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cahnNot only are these posts still going, there is now (more) original research going on in them deciphering and translating letters in archives that apparently no one has bothered to look at before?? (Which has now conclusively exonerated Fritz's valet/chamberlain Fredersdorf from the charge that he was dismissed because of financial irregularities and died shortly thereafter "ashamed of his lost honor," as Wikipedia would have it. I'M JUST SAYING.)
Fritz as foreign minister
Date: 2023-06-27 03:53 pm (UTC)The new tone of Prussian diplomacy was immediately evident in the repayment of loans made by Britain. While crown prince at the end of the 1730s...[Frederick's] uncle, Britain's George II, had -- albeit grudgingly -- forwarded substantial sums to Berlin: around £12,500 seems to have been sent to the crown prince in the final eighteen months of Frederick William I's life. London's motive was political rather than charitable: the king and his ministers hoped that, upon his own accession, Frederick would be grateful and that this gratitude would be apparent in an improvement in Anglo-Prussian relations, which had been distant and at times acrimonious during the 1730s. The expectation of British ministers was clearly that these 'loans' would not be redeemed, although they were expected to yield a diplomatic dividend. To their surprise, and to the consternation of Britain's representative in Berlin, Guy Dickens, they were repaid in full and apparently in cash less than a fortnight after Frederick's accession.
I did not realize the loans were made in hopes they *wouldn't* be paid back, and the prompt payback was making a point. That also explains why it took so long in comparison for Prince Liechtenstein (into the 1770s, as I recall); Fritz wasn't worried about him having too much influence on Prussian diplomacy.
I got this from H.M. Scott's "Prussia's royal foreign minister: Frederick the Greatand the administration of Prussian diplomacy", an essay in Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Memory of Ragnhild Hatton (the book where I learned that Isabel de Madariaga can take a dry-seeming topic and make it an interesting read).
Scott's a Fritz fan, noticeable by the standards of modern Brits, although nothing by the standards of 19th century Germans, of course. What I found most interesting about his article was that I'm apparently used to revisionist history in modern works, because when I read him saying that the traditional view has always been that Fritz dominated Prussia's foreign policy with an iron fist to the exclusion of his ministers, I was expecting an article introducing nuance by showing how much his ministers actually contributed.
Nope! The opposite. His "revisionism" is challenging the view that this only started in the late months of 1740, when the Silesian invasion was being planned, by presenting evidence that all the ministers were kept in the dark starting in June, just days after Fritz's accession. He quotes tons of primary sources to the effect of "And then this happened, and the diplomats had no idea what was going," and "By this date, Podewils was already a glorified messenger," and so forth. It was kind of darkly hilarious.
He has some details I didn't know, like the fact that Fritz's announcement that Prussian diplomats were to correspond with their superiors in French, not German, dates to the second day of Fritz's reign. The news may not have made it to minor provincial nobility in Poberow by August, but apparently the rule started soon! There were exceptions, though:
This was, however, far from universally enforced in Prussian diplomacy. Throughout Frederick's reign, favoured individuals (often from a military background) who knew little or no French were allowed to correspond in German, which seems also to have been extensively used - logically enough for policy in the Reich. See, for one example, the 'Instructions' for Friedrich Sebastian Wunibald Graf von Waldburg-Zeil, who went on a mission to George II when he was at Hanover: these were drawn up in German, dated 10 June 1740, and are in GStPK, Rep. 96.31A.
Also of interest, one advantage of staying in Potsdam instead of Berlin was the ability to send messengers to and from foreign courts without having the message intercepted by ministers and diplomats in Berlin. Now, as Scott points out, it was normal for monarchs to carry on secret correspondence with their diplomats--we all know about Le Secret du Roi, Louis XV's secret diplomacy that sometimes worked at cross-purposes to his official diplomacy--but apparently the difference with Fritz was both the scale at which it operated, and the fact that he rubbed your face in it. You'd see a messenger going by on a horse and be like, "Well, there goes another message to/from Fritz directly. Wonder what it says." :D
It was facilitated by the private courier service which was manned by soldiers (Feldjäger/chasseurs ), operated from Potsdam...and could carry despatches directly and speedily to their destination: without, of course, passing through the Prussian capital.
Then some details on Eichel, who was, apparently, "one of only two people, other than the king, who knew the details of Prussia's state finances and the location of cash reserves in the various funds at the royal disposal."
Mitchell was apparently the *only* diplomat who ever got through to see him. Even his successors, Ludwig Ernst Heinrich Cöper and Theodor Stephan Laspeyres, "were largely hidden from view and always remained mysterious figures. It is revealing that, almost a year after Eichel's death, French diplomats were still ignorant of the very names of his successors."
The footnote reading, "The verdict of Walther Hubatsch, that Podewils 'did not succeed in controlling the youthful Frederick II as he would like to have done' is an understatement of heroic proportions" kind of sums up the whole article.
Re: Fritz as foreign minister
Date: 2023-06-29 05:26 am (UTC)Ohhhh wow! This is why I'm not a politician. Or a king :P
it was normal for monarchs to carry on secret correspondence with their diplomats--we all know about Le Secret du Roi, Louis XV's secret diplomacy that sometimes worked at cross-purposes to his official diplomacy--but apparently the difference with Fritz was both the scale at which it operated, and the fact that he rubbed your face in it. You'd see a messenger going by on a horse and be like, "Well, there goes another message to/from Fritz directly. Wonder what it says." :D
HAHAHAHA. Gosh, Fritz.
Re: Fritz as foreign minister
Date: 2023-06-29 07:14 am (UTC)Re: Fritz as foreign minister
Date: 2023-06-30 01:13 am (UTC)I seem to recall Fontane snarking that Fritz could have paid the Austrians back with the money from Silesia, but never did...but I don't consider him 100% reliable, although he did do his research. I certainly don't *recall* anyone saying they were paid back, but it may well be that they were (before October 1740).
If Seckendorf was lending Fritz money out of his own pocket, though, he was never going to get that back. :P Sorry, Seckendorff, should have invested in playing mentor to him, and then you could have gotten a walking cane with a golden Socrates head!
Re: Fritz as foreign minister
Date: 2023-06-30 01:10 am (UTC)Right? I was always like, "Of course they wanted it paid back!" and when Scott explained, "Of course they didn't want it paid back!" I was like OOOOHHHH.
HAHAHAHA. Gosh, Fritz.
Fritz: I want to make sure everyone knows exactly who's in charge, and it's not Podewils. Or anyone else.
this gratitude would be apparent in an improvement in Anglo-Prussian relations, which had been distant and at times acrimonious during the 1730s.
Reminder to you that it was August 1729 when G2 and FW nearly started a war and/or got into a duel over some recruiters and some hay.