Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 46

[cahn]

Background: The kids' school has a topic for "Unit" every trimester that a lot of their work (reading, writing, some math) revolves around. These topics range from time/geographic periods ('Colonial America') to geography ('Asia') to science ('Space') to social science ('Business and Economics'). (I have some issues with this way of doing things, but that's a whole separate post.) Anyway, for Reasons, they have had to come up with a new topic this year, and E's 7/8 class is doing "World Fairs" as their new topic.

Me: I know E's teacher is all about World Fairs and I know she is great and will do a good job. But I feel like if we had a different teacher who wasn't so into World Fairs, they wouldn't do such a good job and another topic would be better.
Me: Like... the Enlightenment!
D: Heh, you could teach that! But you'd have to restrain yourself from making everything about Frederick the Great.
Me: But that's the thing! Everyone does relate to each other in this time period! Voltaire -- and his partner Émilie du Châtelet, who was heavily involved in the discourse of conservation of energy and momentum -- well, I've told you Voltaire had a thing with Fritz -- and then there's Empress Maria Theresa, who went to war with him a few times -- and Catherine the Great --
D, meditatively: You know --
Me: *am innocently not warned even though this is the same tone of voice that is often followed by, say, a bad pun*
D: -- it's impressive how everyone from this 'the Great' family is so famous!
Me: *splutters*
D, thoughtfully: But of course there's probably selection bias, as the ones who aren't famous don't get mentioned. You never see 'Bob the Great' in the history books...
Me: *splutters more*

Comments

Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Northern Accord, 1764-1767

[cahn]

So Fritz follows an approach often used on the dating scene, and he starts acting interested in someone else in front of her. Namely, he starts flirting with the Ottomans. Now, during the war, you may remembered he had tried unsuccessfully to get them as allies. But now that it's November 1763, the war is over, and August III is dead, Fritz is hosting the Turkish delegation in Berlin, spending a lot of money to impress them, and watching the Russians out of one corner of his eye.

Russians: Fritz is spending money??! He must be serious! We must beat the Ottomans to the punch.

Catherine: *signs*

Me: Mildred has realized I am in this for the gossipy sensationalism, so she is couching the diplomatic/foreign-policy stories in terms of gossipy sensationalism so I will be more interested in it!
Me: ...sounds legit.

1. Do not get sucked into any alliances with anyone but Russia. They might lead to commitments that would drag him into another war he can't afford.

2. Do not let Russia ally with anyone other than him, that will give him less leverage over Russia.

...well, I guess that makes sense!

Re: 1764-1772 Foreign policy: Russia: The Northern Accord, 1764-1767

[mildred_of_midgard]

Me: Mildred has realized I am in this for the gossipy sensationalism, so she is couching the diplomatic/foreign-policy stories in terms of gossipy sensationalism so I will be more interested in it!
Me: ...sounds legit.

Heee! I try. Sorry for the minimal dialogue in this one; I didn't have the energy to put as much effort into every single installment as I did into the first one.