War! (What is it good for?)

[mildred_of_midgard]

selenak's write-up of the Pragmatic Sanction:

Pragmatic Succession

Btw, another confusion to avoid later on – „the Empress“ whom Wilhelmine meets isn’t Maria Theresia (whom she also met, but later). Maria Theresia gets referred to as either „the arch duchess“ or „the Queen of Hungary“. Background: remember in Shakespeare’s play Henry V. the long monologue about „The Salic Law“ by the Archbishop of Canterbury early on (to justify Henry invading France)? That. The Salic Law applied to the Holy Roman Empire, which meant no woman on the throne. Now, since the fourteenth century, the Emperor had been exclusively from the House of Habsburg, though technically, Emperors were elected by the German princes. However, Maria Theresia’s dad had no sons, try as he might. That he didn’t really accept this until basically five minutes before his death meant MT hadn’t been prepared for the throne and had to learn on the job. But when he acknowledged at least the possibility there would be no sons, he worked hard to get the other German princes to acknowledge „The Pragmatic Sanction“, which meant Maria Theresia would inherit Austria and assorted territories and her spouse would be elected Holy Roman Emperor. (This meant the Salic Law technically still applied, since it was the spouse who would be Emperor, and Maria Theresia only Empress by marriage, not crowned in her own right.)

Now, when MT’s Dad did die, this at first was ignored by practically everyone. Instead of her husband – Franz Stefan, the Duke of Lorraine, which is why from this point onwards, it’s actually the House of Habsburg-Lorraine -, the German princes voted the Duke of Wittelsbach (ruler of Bavaria) as the next Emperor, and Fritz invaded Silesia to make her on-the-job learning even more joyful. The old fat Empress Wilhelmine mentions near the end of her memoirs this is the lady of Bavaria. After the Duke of Wittelsbach-turned-Emperor, who wasn’t the youngest, died, however, MT had on-the-job-learned, and also, she’d persuaded the Hungarians to crown her Queen despite her being „only“ arch duchess, not Empress. Which meant that this time around, the electors voted for her husband Franz Stefan as Emperor. Behold, Empress-by-marriage Maria Theresia. Fritz still referred to her as „the Queen of Hungary“ only, which is why Wilhelmine does, too. (Though she did meet her.)

(Who did the ruling, which was never a question. Franz Stefan was that rarity of a male 18th century and later spouse who did not object to this. He also had a talent for spotting economic advantages and focused on large scale cloth manufacturing.)

Franz Stefan was Liselotte's and thus of course Philippe's) grandson on his mother's side. His mother wasn't pleased that he was required to give up Lorraine in order to marry Maria Theresia; he got Tuscany for it as the last Medici duke had just died, which was part of a deal with France so France would support the Pragmatic Sanction once Maria Theresia's dad was dead. (Spoiler: they didn't and let Fritz invade instead.) Franz Stefan, aka Franzl, thus basically had to give up his duchy on the chance that he'd be elected Emperor (a job which however his wife would execute), and if his father-in-law had gotten a male heir at the last minute, he'd have been stuck with Tuscany (that was, IF he'd been able to hold it without support) for the rest of his life. However, he and Maria Theresia had known each other from childhood onwards and were that extreme rarity in 18th century Europe, a love match, and even a strong-willed teen, she insisted it had to be him and no other.

Mind you, he still cheated on her later on. But he still rates highly among 18th century spouses: their first few kids were girls until Joseph arrived, and instead of being upset, he was doting, he supported her emotionally through all the ups and downs (really important when the first thing that happened upon her father's death was Fritz pouncing, Bavaria following suit and the rest of Europe saying "Pragmatic Sanction? What pragmatic sanction, that's a WOMAN on the throne, hahaha), and as mentioned, he was that further rarity among nobles in any century, a truly good businessman adapt at making cash, not just spending it. (This meant when his son Joseph - aka the rational fanboy - had to balance the state budget, he could draw from the private Habsburg accounts that Dad had so ably filled.) Since the 7-years-war drained the Austrian budget A LOT, this came in really handy at that time, too. Maria Theresia seems to have fallen as a young girl and remained in love through all of her life, his mistresses not withstanding. Basically, he invented being a good Prince Consort though he was technically the Emperor.

mildred_of_midgard's write-up of the Silesian Wars at a high level, with emphasis on the first two:

Silesian Wars

cahn: Holy cow, I hadn't realized that Maria Theresia's ascension, er, took quite so long

mildred_of_midgard: Oops, we may not have told you that the war Fritz started when he invaded Silesia was called the War of the Austrian Succession and lasted 8 years. Haha. So here's how it goes. Dates are included where relevant to characterization.

May 31, 1740: FW dies, Fritz inherits giant treasury and efficient army.

September 1740: Fritz publishes the Anti-Machiavel, aka "You should totally not break treaties and invade other people's territories just because you can." (Voltaire: "Woohoo!")

October 20, 1740: Maria Theresia's dad dies, leaving her no training, no treasury, and a wobbly army.

October 21, 1740: "Pragmatic Sanction? What pragmatic sanction, that's a WOMAN on the throne, hahaha" #Europe

November 8, 1740: Fritz silently mobilizes Dad's his army without telling anyone what he's up to. (This is the context for the "Can you keep a secret?" "Yes, Your Majesty!" "Well, so can I!" anecdote.)

December 11, 1740: Fritz sends a message to MT demanding she hand him her richest province, Silesia.

December 16, 1740: Fritz invades Silesia without waiting for an answer from MT, without declaring war, without any legal pretext whatsoever other than this.

Sometime later, while he's occupying the province: Fritz tells his people to come up with a legal pretext giving him a historical claim to Silesia. They find one. He says, "Good job!" (Voltaire: "OMGWTFBBQ!!!")

June-July 1742: MT reluctantly says, "Fine, you can keep most of it," thus ending the First Silesian War.

1744-1745: MT and Fritz fight the Second Silesian War, because she's not actually giving up that easily.

1745: MT reluctantly says, "Fine, you can keep it. Asshole." MT still trying to get the Pragmatic Sanction recognized.

1745: Having gotten what he wants, Machiavelli Fritz totally ditches his ally France and leaves France to fight the rest of the war on its own. "See you, suckers!"

1748: MT FINALLY gets the Pragmatic Sanction recognized by Europe, ending the War of the Austrian Succession, but has to acknowledge for the third time that Fritz has Silesia. "For now." *cue ominous music*

June 1756: MT is determined to start the Third Silesian War. She's prepared this time! She's also assisted by the fact that, as described elsewhere, every major neighboring European power is now pissed off at Fritz, for various reasons, e.g. France at being ditched in the last war. Everyone gets sucked into what is going to develop into the Seven Years' War.

The only reason England doesn't also gang up on him is that political considerations take precedence over the King of Prussia being an over-the-top asshole interpersonal relations, and they're kind of already at war with France, etc, etc.

August 1756: Fritz realizes he just got himself into a 3 1/2 front war. What does he do? Invade Saxony before any of his enemies have a chance to realize they've lost the initiative. "Dammit, Fritz!" Diplomatically, though, this was a victory for his enemies, since some of the alliances were defensive and only kicked in if he invaded, and they were counting on him to do something in-character like invade.

September 1756: Fritz tells his people occupying Saxony to seize the state archives and find a legal justification for the invasion.

7 years, some Russian fanboy shenanigans, and numerous near-defeats later...

1763: Fritz gets to keep Silesia.

1772: "That was fun!* Can we divvy up Poland too? Come on, MT, it'll be fun. You, me, and Catherine. What's not to like?"

* He didn't actually say "That was fun," he said, "That war was the worst thing ever, I'd rather have been composing symphonies at home, but I am totally INNOCENT of that war and my enemies forced it on me *cough* and I had responsibilities to the state of Prussia, and maybe this time I can meet some of those expansionist responsibilities with less bloodshed, whaddaya say, Austria and Russia?" TL;DR: "That was fun, would invade an innocent country again!"

No, Fritz wasn't a Nazi, he was one of the most liberal European rulers going at the time, but he diiiid have a very high death toll in his unprovoked expansionist wars at the time, plus he set a two-hundred year very bad Prussian/German precedent for "Invaders keepers!"

Ambivalent legacy is ambivalent.

selenak fleshing out the non-Prussia side of the War of the Austrian Succession:

Austrian Succession

Karl Albrecht of Bavaria: My wife is MT's aunt, the daughter of her dad's older brother. If we're counting WOMEN, I totally should be Emperor (and get Austria, too.)

Friedrich August of Saxony: (legitimate kid of August the Strong, he of the hundreds of potential offspring): My wife is also an aunt of Resi's. Just saying. Also, Fritz isn't the only northern German who can invade.

Philip of Spain (another one!): So I'm a French Bourbon, not a Habsburg, but the Habsburgs used to rule Spain until me. (I'm the first Bourbon on the throne.) Therefore, I should totally rule Austria and the Holy Roman Empire now. At least I'm not A WOMAN.

All of them: *pounce along with Fritz*


MT: *allies with England and the Netherlands, on the rationale that England is ready for anything anti France and the Netherlands ditto for anything anti Spain*

Karl Albrecht: I win! First Emperor of the House of Wittelsbach since 300 years! Take that, Habsburgs!

MT in 1742: *has a preliminary and temporary truce with Fritz which allows the Austrian army to counterinvade Bavaria*

Bavaria: *keeps switching being occupied by the Austrians and the French for the next few years*

1745: Karl Albrecht dies at a point where the Austrians are dominant in Bavaria; his son, refreshingly, is not called Karl or August or Friedrich but Maximilian

MT: So, Max. Want Bavaria back?

Maximilian: withdraws any Wittelsbach claim to the throne in exchange for Bavaria and also supports the election of Franz Stefan as Emperor. Franzl gets duly elected.

Philip & Friedrich August: Now that's just cheating!

A write-up of the Seven Years' War, with emphasis on Peter III, by mildred_of_midgard:

Russian shenanigans

So, Elizabeth is Tzarina of Russia. She haaaates Fritz's guts, hopes he chokes on his own spite and has an aneurysm and dies. (I'm making the details up, but she does hate him.)

Now she's in an alliance with Austria and France and a half-hearted Sweden*, who have all ganged up on Fritz in a three-and-a-half front war because he's like that guy mouthing off in a bar who's dead set on provoking everyone in sight. (I will spare you the details, but you do not understand how ridiculously improbable this alliance was--Austria and France getting together was called the Diplomatic Revolution because it was *so* revolutionary that they would agree on anything the way they agreed that Fritz needed to be taught a lesson. Okay, the Seven Years' War was not all about Fritz, it was a lot of superpowers clashing over a million things. But let's note that Fritz did nothing to avoid making everyone in Europe mad at him.)

Uncle George (II) in Great Britain, who has also been provoked by Fritz, has balance of power considerations in continental Europe, and huge conflicts with France overseas, nevertheless decides that it's worth putting up with his nephew the obnoxious little shit in order to kick France's ass. Especially since Fritz is Machiavellian (ask me about Fritz and Machiavelli) enough to be willing to present himself as the savior of the Protestant faith for the sake of propaganda, lol Fritz.

But mostly George (whose name I'm using metonymically for him and his ministers, he was not nearly as active in foreign policy as some of his neighbors) is interested in his overseas territories, of which Prussia has none, and so he offers Fritz some money and mostly moral support, and some distraction of his neighbors, but isn't fielding an army to fight alongside Prussia, which is on its own in this three-front war. So Fritz 1) got his country into an avoidable three-front war with enemies bigger than he was and 2) won it, barely, which accounts for a great deal of his ambivalent legacy (more on ambivalent legacy later).

* When Sweden eventually made peace with Fritz, he snarked at their ambassadors, "I'm sorry, were you at war with me? Wow, you learn something new every day." (Paraphrased.)

Also, remember that Austria AND France AND GB were all on Fritz's side when he was running away from his dad and tried to get FW to calm down, and FW actually attributed his decision not to kill his son to foreign intervention, and how does Fritz show his gratitude when he comes to power ten years later? "Screw you all, I do what I want. My dad left me an army and a treasury."

So here's Fritz, well into the Seven Years' War, barely hanging in there, swaying around in the bar seeing stars but landing enough punches his opponents are also bleeding out of various orifices. No one understands how he's still on his feet, this was supposed to be over in thirty seconds. "You have got to be kidding me" is the general reaction. But he might finally be about to drop.

Enter...the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg! (Brandenburg is where the Hohenzollerns are from. It's the area around Berlin.)

Elizabeth, who we remember hates Fritz's guts, has been getting progressively sicker. Finally, finally (Fritz has been calling her an "old bitch" for not doing it sooner), she dies.

Her heir is Peter III. He's a German prince who ended up on the throne of Russia because intermarriage.

What happens when he succeeds to the throne?

"Hey, Fritz! ILLLUUUUU! You're my hero! Can I get your autograph? I dress like you and wear my hair like you and I wanna have an army just like you and initiate reforms just like you and I pretend I'm you when I play with my soldiers! *hyperventilates*

"OMG, I'm soooooo sorry about my predecessor making war on you. Women, amirite? Here's my army which was trying to kill you yesterday. My soldiers are totally on your side now and will attack your enemies and defend you with their lives. YOUR CAUSE IS MINE!

"P.S. If you ever come visit, I will totally give you a blow job, you have only to ask."

(Okay, I made up the postscript, there's no evidence for that, but it's in the spirit of things. :P)

Fritz: "Oh thank the Supreme Being that I as a Deist kind of believe in when I'm not sporadically pretending to be a Protestant for the peasants, I might actually not have destroyed my entire country with my ill-thought-out decisions. Comin' at you, Austria and France! It's two on two now! How do you like *them* apples?" *gets a second wind*

Peter: Lasts approximately five minutes (six months, which is like five minutes for a reign) as Tzar before the "Russia is not a province of Prussia" party led by his wife overthrows and probably assassinates him.

His wife and successor, Catherine the soon-to-be-Great: "Fritz is a total asshole, and sucking his dick is not a foreign policy, much less is it going to be this country's foreign policy. Yes, he's an intelligent asshole and I like some of his reforms too, but we are out of this war. Attention, soldiers! Return to Russia at once."

Russian general on site with Fritz in Poland or thereabouts: "Sorry, dude, there was a coup; boss says I have to go home."

Fritz: "Shit. Shit. Enemies approaching now. Okay, Russian guy, I know you can't disobey orders, but it takes time to pack up an army and move it. Can you stick around for, like, two days, arrange your army in battle order, and pretend like you're going to attack, but really just watch, so no one dies and your Empress isn't pissed off? I can work with that."

Russian general: "I guess, yeah."

Austrians or French or both, I forget: "Wow, Fritz sure has a lot of troops on his side. Approach with caution." *battle ensues* "I wonder why the Russians are looking so menacing over there but never actually engaging?" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fritz: "Thank you SO MUCH. You can go home now."

And thus concluded the Russian fanboy shenanigans.

To understand how significant all this was on a major geopolitical scale, you have to realize that Prussia was on the verge of losing. Fritz lost some major battles, partly through very questionable decisions when his generals were yelling at him to do basically anything but what he was doing but Fritz has never listened to anyone in his life except for Voltaire on matters of French literary style, and after having his army destroyed repeatedly, he was talking about abdicating and committing suicide.

But he won the war. Three bigger guys set out to teach the scrawny little wiseguy a lesson, and at the end of the day, they're all staggering around punch drunk, and he's ready to come back for more. They all stare at each other in disbelief and head off to the hospital to get their injuries treated, leaving him sitting at the bar wearily drinking that glass of beer he snatched out of someone else's hand that started the whole thing.

Friedrich attributed his victory to the two "Miracles of the House of Brandenburg." The one where Elizabeth finally died and Peter came to power for like 6 whole months, and the one where he had lost a battle catastrophically and had no power to stop the Russians from sacking Berlin and conquering his entire country, but the Russians failed to capitalize on their opportunity.

It has been plausibly argued that Friedrich overrated the importance of these "miracles" and that, for once in his life he overestimated his enemies, by underestimating the extent to which, even if they won some key battles, they were losing the war because they didn't have the resources to keep fighting. The one thing Friedrich and FW before him did was make sure their country had a near bottomless pool of resources to keep fighting from.

Regardless. Friedrich said he came within a hairsbreadth of losing and was saved by his enemies, and everyone believed him.

Critically, almost two hundred years later, the Nazis believed him. When they were at the end of WWII and staring a really obvious defeat in the face, they held out without surrendering longer than they otherwise would, on the grounds that they were exactly like Old Fritz in every way possible (*Fritz spinning in his misplaced grave*) and Providence had saved Friedrich with some miracles, so it would save them! This is what Selenak was referring to about Roosevelt dying and all that.

Also, their propagandistic version of their hero Old Fritz who tooootally would have endorsed the Nazi party that was just following in his footsteps...is so OOC character assassination as to be unrecognizable and as deluded as the idea that Truman was going to withdraw America from the war...because...he was such a fan of Hitler???

In conclusion, the Russian fanboy shenanigans perfectly encapsulate how decisive Fritz was both to his contemporaries and to later generations. Reactions ranged from "Kill the bastard" to "I want your autograph" to the middle ground, summarized by the best description of Fritz I've ever seen, which I think is contemporary: "Thinks like a philosopher and acts like a king."

At the time, after the Seven Years' War, Fritz was a big celebrity in Europe, to Protestants (because defender of the Protestant faith, omg lol) and Germans and liberal thinkers and hero-worshippers and intellectuals and so forth. People named their kids after him and their taverns, and people with money traveled to Potsdam to see Old Fritz toward the end of his life (but he was getting increasingly antisocial and only saw you if he wanted to, so a lot of people walked away disappointed).

In later times, fast forwarding through nineteenth-century German nationalism, Hitler and the Nazis made Old Fritz into their epitome of everything Aryanism was striving for. (That the RL guy would have ended up in a concentration camp wearing a pink triangle is just...the mind boggles.) After the Holocaust, everyone except the neo-Nazis hated Fritz for a long time because they saw him as the predecessor to Hitler and practically a Nazi himself, with all his unprovoked expansionist warfare, absolutism, and glorification of the army. Eventually, everyone calmed down a little, read some books, and decided Fritz should only be held responsible for his own actions, not the ones that later people invoked his name to justify, and his historical context should be taken into account. Current communis opinio is that Fritz's legacy should be handled with caution, but as long as we remember not to be nationalistic and to criticize the conquest of Silesia etc., it's okay to like him and write thousands of words about him in cahn's comment threads, because he was actually kind of amazing for his time.

selenak's additions:

re: Catherine: among so many other things, what happens if the wife in an unhappy royal marriage isn't an Elisabeth Christine (accepting her lot in exiled life) or a Sophia Dorothea (fighting a marital war, but via the kids mostly), but a politically ambitious woman (with, famously, her own lovers) and one of the best survivalists of the era. Considering Fritz actually had been pushing for her marriage to Peter (as Catherine was born Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst - her dad had been one of his generals, and whether or not that was responsible for her not hero worshipping attitude towards him, I'll leave to you), there's additional irony here.

re: Nazis and their Fridericus Cult: just to illustrate a bit of how pervasive that one was even before 1945 and Hitler expecting a fanboy letter from Truman any time soon: there was a whole series of Fritz movies, most, though not all starring Otto Gebühr, who made a career out of playing Friedrich II. Said series started in the Weimar Republic, but really picked up later. Now, Stalingrad happens, and even your hardcore Nazi has an inkling this is REALLY BAD NEWS and invading Russia might not have been such a bright idea after all. At first, Goebbels declares all German soldiers died at Stalingrad so he can sell it as some kind of heroic death scenario. Then, it becomes undeniable that General Paullus surrendered. Goebbels' propaganda solution? MAKE A NEW FRITZ MOVIE. Which takes up considerable resources. Bear in mind by now there are bombings of German cities, and really, do you want to devote a lot of money, petrol and people to making a movie, so that Veit Harlan can shoot realistic battle Scenes with real soldiers, I kid you not, and over 5000 horses? In the middle of WWII? Sure. Because hey, you have Otto Gebühr as Fritz in a key scene, an argument between Friedrich and his younger brother Heinrich (also a general, and, historians today argue, a better one than big bro) in which movie!Fritz gets to say it would have been the duty of the regiment who ran at the battle of Kunersdorf to stay and get slaughtered - "to build a shield wall with their dead bodies" is the phrasing - which is absolutely chilling to watch today even if you are not aware of the Stalingrad subtext. Talk About the dark side of historical fiction and fannishness.

Peter III's life story. A little bit of context: this all started with selenak's hilarious crackfic in which our heroes and antiheroes are in a chatroom, and user HolsteinPete changes his handle to (P)RussianPete. cahn asked for the context on that, and mildred_of_midgard provided the following.

Holstein Pete

Peter III was born Karl Peter Ulrich in Holstein, which was a duchy in the HRE at the time, and today is part of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, just south of Denmark. His mother was a daughter of Peter the Great. She died after giving birth to him. His father claimed the the Swedish throne but never managed to sit on it. Dad more successfully managed to be duke of Holstein, but, alas, lost Schleswig to the Danes. So when Peter was born, he was duke of Holstein (and Gottorp, which doesn't enter into this story). There were wars, there were treaties, territories changed hands, it's complicated.

Anyway, Peter grows up a German-speaking prince in a Germany duchy. This is relevant to his story.

Elizaveta (sorry, her name is etched in my brain in this form), daughter of Peter the Great and aunt of young Karl Peter Ulrich, becomes Tzarina of Russia. She's the one who haaaates Fritz's guts, fairly so as he also hates her. They will end up fighting the Seven Years' War against each other, and her troops will hand him his worst defeat at Kunersdorf. (After which he handed over command to one of his generals, talked about abdicating and letting Heinrich run things, and considered suicide. Through a combination of control issues and terrier personality, Fritz was back in sole command within days.)

Anyway, back in Holstein. When he's 11, Peter Karl Ulrich's dad dies and he becomes Duke of Holstein. But if you think that's exciting, wait until he turns fourteen.

Finland: Congratulations, Karl Peter Ulrich, you're king!
Sweden: Congratulations, Karl Peter Ulrich, you're heir presumptive!
Russia: Congratulations, Karl Peter Ulrich, you're heir presumptive! Elizaveta may or may not have a secret husband and may or may not have secret kids, but she sure hasn't produced any heirs to the throne.
Finland, Sweden, Russia: *catch up on the news*
Finland, Sweden, Russia: ...Wait a minute! You can't be all those things!
Sweden: Takesy-backsies!
Sweden and Russia: Ha, no, what were we thinking, letting the Finns have a king. Finland belongs to Sweden, which definitely does not belong to Karl Peter Ulrich.
Russia: Hey, Karl Peter Ulrich, what kind of weirdo foreign name is that? Your name is Pyotr Fyodorovich, you're moving to St. Petersburg, and you're Orthodox now. Congratulations, Grand Duke Pyotr, you're now heir presumptive to your aunt Elizaveta! I hope you like Russia.

And so it was that HolsteinPete became RussianPete. But RussianPete did not like Russia so much, and in his heart he was still German, hence (P)RussianPete. And if you're German, who's the coolest? Fritz is the coolest, that's who.

Fritz: *has just conquered Silesia for the first time*
ViennaJoe: *is one year old*

Evidently (working off DW and tumblr write-ups here), young Karl Peter is separated from his BFF Christian August von Brockdorff, who is not allowed to accompany him to Russia, on grounds of being a bad influence. But Brockdorff is a persistent BFF. After being turned away at the Russian border, he manages to slip in incognito, make it to St. Petersburg, and be welcomed by Peter and made chamberlain. The slashers go wild.

A few years later, Fritz arranges for one of his general's daughters, Sophie Friederike, to move to St. Petersburg to marry Grand Duke Pyotr, in hopes that after Elizaveta dies, Russia will become (P)Russia. When she's on her way to Russia, that episode happens that we told you about, where she's young and nervous and sitting next to Fritz at dinner, and Fritz charms her, and they have a nice conversation about music and such.

But young Sophie Friederike moves to St. Petersburg, changes her name to Catherine, becomes Orthodox, and sees which way the wind is blowing. She becomes fluent in Russian (albeit with a German accent), and embraces her new religion instead of speaking German and making fun of Orthodoxy. When she was deeply ill and lying on her sickbed facing the possibility of death, she's said to have refused Lutheran religious comfort and sent for an Orthodox priest, thus making all the Russians happy with their new Grand Duchess.

When Elizaveta dies, (P)RussianPete decides his first moves as Tsar Peter III will be to:
1) Tell Fritz he is the coolest.
2) Switch sides in the war and basically place his army at Fritz's disposal, instead of attacking him all the time and making him consider suicide.
3) Return to Prussia all the Prussian lands that the Russian army had conquered under Elizaveta. For free. Just because "OMG Fritz I'm SO SORRY about my predecessor."
4) Institute a bunch of reforms in imitation of Fritz. (Russia was in desperate need of reforms, I kid you not.)
5) Try to get Schleswig back from the Danes, because *clearly* what is most important to Russia is some minor German principality. And this principality is totally worth pissing off the Danes over, right after you've handed over recently conquered Russian territory to the Prussians.

Re (5), I have read that even Fritz suggested to Peter that this might not be the best idea ever, in that it might not go over so well with the Russians.

To summarize: HolsteinPete proved that he was nominally RussianPete but really PrussianPete, or at the very least StillExtremelyGermanPete.

Well, the Russians are indeed not too thrilled about all this, and there are a few more of them in Russia than Peter's German buddies, and they speak Russian with their Russian-speaking Grand Duchess (well, I suppose now that Elizaveta's dead, she's Empress Consort), with the result that 6 months later, former Grand Duchess/Empress Consort is reigning Tzarina/Empress Catherine the soon-to-be-Great, and Peter III is twiddling his thumbs in prison for about a week, before he dies of Extremely Natural and Not At All Suspicious Causes. (Historians debate.)

And since AnhaltSophie, the cow who didn't even get Fritz's autograph for (P)RussianPete at that dinner, has become RussianCatherine, the pro-German foreign policy ends, and she gets to stay Tzarina for more than 5 minutes 6 months. She will undo Peter's reforms, then re-issue a bunch of them in her own name because they were such obviously good ideas to any product of the Enlightenment, plus add in a bunch more reforms, and she will fangirl Voltaire (although not stage Semiramis for him) and be very sad when he dies. Like Fritz, though, the longer she hangs onto absolute power, the more conservative she becomes.

Catherine: Idk, maybe freeing the serfs is a noble cause for an enlightened monarch.
Serfs: *riot*
Catherine: On second thought, that sounds scary.

So that is the story of HolsteinPete, AnhaltSophie, (P)RussianPete, and RussianCatherine. :)

mildred_of_midgard on the War of the Polish Succession:

Polish Succession

Cast of Characters
Augustus the Strong: father of Countess Orzelska and purportedly 353 other illegitimate children, Elector of Saxony, and also King of Poland.
Augustus III: only legitimate son of Augustus II.
Stanislaus Leszczyński: The father of Louis XV's wife, Marie Leszczyńska. (Polish surnames are gendered.)
Charles VI: Holy Roman Emperor, MT's dad.

Causes of the War
During our period, King of Poland is an elective title. The Polish Diet votes on who gets to be king. In practice, that means neighboring powers with armies get a major say.

As we've seen recently, Augustus II converted to Catholicism to get the crown of Poland.

All is hunky-dory for a while, and then, in 1733, Augustus II dies. According to Asprey, a drinking bout with Grumbkow kicked off his final decline. Take with the usual grain of salt.

Now the position for King of Poland is wide open. Two major candidates emerge: Augustus' only legitimate son, Augustus III, and Stanislaus.

The French want their king's father-in-law, Stanislaus, on the Polish throne. Charles VI, MT's dad, obviously wants Augustus III on the throne, because he is Holy Roman Emperor and Augustus III is his subject, in his capacity as Elector of Saxony. (Much like how FW is simultaneously Elector of Brandenburg and King in Prussia, and George I, Elector of Hanover, became King of Great Britain after Anne, last of the Stuarts, died.)

The War of the Polish Succession thus breaks out.

Let Slip the Dogs of War
Stanislaus is elected king by the Polish Diet. But Austria and Russia, fearing a Poland-Sweden-France bloc, kick him out and force the Poles to elect Augustus III monarch.

Stanislaus flees to Königsberg. Now, this is interesting, because Königsberg is part of East Prussia, under FW's control, and outside the HRE.

FW, despite the fact that he answers to Charles VI, doesn't want the Elector of Saxony on the throne of Poland, because Prussia and Saxony are rivals competing for dominance in the Holy Roman Empire. FW insists that he wants Saxon recognition of one of the territories he's always after, Berg, if he's going to support Augustus.
When Augustus refuses, FW thus, in his capacity as King in Prussia, offers asylum to Stanislaus in East Prussia.

France, meanwhile, invades Lorraine (the border territory where MT's soon-to-be husband Franzl is from, and which he had to give up in order to marry her).
Charles, HRE, calls on the German princes to help fight off this invasion.

FW: Elector of Brandenburg reporting for duty, sir! I've got an army of 40,000 ready to march today. Just say the word!

Austrians: *do not have an army of 40,000 ready to march today*
Charles VI: Giant independent Prussian army marching across Germany sounds scary, frankly. How about you just send 10,000, and wait until I'm ready--oh, and not seize Juliers and Berg while you're at it?
FW: *is offended* <-- this will be relevant later

So then the Siege of Philippsburg happens, summer of 1734. The French army is besieging the Austrian fort at Philippsburg, on the Rhine. It goes on for several weeks. Fritz, Prince Eugene, and Joseph Wenzel, Prince of Liechtenstein, the current, past, and present owners of the Antinous statue, are all present on the Austrian side. Voltaire, fleeing another of his endless arrest warrants, shows up on the French side and hangs out over there, almost gets executed by the French as a spy.

Eugene confirms his belief that Fritz is a dangerous young man, says Europe can expect great things of him, tries to instill loyalty to the House of Habsburg, but concludes, "the French poison has gone too deep."

Fritz has mixed feelings about meeting his hero: admires what he once was, completely disappointed in his mental decline into senility. Says it's worse to lose your life than your reason. But later in life will say Eugene gave him some useful advice on that occasion.

Then the Austrian garrison surrenders, and the siege is over. FW, who just showed up as it was ending, and Fritz, who's been there a little longer, head home.

Peace Breaks Out
FW is not very supportive of the war effort thereafter, and particularly of letting Fritz hang out with Eugene, who's trying to win him over to the Austrian cause, just when FW is getting super disillusioned. (FW, you really have nothing to worry about.)

So instead of getting to go to war again in 1735, which he really wanted to do, Fritz gets denied permission by FW to join the Imperial army and gets sent on an inspection tour of East Prussia.

Now, Stanislaus is still under FW's protection in East Prussia. Fritz meets him and decides he likes him, despite being disgruntled at not getting to see any action this year.

Meanwhile, the Austrians and French have been negotiating. It's complicated and takes them 3 years to finally end the war, but the upshot is this: Augustus gets to be King of Poland, Stanislaus gets to be Duke of Lorraine, Franzl gets Tuscany, France guarantees the Pragmatic Sanction. Franzl, who's historically been the Duke of Lorraine, has to give it up, because he's set to marry MT, and the French don't want the Habsburgs as next-door neighbors.

Charles is mad at FW because FW is still harboring Stanislaus and treating him as king. Yes, despite marching his army against the French, who want to make Stanislaus king. This is what happens when you're Elector of Brandenburg and King of--I'm sorry, in--Prussia at the same time. You get to play both sides of the board. Charles is also mad because FW didn't send troops for the final stage of the campaign, because FW was mad at him and didn't really want Augustus to be king anyway.

Charles therefore doesn't bother telling FW about the peace. FW gets to read about it in the newspaper. Charles also bans FW from recruiting troops for the Prussian army within the Holy Roman Empire. And you know how FW feels about recruiting. Charles also, as the final straw, doesn't tell him about MT's marriage to Franzl.

All these insults combined culminate in FW pointing to Fritz in front of other Seckendorff and saying, "There stands one who will avenge me." It wasn't just the lack of wedding invitation.

Stanislaus and Émilie
Remember how Stanislaus ends up in Lorraine? We've heard about him before. In the Émilie story! I will copy-paste from that write-up:

In the 1740s, Émilie and Voltaire go hang out at the court of Stanislaus, deposed king of Poland (remember the War of the Polish Succession that Voltaire and Fritz were briefly involved in) and father of Marie Leszczyńska, queen of France.

The gossipy sensationalism begins!

It turns out Stanislaus has a mistress named Catherine. His priest does not approve of this. Especially since said priest is a Jesuit, and Catherine hates Jesuits. Father Joseph decides that, while no mistress would be ideal, Stanislaus has made it clear that's not happening, so any mistress would be better than this mistress.

"Émilie is famous! And pretty enough. If I invite her to court, Stanislaus is sure to ditch Catherine for her!" goes Father Joseph's rather bizarre logic.

Émilie: Lol wut. He's 71. I'm with Voltaire. Catherine, though, you seem cool.
Émilie and Catherine: *become BFFs*
Stanislaus: *is relieved not to have to satisfy two mistresses at his age* (<-- Seriously, this is what the author says.)

However, Voltaire and Émilie are on the outs again. She starts having an affair with a rather younger and better looking man at Stanislaus' court, who used to be Catherine's lover. Stanislaus approves. Things are good for a while. She finds a love letter from her new lover to Catherine. Voltaire catches Émilie and her new lover having sex. Émilie knows he has a lover in Paris (but doesn't guess it's his niece). Drama and explosions ensue.

Stanislaus: The Prequel
Now, if you want to get an idea of how complicated Stanislaus' life was, you should know that this isn't even the first time he was deposed as King of Poland!

Way back in 1704, as part of the Great Northern War, Charles XII of Sweden (super-famous general) invades Poland, deposes Augustus III "the Strong", and puts Stanislaus on the Polish throne. That lasts about 5 years before Charles is defeated, Stanislaus kicked out, and Augustus the Strong put back on the throne.

Twenty-five years later, Stanislaus gets to be king again thanks to a foreign power, then gets kicked out again in favor of Augustus' son, confusingly also named Augustus.

So 18th century Polish monarchs go like this:

Augustus II (1697-1704/1706)
Stanislaus I (1704/1706-1709)
Augustus II (1709-1733)
Stanislaus I (1733-1734)
Augustus III (1734-1763)
Stanislaus II Augustus (Poniatowski) (1763-1795)

1704/1706 is the difference between de facto and de jure rule.

Poniatowski
And who should succeed Augustus III but Catherine's favorite, Stanislaus Poniatowski, who got nominated for Yuletide! Augustus III is the one of whom Fritz said, "And now the king of Poland has died like a fool! I do not like these people who do everything at the wrong time." Notice that he dies in 1763, which is the year the Seven Years' War ends, which is...not a good time for Fritz. Notwithstanding that he won by maintaining the status quo, everyone is dead (hyperbole alert), the country's in ruins, and money's a big problem* in Prussia. Not a good time for Polish upheaval or Fritz's ability to do anything about the vacancy.

So Catherine got to put her favorite on the throne. He then started trying to be an actual responsible monarch, reform the government, put Polish interests first, help Poland get its act together, instead of being a Russian puppet...none of which Fritz or Catherine liked. But, never mind, he didn't put up a fight when Prussia and Russia decided they wanted to carve up Poland in the 1770s, so that worked out for the neighbors in the long run. (Not so much the Poles.)

* Remember that after the war, Lehndorff said, on the subject of the economy, "Fritz better fix this." It's not an accident that Jägerhof got converted to a bank in 1765.

selenak adds: I think it's worth pointing out to [personal profile] cahn here that this was actually far more typical of how wars were conducted pre-Fritz in that century - sieges and troop movements where not much happened in terms of actual battle action. Trying to cut into each other's supply lines, sending envoys to negotiate based on the latest improvements of one's position, that kind of thing. It's one reason why Fritz' ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK mode of warfare caught everyone by surprise in Silesia 1.

Not exactly a war, but definitely conquest: the geographical history of the region called Prussia, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Polish partitions, by mildred_of_midgard.

Prussia and the Polish Partitions

It's a little bit confusing, because there's the historic region of Prussia, which is in modern Poland, and there's the kingdom of Prussia, which is everything ruled by the Hohenzollerns after Grandpa F1 got permission to call himself a king. And F1, FW, and Fritz, as part of their Kingdom of Prussia, rule only part of historic Prussia and a lot of stuff that isn't Prussia.

Okay, you know what, it's extremely confusing. Let me begin at the beginning. I'll give territories speaking parts, just to keep things readable.

Middle Ages
Brandenburg: I'm the area around Berlin! I'm part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Hohenzollerns: I'm the family that rules Brandenburg. We're electors, which means we get to vote on who gets to be the Holy Roman Emperor.
Prussia: I'm a territory in modern-day Poland! I'm not part of the Holy Roman Empire. Oops, now it's 1466 and I'm two territories.

Early Modern period
Duchy of Prussia: I'm the eastern half of Prussia. Check out approximately where I live on this map.
Royal Prussia: I'm the western half. I didn't like how Prussia was being run, so I seceded! I'm an autonomous Polish dependency, which means my Facebook relationship status is "in a relationship with Poland" and also "it's complicated." Check out approximately where I live on this map.
Hohenzollerns: Still here, still in charge of Brandenburg, and busy inheriting, purchasing, and conquering new territories wherever I can. Oh, what's this? It's 1618 and I just inherited the Duchy of Prussia? Sweet.
Royal Prussia: But you still have to pass through me in order to get from one of your territories to another, which means you'd better stay on the good side of the Poles. Which may mean the Saxons, when the Elector of Saxony is King of Poland.

1701
Grandpa F1: Being an elector is nice and all, but I just can't wait to be king! After all, the elector of Hanover is set to inherit England in a few years, and Saxony's got Poland, and I've got to keep up with the Joneses.
Holy Roman Emperor: No kings in the Holy Roman Empire on my watch. You have any territory you inherited outside the HRE, like the Hanovers?
F1: Yup, I got East Prussia right here. Is it okay if I'm Elector of Brandenburg and King of Prussia?
Royal Prussia: King of what?
F1: Okay, King "in" Prussia. Everyone down with that?
Prince Eugene of Savoy: No!
HRE: Yes.
Eugene: Boss!
HRE: Sssh. What could go wrong?
F1: *goes to Königsberg, capital of East Prussia, to get crowned King in Prussia*
Everything owned by F1: *is now called the Kingdom of Prussia*

1713
FW: Coronations are so expensive.
East Prussia: You want the title or not?
FW: Fine. I will go to East Prussia, where I'm technically king, and have an HOMAGE CEREMONY, which is much cheaper, and then I'm coming back to Berlin, where I live, and I will continue to act like a king here.
FW: Also, have you noticed that the Kingdom of Prussia looks like this? How the fuck are you supposed to defend that? With no natural borders, the only way to do it is with a really tall army.
Europe: Are you implying if you had a single cohesive territory, you'd be less militaristic?
FW: Well, no. The whole thing just kind of gives me a hard-on. But it's also politically necessary!

1731
Fritz: Fine. If I'm going to be stuck in Küstrin while you force me to learn boring things like whether my ancestors acquired Magdeburg in a game of cards or whatever, instead of useful things like Aristotle's rules of poetics, lemme have a look at this map here.
Fritz: Oh, holy fuck that map. We need to fill in some gaps! See that big gap between Brandenburg and East Prussia. We need that for so many reasons.
Royal Prussia: *stinkeye*
Fritz: Don't you stinkeye me. You think I'm an effeminate poetry-writing peacenik now, just you wait.

1740
Fritz: *goes to Königsberg, capital of East Prussia, to get an homage ceremony recognizing him as King in Prussia*
Algarotti: *rides in the carriage and trades poems about orgasms and bums*
Hans Heinrich: *rides in a different carriage* (we hope)
Europe: Hmm, lotta military preparations there, Fritz! You thinking about grabbing the rest of Prussia? Juliers and Berg? Silesia? Something else?
Fritz: Can you keep a secret?
Europe: Yes!
Fritz: Well, so can I!
Fritz: *invades Silesia*
Reader: Wait a minute! That doesn't fill in any gaps! I thought you were an expansionist because of your scattered territory.
Fritz: Also because it gives me a hard-on. And Silesia is so much wealthier and at least as strategically important as Polish Prussia.
Ghost of Eugene: THAT. THAT could go wrong!

1742, 1745, 1748
MT: *signs over control of Silesia*
Fritz: I'm Frederick the Great, and I'm King OF Prussia. Deal with it.
Royal Prussia: Still here? Still not yours?
Fritz: THE GREAT HAS SPOKEN.

1763
MT: FINE. You get to keep Silesia. But the rest is mine.
Fritz: I get to keep Silesia? Wow, was that harder than I thought. I'd like to not do that again.
Europe: HARD SAME.

Early 1770s
Trouble: *is brewing*
Europe: *does not want war*
Fritz: Even I don't want war! And I won the last one. By which I mean my map looks the same as it did before the war started.
Heinrich: Interested in changing that? I hear you've been eyeing the rest of Prussia since I was 5 years old.
Fritz: Does it lead to getting involved in a land war in Asia?
Heinrich: Nah, my BFF Catherine says as long as she gets a share of Poland, she's on board with it. We'll have to let Austria get a share, of course.
MT: The poor Poles! What did they ever do to deserve this?
MT: Also, which part is mine?
Fritz: *snark* Apocryphal snark; see below.

1772
First Polish Partition: *takes place*
Fritz to Royal Prussia: Come to papa!
West Prussia: I used to be Royal Prussia, but now I'm part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Old Fritz made me into a province called West Prussia, because I'm west of East Prussia. That last bit is the only non-confusing part of the whole deal.
Kingdom of Prussia: I now look like this.
Hohenzollerns: We no longer have to make nice to the King of Poland to get from one part of our kingdom to the other!
Danzig: Go look carefully at West Prussia on that map. See that little white piece along the Baltic coast that *didn't* make it into the partition? That's me! I'm a major port city, I'm super important, and I used to be part of the Hanseatic League, a commercial trading alliance among economically important cities during the Middle Ages. Twenty-first century readers may know me as Gdansk. I'm one of the cool kids.
Fritz: *scowl* I wanted to get you as part of my deal, but everyone else said noooo.
Danzig: Can't touch this! Ha.

1793
Second Polish Partition: *takes place*
Danzig: I'm part of Prussia now.
Ghost of Fritz: Ha!
Danzig: :-(

1795
Third Polish Partition: *takes place*
Poland: I'm Sir-Not-Appearing-On-This-Map any more.
East Prussia: I'm the white spot on that map that didn't get divvied up, because I already belonged to the Hohenzollerns.
FW2: Technically, Uncle who always said I was a good-for-nothing, have you noticed I acquired more territory than you and your brother put together? Including Danzig?
Ghost of Fritz: THE GREAT HAS SPOKEN.

Coda
Pomerania: This is all blatant Pomeranian erasure!
mildred_of_midgard: Sorry! You're just as confusing with your several parts and several meanings of your name, and the overlap of various Pomeranian regions with various Prussian regions. There's only so much I can cover in one write-up before everyone is totally lost. Maybe next time.


selenak adds: Something Mildred alluded to is that MT on the one hand thought this entire Poland partitioning was shameless robbery, which it was, but on the other wanted/accepted her share, which she did. There is a famous but apocryphal quip by Fritz which gets quoted on this a lot, but no one has ever been able to find it in any of his letters or even in his described conversations in other people's memoirs, so biographers were reluctantly forced to admit that it was probably invented after the fact by other people but sounded so much like something he would have said that it stuck. In several variations, this apocryphal quote goes "she cried, and the more she cried, the more she took".

gambitten adds: The origins of this quote were investigated by Jürgen Luh here. To sum it up, "she cried but she took" or variations thereof are basically a summary of what French Ambassador Prince Louis de Rohan wrote about MT in a 1772 dispatch. Many years later a certain Maletzki, an editorial secretary of the "Communist International" newspaper and fabricator of various Fritz related quotes, published in 1922 that "Friedrich II once said(...) 'she cried but she took'". And this was picked up by Egon Friedell in 1928 in his extremely successful "Cultural History of Modern Times" book series, and was accepted by historians for many years from then on.