"Well, FW had already verbally *agreed* to the treaty by that date, it's just that he then got sick with what seems to have been a stress-induced illness caused by his inability to make up his mind over whether it was okay to betray your allies or not."
Ha, I was reading one of the two Weber essays from the Dresden state archives this week (the ones which have some excerpts from Suhm's and Manteuffel's reports) and this topic came up!
FW, during a dinner in 1734: Manteuffel, you totally agree with me that treaties are only made to be broken these days, don't you? I don't know a single one that wasn't.
Manteuffel: But Your Majesty has made lots of treaties! Are you saying that Princes and Kings aren't honest people? Isn't it your intention to keep your promises, like an honest man?
FW: That's my intention, but I don't always do it. Let me tell you about that time my advisors wanted me to abandon Peter I. during the Great Northern War. I'd made Peter "a holy promise to never abandon him or make peace with Sweden without him and yet this promise did not keep me from signing a peace treaty without his involvement in the end. What that right? I don't think so, but it still happened. I didn't want to do it for a long time, I even got a hot fever over it, but what could I do, my guys plagued me for so long, Knyphausen even followed me to Wusterhausen and wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to sign it, like it or not. That was a real fraud.
Manteuffel: *reports this back to Dresden - "to show which extraordinary things get told here, things one would think of as fables otherwise" - but doesn't think they should be worried about any hidden FW plans to double-cross Saxony* 8-)
... by the way, my guess is that at least half of FW's regret is that he ended up on the same side as the Hanover cousins, even though he liked Peter a lot more. :P
Oh, and interesting that it's Knyphausen here, who a) got fired after the escape attempt in 1730 because he was scheming for the SD/Fritz/England side (and died in 1731, before he could become Peter's father-in-law), and b) seems to have been at odds with his own FIL Ilgen in this particular case.
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Re: Great Northern War: The Confusingest Part
Date: 2021-11-20 10:42 am (UTC)Ha, I was reading one of the two Weber essays from the Dresden state archives this week (the ones which have some excerpts from Suhm's and Manteuffel's reports) and this topic came up!
FW, during a dinner in 1734: Manteuffel, you totally agree with me that treaties are only made to be broken these days, don't you? I don't know a single one that wasn't.
Manteuffel: But Your Majesty has made lots of treaties! Are you saying that Princes and Kings aren't honest people? Isn't it your intention to keep your promises, like an honest man?
FW: That's my intention, but I don't always do it. Let me tell you about that time my advisors wanted me to abandon Peter I. during the Great Northern War. I'd made Peter "a holy promise to never abandon him or make peace with Sweden without him and yet this promise did not keep me from signing a peace treaty without his involvement in the end. What that right? I don't think so, but it still happened. I didn't want to do it for a long time, I even got a hot fever over it, but what could I do, my guys plagued me for so long, Knyphausen even followed me to Wusterhausen and wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to sign it, like it or not. That was a real fraud.
Manteuffel: *reports this back to Dresden - "to show which extraordinary things get told here, things one would think of as fables otherwise" - but doesn't think they should be worried about any hidden FW plans to double-cross Saxony* 8-)
... by the way, my guess is that at least half of FW's regret is that he ended up on the same side as the Hanover cousins, even though he liked Peter a lot more. :P
Oh, and interesting that it's Knyphausen here, who a) got fired after the escape attempt in 1730 because he was scheming for the SD/Fritz/England side (and died in 1731, before he could become Peter's father-in-law), and b) seems to have been at odds with his own FIL Ilgen in this particular case.