Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 40

[cahn]

I'm trying to use my other account at least occasionally so I posted about my Yuletide gifts there, including the salon-relevant 12k fic that features Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire, Fredersdorf, Saint Germain, Caroline Daum (Fredersdorf's wife), and Groundhog Day tropes! (Don't need to know canon.)

Comments

Re: I'm alive

[mildred_of_midgard]

Oh, hey, the legal battle in the 40s, is that related to https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/197479.html?thread=4010599#cmt4010599?

Kattes and their legal battles

[prinzsorgenfrei]

No, it's a different one, something about grain delivery to Rathenow. Seems very much Wust related.

I read a bit further and about the whole "trip to the Danube" thing; I think Kloosterhuis does mention Vienna; at least he quotes Katte saying something to a relative in Vienna (specifically quoted as "im Gespräch mit [...] in Wien am 30. April 1730", p. 56 footnote 186).

As for Katte and Fritz not having a lot of time to get to know each other, Katte also spent part of the summer of 1729 in Magdeburg with the army :'D He may have already gotten closer to Fritz by that point, Kloosterhuis treats it as a hypothesis for why Katte is so enthusiastic about his role in a possible war. My personal other ideas are that he is either overcompensating for the almost soft-desertion of early '29 or that he and Holtzendorff are lying through their teeth to distract from the almost soft-desertion of early '29 to calm Hans Heinrich down a bit.

Re: Kattes and their legal battles

[mildred_of_midgard]

No, it's a different one, something about grain delivery to Rathenow. Seems very much Wust related.

Two legal battles and a fratricidal duel in the 1740s! Definitely "may you live in interesting times."

I think Kloosterhuis does mention Vienna; at least he quotes Katte saying something to a relative in Vienna

Ah, I had not made the connection, thank you! Maybe he says "Danube" because Katte made part of the journey by water? I know people did that.

My personal other ideas are that he is either overcompensating for the almost soft-desertion of early '29 or that he and Holtzendorff are lying through their teeth to distract from the almost soft-desertion of early '29 to calm Hans Heinrich down a bit.

Hahaha, very plausible and in-character!

Mind you, in a very militaristic culture, a lot of people who would otherwise not be gung ho about war per se end up gung ho about not being more cowardly than everyone else. Peter Keith was basically shamed into asking to please be allowed to go to war because he couldn't take the peer pressure any longer. So I could definitely see Katte having a sincere hawkish moment. Psychology is weird.