Frederick the Great and the Rise of Prussia

by William Fiddian Reddaway

In his conception of the political world and of Prussia’s place in it, acuteness and lack of profundity are again apparent. The acuteness is indeed impaired because of the existence of two political factors, honesty and women, that Frederick never understood. The former, it is true, was so rare that his ignorance of its nature hampered him but little, save when Augustus frustrated all his plans in 1756, and when in the later stages of the Seven Years’ War Louis XV. fulfilled his unprofitable engagements with the Queen. But during Frederick’s lifetime women played an unusually prominent part in Europe, and his misjudgment of them was a serious political defect. Prussia suffered severely for his belief that Maria Theresa was pliable, Elizabeth of Russia incapable, the Pompadour insignificant, and Catherine II. shallow.

In general, however, Frederick was as gifted a tactician in politics as in war, and in both he knew how to profit by experience. Compared with his handling of France in his early years, his handling of Russia from 1762 to 1779 shows an advance as marked as that of his guardianship between Mollwitz and Leuthen. The circumstances of the age favoured a policy of opportunism for Prussia. Dexterity, not depth, was profitable, and Frederick therefore earned handsome rewards—Silesia, East Frisia, and West-Preussen.

The pillars of his system, none the less, were built of crumbling stone. The triumphs of his successors have to this day shored up some among them—that profit ranks before promises in affairs of State, that morals are to be reserved for manifestoes, and that the rectitude of an act is determined by its success. Some, on the other hand, were swiftly demolished by the course of subsequent events. That Austria was Prussia’s most dangerous foe, that the German princes were her least desirable allies, and that lasting concord with Russia was expedient, may be regarded as mistakes, natural enough but damaging to Frederick’s reputation for profound statesmanship.

His economic errors have been discussed in earlier chapters of this book. Where an original thinker would have reflected and enquired, Frederick plunged into ill-judged action. While he claimed for Prussia a place among the Great Powers, he was bent on administering her resources as despotically as though she were a farm and he the steward. His thrift and industry palliated but could not cure the evils which flowed from this confusion. The birth of individual enterprise was retarded, while by the concentration of its attention upon petty cash the hereditary tendency of the Prussian Government to be sordid was intensified. The King, though admirably acquainted with the details of the production of material wealth, was insensible to the vastly greater value of goods which cannot be seen or handled. How, it may be wondered, could his Government foster honour, initiative, or independence—qualities which in the long run are the fundamentals even of material success?

In foreign policy Frederick was successful, and in economic practice his failure was qualified. But his lack of true insight into the functions of government was fraught with terrible consequences for Prussia. Judged by the standard of the age, it is true, Frederick’s administration was a pattern to the world. The State, as the fashion then was, interfered everywhere and with irresistible strength. Its machinery, though cumbrous, ran smooth and true, and the actual expense was small. “If Prussia perishes,” wrote Mirabeau, “the art of government will return to its infancy.”

From the same pen, however, came a verdict, damning, indeed, yet unshaken by appeal to reason or to the event. “If ever a foolish prince ascends this throne we shall see the formidable giant suddenly collapse, and Prussia will fall like Sweden.” Frederick secured his own triumph by making it impossible to succeed him.

Against this department of his statecraft a double indictment must be brought. He was not profound enough to see that the machine which he laboured to render indissoluble was such that only an unbroken series of monarchs as gifted as he could guide it. Nor was he wise enough, though he knew that the next steersman of the State would be a fool, to alter the machine so as to give it some power of self-direction.

The folly of tacitly assuming that successors like himself would be forthcoming was shared by Frederick with many of the great autocrats of history. Men abhor the thought of a vacuum created by their own disappearance. The self-abnegation of a Washington is as much rarer as it is wiser than the augmented industry of an aged Louis XIV. Yet the sketch that has been given in this book of the all-embracing activity of the King, who nominated even the sergeants and corporals in an army of 200,000 men, and allowed no branch of his civil hierarchy the least real independence, suffices to show how improbable it was that an ordinary prince could put himself in Frederick’s place, and how fatal it would be to the Government if he did not.

Frederick himself stated clearly the ruin that would ensue if a King of Prussia relaxed his grip on the finances, embarked upon schemes of premature aggression, or paused to enjoy his kingship. His nephew and heir, to look no further into the future, was a man whom he knew to be likely to commit all these faults. The remedy was to call into existence a body outside the throne and to entrust to its keeping some share in the power which had grown too great for the monarchy to wield. In the bureaucracy Frederick possessed a body of loyal and upright men who were not connected with any dangerous caste. Yet so far from training them for partial independence, he continued to treat them, from the General Directory downwards, like schoolboys who deserved to be flogged. His standing recipe was to keep them between fear and hope. In 1780, to cite only one instance from many, he wrote to the Chamber for West-Preussen: “Ye are arch-rogues not worth the bread that is given you, and all deserve to be turned out. Just wait till I come to Preussen!” It is not surprising that men of birth and capacity hesitated to serve in the administration during Frederick’s lifetime and that narrow-minded pedantry soon became its distinguishing feature after he died. The King bequeathed an impossible task to posterity and the catastrophe of the Prussian State at Jena was the result.