18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 36

[cahn]

Starting a couple of comments earlier than usual to mention there are a couple of new salon fics! These probably both need canon knowledge.

felis ficlets on siblings!

Siblings (541 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, August Wilhelm von Preußen | Augustus William of Prussia (1722-1758), Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
Summary:

Three Fills for the 2022 Three Sentence Ficathon.

Chapter One: Protective Action / Babysitting at Rheinsberg (Frederick/Fredersdorf, William+Henry+Ferdinand)
Chapter Two: Here Be Lions (Wilhelmine)

Unsent Letters fic by me:

Letters for a Dead King (1981 words) by raspberryhunter
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)
Characters: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
Additional Tags: Epistolary, Love/Hate, Talking To Dead People, Canonical Character Death, Dysfunctional Family
Summary:

Just because one's king and brother is dead doesn't mean one has to stop writing to him.

Comments

Saxony's Diplomacy and Prussia's Gangsters With Good PR

[mildred_of_midgard]

I.e. the title of my next miniseries. :P

Brühl having the Diplomatic Revolution idea before Kaunitz: explains some of Fritz' deeply personal hostility, though otoh, if he couldn't pull it off on his lonesome...?

Okay, so this hits on a few things I wanted to talk about!

One, Hanke says the fact that Brühl was trying to negotiate a partition of Prussia is something you would think is well-known to historians, not worth writing an entire book to beat this dead horse. But, Hanke says, historians have all been getting their information for Saxony's alleged nefarious plans to join Europe in partitioning Prussia from an anti-Brühl pamphlet Fritz had commissioned during the Seven Years' War to justify his invasion! He had Hertzberg (future rival of Heinrich for influence over FW2, of whom we've heard before) write a pamphlet that they presented as totally legit and rescued from a building during a fire (a fire that never happened and Fritz totally made up), which revealed all Brühl's alleged schemes.

Then sometime in the 19th century, some Saxon historian who was pissed off at present-day neighbor Prussia wrote a counter-pamphlet going "No, we totally didn't."

Before Hanke, everyone was apparently relying on these two biased pamphlets. Hanke said it was high time someone went through the Saxon archives and looked for the actual evidence for Brühl's actual activity. Which even Luh conceded Hanke did a good job on (although he questioned Hanke's decision to go through the archives of every country *except* Prussia's).

And the verdict, as we saw, was that Saxony totally wanted to partition Prussia and had been trying to make it happen for 12 years, but, was legally a neutral party and part of no formal agreement to harm Prussia in 1756, because they were so commitment-phobic. Meaning Fritz had no legal justification for invading Saxony (never mind what he did while he was there).

Two, Luh wrote an article (in a volume that was too expensive for me to obtain, but I was able to read a review of it) about how Brühl neglected public opinion in his war with Fritz, whereas Fritz went all-out on propaganda, and that PR played a huge role in why Fritz/Prussia was both the short-term and long-term winner in their hostilities.

Three, see next comment.