Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

He wrote incessantly on history and politics, always with the clearness and sprightliness that seem inseparable from the French tongue which he employed, and always with the confidence of a journalist and of a king. Of his ancestor Joachim I. he says: “He received the surname of Nestor in the same way as Louis XIII. that of ‘the Just’; that is, for no reason that any one can discover”—and this is a very fair example of his style. Sense, lucidity, concise statement, even wit, distinguish his writings. He made so many confident generalisations on political affairs that some have almost of necessity proved correct. But of deep insight, still less of great constructive power, there is little trace.

In freedom from illusions, however, Frederick surpassed some rival statesmen. This was abundantly illustrated at the very outset of his reign. He saw, as Charles VI. could not, that the claim of the Emperor to be lord of the world rested on no firm basis. Early in 1737 he had written: “If the Emperor dies to-day or to-morrow, what revolutions will come to pass! Every one will wish to share his estate, and we shall see as many factions as there are sovereigns.” The discovery, indeed, was by no means new. More than a century earlier Gustavus Adolphus had told the Germans that their constitution was rotten. But Frederick informs the Emperor pointedly that he is only first among his peers. He was equally clear-sighted in the choice of means to spread his views. William the Silent had perceived a fact dark to many statesmen since his time—that the public opinion of Europe is worth much and that it may be courted through the Press. Frederick had already composed the earliest of his many pamphlets, which he intended to publish anonymously as the work of an Englishman, to rouse the Sea Powers against France.

More significant than all else was the fact that he viewed his own strength with clearer eyes than his father’s. Frederick William had never been able to convince himself that Prussia was a strong State: Frederick wears no blinkers and with his accession the day of half measures is over. Two years before this he had written to Grumbkow words which express his real opinion of the old policy of his House. The affair of Berg, which he as Crown Prince earnestly hoped would enable him to win fame on the battle-field, had then entered upon a phase adverse to Prussian expectations. Austria had been prevailed on to join with France and the Sea Powers in claiming that it should be referred to the arbitration of a congress, and Frederick William, though disgusted, had decided to give way. Of this decision Grumbkow approved, writing, “I am persuaded that a King of Prussia, like a King of Sardinia, will always have more need of the fox’s hide than of the lion’s.” Frederick replies (March, 1738):

“I confess that I perceive in the answer a conflict between greatness and humiliation to which I can never agree. The answer is like the declaration of a man who has no stomach for fighting and yet wishes to seem as if he had. There were only two solutions, either to reply with noble pride, with no evasions in the shape of petty negotiations whose real value will soon be recognised, or to bow ourselves under the degrading yoke that they wish to lay upon us. I am no subtle politician to couple together a set of contradictory threats and submissions, I am young, I would perhaps follow the impetuosity of my nature; under no circumstances would I do anything by halves.”

Close observers held that a change of king would be followed by a change of policy and that Frederick was likely to attempt great things. What these would be no one, with the possible exception of the young King himself, had the least idea. What in the opinion of the present writer they should have been is sufficiently indicated above. What they were, will be shown in the following chapter.

At first, for all his determination to lose no time, the results of his accession seemed but small. No human being could maintain that he was swayed by his affections. Though Duhan, Keith, and Katte’s father received some measure of compensation for their sufferings, Frederick’s behaviour towards those concerned in his early struggles emboldened the wits to say that his memory was excellent as far back as 1730. His Rheinsberg friends expected to share the spoils of office. They were disappointed in a way that has reminded Macaulay of the treatment of Falstaff by Henry V. Frederick was as masterful as his father. The aged Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, who had created the Prussian army, and the aged General von Schulenburg, who had risked all rather than condemn Katte to death, were humiliated by royal reprimands. Grumbkow, with whom he had corresponded for more than eight years in terms of affectionate intimacy, might have caused him a moment’s embarrassment, but he had just died—“for me the greatest conceivable gain,” the King assured his sister. He broke up his father’s useless and costly regiment of giant grenadiers, a measure which Frederick William had himself advised, but he increased the effective strength of the army by nearly ten thousand men. At the same time he sounded, more clearly even than his ancestor George William, the note of religious toleration for which Brandenburg had been honourably distinguished in the time of her greatest peril. “In this country,” he instructed his officials, “every one shall get to heaven in his own way.”

VIEW OF GLATZ IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

FROM AN OLD PRINT.

The crowned philosopher always recognised the difference between the things which were Cæsar’s and the things which were God’s. The scion of a Calvinist House, he began his reign by authorising the Lutherans to restore their ritual, which had been arbitrarily simplified by his father. He was soon to court the favour of Breslau by supplying her with Protestant preachers, and of Glatz by bestowing vestments upon a statue of the Virgin. When Romanist Europe expelled the Jesuits, he seized the opportunity of picking up well-trained teachers cheap. Some of his papist subjects had a fancy for buying handkerchiefs which bore the effigies of saints. Frederick, eager to encourage the linen manufacture, bade his officials find out which saints were the most popular and adjust the supply to the demand.