Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: FS in three biographies: An Overview (2)

[selenak]

It was one of the things FS and Charles bonded over.

Given Charles had no (surviving) son, it does come across as FS really filling that gap, though not without that other requirement of parent/child relationships, the enstrangement/getting independent period, because when FS visits Vienna after his Grand Tour (and the previous years of taking over as Duke of Lorraine), Charles in his diary goes from anticipating the return with joy to a remarkably neutral-to-cooly polite sounding entry thereafter. Presumably it wasn't any one particular thing, and he soon went hunting with FS again, but it was noticable.

Now, he is an actualfax serious business historian on the one hand, but on the other hand is a nineteenth century German, who is accordingly likely to take der Einzige at face value. (I admit to not having read Vehse's work, so I don't know his actual opinions on Fritz. Wikipedia tells me he was pretty liberal for his time and imprisoned for insulting the duke of Mecklenberg, but, you know, Fritz dominated historiography for that entire century and much of the next. Any of his claims could have slipped in without being checked.

I hadn't heard of him before, but having read the wiki entry in question - which mentions he emigrated to the US for a while and then went back to Saxony, presumably because American reality was not much like US = Freedom in the popular European imagination: he does come across as being on the liberal side of things. His bibliography, btw, also includes a book specifically on Fritz and FW, and from our experience, people writing specifically about young Fritz and FW are either of the "poor young Fritz" persuasion or they're Hohenzollern apologists of the "Küstrin made Frederick great" school. iHowever, I see the wiki entry also says his many historical works are "populärwissenschaftlich", meaning he writes entertainingly and without academic references or much source footnoting. In other words, even if it turned out he was a secret admirer of his contemporary Karl Marx (very much a 19th century German *g*) and thought all monarchs sucked, he could have accepted the Fritzian statement for the sheer irony and entertainment value of FS selling supplies to both armies without bothering to countercheck it. I see he died in 1870 (i.e. just on the eve of the Prussian takeover, err, unification of Germany), so it's also questionable whether he would have had access to unpublished until then sources at any of the archives.

The one thing we can say, though: the MT miniseries screenwriters did not make it up and are perhaps not at fault for believing it

That is very true. I wronged them repeatedly in this regard and might to a rewatch at some point with commentary much as I did of "Der Thronfolger", now that we know so much more.

Re: FS in three biographies: An Overview (2)

[mildred_of_midgard]

I hadn't heard of him before

I had seen him cited enough that it gave me a little extra willingness to believe he had a source that wasn't Fritz, especially if he was saying things not in Fritz, but it's not looking good now that we've dug in a little more.

However, I see the wiki entry also says his many historical works are "populärwissenschaftlich", meaning he writes entertainingly and without academic references or much source footnoting.

Can confirm the lack of references and footnoting!

so it's also questionable whether he would have had access to unpublished until then sources at any of the archives.

Well, wiki tells me he worked as an archivist at the Dresden state archives, so he had access to *those* unpublished archives, but yeah, Berlin and Vienna archives would have been the important ones here, and he presumably did not. If Arneth said FS sold supplies to the Prussians, *then* I'd believe it!

That is very true. I wronged them repeatedly in this regard and might to a rewatch at some point with commentary much as I did of "Der Thronfolger", now that we know so much more.

We definitely knew much less at the start of salon; it's been and continues to be an amazing journey. I'm leaning toward "Sachsens Glanz und Preußens Gloria" (whom we also wronged) with newly acquired Saxon knowledge, myself...though I need to work on my German listening comprehension first. One day!