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: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supercharles!

[mildred_of_midgard]

Given the other things Charles is supposed to have done, like not wear a hat during the Great Frost in Russia because not all his men had hats, a week of chafing was probably the least of it!

However, one big caution. All the descriptions I have of Charles remind me strongly of my pre-salon Fritz reading, which means that if we did a careful examination of the original sources the way we've done for Fritz, without doubt we'd be throwing out half the anecdotes and re-evaluating the conclusions. I've already had to throw a bunch of Massie's anecdotes and conclusions out just from reading Hatton (not to mention the non-Charles claims, where even Wikipedia comes across as more reliable at times).

So just because I report an anecdote here doesn't mean I'm telling you guys I have every reason to believe it's true. I'm telling you what I learned so that we're in a position to go learn more.

My basic MO for what to believe when reading history, when I can't or am not ready to do the deep dive into the sources, is: "How many witnesses?" The number of people who saw Charles in the Ottoman Empire one day and the number who saw him in Stralsund two weeks later, pretty high. So the high-speed ride is probably real. The number of people who saw him not change clothes for a week and the boots get cut off afterward...much lower. So I put less faith in something like that until I have a better sense of who said it and how reliable they are.

Re: It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Supercharles!

[luzula]

That's fair! I was just trying to imagine what the situation could have been like in practice... : )

like not wear a hat during the Great Frost in Russia because not all his men had hats

And here I would just like to say, don't invade Russia in the winter if you don't all have hats! Or maybe don't invade Russia in the winter at all.