, Sicily to Savoy, and Naples and Sardinia to Austria. In 1718-1719, Philip V of Spain decided to invade to try to reconquer it. This triggered what was called the War of the Quadruple Alliance: Britain, France, Austria, and the Dutch Republic teaming up to enforce the peace treaty. (See, Fritz isn't the only 18th century monarch who thinks treaties were made to be broken!)

This is the one where France invaded Spain, led by the same generals who had fought *for* Spain in the previous year, just a few years earlier. Some of the generals on the French side were either deeply reluctant and tried to get out of it, or outright refused to fight, and Philip was all, "I welcome my French subjects into my kingdom so I can show them what a great king I will make them!" about being invaded by a French army. To many people, Bourbon France fighting Bourbon Spain was not only unnatural, it defeated the whole purpose of shedding all that blood to put a Frenchman on the throne of Spain in the first place.

(This is great because this is all the stuff I *didn't* know when I was in the Jacobite fandom, when all I knew was "For some reason, Catholic Spain decided to try to put a Catholic monarch on the throne of Britain in 1719 and not all the other years they could have tried this.)

Abortive Jacobite attempt, in 1744:
France: we're at war with Britain, so let's distract them with the Stuarts! : D

This is, of course, the War of the Austrian Succession, started by that great innovator of military opportunism, Fritz. (All of the Charles XII biographers I'm reading are laughing hysterically as they look pointedly in Augustus the Strong's direction.)

Re: The Backstory for the '45

[cahn]

Lol, thank you for the dates! Yeeeeep I keep on forgetting them, so repetition is good!