Admittedly we have, on this blog, turned our eyes mostly to medieval figures who left their own marks in History in more restricted days, them being male or not. We have also noticed that when it comes to military wars and their heroes, most of the people look after male or female characters who lived in the turbulent period that were the Middle Ages.
However neglected some of the greatest personages of the Modern Era have become, at least to some extent in our point of view, we hope to bring them back to the common public eye. As a result, it is our humble attempt to enlight another perspective to Frederick II, the Great Prussian king who was the inspiration for many of his contemporary and for those who lived way beyond his years, such as Wilhelm II, the Kaiser of a unified Germany who looked at Frederick as his great example for his military ambitions.
As a king, soldier and man, who was King Frederick? Could it be possible to understand his personality, the person he was based on the interpretations of him we have from historians and others who speak and/or study him? Was he as great as history claimed he was, or did Frederick irresistible fall in the traps of propaganda? Motivated by these questions, we hope, if not providing an answer for them, to give space for reflections throughout this post.
Frederick (German: Friedrich) was born in Berlin, as the son of Frederick William I and his consot, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover on the day 24 January 1712. By his mother's side, he was grandson of George I of United Kingdom of Great-Britain, nephew of George II and first cousin to the Prince of Wales, also named Frederick, who'd be the father of King George III. He had a sister named Wilhelmine to whom he was very attached.
Frederick's education was a complicated subject that would bring tension in father-son relationship. For a start, King Frederick William I of Prussia wished his children to be educated as "simple folk" and having his former tutor Madame de Montbail, a Frenchwoman, to take the main role of the education of his children. Nonetheless, as the prince grew, he was instigated by his mother to get in touch with the enlightened subjects she herself had been previously in contact to. So he learned music, literature, French culture as welll as Greek and Roman classics, philosophy and poetry, despite being brought to the strict Huguenot education. To understand why such upbringing caused an opposition relationship between father and son, we have a closely look below:
"Frederick's upbringing and education were strictly controlled by his father, who was a martinet as well as a paranoic. Encouraged and supported by his mother and his sister Wilhelmina, Frederick soon came into bitter conflict with his father. Frederick William I deeply despised the artistic and intellectual tastes of his son and was infuriated by Frederick's lack of sympaty with his own rigidly puritanical and militaritic outlook. His disappointment and contempt took the form of bitter public criticism and even outright physicial violence, and Frederick, beaten and humiliated by his father, often over trifling details of behaviour, took refuge in evasion and deceit. This personal and family feud culminated spectacularly in 1730, when Frederick was imprisoned in the fortress of Küstrin after planning unsuccessfully to flee initially to France or Holland. Lieutenant Hans Hermann von Katte, the young officer who had been his accomplice in the plan, was executed in Frederick's presence, and there was for a short time a real possibility that the prince might share his fate."
Such were the tensions between these two men of different personalities. It was also rumoured that Frederick had been involved to homosexual relations with not only Katte, but formerly with the king's page, Peter Karl Christoph Keith. If such rumours were to be taken credit by the king, which probably were, then this situation in which Frederick was forced to watch Katte's execution explains the urgency his father was in arranging a marriage for his son. A few suitors included Maria Theresa of Habsburg herself, who Frederick proposed if she did not ascend as Charles VI's heiress, which she naturally declined. Eventually he was married to Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, who was a Protestant relative to the Habsburgs.
As a result, this was not a happy match for both parts, despite being said that Elisabeth continued to be devoted towards him. Upon his rising as King of Prussia, Frederick II soon managed to separate from his wife, paying rare visits to her and having a court for himself, and bestowing the title of "Prince of Prussia" to his younger brother Augustus William, acknowledging him as his heir instead.
That being said, where politics and wars were now concerned, from the first moment he became King of Prussia, Frederick declared no one else would decide policy of the kingdom but himself, which let the ministers very clear of his intentions as their sovereign. This taste for war would be released after being balanced with his personal tastes for arts, music and literature. One of his first acts as sole monarch was to attack the Habsburg's province of Sielisa, which was
"a wealthy and strategically important area to which the Hohenzollerns, the ruling family of Prussia, had dynastic claims, though weak ones. The most important threat to his plans was Russian support for Maria Theresa, which he hoped to avert by judicious bribery in St. Petersburg and by exploiting the confusion that was likely to follow the imminent death of the empress Anna. He also hoped that Maria Theresa would cede most of Silesia in return for a promise of Prussian support against her other enemies, but her refusal to do so made war inevitable."
In other words, involved at the War of the Austrian Sucession in which he not only contested Maria Theresa's authority as Holy Roman Empress (who was once the topic of this blog) but also over the territory of Silesia, battles were fought backed by the renewed alliance with Great-Britain, invading as well Saxony, claiming Prague for the Crown. In such conflict, however, territories were won and lost with certain assiduity.
Following this war, it came the conquest of Poland. Frederick was surprisingly remembered for his prejudice and hate towards the Polish people. He claimed the conquering of Poland
"under the pretext of an enlightened and civilizing mission, particularly given his negative perceptions about Poland and the traditions of its ruling elite, all of which merely provided a convenient path for the "sanguine ameliorism" of the Enlightenment and heightened assurance in the "distinctive merits of the 'Prussian way'". He prepared the ground for the partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1752 at the latest, hoping to gain territorial bridge between Pomerania, Brandenburg and East Prussian provinces."
By conquering Poland, he would prevent the advances of Russia towards his territory when it was Russia's Empress, Elisabeth (herself another topic of this blog) who complicated Frederick's interfering in European kingdoms. Eventually, however, an agreement between Frederick and Empress Catherine led to the latter controling the politics of Poland when a candidate she supported was elected King of the Polish. This pact between Russia and Prussia also guaranteed the mutual support if one of the parts suffered an attack from Austria or the Ottoman Empire.
Where this enlightment is concerned, it must be remembered that the concept of "enlightened despotism"came under his domestic rule, when he established in cultured minds primacy of state over personal interests, tolerating religious differences, reforming the military, granting freedom of press to some extent and, mostly important, establishing the first German code of law. That is how his reign is most remembered for. However,
"His actual achievements, [...] were sometimes less than they appeared on the surface; indeed, his inevitable reliance on the landowning officer [Junker] class set severe limits in several respects to what he could even attempt."
Based on that, how far can Frederick be granted the nickname "the Great"? In his first victory, he did not command his troops in person, and throughout the international conflicts Prussia participated, there had been victories and defeats in the same balance. He was, apparently, reserved and quiet, thoughtful even. According to the writer of this article¹ regarding the celebrization of Frederick as a military genious,
"Frederick rationalized his position by appealing to "reason of state", a principle independent of moral guidelines applying to individuals. His 'Anti-Machiavel', published anonymously in 1740- the year of his accession to the throne- argued that law and ethics in international relations should be based on neither the interests of the ruler nor those of his people. Instead, they should be fundamentally consistent, subject to rational calculation and governed by principles that could be learned and applied in the same way one maintains and repairs a clock. This trope remained central to his foreign policy throughtout his reign."
But
"Frederick's ultimate success in the Seven Years' War came at a heavy price, both to him and to Prussia. Although Prussia remained financially stable at the war's conclusion (unlike most of the other major belligerents) its population was devastated from various invasions by Austria, Russia and Sweden. Many of Frederick's closest friends (as well as his sister Wilhelmine, his brother Augustus William and his mother) and the best of his officer corps died during the war."Was he a ruthless man? Can it be said no? Hardly can we ever hold certainty based on events to shape someone's character. What we can possibly assume is that Frederick II was no more different than any other king in his position in the 18th century. There were certainly critics and perhaps there were contemporaries who held more victories and ruled in better terms. But what it must be remembered is that Frederick embodied the concept of the brave leader that encouraged his soldiers. As a king, he was successful to bring Prussia reforms that enlarged it in culture, politics and military terms. equal to realms geographically greater such as Russia, and established empires as Great Britain and Austria. As the paragraph below tells us:
"In an age when physical courage was taken for granted in senior officers, Frederick twice left major battlefields--Mollwitz in 1741 and Lobositz in 1756--under dubious circumstances. [...] Nevertheless, the man who brought Prussia through three brutal wars, oversaw its reconstruction and secure its status as a great power was far more than the sum of his negatives."And:
"Frederick's concept of statecraft in turn convinced him that Prussia must fight only short, decisive wars -partly to conserve scarce resources, partly to convince the losers to make and keep the peace, and partly to deter potential challengers. This required development of a forward-loaded military, able to spring to war from a standstill with strong initial results."Kingship during this century was, evidently, differently shapped according to the demands of the 18th century. Yet, it must bear in mind that Frederick, coming from a small state if compared to established and older empires, managed to evolve Prussia evolve in military terms that would not be complete until the unifying Germany a century later. It is no wonder why Kaiser Wilhelm II often looked up at him, seeing the importance he brought to Prussia.
However might be our interpretation of who he was, as king and man, it is important to leave in evidence that:
"While Frederick did not necessarily seek battle for its own sake, he held nothing back once the fighting started. His enemies responded by denying him the initiative whenever possible, fighting only under favorable conditions and limiting their tactical commitments."According to the expectations of the Prussians, he might have filled them well. But it is inevitable to say he fell to the temptations of propaganda, once commonly the present not always look glorious as the past seemed to have been, and was used as the greatest of Prussia to closely achieve the glory the Germans would continue to seek under Kaiser Wilhelm II and before him, Bismarck. To understand Germany, we must understand Frederick II's ambitions and how far they shaped him. Yet, he was far from the genious that Napoleon laterwards became, for better or worse. Frederick was, however, a man of his time and he must be remembered as such.
Bibliography:
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_the_Great
-https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frederick-II-king-of-Prussia
-http://www.biography.com/people/frederick-ii-9301742
-http://www.historynet.com/frederick-the-great-the-first-modern-military-celebrity.htm¹
-https://www.boundless.com/world-history/textbooks/boundless-world-history-textbook/enlightened-despots-1110/frederick-the-great-and-prussia-1112/frederick-the-great-1121-17703/
-http://www.duhaime.org/LawMuseum/LawArticle-1297/1746-1794-Frederick-the-Greats-Great-Law-Reforms.aspx
-http://www.historytoday.com/reviews/frederick-great-king-prussia
-http://www.britishbattles.com/frederick-the-great-wars/the-battle-of-hohenfriedberg/
-http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21664055-what-made-frederick-great-prussian-and-powerful
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