Fritz and fear of gunfire

[mildred_of_midgard]

This exchange happened:

selenak: none of the three younger boys seems to have shown the initial dislike to the military education Fritz had

felis: Do we have an earliest mention of Fritz' dislike, i.e. what "initial" means?

selenak: I'll leave it to Mildred to come up with an exact date, because she's way better with numbers, but the way I recall it, the timeline is like this:

Toddler Fritz (in the stage Pesne painted him and Wilhelmine): likes military playthings and drums. Anecdotally rejects Wilhelmine's girly playthings in their favor, though I've always suspected that story was made up. All good.

Child Fritz: starts to get actual military training after being transferred out of his mother's household. Signs of exhaustion. FW starts to worry about manliness.

mildred_of_midgard: Not exact, but see the last part of https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/183223.html?thread=3199415#cmt3199415 (the repeated mentions of Fritz trying to prove that he totally isn't a coward anymore, starting when he is four whole years old.)

felis: For the toddler stage, I mostly have SD's letters for context, and she certainly keeps mentioning how interested he is in military things and how much fun he's having playing soldier, but of course she has every reason to not tell FW anything else. I see Mildred linked to my comment about said letters, which included the fact that (SD says) Fritz was trying to prove that he wasn't a coward starting age four, but I didn't really take that as a comment on Fritz' like or dislike of military things (and FW calling him one because he didn't take to them), more along the lines of Fritz being a rather cautious and timid kid in general, with the interest in toy canons and playing soldier as a way for SD to reassure FW that he's growing out of it.

*some time later*

mildred_of_milgard: Because I was on hiatus, I couldn't clarify what I meant, which was: I've read in biographies that Fritz was specifically afraid of gunfire as a child. If SD is reporting that he's playing with cannons to prove that he's not a coward any more at the age of 4, I took that to be related to his fear of gunfire.

Granted, I haven't been able to track this claim down to a primary source. So it's not quite evidence that the father/son conflicts over military matters began this early. But it's possible. And it's what I was getting at.

Tracking down the claim in Blanning led me to a 2-volume 1996 publication on the Hohenzollerns by Neugebauer, which unfortunately neither gives a direct quote nor cites its source re young Fritz being afraid of gunfire, though it *seems* to date it to about 1718 (and places it in the context of the hunt).

If anyone does know of or should come across better evidence for this claim, I would be interested.

Felis cites the evidence
Well, re-reading some of the early SD letters, I'd say you can certainly read them as hinting at a fear of cannon/gun fire even before 1718, even though I didn't find a direct reference to one single incident. The relevant excerpts:

1715:
9th July. Fritz begged me to fire the little cannon you gave him so much that I gave him this pleasure; he was too pretty [joli - which I think might be used in a broader sense than just pretty, i.e. in the sense of acting pretty?] and was just jumping for joy.
13th July. I have the cannon fired for Fritz every day, in order to get him used to it. He is becoming very pretty and taller at the same time.

1716:
13th February. I had Fritz shoot with a small pistol. I hope, when you see him, that you find that he will not be a coward.
19th February. Fritz shoots the pistol quite nicely; he says he wants to surprise you when you come back.

1717:
10th May, Major Derschau and Brissen are having dinner with Fritz today and after dinner they will go to the park, where Hast will have Fritz shoot.
[...] 14th May. Fritz goes hunting every day.
15th May. Fritz exercises every day and shoots the cannon and the rifle.
16th May. Fritz asked me to tell you that he is no longer a coward, that he is a brave boy and that he is already firing the big cannon.
20th May. I have found a way to change Fritz, whom I will tell you on your return.
21st May. I knew how to make a small fort for him, where he will fire his cannons; it's at the park. He was very happy to be King of the Schützenplatz; it was Münchhausen who shot for him.
23rd May. Fritz says he wants to give you a treat when you get back from what he's been hunting; it will be in a small hut of planks, which I had him made.
28th May. Fritz has so much courage that you will be surprised and maybe you just don't imagine him as he is. You will find him changed, he absolutely wants to give you a treat on your return, which you will not refuse.
[...] 30th May. Fritz says you will be charmed to find him so brave; I think you will be happy with him.
6th June. Fritz is happy to surprise you and fire his cannons in front of you; He also wants to give you a Supper.

One of the footnotes also quotes from Wilhelmine's letters to FW - on May 8th, 1717: The second news is that my brother had yesterday afternoon, by order of our mother, his regiment in review. .. and that he made it do all the military evolutions; today he must exercise his artillery. Finally my dear Papa will be very surprised on his return to find instead of a little coward that he left behind, a brave man who is not terrified of anything. Also, May 15th: My brother does wonders, talks only about war and hunting and Mr. Duhan has him exercising every day.

What does 'joli' mean, anyway?
selenak: re: joli, it's also what Heinrich uses in his half German, half French letter to little Ferdinand, the first one preserved, when he's writing from the Silesian front - he asks him to be "joli", and I don't have the time right now to look up the entire short text, but I remember being surprised because the German phrase Heinrich uses to express the same thing didn't seem to fit "joli" as used today.

felis:

Pro Fuer
Ecrit moi, du solst mir schreiben
Ce que tu fais, was du machst
Ce que tu dis, was du sachst
et tu doit etre jolli dans ta lettre,
und du solst erlich sein in deinem
brief, allor, je t'aimerai, So werde
ich dich lieb haben
Henri
Heinrich

Interestingly, he equates "joli" with "ehrlich" here, which I didn't expect! Hm.

selenak: Thank you! And right, that's why I thought "but that's not what joli means, Heinrich!" back in the day. Hm, several possibilities I see:

a) Heinrich changes his mind about what he wants Ferdinand to be like in the letter mid-sentence

b) Speaking better French than German like the rest of his siblings, he uses the wrong German word

c) This is actually how this particular family used the term "joli" in their Brandenburg-French when talking to or about a child.

If the last, I'm also considering that for FW, his son(s) being "ehrlich" was tremendously important, and not just in the sense of "not lying" but in the old fashioned "having honor" (i.e. "Ehre") sense of the world. However, FW famously used the expression "honnete homme" - in French - when making his prediction of AW's future greatness, and "honnete" as a translation makes more sense of that meaning, too. Therefore, I also see the possibility of

d) Heinrich is linguistically reflecting parental advice he himself heard from SD and FW precisely, who told him to be joli and ehrlich, respectively, so he uses both towards Ferdinand!

felis: I think a narrow meaning of "ehrlich" for joli seems very unlikely, not least given the way SD uses it: a letter that toddler Wilhelmine writes is joli, she says that two-year-old Fritz wants to learn to exercise so FW will find him joli, a little chariot is joli and little baby Friederike is getting more jolie every day, which are two of those instances where it seems to be used in today's sense of "hübsch" - but then you also get a sentence like Wilhelmine a été fort jolie et a demande pardon a son frere (after she was punished for scratching him) a couple weeks later, which is once again a description of behaviour. Or this one: Wilhelmine se prepare pour vous montrer a votre retour ce qu'elle sait de I'histoire, et Fritz dit qu'il vous aime et qu'il veut toujours etre joli pour vous plaire.

So it seems to be a rather broad descriptor of desirable and "pretty" traits, and maybe Heinrich used the German word that seemed closest to what he specifically meant in his particular case? And one thing I had to think of: the philosophical tradition of "schön" = "gut", which could play into a broader meaning of joli as a descriptor?



Charming addendum:

mildred_of_midgard: I bet AW, future lover of fireworks, got off on the right foot with Dad by liking loud noises and explosions at the age of 2-3.

felis: Yup! Fritz and Wilhelmine on the other hand got a little grotto with a basin full of fish in July 1715 and they both liked it so much that they didn't want to go to bed: Fritz and Wilhelmine went outside to entertain themselves yesterday; in the middle of the table there was a grotto with jets of water and a basin, where there were small, alive fish which swam; they found it so beautiful that they did not want to get up and go to bed. <333