18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 38

[cahn]

Gonna go ahead and make this post even though Yuletide is coming...

But in the meantime, there has been some fic in the fandom posted!

Holding His Space (2503 words) by felisnocturna
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF, 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Characters: Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Additional Tags: Protectiveness, Domestic, Character Study
Summary:

Five times Fredersdorf has to stay behind - and one time Friedrich doesn't leave.

Using People (3392 words) by prinzsorgenfrei
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 18th Century CE RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great/Hans Hermann von Katte
Characters: Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Hans Hermann von Katte
Additional Tags: Fluff, Idiots in Love, reading plays aloud while gazing into each others eyes
Summary:

Friedrich had started to talk to him because he had thought of him as a bit of a ditz.
And now here he was. Here he was months later, bundled up in this very same man’s blankets with a cup of hot coffee in front of him, its scent mixing with that of Katte’s French perfume.
_
Fluffy One Shot about one traitorous Crown Prince and the sycophant he accidentally fell for.

Comments

Re: Katte and blame

[cahn]

[ETA: which may have a lot to do with why Alexei, who escaped Peter the Great, agreed to go back, and found himself tortured to death.]

Waaaait, I didn't know that! (I mean I knew about him getting killed, but not that he escaped in the first place... I guess it's time for me to get back to the Peter book, now that I think I can handle it again.)

Re: Katte and blame

[selenak]

Oh, he escaped, alright, and hung out in Austria with MT's Dad for a while. This was kind of awkward for non political reasons as well as political ones because their connection was through Alexei's late unwanted wife, who had been MT's aunt, and whom Alexei had treated as badly as Peter had treated Alexei's mother. (Meanwhile, Peter got on very well with his daughter-in-law, who was the first of many, many German princesses to marry a Romanov. Seriously, this match started the tradition of the Romanovs (minus Peter the Great himself, whose second wife was his low born mistress) getting married German princesses right until the last Czar who married Alix of Hesse-Kassel.

Anyway, MT's Dad did feel very sorry for Alexei regardless, and there's a letter from him to G1 which shows he suspected Peter of having bad plans for his son, but having him in Austria was also politically tricky, so he sent Alexei to Naples. Where eventually Alexei was persuaded to come back to Russia on the promise he wouldn't be punished and would be allowed to live out his life on his estates and marry Afrosina, his mistress. (Remember, at this point, Peter the Great's sons from his second marriage were still alive, so it wasn't like there weren't any alternative successors around.) Alexei made literally the mistake of his life and did return. Tragedy ensues which is the main reason why no one can call FW the worst royal Dad of the 18th century.

Re: Katte and blame

[cahn]

Oh nooooo. I would say therapy for everyone, but also um NOT KILLING YOUR KID seems like a good move here too... but yes, I should also read Massie :)

Alexei; FW and the Pragmatic Sanction

[mildred_of_midgard]

Given that it was in the very earliest days of salon that Selena summarized this episode for us, I can see why you'd forgotten! Here is the link, though you should also read Massie!

Looking through that thread, I see another case where we knew a whole lot less then than we do now:

in all fairness, he did accept the Pragmatic Sanction when Maria Theresia's Dad asked him to. (And likely would not have broken his word afterwards. Not because he would have considered MT or any woman able to rule but because word of honor, etc.)

Having now read a whole bunch of 1720s and some 1730s foreign policy, I still agree FW wouldn't have kicked off the war himself, but I also doubt he would have felt bound by the Pragmatic Sanction.

1. FW's foreign policy in the 1720s was all over the place, and he was defecting on treaties and double-dealing whenever he felt like it.

2. He was furious all through the 1730s at the Emperor for not keeping *his* end of the bargain, which was to support FW's claims to Jülich & Berg. (There stands one who will avenge me, etc.) In fact, the treaty in which FW agreed to support the Pragmatic Sanction was the Treaty of Wusterhausen of 1726, in which FW gave that promise in return for said claims, and the treaty was null and void if Charles VI hadn't done something about those claims within 6 months.

I believe Fritz used this violated-already-by-the-Emperor treaty as an excuse in 1740. And unless there was a later treaty in which the Pragmatic Sanction was re-agreed to without such provisions (which may have been the case, especially in the War of the Polish Succession), I'm not sure Prussia *was* bound by treaty to respect the Pragmatic Sanction. (Which is different from
a legal or ethical right to invade with those very sketchy claims to Silesia.)

My opinion on what FW does in this scenario is that he *might* remain neutral or side with MT, but there's a very real chance he helps out the Wittelsbach guy (his emperor, after all!) in return for Jülich and Berg. He did join the Great Northern War on the grounds that Prussia had some (very shaky) claims to Swedish Pomerania, so he seems fine joining other people's wars of aggression to assert his own claims.