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

1730 European snapshot

[mildred_of_midgard]

As you know:

- I am plotting a fix-it fic where Fritz makes it to France in 1730.

- I have been researching 1720s foreign policy lately. Because I want to know what happens when a runaway Prussian crown prince shows up in France in 1730! Not necessarily the single most likely thing, but a reasonable way for me to get the fix-it outcome I want. :P

- I hardly ever finish writing fics like these, but researching and plotting them is super educational!

So here I am to tell you what I've learned about the 1720s, so we can talk about our 1730 "What if?" AU.

There's so much, and the topic is so politically-oriented instead of personality-oriented, that I'm going to break my findings into a million individual comments instead of one or two giant ones. My hope is that bite-sized chunks of diplomatic convolutions make it easier to digest, and easier to find things later. Apologies in advance for the notification spam! I've also tried to use my first-person dialogue trick as much as possible for making the topic more accessible.

Sub-threads to follow...

1730 Trending Topics

[mildred_of_midgard]

In this sub-thread, I'm sharing a selection of major issues that the major international players care about, i.e. their trending topics.

There are a lot, obviously. I'm ignoring ones that don't seem likely to directly affect Fritz in 1730, like Jacobitism, many of the ones having to do with trade and colonies overseas (although not all, as you'll see), and, like, Russia.

Re Russia, though, you should keep in mind that it's only been 12 years since Tsarevich Alexei fled to another country because he didn't want to be tsar but wanted to be a private citizen, was lured back to Russia with a promise from his father that no harm would come to him or his mistress, and was then condemned to death and died from torture. So while Prussia isn't Russia and FW is not Peter the Great, this is going to be very much on Fritz's mind when he's deciding what to do.

1730 Trending Topics: Wittelsbach for emperor

[mildred_of_midgard]

France: Bavarian elector for the next Holy Roman Emperor! Down with the Habsburgs!

Bavaria: Our guy for next Holy Roman Emperor, duh!

Great Britain: Meh. I mean, it would be nice to limit Austrian power, and I'm definitely interested in allying with Bavaria to this effect, but it's not like my life goal.

France: Life goal! Fuck the Habsburgs!

Great Britain: Yes, France, we heard you the first time.

1730 Trending Topics: Wittelsbach subsidies

[mildred_of_midgard]

Bavaria: So I hear you're interested in allying with us, GB? Subsidies, please.

Great Britain: Not that interested.

France: Et tu, Britain? Your stinginess is the only thing standing between us and the downfall of the House of Habsburg!

Great Britain: Look, it's not that I, Walpole, or I, Townshend, or I, some other minister, are not interested in an alliance with Bavaria. It's that we, Parliament, have to justify our spending to a voting public. We're already spending too much on the weird alliance system we're in, with relatively little to show for it. Our constituents are getting antsy.

France: I think you're just being difficult on purpose because you're secretly pro-Austrian.

Great Britain: Well, the point here isn't to crush the House of Habsburg. The point is to teach Charles VI a lesson about getting too big for his breeches, and then we can go back to being friends. England and Austria have a long history of being friends.

France: You are clearly missing the point of my being in an alliance with you in the first place, which is CRUSH the House of Habsburg!

Great Britain: I thought the point of us being in an alliance was about our respective succession crises and territorial guarantees--

France: That's how we got pulled into this alliance, 14 years ago, by a bunch of people who are mostly now dead. If you don't shape up, we're going to start looking for other allies. We're already working on kissing and making up with our buddy Spain. If Queen Isabella would just calm the fuck down for 5 minutes...

1730 Trending Topics: Jülich & Berg

[mildred_of_midgard]

First, a map for cahn:



It's a hundred years too early and is cluttered with Thirty Years' War battles, but is the best I could do to convey what I wanted.

Notes:
- The "United Provinces" is the Netherlands. That's the name they most often go by in our period, I only call them the Netherlands so you have one less thing to remember.

- Just south of that, you'll see lavender-colored Cleves and Mark. Those are owned by Prussia in our period. Cleves is where Wesel is, where Peter Keith escapes to the Netherlands.

- Go a little further south and you'll see the words Jülich and Berg.

With that out of the way, let's let everyone argue.

Prussia: Hi, I'm FW, and I'm totally the heir to Jülich and Berg. I care about this the way my wife cares about the English marriage project, like Marie-Louise d'Orleans cared about leaving Cosimo III and going back to France, like MT will someday care about Silesia. Possibly more than I care about tall guys! My entire foreign policy is built around "Who will help me inherit Jülich and Berg when the current sickly duke finally kicks the bucket?"

Bavaria/Palatine/other Wittelsbach electors: No, we, the WITTELSBACH family are the heirs to Jülich and Berg! We will die on this hill!

Dutch: Literally anyone except Prussia! Prussia has WAY too much territory in our neighborhood already (see map, and assume they got a couple more bits and pieces in the last 100 years), and they're trying to claim the Prince of Orange succession on top of it!

France: We're with the Wittelsbachs for reasons discussed. Down with the Habsburgs! Wittelsbachs for emperors!

Great Britain: We don't really care, per se, who gets Jülich and Berg. We just don't want to be pinned down on the issue while we switch back and forth between trying to make an alliance with Prussia and trying to make one with Bavaria. If we endorse one side's claims, we'll alienate the other side, and we really need an alliance with *one* of these two German powers to try to intimidate Austria into behaving itself. Either works, really!

Prussia and the Wittelsbachs: O, perfidious Albion!

FW: If you don't support my claim to Jülich and Berg, you can't marry my daughter or my son!

Great Britain: And, see, we're okay with that. Bye! (July 1730)

Fritz: *runs away*

1730 Trending Topics: Dunkirk

[mildred_of_midgard]

This map's 200 years too late, but Dunkirk hasn't moved, so here you go.



Early 1730

Great Britain: Look, France, when Charles II sold you the harbour of Dunkirk in northern France, just across the Channel from England, we didn't mean you could fortify it and turn it into a naval base and ship Jacobites across to invade our country! You must dismantle your fortifications like you agreed 16 years ago when the War of the Spanish Succession ended. We care so much we almost overthrew our ministry just now over the fact that they STILL haven't gotten you to dismantle the goddamn Dunkirk fortifications!

France: Uh, yeah, sorry, the most recent fortification activity was totally unauthorized. Louis XV himself personally apologizes and says it won't happen again and we'll tear down what we have pronto.

British Parliament: Okay, good. Walpole and allies, you may remain in power.

Mid 1730

Great Britain: France, we have seen LITERALLY no activity on tearing down those fortifications. You promised!

France: Yeah, well, uh, we said we'd tear those down, did we. Such a good memory you have. That was four whole months ago!

Great Britain: Look, we as Parliamentary ministers have to justify this highly unpopular alliance with our old enemy France during what historians will call the Second Hundred Years War to a voting public. Are we allies or not?

France: Yes! Yes, definitely, absolutely...maybe. For now. You think this alliance is any more popular here? They may not vote, but they sure do riot when they're upset.

Great Britain: So about those fortifications, ALLY.

France: The French ministry can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the tone. *beeep*

1730 Trending Topics: Gibraltar

[mildred_of_midgard]

Spain: Excuse me, Great Britain! Have you looked at a MAP lately? Gibraltar is obviously part of SPAIN! [Mildred: I trust everyone knows where Gibraltar is?]

Great Britain: Except we conquered it during the War of the Spanish Succession when we were trying to get our guy (future Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI and future MT's dad) on the throne of Spain. That didn't work out, but you never managed to recapture Gibraltar, so, uh, we're keeping it.

Spain: You can't own Spanish territory! We will go to war over this!

Great Britain: You already went to war over this, like, three times, and lost. You signed a treaty just last year. Sorry! Cut your losses and worry about something else.

Spain: But your king G1 said he would give it back, way back in 1721! Philip V has a letter he keeps in a chest under his bed, to which he has the only key.

Great Britain: Yeah, so, about that G1 letter. If you read it closely, it says, "I will endeavor to convince Parliament to give Gibraltar back," not, "We will definitely give it back."

Now, our leading ministers, just like G1 and G2, have been more than willing to give it back. Because yes, we have looked at a map, and Gibraltar's not doing us a whole lot of good. We'd be happy to give it back. Taking Gibraltar was a means to an end, and we've had to give up on that end. But every time we make noises in that direction, the voting public that thinks we fought a war to get that tiny bit of land gets really upset. So that's why we'll still be hanging onto it in 2022.

Spain: I have no idea what you're talking about, *air quotes* "convince" "Parliament." When a king writes a letter saying he'll do something, I expect him to do it!

Great Britain: You mean like give up his claim to the throne of France, like Philip V promised two or three times in writing? And then was putting together an invasion the moment Louis XV got smallpox in late 1728?

Spain: Yeah, yeah, well, Louis not only recovered but went on to father a son in 1729, so we've finally had to give up on that idea. We're now focused on other projects. That's ancient history, let it go.

1730 Trending Topics: Parma and Tuscany

[mildred_of_midgard]

First, a map showing Parma and Tuscany in Italy. This is 1815, so ignore the other principalities, to which there have been slight changes since 1730.



And a 1714 (again, there have been slight changes between 1714 and 1730) map, giving some context as to why Austria and Spain have a long history of claiming territory in Italy and are so invested in fighting each other over it:



(Look, it's hard to get clear, good-quality, colored, English-labeled maps at exactly the zoom level I want, for every territorial change in the 18th century. :P)

Isabella Farnese: Hi, I'm the Queen of Spain, and I'm here to tell you about those other projects we're into now! I married a king who already had a son from his late first wife (Marie Louise of Savoy). So I've got to worry about providing kingdoms for my sons.

Plan A was: Louis XV dies, my husband Philip abdicates and goes to France to be king there, and takes his oldest son, my stepson, to France, leaving me and my oldest son (Don Carlos) to rule Spain! But then Louis didn't die and now he's married with a son, so, that idea died.

Plan B, while I was waiting for Louis to die, was to marry my boy Don Carlos to Archduchess Maria Theresa. Her dad has this thing called a Pragmatic Sanction indicating that she's going to inherit all the Habsburg territory. Sounds pretty good to me if I can get my son married to her! So Spain made a treaty with Austria a few years back. But that bastard Charles VI was just toying with me the whole time! He never intended to let my son marry his daughter. So now we're on to...

Plan C. As a Farnese descended from Medici, I say that I am the next logical heir to Parma (as soon as the current Farnese dies) and Tuscany (as soon as Gian Gastone finishes drinking himself to death). So obviously the 1730s are going to be a great decade for my son to inherit Italian territory! Just need to get everyone else to agree...

Austria: Excuse me, those are ours to give and take away, and also Naples and Sicily and Sardinia and the Milanese and pretty much everything Spain and Austria have been fighting over in Italy for the last umpteen decades/centuries and will continue fighting over in the 18th century. If we let you into Parma and Tuscany, pretty soon you'll be using it as a springboard to conquer all of Italy, and Italy is ours! for some definition of "ours" that means "whether or not we control it or have even controlled it in recent memory."

Isabella: So as you can see, Austria's not going to take this lying down. Therefore, I want Spanish garrisons in Parma and Tuscany to safeguard my son's rights there. Not neutral Swiss garrisons. Do you hear me, Europe?!

Austria: Spanish garrisons over my dead body!

Great Britain: Sigh. Well, we tried pushing the whole Swiss garrison thing, but Isabella is a terrier, so we finally signed a treaty with Spain last year agreeing to Spanish garrisons.

France: Did we hear something about our cousins the Bourbons occupying most of Italy and keeping our enemies the Habsburgs out? Spanish garrisons all the way, baby!

Austria: TRY me. I dare you.

Great Britain: Well, France, as allies *cough*, we did sign that treaty with Spain last year saying we have to force the Spanish garrisons in over Austria's dead body. Time for war? (mid 1730)

France: Yes, yes. War. But, uh, you go first. You're the one with the navy!

Great Britain: WTF, France.

France: Look, we agree with you about the Spanish garrisons. But we all need to consider how this affects the balance of power in Europe. So let's all sit down and negotiate a balance of power treaty that isn't just about Spanish garrisons in Parma and Tuscany, but about how we can all continue to live with each other after this. Okay? Come on, it'll be fun, we've been practicing negotiating balance of power treaties for the last ten years. We're pros at congresses that go nowhere and treaties that keep the peace for two more years and then everyone gets upset and we have to renegotiate.

Spain: WHERE ARE MY GARRISONS. The deadline has come and gone!

France: Well, see, we're *trying* to help you go to war with Austria (you know this is our favorite thing in France) over your garrisons, but the British are dragging their feet. You know how they are.

Great Britain: *cannot believe the words they are hearing*

Great Britain: France obviously doesn't want to go to war and is trying to pin the blame on us!

France: Don't want to go to war?! Are you crazy? We in France totally want to conquer the Austrian Netherlands (future Belgium) from Austria! ...That is the war we're talking about, right?

Great Britain: *facepalm*

So 1730 comes and goes and there is no war with Austria.

1730 Trending Topics: Pragmatic Sanction

[mildred_of_midgard]

Charles VI: Pragmatic Sanction, Pragmatic Sanction, who wants to sign my Pragmatic Sanction!

FW: Prussia signed it in 1728 in return for recognition of my Berg claims, which you then promptly granted to the Wittelsbachs. One day, several years from now, fed up with this kind of thing, I will point to my wretched son and say, "There stands one who will avenge me!" (Only not in this AU because wretched son will be safely out of my reach by 1736.)

Isabella: Signed it in 1725 but you didn't agree to marry my son Don Carlos to your daughter MT, you bastard!

France: Pragmatic Sanction signing over my dead body! Wittelsbachs, get ready to divvy up some Habsburg territory as soon as the Emperor kicks it.

Great Britain: So, you know, in theory, I have no objection to signing the Pragmatic Sanction.

France: Et tu, Britain.

Great Britain: But it really depends on who her husband is. No marrying her to Don Carlos! Nobody wants Spain and Austria reunited like under Charles V.

Charles VI: Isabella is batshit insane (have you noticed?) and even I don't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

Isabella: You don't call it batshit when a man has a cause. You call it heroic!

Charles VI: Wrong! FW. We call him batshit. Check and mate.

Great Britain: Okay, we're getting a little off topic here. G2: But hard agree about FW. Hervey: You're both crazy. No Bourbon marriages, and also no converting Protestant Prussian Crown Princes.

Charles VI: *sigh* Yes, that second thing was not really the plan either. I don't know where you guys get these ideas. She has a husband planned. His name is Franz. He's from Lorraine.

Great Britain: Awesome! So just put in the treaty that our NOTPs are ruled out, and we'll sign your Pragmatic Sanction in early 1731.

Charles VI: Well, but, the problem is, I am an emperor and I do not have my daughter's marriages dictated by foreign powers.

Great Britain: Okay, SECRET ARTICLE ruling out our NOTPs, and we sign your pragmatic sanction.

Charles VI: Face-saving device accepted!

Great Britain: And Spanish garrisons in Parma and Tuscany accepted?

Charles VI: *sigh*

Charles VI: *signs*

Gian Gastone: "And now, with the stroke of a pen, you will see an old man of sixty become the father of a bouncing boy." [Paraphrased actual quote.] No, I was not involved in these negotiations. What, you expected me to go to war with Spain and Austria over who my heir is? Lol. Hi, Don Carlos. Nice to meet you. Have some wine.

Mildred: Note that by the time Gian Gastone dies in 1737, the War of the Polish Succession has changed the plans *again*: Don Carlos gets Naples and Sicily, and FS gets Tuscany.

1730 Trending Topics: Ostend Company

[mildred_of_midgard]

1714

Great Britain, Netherlands: Okay, as we make peace after the War of the Spanish Succession, Austria, we've decided you can keep the Spanish Netherlands (future Belgium, more or less). We're calling it the Austrian Netherlands now. But there are some rules. One, the main river (the Scheldt) remains closed to shipping. Two, existing import taxes remain, and they favor us. Three, a third of the remaining revenue we've left to you has to be spent on the Dutch garrisons.

Austria: Whah--buh--this isn't ruling it! This is just administering it on your behalf!

Great Britain, Netherlands: Them's the breaks.

Netherlands: We live next door and really *really* don't want to go back to the days when Antwerp was *the* major point of commerce in northern Europe. We shut down the competition a hundred years ago, and we don't intend to let it come back!

Great Britain: We don't care nearly as much, but the Dutch are our allies, so yeah. Them's the breaks, Austria.

France: We have no dog in this fight per se, but on principle, we object to everything that benefits Austria. So yes.

1722

Austria: Fine! We are founding a company based out of Ostend and we are going to trade overseas. Just like the Dutch East India company and the British East India Company and the South Sea Company. And in direct competition!

Netherlands: The Ostend Company violates the Peace of Westphalia!

Britain: Yeah!

Austria: Try and stop us!

1722-1731

British, Dutch, French: *try and stop them*

1727

France and Great Britain: Okay, and in this latest in an interminable series of treaties, you agree to shut down the Ostend Company.

Austria: Never!

France and Great Britain: For seven years.

Austria: Fine. But you realize this means we have very little reason to continue being allies with Spain, if we're not getting trade benefits.

Great Britain: We will try to take advantage of this when we start making friends with you in a few years.

1730

France: *still not shutting down Dunkirk*

France and Great Britain: *still shouting "You go first!" "No you!" at each other about starting a war over the Spanish garrisons*

Great Britain: *starts making friends with Austria again*

1731

Austria: *shuts down the Ostend Company for good*

1730 Trending Topics: Bremen and Verden

[mildred_of_midgard]

A map that we've seen before, when we covered the Great Northern War.



Hanover: We conquered Bremen and Verden from Sweden (Charles XII) in the Great Northern War. Now we have good coastline and ports and all, woot!

Charles VI: Excuse me, does the word "investitures" mean anything to you? It means those are Holy Roman Empire principalities, which means I as emperor have to officially bestow them upon you, or "invest" you with them.

Hanover: So...

Charles VI: So I'm not happy with you, and I'm not recognizing your rule. We're not going to war, I'm just not signing off on this until you give me what I want.

Hanover: Which is...?

Charles VI: Well, ideally I'd like to keep the Ostend Company, and not have Spanish garrisons in Parma and Tuscany, and maybe you could stop arguing with me all the time about Mecklenburg, but really what I care about is the Pragmatic Sanction.

Hanover: Buuut, we're allied with France, and you know how France feels about the Pragmatic Sanction. So Bremen and Verden investitures are going to be a seemingly minor but annoyingly persistent topic throughout the decade.

1730 Trending Topics: Holstein-Gottorp and Schleswig

[mildred_of_midgard]

Map reminder. Note the date and just pay attention to the approximate location of our two principalities.



Karl Peter: I'm the father of future (P)RussianPete and nephew of Charles XII. I think I should be king of Sweden! And failing that, or preferably in addition to that, I should get Schleswig back! The Danes stole it from us (Holstein-Gottorp) during the Great Northern War, because we were allied with Sweden.

Russia: We're with Karl Peter on this. Especially under Peter the Great, who practically adopts him.

Denmark: Not giving it back!

Karl Peter: Or some territorial equivalent. Equivalents are a thing in 18th century Europe.

England and France: No! We mediated the treaty that allowed Denmark to keep Schleswig, and we stand by that treaty.

Hanover: HELL no! We only got Bremen and Verden because we agreed to let Denmark keep Schleswig. If that treaty's not valid, then our claim to Bremen and Verden is called into question.

Austria: So, about that. We signed a 1726 treaty with Russia, which means we now have to support Karl Peter's claim to Schleswig or an equivalent.

Hanover: So you're not giving us the investitures to Bremen and Verden?

Austria: Well, it would definitely make our case about Schleswig a lot harder to sell. But can we interest you in a pragmatic sanction?

Karl Peter: So I GUESS, if no one is helping me get Schleswig back, then I'll just have to raise my SON to care deeply about this issue, so that if he ever ends up at the head of a country with a large army, he can mobilize it to take our Schleswig back.

Everyone else: Good luck with that foreign policy, future (P)RussianPete.

1762 Coda:

Russians: You want us to die to recover YOUR lost territory after giving back for free the territory WE had just conquered from Old Fritz? You have got to be kidding.

Catherine: Hi, I may be German, but I don't care about Holstein-Gottorp or Schleswig, and I'm not an especially big fan of Fritz.

Russians: HIRED!

1730 Trending Topics: Mecklenburg

[mildred_of_midgard]

1789 map, close enough.



Brandenburg in blue, Hanover in yellow next to it, Mecklenburg-Schwerin in gray above it. You can see why G2 and FW are fighting over it all the time.

Karl Leopold: Hi, I'm--correction, I was--the duke of Mecklenburg. I tried going with the spirit of the times by taking power away from the nobles so I could have an efficiently centralized state. You know, like Louis XIV, Peter the Great, FW, Victor Amadeus II, Charles XI, Philip V, and half my other contemporaries. But for some reason, *I'm* the one with the bad rap! [Mildred note: Due to my inability to get the dissertation in question, I can't actually tell if he was worse than his contemporaries.]

Future Joseph II: I feel your pain.

Karl Leopold: So the revolting subjects problem got so bad, the Holy Roman Emperor released my subjects from their allegiance to me. Can you believe it!

Hanover: So us and Brunswick got put in charge of administering Mecklenburg. That worked great (imo) until...

George I: *dies in 1727*

Charles VI: Okay, new plan. Prussia gets to help out with the administering.

Hanover: I bet that's because you made a secret treaty with Prussia last year, you bastard!

Charles VI: I can neither confirm nor deny this terrible and unfounded allegation--where did your spies hear about this??? I thought we had better security than that--but in any case, I can dispense territory-occupying privileges to my new buddy FW if I want to!

Hanover: No, you can't! This decision didn't even come from the Imperial Diet, but from the Aulic Council/Reichshofrat, which is subordinate to you, and that's not cool! I protest this abuse of power.

Great Britain: Even though we normally side-eye getting too involved in Hanoverian affairs, it is a little scary if the Emperor thinks he can just go around administering the territories in the Empire at will. He's not like their monarch, he's an elected head with limits on his power, and he has to respect the rights and privileges of the principalities and their legitimate rulers!

France: Our position on anything that can possibly be interpreted as Habsburg abuses of power is predictable.

[Mildred ETA: Good news! After I finished drafting this write-up, I acquired another book that had a footnote that told me that the Mecklenburg dissertation was turned into a book. I had suspected this, but couldn't tell which book. Now that I know the title, the book is on its way to me. So we should be learning more about Mecklenburg soon.]

1730 Decision-making Characters

[mildred_of_midgard]

In this sub-thread, I'm talking about some characters that will be relevant to the decision-making process about a Prussian crown prince seeking asylum.

They're French, because Fritz shows up in France, and if possible, I'd like to keep him from going to England. G2 and his ministers will make decisions that matter too, but we don't need to get inside their heads as much; we can see them from the French perspective.

Since this isn't primarily a story of French politics, though, I've limited myself to the bare minimum of the people that probably have to be mentioned by name while a decision is reached on what to do with Fritz.

(I mean, I say this now. You never know what my future self will decide to do. :P I have a dissertation on factionalism at the French court I haven't finished reading and a book on the way with a prosopographical study of the French court, which may tempt me to follow my curiosity about other people, like the Duc de Belle-Isle.)

1730 Decision-making Characters: Cardinal Fleury

[mildred_of_midgard]

André-Hercule de Fleury

Personally

Fleury: I'm the most powerful man in France in 1730. A little recap: once Louis XIV died and his five-year-old great-grandson inherited, the man in power was Regent Philippe d'Orleans. Then he died, and the Duc de Bourbon took over. But he made himself unpopular, and then I took over.

People thought I was going to be a mild-mannered ecclesiastic and awesome figurehead. Hahahahaaaa. I'm not a pushover, I just play one on TV. I try very hard not to alienate people, especially since I don't have a powerful family to fall back on if I lose royal favor or make too many enemies. It's a great strategy for staying in power while making unpopular decisions. And whenever that doesn't work, I fall back on this one trick I keep up my sleeve.

See, I was the King's tutor. And he lost all his family by the time he was five. So he was a lonely kid, and now is a young man, and I'm a kindly grandfather figure to him. So any time i looks like someone might be about to successfully overthrow me, I just nonconfrontationally and casually decide to go out to the countryside to get some rest from my overwork. Within twenty-four hours, the King has panicked and ordered me to come back because he needs me. I'm practically all the family he's got. And that makes it clear to everyone that they can't safely mess with me.

Also, Louis' not interested in politics. He shows up at council meetings and agrees to what I tell him. I actually did try to get him to take more of an interest in ruling! He's twenty now, in 1730. But he'd rather be hunting and checking out the ladies, and he's pretty shy and insecure. So I guess if he's not going to run the country, I don't mind doing it.

I was seventy-two when I became chief minister, and everyone's been planning for my death, but I'll show them! I'll live to be ninety, that's what I'll do!

So for some seventeen years there's a fight to succeed me, once it clicks that ruling through me isn't going to work. I will eliminate my opponents as I go, until almost the end of my life, and in the end, no one will win the fight to succeed me. Or, as one historian puts it, the true winner will be factionalism.

Politically

Fleury: Peace! Peace is important. Peace will allow France to recover economically. If I can drag out the start of a war by insisting to Britain that we need to pro-actively negotiate a treaty that accounts for everything that might possibly happen in Europe as a result of this war, I will! In ten years, I will try to avoid getting into the War of the Austrian Succession, but "most powerful man" doesn't mean "has everything his way."

I was okay with the Anglo-French alliance, but I'm not the Regent Philippe. He had really strong dynastic reasons for avoiding a Spanish alliance and seeking an English one. I don't. The longer the English alliance goes on, the more inclined I am to make peace with Austria and/or Spain and to ditch the English. I'd prefer Austria, personally, buuuuut...you can predict how that's going to go over in France. So Spain it is.

You know the funny thing, though? I've got the British envoy, Horatio Walpole, brother of their unofficial prime minister Robert Walpole, wrapped around my little finger. I'm pretty much his only source for information at court here. He lets me dictate his reports back to Britain. And he's totally convinced I'm 100% loyal to the British alliance.

Even when I appoint a foreign minister notoriously hostile to Britain and Austria and friendly to Spain in 1727, right when Britain is starting a war with Spain, he defends me to his superiors back home! All he'll say is that I'm obviously not as all-powerful as thought, if this other guy managed to shoehorn his way into the position over my objections.

Hahaha, this is great. I wish all envoys were this trusting.

Wait. What do you means it's June 1730, and Walpole's been recalled and Waldegrave's the new envoy? Well, hopefully I can fool the new guy too.

Fleury: *fools the new guy too*

1730 Decision-making Characters: Chauvelin

[mildred_of_midgard]

Germain Louis Chauvelin

Personally

Chauvelin: I'm Fleury's second-in-command in 1730. Everyone, even my enemies (and unlike Fleury, I have a lot), agrees I'm intelligent and hard-working. My specialty is public law. In 1727, I got the job of foreign minister, along with a lot of other important positions, at the relatively young age of 42, without any diplomatic or administrative experience, because Fleury wanted someone to work closely with.

I play bad cop to his good cop. It works especially well with British ambassadors! Any time Fleury does anything they don't like, he blames me. Since I'm personally abrasive and outspoken about my political opinions, and he's very soft-spoken and plays his cards close to his chest, they believe him!

This will lead not just British ambassadors but also future historians to believe that I had way more power and influence than I probably did. But eventually, historians will come to the conclusion that Fleury made the policy while I implemented it, and that we just did a really, really good good-cop bad-cop act that fooled everyone for centuries. Hey, Fleury called me his "autre moi-même"!

Politically

Chauvelin: Go Spain! Down with Austria! If I had my way, we'd grind Austria into the dust with the heel of our boot. I even wrote a memorandum on how to do it. 

One, barrier states around Austria. Sweden and Poland in the north and east, Turkey in the south-east, and in Germany, subsidize the Electors of Bavaria and Saxony and the Elector Palatine. Two, drive the Austrians out of the Italian peninsula and set up a confederation of client states there. Isabella Farnese will love it! Victor Amadeus of Savoy (and later his son) will too!

Did I mention Spain? We need a Bourbon alliance against the Habsburgs. Why are we allied with England?

Fleury: Because we still need them. I can't let them go until I've got a better option.

Chauvelin: If I piss off their ministers enough, can we get out of his alliance and go for my pet project in Spain?

Fleury: Possibly! But let's wait until they sign the Pragmatic Sanction, and accuse them of agreeing to a secret article to force the Pragmatic Sanction on us! Then the bizarre Anglo-French alliance will end in 1731. But ever since I appointed you, outspoken anti-Austria, pro-Spain guy, my second-in-command, the writing has been on the wall. (Except to the British ambassadors who thought I had no say in your appointment. I'm still snickering behind my hand over that one.)

Chauvelin: Okay! 

Chauvelin: Meanwhile, though. Even as second-in-command and appointed successor, my ambitions are outstripping my position. I really just want Fleury's job. I will conduct secret correspondence with a number of the ambassadors who report to me in other countries. One of which is a certain Count Rottembourg.

Unfortunately, Fleury catches on to all this conspiring, and I get dismissed and exiled in disgrace in 1737. I make a bid for his job in 1743 after Fleury dies, but it fails. I die a private citizen and an object lesson in hubris.

To this day (2022), my papers have never been found, despite Fleury ordering a search for them after my fall. This makes it hard to tell what I was thinking, which gives the writer of fiction a lot of leeway.

1730 Decision-making Characters: Rottembourg

[mildred_of_midgard]

Conrade-Alexandre de Rottembourg

Rottembourg's not an especially influential figure in France, but since Fritz shows up at his house and stays there, he gets to be influential on this particular topic in this story.

Personally

Rottembourg: My family's from Brandenburg, hence the German-sounding name. Prussian Count Rothenburg, who attended the Sanssouci round table, gave Biche to Fritz, and died in Fritz's arms, was my nephew or my cousin, depending on who you ask. My dad moved to France and was made a count. Now I'm French but with some Brandenburg possessions.

I was appointed ambassador to Prussia 3 times, but never managed to convince FW of anything. He changes his mind every five minutes! Good god. He drives all us ambassadors crazy. What is Seckendorff's secret???

I even tried organizing a local coup in the mid-1720s to have him declared insane and replaced with a crown prince I and my superiors naively believe will be grateful to France. I spent my time pretending not to notice or care about Fritz, and he did the same, while he passed information to me through an intermediary. The intermediary was the pro-English foreign minister known for his close ties to SD and her party, Friedrich Ernst von Knyphausen, better known on AO3 as father of future Ariane von Keith. (He will die 10 years before she marries Peter.)

But that failed too. But I made friends with one Hans Hermann von Katte. Wilhelmine says I mentored him and that his excellent French and polished manners, so rare in Berlin, were due to my influence. He visited me when he went traveling in 1728. Kloosterhuis says he came to Madrid. Mildred strongly suspects we met in France.

When Fritz was trying to escape in 1730, Katte suggested my estate in Alsace, not far over the border, as a safe house. Historically, Fritz admitted in his interrogation that he was making for my estate when he was stopped, on that fateful night of August 5. But in this AU, he makes it!

In real life, I was sent to Spain as ambassador in the second half of 1730, but in this AU, I was about to set off when I got word that a Prussian crown prince has shown up in Alsace. Naturally, I stay to deal with that far more interesting situation! Whether I've told Fleury and/or Chauvelin that this is what I'm doing, or whether I pretend that I've fallen ill while I protect Fritz's incognito, the author has yet to decide.

In real life, I ended up successfully negotiating the Bourbon Family Compact of 1733, between France and Spain, after the 1731 collapse of the Anglo-French alliance, and then was recalled at my own request for health reasons in 1734 and died in Paris in 1735, childless, "very rich," and either married or never married, depending on which obituary you ask, but for this AU, definitely unmarried.

Politically

Rottembourg: In 1727, the British thought I was a supporter of the Anglo-French alliance, but as we've seen, they weren't always good at reading the situation. I was on friendly terms with Whitworth (d. 1725), but Whitworth also liked me despite being very opposed to the Anglo-French alliance, so that says nothing about how I felt about the alliance.

In August 1727, Chauvelin was appointed foreign minister. In October 1727, I was sent to Spain. My job was to negotiate between Britain and Spain, which were at war (a minor war) over things like Gibraltar. Historians disagree on whether I exceeded my instructions in agreeing to terms that favored Spain over Britain, or whether I was following secret instructions from Fleury and Chauvelin.

Regardless, the British got super upset, took it out on Fleury, and he gave me a slap on the wrist and disowned the treaty I had signed, forcing negotiations to start over. But after the treaty was finally agreed on in Paris, Chauvelin insisted it be sent to Madrid so I could sign it too, to undo any appearance that I was in disgrace. This caused a little bureaucratic hassle for the Brits, but Chauvelin stood his ground and Fleury backed him.

Whether my support for Chauvelin's scheming for Fleury's job was cause or effect of the fact that he had my back like this, is unknown. At least one historian says there's enough evidence to conclude that I agreed with his stances, but, Mildred wishes to point out that all historians agree that in France, courtiers and ministers schemed not entirely on what they actually believed was best for France, but what would get them and/or their family to advance the furthest in society. There was a huge patronage/clientele network at Versailles that governed decisions and policies at least as much as political opinions. 

So did I care about the debasement of Austria, or did I just think Chauvelin was a good patron to have, and he cared about the abasement of Austria? This is an open question for fiction authors.

1730 International Relations

[mildred_of_midgard]

In this sub-thread, I'm going to summarize the state of relations between pairs of countries, both how they normally feel about each other, and how they feel about each other in the second half of 1730. Since 1714-1731 is a period of "unnatural" alliances, and things are in the process of going back to "normal" in mid-1730-1731, those can be very different.

1730 International Relations: Britain-France

[mildred_of_midgard]

Seen as "natural enemies." In 1716, they got into an alliance that was so surprising that it was called a diplomatic revolution. Now it's 1730 and this unpopular alliance is collapsing. By 1731, if runaway Fritz's presence in France doesn't change things, they'll be back to being enemies.

(Note: I'm ignoring Scotland, the "Auld Alliance" between Scotland and France, and the Jacobites here. While not irrelevant to history, probably mostly irrelevant to this fic.)

1730 International Relations: Britain-Austria

[mildred_of_midgard]

Historically, they've liked allying against their mutual enemy France. Because the last 15 years have been weird, they've been switching back and forth between being on the same side and on opposite sides. They haven't gone to war with each other in this period, though there have been some recent war scares.

From 1725-1730, they were in opposing alliances (Britain-France against Austria-Spain). During this period, the British have been trying to limit Austrian power, but Austria isn't seen as an existential threat in Britain. The plan for many British ministers has been to get back into an alliance with Austria as soon as that can be done without disturbing the balance of power or dragging Britain into an unwanted war.

In 1730, there's a war scare going on between Britain and Austria, but simultaneously, Britain is approaching Austria for peace talks, and looking to swap the French alliance for an Austrian one. There's no strong pro-Austrian feeling in Britain, just a sense that most people would like to go back to the way things were before this weird and unnatural alliance with France came along.

1730 International Relations: Britain-Spain

[mildred_of_midgard]

Historically enemies. Often see each other as an existential threat, due to the conflicts over colonies, trade, and naval dominance.

From 1727-1729, Britain and Spain were at war, but it was a very small war that was contained due to French diplomacy, aka Fleury and his love of peace.

In 1730, they're officially allied, but that won't last long; by 1733, Spain will be allied with France, and in 1739, Britain and Spain will go to war again.

1730 International Relations: Britain-Bavaria

[mildred_of_midgard]

Britain wants to build up a power base against Austria in Germany. Bavaria is a prime candidate for this, but actually getting into an alliance proves prohibitively difficult, due to differing priorities.

1730 Recent Diplomacy

[mildred_of_midgard]

This subthread contains SOME of the relevant treaties made in our period. I saved this one for last, because this is where your eyes really start to glaze over. But it's good for reference, for me if nothing else, to have this laid out.

1725: Treaty of Vienna
1725: Treaty of Hanover
1726: Treaty of Wusterhausen
1727: Preliminaries of Paris
1728: Peace of Pardo
1729: Treaty of Seville
1731: Treaty of Vienna
1733: Bourbon Family Compact

1730 AU

[mildred_of_midgard]

Okay, I'm done with my snapshot, I promise! Now I need to figure out what happens in the AU.

Current plot summary, subject to change: Fritz and Katte escape from the Zeithain camp in Saxony in June 1730. Fritz appears in Alsace seeking refuge at Rottembourg's estate, sans Katte, who got separated from him along the way. Fritz is undecided whether he wants to go to England and try to push Uncle George into action against FW so Fritz can safely resume his life as Crown Prince (maybe living in Hanover), or whether it's enough to be away from Dear Old Dad, and he's content with life as a private citizen.

Happy ending: Fritz stays in France as a private citizen. Like Rheinsberg, but forever. (Whether or not he eventually moves to a country with less censorship is outside the scope of this fic.) And! Reunited with Wilhelmine, Katte, Peter, Duhan, and probably Suhm. :D The solution I came up with is that he gives up his claims to the Prussian throne, he's allowed to keep the courtesy title of "prince," and the childless Rottembourg is allowed to adopt him as the heir to his fortune.

But first we have to get him there, and I don't want it to be trivially easy. Fritz is undecided on what he wants to do, and everyone is undecided what they want to do with him.

So...who's going to want him to do what, on what grounds, and how is the international situation going to be altered as a result of Fritz's actions?

I imagine some people want him to go back to Prussia, some people want him to come to Paris, some people want him to go to England, some people want him to continue keeping a low profile in Alsace, but who and why and how does this play out?

These are the things I'm thinking about, though right now I need a bit of a break from the computer, so I'll just leave that there for now...

Re: 1730 European snapshot

[cahn]

ha! I can see you were busy while all the rest of us were yuletiding :P :) I have not even gotten to read all this yet, but I hope to start catching up to salon in the next day or two!