Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 42

[cahn]

Last post, we had (among other things) Danish kings and their favorites; Louis XIV and Philippe d'Orléans; reviews of a very shippy book about Katte, a bad Jacobite novel, and a great book about clothing; a fic about Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire; and a review of a set of entertaining Youtube history videos about Frederick the Great.

Comments

Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams Tells It All: Habsburg Edition

[cahn]

And he writes on the MT: hot or not? question.

Haha I love this every time it comes up.

H-W goes on to blame Count Bartenstein as the worst of ministers who is leading poor, well intentioned MT astray from the path Britain wants her to tread. Bartenstein does this by the dastardly method of sending her all the papers and dispatches instead of letting someone write summaries for the poor, misguided woman.

LOLOLOLOL! How dare you, Bartenstein!

Re: Charles Hanbury-Williams Tells It All: Habsburg Edition

[selenak]

In all fairness, I was reminded that by the next century, in Metternich's day, one of the most common complaints was that letters took not days or weeks but years until they got read by the Imperial Chancellery, and either hiring more people or going for brief summaries would have helped (though that was just one of many many problems leading to the Viennese version of the 1848 revolutions), but that was in a very different situation.

Incidentally, I wonder how much or little G2 got to read directly as opposed to getting briefs during this time, because that's the obvious comparison for H-W to make internally. Despite MT being an absolute monarch and G2 a very limited one in Britain - though absolute in Hannover - with the PM doing most of the governing. Still, even Elizabeth II, with no power at all, famously got briefed on all goings on via the papers in the red box as The Crown tells us.

Anyway, after having read the Brühl biography where Britain pressures MT to make concessions to Saxony as well as to Prussia in 1741, I find the British "why isn't she more grateful?!?" attitude displayed by all the English diplomats I've read so far even more hilarious.