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: Heinz Duchhardt on Protestant Prince X for Emperor Campaigns, or: Fritz for HRE?

[mildred_of_midgard]

And he may or may not have included in one of the complaining letters something along lines of "if I was in Stanislas/August's place" , but I really don't remember.

Oh, that's ringing a faint bell, now that you mention it. Although I seem to recall Fritz wargaming what he would do in FW's shoes. *scratches head*

Okay, AvB, our Hungarian post-WWI Habsburg royalist gives us Fritz siding with Stanislaus:

Openly, Berlin sided with the protegé of France (Stanislaus Lescinsky, father-in-law of Louis XV) in Danzig, and Friedrich Wilhelm openly toasted Stanislaus at his table round. But just as hostile, only even more openly hurtful, was the attitude of Crown Prince Friedrich. Often he bet with the Saxon envoy Manteuffel that the Elector would not remain King of Poland. In a converastion with Manteuffel, he prophecied the defeat of August, as French and Swedish troops as support counting up to 10 - 21 000 men would be on their way in order to push the election of Stanislaus through by force, who because of Prussia's neutrality would be able to land on Prussian soil. Manteuffell, a practised diplomat, replied that such a solution would be more than welcome to Saxony and Russia, since this way the arena of war would be shifted to much more suitable terrain and one would at last meet troops one could fight as enemies. At the first sign of a landing the united Saxon and Russian army would be able to march against the French, since because of Prussia's neutrality Prussia could not possibly object to letting the Saxons march through Prussian territory. Friedrich was struck by this very logical reply, and returned indiginant that Prussia was no playground for foreign armies. At last, he stated that as opposed to his original plan of war, the French and the Swedes should land in Stralsund which belonged to the Swedes.

And also:

Manteuffel managed to find out that Friedrich planned on immediately after his accession to the throne supporting the Polish anti King Stanislaus Lescynski with a corps of his troops, which amounted to an open attack.

Which we questioned, but it may be what you were thinking of.

But neither of those is Fritz saying *he* wants to be King of Poland.

Incidentally: I really think the timing is all wrong.

Same, for all the same reasons you do. That's why I'm extremely questioning this claim and asking if anyone else has any reason to believe it happened.