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

Re: Austrian Succession tidbits

[mildred_of_midgard]

I remember reading early 19th century writer Varnhagen declare that Zieten's criticism of Winterfeldt proved Zieten couldn't have been such a stand-up great guy as usually presented, because why else would he differ in his judgment on Winterfeldt so much from Fritz? It must have been jealousy!

Oh, lol, Varnhagen! Thank you for reminding me Varnhagen is on my list of authors to check out once my font is up to reading more than a few pages at a time (hence why I broke down and started skimming the article on Heinrich's and AW's Winterfeldt opinions), since he gets cited so much by later authors.

Fontane, otoh, thought Winterfeldt did get exaggarated hostility in the 7 Years War but also that he got it for genuine faults - those of Fritz, whom no one could attack openly, so unconditional Fritz fan Winterfeldt made a good lightning rod.

See, this I'll believe! Remember how Görtz got executed the moment Charles XII died, because no one else in Sweden wanted to keep fighting that war that Charles XII was dragging on for 20 years and sucking his country dry to fund, and Görtz was a foreigner and more importantly, not a royal, so he became the lightning rod for Charles' unpopular war and war-funding policies.

I can imagine if Fritz had died in 1761, Prussia had had to surrender a bunch of territory, and Winterfeldt was still alive and had been his right hand for all those years...if not execution, then some kind of backlash.