Frederick the Great: Prussia’s Fabulous King

this video is brought to you by nordvpn give yourself options online go to nordvpn.com forward slash biographics so use code biographics at checkout for a massive discount on the price of a two-year plan more on them in just a bit he's perhaps the most important figure in german history at the moment frederick ii better known as frederick the great ascended to the throne in 1740. prussia was a discontinuous scrap of a state sandwiched between far more powerful rivals by the time he died in 1786 berlin's fortunes had been changed forever it was under frederick that prussia rose to the status of great european power that the foundations were laid for its vital future role in unifying germany it was also at the king's court that the idea of an enlightenment ruler was realized an absolute autocrat who used his power not for tyranny but for tolerance yet while it's frederick's career in war and state building that's remembered today there was so much more to prussia's greatest king than mere gung-ho nationalism a man of immense culture frederick transformed the faces of cities like berlin and potsdam he patronized france's greatest writers provided a safe harbor for europe's atheists and ushered through reforms that shook the continent beloved and despised an equal measure by his contemporaries this is the story of prussia's unlikely philosopher king [Music] because of the major role it later played in unifying germany most of us today think of prussia as an important state but this wasn't always true at the moment frederick the great was born on january 24 1712 nobody would have dreamed of calling prussia a great european power berlin's territory was sort of a halfway ground between a mere electorate and a minor state a hermaphrodite in frederick's own colorful phrasing when his father frederick william the first assumed power in 1713 he was only the second king prussia had ever had prior to that it had merely been a duchy still prussia's minor role didn't stop frederick william from thinking big of course military man frederick william was convinced that his state's future lay in building up the army and turning his eldest son into a warrior while this prediction would turn out to be right it would also be the cause of all of his son's suffering until the age of seven frederick the soon to be great was raised by his mother alongside his sister wilhelmina it was most unhappy time the female court was full of intrigue and backbiting young frederick could barely understand to cope with the tension in the air he and wilhelmina retreated together into fantasy worlds becoming obsessed with music and literature obsessions that would stay with frederick all his life but if the young boy thought life with mummy was tough wait until he started spending time with dad when the boy turned seven he was yanked away and placed in the care of his tyrannical father and trust us the adjective tyrannical is probably underselling it a little frederick william was at the old school spare the rod and spoil the child mentality he took it upon himself to beat his effeminate music-loving son into shape and we mean that literally frederick was publicly humiliated by his father beaten bullied told to commit suicide it was day in day out torment designed to crush the boy's spirit he wanted to toughen him up and turn him into a soldier instead it very nearly drove him away in 1730 while serving in the army frederick decided to flee prussia he took along his best friend hans hermann von kata although there are plenty who think that carter was more than just a bff throughout his life frederick the great would show a marked preference for men surrounding himself with strapping young lads and having his palaces filled with paintings of beautiful boys while most historians would hesitate to definitively call him queer there's plenty of circumstantial evidence from the medallions he had made as king depicting ancient male lovers to the poem he wrote declaring the disciple john shared a bit of sexy time with jesus nor is this just a modern interpretation frederick's own father called him effeminate and a sodomite a description enemy propagandists would pick up on and run with so yeah there's a good chance frederick the great was at least biromantic and probably gay which makes what happened to hans hermann von kata all the more tragic before their escape attempted even got off the ground the two young men were arrested frederick was told that his father was going to have him executed for desertion while the old tyrant eventually showed leniency the same couldn't be said of poor von katya on november 6 1730 qatar was beheaded frederick william forced his son to watch the execution through a window in the aftermath the young man collapsed weeping to the ground it was a sadistic demonstration of frederick's helplessness of his father's brutal hold over him luckily his awful dad wouldn't be around for much longer [Music] he is following von katya's murders or frederick william try to force his son into something resembling a regular life in 1733 he was married to elizabeth christine of brunswick beven whom frederick described as a sour subspecies of the female sect and spent most of his life trying to avoid her one year later he earned his stripes on the battlefield facing off against the french army under an austrian general yet frederick kicked back against this unwanted life refusing to be the man his father told him to be he adopted a slightly fae refined personality spent his time reading french literature he even became an avowed non-believer spitting in the eye of his father's strict calvinist face yet for all he tried to differentiate himself from his father something of the old man must have rubbed off already frederick was adopting his father's bullying ways towards his younger brother the openly homosexual prince henry as well as his last for army life it was that same old sad story of growing up to become everything you hated about your own parents thankfully though frederick william the first wouldn't get to see it the king of prussia died on the 31st of may 1740. exactly what frederick the great felt when he got the news has been lost a time but we're guessing it had more than a touch of party time to it during his coronation journey he allowed his attractive young valet to sit alongside him openly treating the boy like a royal mistress nor was frederick the only one to feel released by his father's death among the prussian intellectual class there was a strong feeling that frederick was exactly the sort of ruler that they needed it was known that the new king was cultured a flute player who loved architecture and the arts after the military pomposity of frederick william they had reason to hope that frederick the great would usher in nanira a peace and culture as it turned out those hopes would only be halfway fulfilled along with everything else frederick the great had inherited his father's vast and well-trained army and fate was about to hand him the perfect opportunity for using them over in austria the holy roman emperor charles vi was dying at this time austria under the habsburgs was the premier german speaking power in europe lederhosen wearing goliath next to prussia's scrappy david unfortunately for vienna habsburg law said only male relatives could inherit the throne this was unfortunate because charles was dying having had only a daughter although charles had spent years trying to convince europe to recognize maria theresa as his legitimate heir the other powers were far more interested in carving up her territory with the whole of europe sharpening its swords the moment charles kicked the bucket frederick realized that he was facing a do or die moment right on prussia's border set the habsburg region of silesia an area so wealthy it supplied a quarter of the entire austrian budget unfortunately silesia also boarded right on saxony an electorate at least as powerful as prussia frederick could play things safe be the cultured king his subjects wanted him to be and watch saxony absorb silesia or he could become the great military man his father had dreamed of and take the region himself charles vi died on october 20th 1740. less than two months later frederick marched 80 000 troops into silesia it was the start of the war of austrian succession a war that would reshape central europe it was also the war that would finally earn frederick the appellation great and you know what else is great today's video sponsor nordvpn now more than ever it's critical to be able to use the internet safely and securely we've talked about the benefits of vpns before this is not 1999. too many people are looking for your internet history bad actors trying to steal your data and personal information corporations tracking your browsing activity and bombarding you with ads who needs any of that i'll tell you probably not you that's why 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get back to fred [Music] considering he's literally called the great frederick's early attempts at warmongering were more laurel and hardy the napoleon bonaparte during the first major austrian counter-attack of 1741 frederick got so panicked that he fled the battlefield tried to hide and came this close to being captured it was only thanks to his generals that the tide was turned and the battle became a prussian victory you won't be surprised to hear that this little misadventure was conspicuously left out of the official narrative but even for frederick to get this far required a massive stroke of luck at the time austria was allied with russia and there was a real chance 1741 could have dawned with the russian bear stomping into prussia and doing to berlin what yogi bear does to picnic baskets it was only by sheer luck that russia was destabilized by dynastic shenanigans that kept saint petersburg out of the fight yet while frederick was undeniably lucky at the start of the war it's what he did with those lucky breaks that made him so impressive although she'd keep trying for almost her entire reign maria theresa would never get silesia back the thing was that frederick was just a master at knowing when to apply pressure during 1742 he staged an invasion of moravia not because he wanted to conquer it but because he knew maria theresa would be too busy fighting saxony bavaria and france to do anything but grant him a peace treaty two years later when the tide was turning in austria's favor he invaded bohemia just to stop maria theresa from gaining the advantage this wasn't great leadership in the napoleon mold conquering everything in sight with superior ability but it was realistic leadership with a targeted goal keep silesia and in real life that's usually way more successful than going for broke on christmas day 1745 frederick finally reached a long-term settlement with austria in return for prussia withdrawing from the war the peace of dresden basically gave frederick everything he wanted he returned to berlin that same year where he was hailed for the first time as frederick the great prussia had entered this war as the new kid the scrawny young boy going up against the biggest kid in the playground austria and making him hand over his lunch money while the war of austrian succession would end with maria theresa laying the smack down on most of her opponents prussia would walk away with its head held high clearly vienna was no longer the only german-speaking great power on the continent still the silesia issue would rear its ugly head again just a decade later this time amid a war so big winston churchill would later call it the real first world war but for now we're going to step away from all of the fighting and the killing and head back to newly confident berlin it's time to see if prussia's new king can handle peacetime as well as he could wartime [Music] the era in which frederick ruled was the era of enlightened despotism in europe over in austria maria teresa was building hospitals providing universal education and professionalizing her civil service up in russia catherine the great would soon be promoting women's education forcing landowners to treat their serfs like actual humans and mapping a great empire but for many the greatest of these forward-thinking monarchs was frederick the great to be clear this is forward thinking in 18th century terms frederick was by no means liberal he practiced political censorship and ruled by absolute decree still he was at the forefront of this new wave of rulers promoting culture and tolerance so let's start with tolerance remember earlier how frederick became a non-believer almost despite his father while that non-belief would turn his pressure into a bastion for free thinking frederick hated superstition and felt that religion should be the subject to the same questioning as other systems accordingly he allowed both catholicism and protestantism in his kingdom and encouraged scientific debate of both faiths sadly this being the 18th century that tolerance didn't really extend towards prussia's jews who frederick regarded with suspicion at best atheists though were another matter frederick prided himself on offering a safe haven to heretics that went beyond even what could be found in england beyond religion frederick also offered shelter to some of the most free-thinking minds of his era chief among them was voltaire one of europe's greatest writers and philosophers voltaire was the 18th century equivalent of a superstar as early as the 1730s when he was still just a young prince frederick had been exchanging letters with the great thinker admittedly these letters had been full of the two of them sucking up to each other in the most embarrassing of ways like voltaire responding to a potential meeting by writing i am so sure to faint from joy still their correspondence reflects frederick's genuine desire to be an enlightened ruler as well as a man of international tastes frederick got voltaire to help him with his french even going so far as to send him poems to edit not the voltaire seems to have thought much of frederick's literary prowess in 1753 during a multi-year stay at frederick's court voltaire received a stack of the king's poems by sighing and declaring will the king never tire of giving me his dirty laundry to wash still there was more to frederick the great than simply advocating a degree of intellectual freedom under his watch the cities of berlin and potsdam were given makeovers transforming them into some of the most beautiful places in europe potsdam's censor c palace meaning carefree in french is in particular an architectural masterpiece a palace where frederick could indulge in his childhood passion for music surrounded by handsome young men in fact it proved to be such a congenial setting that frederick effectively moved his court there in 1748 abandoning his father's berlin for a place of his own away from architecture frederick also supported culture in general including extra funding for the berlin academy however he was never quite the bastion of germanness later fans would try to paint him as a francophile to his core frederick was just as likely to promote the latest writings from paris as he was some groundbreaking prussian opera still for most of his subjects the reign of frederick the great was a good enough time the time when the civil service became more professional the judiciary more impartial and intellectual pursuits were considered just as important as donning a uniform and shooting a foreigner and yet frederick would never quite shake off the military training his father had forced on him as much as he might like to think of himself as a philosopher king events were about to prove that frederick was more of a warlord than he cared to let on [Music] by right the name world war one should belong not to the european conflict that raged from 1914 to 1918 but to a much earlier war kicking off in 1754 it saw fighting not just in europe but in north and south america west africa and on the indian subcontinent known as the seven years war or the french and indian war in america it was perhaps the biggest military conflagration the planet had yet seen and one of its principal drivers would be frederick the great to put all the causes of the seven years war into context would take the rest of this video but the short version is that britain and france were vying for power in the colonies while a diplomatic revolution was transforming europe's alliances russia for example was becoming both increasingly anti-prussian and cozying up to great britain so when a colonial war kicked off between paris and london in 1754 frederick hastily promised britain neutrality unfortunately he was meant to be allied to france and when louis xvi found out he was pretty pissed by 1756 frederick was convinced that while britain was no longer a threat france russia and austria were just weeks away from tag-teaming him and snatching back silesia so he decided to do what he'd done the last time and attack first in august of 1756 frederick fired the opening gun on the war in europe by invading austria's ally saxony in no time at all he'd snatched dresden and leipzig and carried on into bohemia to lay siege to prague and so began the second great war of frederick's reign to say that it was a roller coaster ride would be to severely underestimate just how wildly prussia's fortunes rose and fell unlike pretty much all his enemies frederick personally led his army assisted by generals like his brother prince henry often this gave him a huge tactical advantage while other armies were hamstrung by needing to check actions with their capitals frederick could think on his feet making a policy at lightning speed he also had a ruthless cunning streak that served him well at the battle of lutheran in 1757 frederick ran rings around his austrian opponents so much so that napoleon would later call him the greatest tactician in history but despite the hype frederick was no napoleon he was sly fast thinking and courageous sure but he was also stubborn and that occasionally led him to the brink of disaster the 1759 battle of kuna's dwarf almost ended frederick's military career in the face of a joint austrian russian force frederick pushed too hard lost the advantage and was forced to watch his army disintegrate into an undisciplined mess of the fifty thousand or so many it started with only three thousand made it to the end of the battle it was such a defeat that frederick considered suicide a year later he suffered another blow when his enemies invaded and briefly occupied berlin still these setbacks were rare enough that by 1761 prussia was heading towards victory unfortunately this was victory in the pyrrhic sense the seven years war had left prussia broke frederick was unable to pay his employees and it looked like they might be rioting if peace wasn't signed soon as usual though luck was on his side in may 1762 saar peter iii came to the russian throne a massive frederick fanboy the new sar ended some petersburg's involvement in the war with a major ally dropping out maria teresa reluctantly threw in the towel in february 1763 the piece of hubert uzberg ended prussia and austria's two decades of warring over silesia for good while the toll on prussia had been massive frederick had made gains that went beyond mere finances prussia was now undeniably a great power able to swipe land away from austria fight the russians and forge game-changing alliances with britain although frederick would be careful to never again fight such a spectacular war his international prestige went through the roof but he still wasn't done prussia was still too disunited too vulnerable too much of a hermaphrodite to be truly secure it would take one more major change for frederick's legacy to be complete the final major act of frederick the great's life was also his most infamous since the 1760s the kingdom of poland had been beset by internal problems that made it look woefully weak for poland's predatory neighbors that meant one thing only dinner time the first one to say out loud what everyone had been thinking was frederick in 1769 he tried to get catherine the great to partition poland with him but the russian empress demured however she didn't demure for long because down in austria maria teresa was starting to seriously think about expanding her own territory so frederick convinced them both to join him in slicing up poland the first partition of poland was the start of a process that would soon wipe the kingdom from the map taking place in 1772 it saw russia and austria both take huge bites of territory for his part frederick took a much smaller chunk but one that was incredibly significant prior to the partition prussia had been a wildly discontinuous state with east prussia separated from berlin by a polish territory known as royal prussia it was this piece of land that frederick now gobbled up transforming prussia for the first time into a unified state with clear defensible frontiers although he failed to gain the great port city of danzig he did net control of the vistula and thus the grain trade from then on famines in prussia would become much rarer and that was really it for frederick's reign well not in a technical sense he lived for another 14 years during which he continued to support the arts build up the army modernize the state and do delightful things like introduce the potato to prussia but as far as highlights go the sort that might be covered in a 23-minute video the partition of poland was the last big one frederick the great died on august the 17th 1786 at the age of 74 while his passing didn't mark the end of the age of enlightened despotism it came pretty close just three short years later the french revolution would launch the continent into a brand new epoch one in which frederick seems not like some grand reformist but rather a relic of a bygone age yet this dramatic shift didn't mean that frederick was forgotten as we've already mentioned one of the king's biggest fans was napoleon bonaparte who considered frederick a great general and the battle of luthen his masterpiece but even after the death of liberty corporal frederick's influence remained across the next 160 years many politicians tried to claim him as one of their own in the 19th century bismarck encouraged others to see him as frederick's successor finishing the work had begun in world war one german high command used his memory to inspire the troops to keep on fighting during world war ii adolf hitler even kept a portrait of frederick in his bunker perhaps hoping that some of the old king's tactical genius might rub off on him today likely because of the hitler connection it's less fashionable to see frederick as some kind of great german warrior undoubtedly his occasional genius as a leader on the battlefield is still celebrated but now we're equally likely to be drawn to his peacetime work here after all was a king who set the template for an enlightenment ruler a man who took a small militaristic state and turned it into one of the great centers of european culture it's easy to forget just how different things could have been how easily frederick could have been like his father a pompous soldier marching around with his chest puffed out like some deluded pigeon that he wasn't speaks both to his era but also to his character a character that won him admirers across the whole of europe his name may have sometimes been misused by those who came after him but there's no denying that frederick ii really did deserve his title great so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to check out our fantastic sponsor nordvpn who i'm linking to below thank you for watching

Channel: Biographics

Views: 201,684

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: zWVorNx6UUg

Length: 24min 2sec (1442 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021