THE famous Hohenzollern dynasty, from which Frederick II was descended, had begun in Swabia, but its most famous son and longest-reigning monarch was born in Berlin on January 24th, 1712. His parents were King Frederick Wilhelm I (1688-1740) and the Queen Consort, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (1687-1757), whose own reign had been marked by abstinence, frugality and a strong devotion to Calvinism.

Frederick’s educational background was strictly Protestant and he was instructed by Huguenot tutors and learned both German and French. He also had access to a sizeable library containing around three thousand books and was therefore able to familiarise himself with the Greek and Roman classics, Poetry and French Philosophy. Frederick, on the other hand, was regularly beaten by his cruel father and forced to take an interest in military affairs.

Considered effeminate, at least in accordance with his father’s own brutish standards, some historians have speculated about whether Frederick had a secret homosexual relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte (1704-1730), a Lieutenant in the Prussian Army, but there is no real evidence for this claim. It is true, on the other hand, that the two men had planned to run away to England together and Frederick Wilhelm I eventually had von Katte beheaded for ‘desertion’. Forced to watch this public decapitation by his tyrannical father, Frederick was distraught. Nonetheless, the eighteen year-old Hohenzollern prince later went on to marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern (1715-1797) on June 12th, 1733. Frederick had initially preferred Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780), but Elisabeth would become his queen.

In 1740, when his father died, Frederick’s interest in poetry and philosophy were put to one side as he inherited the Kingdom of Prussia and all the politicking and intrigue that came with it. Now in command of a population of almost two million people and an impressive army of around 80,000 men, Frederick spent the next forty-six years defending his kingdom against the aggression and hostility of its neighbours.

During the War of the Austrian Succession, which began in December 1740, Frederick had angered his Habsburg rivals by occupying Silesia before it could fall into the hands of the Polish king, Augustus III (1696-1763). Whilst the Prussians won the ensuing battle, however, Frederick had fled from the scene in the mistaken belief that his own army had been routed and was later forced to apologise for this militaristic oversight. In 1744, the fact that Austria and France were at war led to Frederick forging an alliance with the French in order to secure his hard-won Silesian territory.

When, in January 1745, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII of Bavaria (1697-1745) died, Francis of Lorraine (1708-1765) – the husband of Maria Theresa (1717-1780) – was elected Emperor in his place and Saxony subsequently joined the Austrians in an effort to outmanoeuvre Frederick’s Prussia. Five months later, the Prussians trapped the Austrians and their Saxon allies in the mountains near the Silesian border, thwarting an invasion. Frederick then defeated them at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg and Austria was forced to sign a peace treaty and agree to the Prussian seizure of Silesian territory.

In 1756, during what became known as the Diplomatic Revolution, Habsburg Austria united with Bourbon France but Frederick made his own alliance with Great Britain and launched an attack on Saxony. Thus began the Seven Years’ War, which lasted until 1763. The campaign saw Frederick taste his first defeat when the Prussians were stopped by Austrian Bohemia at the 1757 Battle of Kolin. Eventually, Frederick was facing an alliance between Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden, with only Great Britain, Hesse, Brunswick and Hanover on his side. Meanwhile, after the death of King George II (1683-1760), Frederick’s uncle, even the British were forced to desert their Prussian friends and the country’s financial assistance was withdrawn.
However, after the death of Elizabeth of Russia (1709-1762), the pro-Prussian Peter III (1728-1762) agreed to withdraw Russian troops from Frederick’s territories and the anti-Prussian coalition fell apart. Once again, the Austrians were forced to make peace. Whilst Frederick emerged from the Seven Years’ War in victorious fashion, however, the heavy casualties that had been suffered during the conflict had taken their toll on the country as a whole and many thousands had died.

In 1772, Frederick conquered Poland – a nation whose citizens he attacked as ‘slovenly trash’ and ‘vile apes’ – and forced it to accept his own Enlightenment values. The country’s territorial link with Lithuania, a total of 20,000 square miles, was partitioned in order to allow the Prussians access from Pomerania, Brandenburg and East Prussia. With the Polish population standing at twelve million, Frederick exploited the civil war between the country’s 200,000 Protestants and 600,000 Eastern Orthodox for his own ends. Polish currency was also forcibly devalued in order to make huge profits for Prussia and Frederick initiated a systematic programme of Germanization.

During the War of the Bavarian Succession, in 1778, Frederick prevented the Austrians exchanging their territory in the Netherlands for Bavaria and the fact that France made no real attempt to join the war on the Austrian side due to their activities in North America also meant that Prussia remained dominant. They even made peace with Saxony and Russia. Throughout his campaigns, Frederick’s great skill as a military theorist was unparalleled and even Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) later claimed that the Prussian monarch was the finest tactical genius the world had ever seen. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), too, who developed something of an obsession with Frederick the Great, went on to say the same thing.

The Prussian leader’s other achievements included the encouragement of architecture and, in particular, the construction of capital buildings such as the Berlin State Opera House, the Royal Library, St. Hedwig’s Cathedral and Prince Henry’s Palace. Elsewhere, he established the famous picture gallery at Sanssouci and patronised leading artists and Classical musicians. It was at Sanssouci that he finally died on August 17th, 1786, sitting in his favourite armchair and surrounded by great works of art.

TO BE CONTINUED…