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

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.