FREDERICK THE SECOND, KING OF PRUSSIA.
AFTER THE PAINTING BY CHODOWIECKI.
As a thinker, then, even in politics and administration, Frederick falls very far short of greatness. His powers were, in reality, those of a man of action. The versatility with which he entered into every department of government in turn is no more astounding than the clearness with which he perceived the immediate obstacles to be overcome in each, the courage with which he faced them, and the force, swift, steady, and irresistible, by which he triumphed. The wonderful energy which prompted him to bear on his own shoulders all the burden of the State in war and peace, and to put forth all his strength at every blow, was yet more marvellous because it was susceptible of control. Frederick, as we have seen, ceased from the labours of the Seven Years’ War, only to undertake the reconstruction of the economic life of a great kingdom. By mere overflow of force he finished his History of the War early in the year after that in which peace was made. Yet, with all his energy, he was able to realise that not seldom force needs the help of time. He was gratified when some of his enterprises began to repay him after twenty years, and he declined to aggrandise Prussia beyond the limit which his statesmanlike instinct taught him that her strength would warrant.
Among Frederick’s powers, then, energy alone is truly great, but his energy was such that to him few achievements were impossible. If we turn from his powers to his performance, we find his name associated with three great phenomena of history. Under his guidance Prussia rose at one step from the third to the highest grade among the Powers. He was, moreover, the pattern of the monarchs of his time, the type of the benevolent despots of the later eighteenth century. Finally, in the great series of events by which Germany has become a united military Empire his life-work fills a conspicuous place. How far, we may enquire, should his work in any of these three fields compel the admiration of succeeding ages?
That part of the Hohenzollern legend which portrays Frederick as the conscious or semi-conscious architect of the modern German Empire finds little support in the record of his life. Sometimes, it is true, he used the language of Teutonic patriotism and posed as the indignant defender of German liberties against the Hapsburg. But he posed with equal indignation as the protector of Polish or Swedish “liberties” against a reforming king or as the champion of Protestantism against Powers who might be represented as its foes. The whole course of his life witnessed to his preference for French civilisation over German, and to his indifference as to the race of his subjects and assistants, if only they were serviceable to the State. His point of view was invariably and exclusively Prussian. It would never have occurred to him to refuse to barter his Rhenish provinces for parts of Bohemia or Poland because the former were inhabited by Germans and the latter by Slavs. He was far from being shocked at the suggestion that he might one day partition the Empire with the Hapsburgs. He struggled for equality with Austria, never dreaming of the time when his descendants should expel her from Germany and assume the Imperial crown. Thus, though his work was a step towards their triumph, it was unconscious. He must be judged by viewing his achievements in relation to his own designs.
Frederick’s influence upon his contemporaries was enormous, and in many respects it cannot be overpraised. He found what has been styled “Sultan and harem economy” prevalent among his peers, together with a tendency to regard the income of the State as the pocket-money of the ruler. For this he substituted in Europe a great measure of his own ideal of royal duty. Fearing nothing and hoping little from any future state, he was yet too proud to flinch from an atom of the lifelong penance that he believed was prescribed for kings by some law of nature. Duty to his House and duty to his State were to him the same, and they dictated a life of incessant labour for his subjects’ good, and forbade the appropriation of more than a living wage. Other sovereigns followed the Prussian mode, and “benevolent despotism” came to be regarded as the panacea for the ills of Europe. Though it hardly survived the storm of the Revolution, it was instrumental in removing many abuses and in promoting during several decades the comfort of the common people. Thanks in great part to Frederick, irresponsible monarchy became impossible for ever.
Frederick’s fame, none the less, finds its most solid basis in the achievement to which all else in his life was subordinate,—the successful aggrandisement of Prussia. Though it may be true that another and a better way lay open to him, that the path which he marked out led straight to Jena, that he owed much of his success to fortune, and that his work was rescued by forces which he had not prized, in spite of all it is to him that Prussia owes her place among the nations. By his single will he shaped the course of history. His rule completed the fusion of provinces into a State, his victories gave it prestige, and the success of his work of aggrandisement was great enough to consecrate the very arts by which it was accomplished. Two decades after his death a king of Prussia entered his tomb by night, seeking inspiration to confront Napoleon. The architects of modern Germany declare that all that they have built rests upon the foundations that he laid. As long as the German Empire flourishes and the world is swayed by the principles of its founders, so long will the fame of Frederick the Great remain secure.
