18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 33

[cahn]

And, I mean, it doesn't have to be just 18th century characters, either!

(also, waiting for Yuletide!)

Comments

Mecklenburg crisis

[mildred_of_midgard]

As I continue trying to learn enough about politics and foreign policy of the 1720s to pretend I might write a fic set in 1730, there's one thing my sources aren't giving me the kind of detail I want on: the Mecklenburg crisis.

What I know

Mecklenburg is fairly big and borders Prussia and Hanover, so they have a significant geopolitical interest in what goes on in Mecklenburg.

One of the turning points of the Great Northern War is when Peter the Great decides to winter his troops in Mecklenburg in 1716, making G1 incredibly nervous about whether he intends to use Mecklenburg as a base to take over neighboring principalities in the HRE.

In that same year, Peter marries his niece Catherine (daughter of Ivan V) to Karl Leopold, duke of Mecklenburg. They will be the parents of Anna Leopoldovna, future regent of Russia, mother of Ivan VI, enjoyer of threesomes with Lynar and other women, wife of EC's brother Anton Ulrich, and eventual prisoner in Middle of Nowhere, Russia.

In 1717, Peter is succesfully pressured by other European powers into pulling his troops out of Mecklenburg, so that ends up being a tempest in a teapot.

Duke Karl Leopold manages to piss off his nobility *and* Emperor Charles VI to the point where there's a Reichsexekution against him in 1719.

Hanover and Prussia jointly take over the rule/administraton of Mecklenburg?? Wikipedia is vague on the specifics here.

Mecklenburg becomes such a point of contention between FW and G1, later G2, for the entire 1720s that it comes up more often than Jülich-Berg. France is successfully pressured by its ally Britain into threatening to go to war if FW invades Mecklenburg.

Wikipedia:

After the death of George I (1727), the execution of the Reich was overturned. Although the emperor had the power to execute the execution of the empire, he lacked the power and the means to remove the foreign troops from Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The Elector of Hanover and the King in Prussia pressed for payment of the costs they had incurred in the execution of the Reich. Since a settlement of the conflict initially failed, Karl Leopold was finally deposed in 1728 by the Reichshofrat in Vienna in favor of his brother Christian Ludwig II .

In 1733, deposed Karl Leopold tries to take power back, with Prussian support.

What I don't know

What outcome does FW want in Mecklenburg? Why is he threatening armed intervention every other page in my reading?

Why outcome do G1 and G2 want in Mecklenburg? Is it coming up on every other page as a point of contention just because they *don't* want their rival FW gaining an advantage over Hanover in a neighboring territory, or is there more to it? If FW didn't care, would G1 and G2 still care?

Why is FW trying to restore Karl Leopold to power? What does he get out of this?

I'm annoyed because Black assumes you know all about the Mecklenburg crisis, and he refers you to an unpublished dissertation that's not for sale, is held only by the University of London, is not available for download on EThOS, and cannot be ordered by interlibrary loan. It's even in English! But I can't get it. Wikipedia helped, but not to the level of detail I want.

Do any of our Germans know more about this episode? And in particular, what's going on in FW's and G1/G2's heads?

Re: Mecklenburg crisis

[selenak]

Honestly, I only know what wiki says. Oh, and a snarky passage from Hervey's memoirs:

There was another subject of dispute between the Kings of England and Prussia, which I forgot to enumerate, though it was the only one really of consequence, and that was with regard to the affairs of Mecklenburg.
The short statement of their differences on this article was, whether the Prussian or Hanoverian troops
(both ordered into Mecklenburg by a decree of the Aulic Council) should have the greatest share (under
the pretence of keeping peace) in plundering the people and completing the ruin of that miserable duchy, already reduced to such a state of calamity by the tyrannical conduct of their most abominable, deposed, or rather suspended duke.

Hervey doesn't say more than this, the next passage is about him coming back and his wife liking Pulteney better than Robert Walpole and urging him to ally with the wrong guy, i.e. the one whom he'll later fight in a duel because of being accused openly of being gay right when the Dutch were executing gay men by the masses. No more interest in Mecklenburg.

Re: Mecklenburg crisis

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, that snippet gives me another peek into what's going on, thanks! (I have the Hervey file open on my tablet, but it comes after the G2 and Caroline bios on my reading list, which in turn come after the books and dissertations on foreign policy that I'm getting close to finishing (although two more are arriving in the mail in the next week or so).)

I do remember that when Fritz was massing troops in Berlin in November 1740 and everyone was speculating on where those troops were going, Mecklenburg was one of the major candidates.