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

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak

Briefly, as I am still on my hiking in the Southern Tyrolian Alps trip:

Anna Ivanova dying as a deciding facto for Silesia 1: am reminded again of my 19th century Scottish editor of Mitchell's 18th century memoirs, who regretted James Keith didn't stay with Team Russia and went mano a mano with Fritz on the battlefield instead of fighting for him in the 7 Years War. So if Anna hadn't died, and Fritz would still have gone ahead with the invasion despite later claims to the contrary, this could have happened?

Fritz as stadtholder of the Netherlands?!

Don't forget the Hohenzollerns were using the "Prince of Orange" title already (it's among Fritz' titles in the document transferring Fredersdorf's estate to him in 1740, for example), for no better reason I can see but the Great Elector's first wife, i.e. Fritz great grandmama, having been a Princess of Orange. (Hence Oranienburg being called after her.) And remember, William of Orange (the most famous one) considered making Ludwig the youngest son of the Elector his heir much to the Elector's indignation, and then years later William considered adopting FW for a nanosecond, and I still need to read that AU where the Hohenzollern, not the Hannover cousins, get on the British throne as a result. Anyway, what I'm saying is that Fritz is hardly the first Hohenzollern to be considered for the job, relations were tight ever since the Great Elector, though according to the Elector's biographers also always filled with distrust, i.e. there was the sense that maybe one day a Hohenzollern wouldn't wait for the invitation and would just attempt to take over. Oh, and of course the first foreign trip of Hohenzollern princes traditionally went to the Netherlands (true for the Elector, F1, FW and if you don't count Strassburg for Fritz, and for Heinrich (who was there and met up with Lehndorff there when Fritz finally gave him permission in the later 1760s).

MT apparently dreamed not only of restoring Alsace and Lorraine to the Holy Roman Empire, but Burgundy! Have not been able to confirm this one, but if so--talk about archaic claims!

I'm somewhat sceptical if we're talking of actual Burgundy (including the France-Comte region), but given that the parts of Burgundy the medieval realm which now are Belgium were under Austrian control as the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands, I could see her declaring this old Habsburg heritage she has no intention of giving up, or something like that. Of course, I could be wrong, but I don't remember a claim to actual Burgundy from Stollberg-Rillinger.

Anderson, you left out the most important part!!

NO KIDDING. Of course, it's utterly unsurprising that Fritz wasn't willing to let one of his brothers (either AW or Heinrich, but given AW was next in line for the Prussian throne, Fritz had no intention of siring an alternate heir, and the Dutch would have wanted a Prince who isn't also King of Prussia, it would have had to be Heinrich, wouldn't it? As usual, I doubt anyone thought of Ferdinand) rule a realm of their own. To be fair, he was following tradition here, specifically

The Great Elector: Of course, I should have a say who rules in the Netherlands, being a prince of Orange by marriage and all, but NO WAY IS THIS GOING TO BE ONE OF MY UNFAVOURITES. And what's this about adopting him? ARE YOU IMPLYING I AM NOT A GOOD FATHER, WILLIAM?!?

I wonder if Heinrich ever found out about the stadtholder offer. (If it was mentioned in Ziebura, I have utterly forgotten.)

Same here. But I really don't think it came up during the relevant time. If Heinrich found out, then probably when he made his much delayed first foreign trip, and since Lehndorff doesn't report anything of the sort, it probably didn't happen. (Then again, Lehndorff was recently widowed and still reeling from his first wife's painful death, so he might have missed out on that bit of information.)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Don't forget the Hohenzollerns were using the "Prince of Orange" title already

I did not forget this, but what I remembered was that the Dutch were extremely nervous in the 1730s that the Hohenzollerns might actually try to assert these claims, and were accordingly doing everything they could to keep FW from getting support from other powers for Jülich and Berg, because those territories would give Prussia an increased power base in the area. So I was extremely surprised to see the Dutch actually *inviting* Fritz/his brothers! I guess a lot can change on the political front in 10 years, especially when those years include the War of the Austrian Succession.

So if Anna hadn't died, and Fritz would still have gone ahead with the invasion despite later claims to the contrary, this could have happened?

Perhaps! Though the way things played out in real life, Fritz knew he needed to keep Russia out of the war, so he pressured France to pressure Sweden to invade Russia, and that's why from 1741-1743 James Keith was busy in Finland and Russia had no opportunity to participate in the War of the Austrian Succession until Silesia was safely in Fritz's hands. So...given how long it took Russian troops to arrive in central Europe (a factor in numerous wars and treaties), and the fact that Fritz invaded Silesia in winter, he might still have managed to pull it off without having to face Keith. Sorry, Bisset!

(Also, according to Anderson, apparently part of the deal in 1741 was that Elizaveta agreed with the Swedes that if their invasion helped bring her to power¹, she would cede provinces back to Sweden that had been lost to Peter the Great in the Great Northern War. WELL, she came to power and then did not keep her word, oops.)

1. For additional context, remember that La Chétardie, the French ambassador to Russia whom we've previously met in Berlin, was head of the coup that overthrew Ivan VI and Anna Leopoldovna in favor of Elizaveta. This is part of why Elizaveta initially inclined toward pro-French policies, which made her more inclined to take Prussia's side over Austria's (in contrast to the usual pro-Habsburg policy of Russia) at first. Then she was worn down by a combination of anti-Prussian foreign minister Bestushev, Fritz being an asshole, and a conspiracy against Bestushev among La Chétardie, Fritz, and Johanna of Zerbst (Catherine the Great's mother). La Chétardie got promptly kicked out of Russia, and the Prussian ambassador and Johanna were more politely sent away. And then Russia became gradually more anti-Prussian as the years passed, culminating in the Seven Years' War.

I'm somewhat sceptical if we're talking of actual Burgundy (including the France-Comte region), but given that the parts of Burgundy the medieval realm which now are Belgium were under Austrian control as the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands, I could see her declaring this old Habsburg heritage she has no intention of giving up, or something like that.

I had the same thought, but according to Anderson, this is in the context of invading France and conquering existing French territory to compensate for territory that's been seized from her, so it would kind of have to be Burgundy/Franche-Comté. What she actually said, I have no idea (and like you, I don't trust Anderson). I'm remaining agnostic on this point until further evidence emerges one way or the other.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I don't remember a claim to actual Burgundy from Stollberg-Rillinger.

I searched my Kindle copy for Burgundy in Stollberg-Rilinger before writing this post, and found nothing.

the Dutch would have wanted a Prince who isn't also King of Prussia, it would have had to be Heinrich, wouldn't it?

That was exactly my reasoning!

But I really don't think it came up during the relevant time. If Heinrich found out, then probably when he made his much delayed first foreign trip, and since Lehndorff doesn't report anything of the sort, it probably didn't happen. (Then again, Lehndorff was recently widowed and still reeling from his first wife's painful death, so he might have missed out on that bit of information.)

Yeah, makes sense.

Edited Date: 2022-06-26 02:17 am (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

the medieval realm which now are Belgium were under Austrian control as the Spanish/Austrian Netherlands, I could see her declaring this old Habsburg heritage she has no intention of giving up

I was just reminded that like her father (or uncle Joseph, I forget) and later her son, according to Anderson MT actually wanted to trade the Austrian Netherlands in this war for something more useful, like Bavaria!

This I actually believe, because there's a reason the 18th century Habsburgs kept wanting to get rid of it: it was a huge liability. It was far away from their core lands and therefore difficult to defend, it had two powerful neighbors that kept fighting in the area, and the treaties that ended the War of the Spanish Succession had bound Austrian possession up with so many restrictions that the Emperor was more of a trustee than an actual ruler. Consider:

- The river Scheldt was blocked off to keep Antwerp from competing commercially with the Dutch.
- Import duties were favorable to the Dutch and British.
- Charles VI tried *really* *really* hard to found the Ostend Company to take advantage of his ports for overseas trading purposes, but the Dutch and British kept pointing out that that actually violated the Treaty of Rastatt (part of what we lump under the Peace of Utrecht), and he finally agreed to shut it down in return for recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction.
- The Austrian Netherlands had to pay for the maintenance of the Dutch Barrier fortresses against the French, which ended up being something like a third or even a half of the income of the Austrian Netherlands.

ETA: My 1720s foreign policy write-up here contains a more readable account of the controversy over the Austrian Netherlands and why the Habsburgs were more prone to consider it a liability.

Edited Date: 2022-06-25 10:14 pm (UTC)

From:

cahn

(either AW or Heinrich, but given AW was next in line for the Prussian throne, Fritz had no intention of siring an alternate heir, and the Dutch would have wanted a Prince who isn't also King of Prussia, it would have had to be Heinrich, wouldn't it? As usual, I doubt anyone thought of Ferdinand)

I just love how everyone in salon knew it HAD to have been Heinrich :D (I actually thought the same when I noticed that a specific brother wasn't specified.) Ferdinand who?

From:

selenak

Quite. Also, Fritz' reaction of "no way would it please me to have ~~Heinrich~~ one of my brothers ruling a realm of their own!" will also prove to be pretty specific. I mean, no one considered Ferdinand as a satrap of anything. AW in his younger years had the popularity and the energy, but it's noticable how all the envoys go "not as as smart as his brother, will follow Heinrich's lead for sure when becoming king" in their reports when mentioning AW.

From:

cahn

I mean, no one considered Ferdinand as a satrap of anything.

Hee. I'd say "poor Ferdinand" except that I imagine Ferdinand might have been just as happy with this state of affairs...