Welcome to House of History. In a study of the relationship between Frederick William,
‘the Soldier King, and his son Frederick the Great’, it is written that the dominant
attitude of Frederick’s father moulded “the once effeminate and gaily frivolous young
Crown Prince into the most feared and respected monarch of his day.” I believe this is spot-on,
and after this video you hopefully will as well. Their relationship is an incredibly
tragic story of a gifted, young boy that suffered tremendously at the hands of his military
father in the war that was waged with immense emotional and psychological intensity between
the two. Welcome to the complete history of Prussia.
-intro-
The Soldier King
In the previous videos both chronicling the reign of Frederick Wilhelm, the Soldier King,
and the relationship between his father and himself, we have seen that it wasn’t particularly
rare for the Hohenzollern family to have a less-than-great relationship with their parents.
Frederick I, King in Prussia is described as a vain and luxury-loving man, whereas his
son, the Soldier King, was the polar opposite. As he ascended to the throne in 1713, he cut
short everything that resembled the luxurious court life held by his father and during his
reign, he built up the Prussian Army to a disproportionate degree that instilled fear
and awe among his friends and foes. It would be this army that his son, Frederick II, would
use to earn himself the epitaph “the Great”. Now, this video isn’t about that. It is
about the relationship between the Soldier King and his third son, Frederick. I say the
third son because the Soldier King’s first son died in infancy due to a volley fired
too close to his crib. His second son died during his baptism because the royal crown
was too heavy for his little head and crushed his skull. Absolute grizzly business. In 1712
young Frederick II was born to the Soldier King and his wife, Queen Sophia Dorothea of
Hanover. Basically from the moment Frederick could walk and talk he became a source of
frustration and anger for his already hot-tempered father. The little kid showed an obvious affinity
for French culture, was frivolous, weak, and could perhaps even be described as somewhat
feminine. The greatest fear of the Soldier King had come true: his son was basically
a replica of his own wasteful and vain father, and the great inheritance he would leave him,
an incredible army and strong Prussian state with filled coffers of gold was, in the King’s
eyes, going to go to waste. Frederick preferred playing the flute over hunting and reading
books over drinking beer with his father. He did take after his grandfather, with the
exception that young Frederick was much smarter, and thus much more dangerous, both to himself
and his father. After all, his quick wits and sharp rhetoric was often rewarded with
severe beatings. The fact Frederick would talk back to his father made the situation
worse: after all, the Soldier King had made sure that, while he despised his father, he
always respected and obeyed him. His son wasn’t only resembling everything he loathed, but
he actually had the audacity to talk back to him.
The fear that everything the King had worked for would fall apart once his son ascended,
can be understood by looking at what Frederick was like during his youth. The boy was anything
but a soldier: he often fell off his horse and was afraid of shooting. He made a lethargic
impression, with messy hair and staying up late, he enjoyed being alone reading novels.
The King, as a child, was an absolute nuisance and very blunt. He could not relate to little
Frederick at all, once saying “I know for sure that Frederick does not think as I do.”
In order to deal with his child, the King subjected young Frederick to a disciplined,
near torturous, daily routine. Christopher Clark writes that a letter from the Imperial
Ambassador Count Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff, when Frederick was 14, details that “the
crown prince, despite his young years, looks as elderly and stiff as if he had already
served on many campaigns.” That isn’t too strange, his daily routine was timed to
the minute with council meetings, county visits, military inspections and educational obligations.
These restrictions and obligations only deepened Frederick’s resentment towards his father,
and the boy became adept at opposing him with subtle irony in everything he said and did.
The King was not intellectually on-par with his son anymore, and could not deflect the
rhetorical subtle jabs. As Frederick reached late puberty towards the outside world he
accepted the rigorous routine of his father, but in secret, he had his personal tutor,
Duhan, collect a vast amount of French books for him to read, with subject matter ranging
from political theory to philosophical novels. He started learning the flute and composing
his own songs. The King realized his son lead a double life, so to say, and the beatings
and public humiliations only increased. As the King grew older, he started to suffer
from physical ailments such as migraine, gout and stomach cramps, driving the already easily
aggravated man close to madness. In his Tabakskollegium, the unofficial cabinet filled with old military
men, as we have seen in the last video, he complained that “It seems that Fritz (Frederick)
is ashamed of his father.” When between 1725 and 1727 there were negotiations to marry
Frederick and his sister, Wilhelmine, off to English nobility, Vienna decided to secretly
intervene. A rift between the Prussian King and son was very favourable to them. An Anglo-Prussian
alliance wasn’t something Vienna would be happy with. Several members of the Kollegium
were on the pay-roll of Vienna, and as such, many members of the Kollegium encouraged the
Soldier King in his rage and disappointment towards his son. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t
uncommon that the kid was brought before the men at night, most of them drunk and surrounded
by the fumes of the non-stop smoking. Together with the King they would berate him and laugh
at him. The fact young Frederick hated smoking and drinking seemed the least of his worries
during those nights. The King’s wife and Frederick’s mother
was actually in favour of marrying him off to an English princess. As such, two factions
started to emerge: the pro-Vienna and pro-English faction. Frederick, who did have a good bond
with his mother, was drawn into the English camp, while the King was afraid of a rift
with Vienna and thus opposed the English marriage. Eventually, the King prevailed. The intrigues
and fights that characterized this affair are too many, to sum up, but the animosity
Frederick felt towards his father was only exacerbated by it and eventually played a
major role in his decision to flee, a decision that led to one of the most grisly affairs
of the entire dynasty.
The von Katte affair
Considering this horrible situation it isn’t too surprising that Frederick thought anything
was better but to stay at his father’s court. In 1730, at the age of 18, the King and Frederick
attended an army parade where a dispute between the two arose. The King took it upon himself
to publicly beat Frederick. The latter, utterly humiliated, decided that he was going to leave
Prussia. Now, Frederick was very close friends with Hans Hermann von Katte, a 26-year-old
son of a Prussian field marshal. The two shared a love for poetry and the flute. He confided
in von Katte his plans to flee to France, with von Katte initially trying to change
his mind, but eventually helping him. Together they mapped out Frederick’s escape attempt.
It ended in utter tragedy, with the plot discovered and both men arrested. Initially, both were
thrown in prison at Küstrin, where the Great Elector had resided during the worst years
of the Thirty Years’ War nearly a century earlier. The prosecution of the men was detailed
meticulously and stored in Prussian archives in the aftermath. Co-conspirators and friends
of Frederick suffered under the King’s vengeance. Two companions were thrown in jail, a 16-year-old
girl Frederick had flirted with was whipped through the streets and incarcerated for several
years. And then there was the main conspirator, Hans Hermann von Katte. He was sentenced to
life in prison at first. But the King wanted to make an example of him, considering his
actions high treason. He overturned the verdict by the court and sentenced him to death. What
followed was one of the tragedies and most grizzly scenes of the Soldier King’s reign.
Frederick was forced, from his prison window, to watch the execution of his friend. His
guards were ordered to hold his face against the bars. As Katte was beheaded, the King
is said to have said: “there shall be justice, even if the entire world were to collapse.”
Before von Katte was executed, Frederick had already fainted. The body and decapitated
head of von Katte was left in front of the window until late afternoon.
Later life
After the execution of von Katte Frederick finally submitted to his father. He never
defied him and although the relationship was cold and distant, Frederick started to mould
himself more towards a stoic military man. The energetic, curious and perhaps naive Frederick
had been killed. His later writings reflect that overt cynicism and a mocking became his
way to deal with things. Considering the circumstances it was probably a self-defence mechanism to
overcome the trauma he suffered. In a letter written nearly thirty years after the event,
Frederick wrote that it had made such a profound impression on him that after ascending to
the throne he spent days reading all documents pertaining to the case. After having read
them, he tore up the pages that he did not want the world to see, sealing the rest and
placing them in the court archives. As for the passions he had as a child, even
as a crown prince he now firmly dedicated himself to military matters and government
affairs, considering himself, just like his father, the first servant of the state. By
1740 he even endured, for lack of a better word, the marriage his father wanted him to
have. It was a loveless marriage with Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern.
He didn’t see his wife except for formal occasions, something he announced already
in 1732: “If I am forced into marriage with her, she will be rejected.” He kept his
word until his death, passing away childless 46 years later.
As Frederick married, the King had fallen very ill and was rapidly nearing his death.
He was bloated, his illnesses got worse but as his body worsened, his attitude towards
his son changed. Shortly before his death, the King told Frederick that ‘He had a Frederick
Wilhelm’ in him. As Bakshian remarks in his essay, it is kind of the reverse of “inside
every fat man there is a thin man struggling to get out.” But nevertheless, it was meant
as a compliment. Approaching his death, the King took pleasure in watching his Potsdam
Giant regiment parade in front of his window and amateur carpentry. Some folklore claims
that the King even built his own coffin during his final weeks.
To his sister, Wilhelmine, Frederick confided that he would be miserable as long as their
father was alive. Yet as the King’s death was approaching, Frederick was struck with
grief stating that “he never knew he loved him so much.” In letters to Voltaire, Frederick
described the last meetings with his father, the discussing of state affairs and the courage
with which his father faced death. The King’s last days on earth were spent dictating regulations
for the stocking up of grain reserves and his own funeral. On the 31st of May 1740 Frederick
Wilhelm I, the Soldier King, passed away. At his funeral, his regiment of Potsdam Giants
gave their final salute before now King Frederick II disbanded them. Disbanding this regiment
saved the Crown enough expenditures for Frederick to recruit 10.000 more soldiers, to an already
overwhelming Prussian military apparatus. From his father, he inherited nearly 100.000
soldiers at the ready, putting Prussia on-par with other Great Powers, not to mention the
weapon and ammunition arsenals. As for European politics, to the south within
five months of Frederick’s ascension to the throne, the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI
passed away without a male successor. His daughter, Maria Teresa, was left to control
all Habsburg Dominions. It was then Frederick decided to put the army he inherited to the
test: he seized all of Silesia within six weeks, later reminiscing about the affair:
“Ambition, self-interest and the desire to hear my name spoken outweighed other considerations.”
This invasion was perhaps Frederick’s greatest feat of his entire 46-year-long reign. Next
video we will delve into the reign of Frederick the Great, the self-styled Philosopher King,
the wars he fought and the expansion of Prussia.
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