FREDERIC II.

The celebrated King of Prussia was in no respect indebted for his personal greatness to the virtues or example of his immediate progenitors. His grandfather Frederic I., the first of the House of Brandenburg who assumed the title of King, was a weak and empty prince, whose character was taken by his own wife to exemplify the idea of infinite littleness. His father, Frederic William, was a man of a violent and brutal disposition, eccentric and intemperate, whose principal, and almost sole pleasure and pursuit, was the training and daily superintendence of an army disproportionately greater than the extent of his dominions seemed to warrant. It is however to the credit of Frederic William as a ruler, that, notwithstanding this expensive taste, his finances on the whole were well and economically administered; so that on his death he left a quiet and happy, though not wealthy country, a treasure of nine millions of crowns, amounting to more than a year’s revenue, and a well-disciplined army of 76,000 men. Thus on his accession, Frederic II. (or as, in consequence of the ambiguity of his father’s name, he is sometimes called, Frederic III.) found, ready prepared, men and money, the instruments of war; and for this alone was he indebted to his father. He was born January 24, 1712. From Frederic William, parental tenderness was not to be expected. His treatment of his whole family, wife and children, was brutal: but he showed a particular antipathy to his eldest son, from the age of fourteen upwards, for which no reason can be assigned, except that the young prince manifested a taste for literature, and preferred books and music to the routine of military exercises. From this age, his life was embittered by continual contradiction, insult, and even personal violence. In 1730, he endeavoured to escape by flight fromhis father’s control: but this intention being revealed, he was arrested, tried as a deserter, and condemned to death by an obedient court-martial; and the sentence, to all appearance, would have been carried into effect, had it not been for the interference of the Emperor of Germany, Charles VI. of Austria. The king yielded to his urgent entreaties, but with much reluctance, saying, “Austria will some day perceive what a serpent she warms in her bosom.” In 1732, Frederic procured a remission of this ill treatment by contracting, much against his will, a marriage with Elizabeth Christina, a princess of the house of Brunswick. Domestic happiness he neither sought nor found; for it appears that he never lived with his wife. Her endowments, mental and personal, were not such as to win the affections of so fastidious a man, but her moral qualities and conduct are highly commended; and, except in the resolute avoidance of her society, her husband through life treated her with high respect. From the time of his marriage to his accession, Frederic resided at Rheinsberg, a village some leagues north-east of Berlin. In 1734, he made his first campaign with Prince Eugene, but without displaying, or finding opportunity to display, the military talents by which he was distinguished in after-life. From 1732 however to 1740, his time was principally devoted to literary amusements and society. Several of his published works were written during this period, and among them the ‘Anti-Machiavel’ and ‘Considerations on the Character of Charles XII.:’ he also devoted some portion of his time to the study of tactics. His favourite companions were chiefly Frenchmen: and for French manners, language, cookery and philosophy, he displayed through life a very decided preference.

The early part of Frederic’s life gave little promise of his future energy as a soldier and statesman. The flute, embroidered clothes, and the composition of indifferent French verses, seemed to occupy the attention of the young dilettante. His accession to the throne, May 31, 1740, called his dormant energies at once into action. He assumed the entire direction of government, charging himself with those minute and daily duties which princes generally commit to their ministers. To discharge the multiplicity of business which thus devolved on him, he laid down strict rules for the regulation of his time and employments, to which, except when on active service, he scrupulously adhered. Until an advanced period of life he always rose at four o’clock in the morning; and he bestowed but a few minutes on his dress, in respect of which he was careless, even to slovenliness. But peaceful employments did not satisfy his activemind. His father, content with the possession of a powerful army, had never used it as an instrument of conquest: Frederic, in the first year of his reign, undertook to wrest from Austria the province of Silesia. On that country, which, from its adjoining situation, was a most desirable acquisition to the Prussian dominions, it appears that he had some hereditary claims, to the assertion of which the time was favourable. At the death of Charles VI., in October 1740, the hereditary dominions of Austria devolved on a young female, the afterwards celebrated Maria Theresa. Trusting to her weakness, Frederic at once marched an army into Silesia. The people, being chiefly Protestants, were ill affected to their Austrian rulers, and the greater part of the country, except the fortresses, fell without a battle into the King of Prussia’s possession. In the following campaign, April 10, 1741, was fought the battle of Molwitz, which requires mention, because in this engagement, the first in which he commanded, Frederic displayed neither the skill nor the courage which the whole of his subsequent life proved him really to possess. It was said that he took shelter in a windmill, and this gave rise to the sarcasm, that at Molwitz the King of Prussia had covered himself with glory and with flour. The Prussians however remained masters of the field. In the autumn of the same year they advanced within two days’ march of Vienna; and it was in this extremity of distress, that Maria Theresa made her celebrated and affecting appeal to the Diet of Hungary. A train of reverses, summed up by the decisive battle of Czaslaw, fought May 17, 1742, in which Frederic displayed both courage and conduct, induced Austria to consent to the treaty of Breslaw, concluded in the same summer, by which Silesia, with the exception of a small district, was ceded to Prussia, of which kingdom it has ever since continued to form a part.

But though Prussia for a time enjoyed peace, the state of European politics was far from settled, and Frederic’s time was much occupied by foreign diplomacy, as well as by the internal improvements which always were the favourite objects of his solicitude. The rapid rise of Prussia was not regarded with indifference by other powers. The Austrian government was inveterately hostile, from offended pride, as well as from a sense of injury; Saxony took part with Austria; Russia, if not an open enemy, was always a suspicious and unfriendly neighbour; and George II. of England, the King of Prussia’s uncle, both feared and disliked his nephew. Under these circumstances, upon the formation of the triple alliance between Austria, England, and Sardinia, Frederic concluded a treaty with France and the Elector of Bavaria,who had succeeded Charles VI. as Emperor of Germany; and anticipated the designs of Austria upon Silesia, by marching into Bohemia in August, 1744. During two campaigns the war was continued to the advantage of the Prussians, who, under the command of Frederic in person, gained two signal victories with inferior numbers, at Hohenfriedberg and Soor. At the end of December, 1745, he found himself in possession of Dresden, the capital of Saxony, and in condition to dictate terms of peace to Austria and Saxony, by which Silesia was again recognised as part of the Prussian dominions.

Five years were thus spent in acquiring and maintaining possession of this important province. The next ten years of Frederic II.’s life passed in profound peace. During this period he applied himself diligently and successfully to recruit his army, and renovate the drained resources of Prussia. His habits of life were singularly uniform. He resided chiefly at Potsdam, apportioning his time and his employments with methodical exactness; and, by this strict attention to method, he was enabled to exercise a minute superintendence over every branch of government, without estranging himself from social pleasures, or abandoning his literary pursuits. After the peace of Dresden he commenced his ‘Histoire de mon Temps,’ which, in addition to the history of his own wars in Silesia, contains a general account of European politics. About the same period he wrote his ‘Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,’ the best of his historical works. He maintained an active correspondence with Voltaire, and others of the most distinguished men of Europe. He established, or rather restored, the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and was eager to enrol eminent foreigners among its members, and to induce them to resort to his capital; and the names of Voltaire, Euler, Maupertuis, La Grange, and others of less note, testify his success. But his avowed contempt for the German, and admiration of the French literature and language, in which all the transactions of the Society were carried on, gave an exotic character to the institution, and crippled the national benefits which might have been expected to arise from it. In 1751, after a considerable expenditure of flattery, Frederic induced Voltaire to take up his residence at Potsdam. From this step he anticipated much pleasure and advantage, and for a time every thing appeared to proceed according to his wishes. The social suppers in which he loved to indulge after the labours of the day, were enlivened by the poet’s brilliant talents; and the poet’s gratitude for the royal friendship and condescension was manifested in his assiduous correction of the royal writings. For a time each was delighted with theother; but the mutual regard which these two singular characters had conceived was soon dissipated upon closer acquaintance, and after many undignified quarrels, they parted in the spring of 1753 in a manner discreditable to both. In the cause of education Frederic was active, both by favouring the universities, to which he sought to secure the services of the best professors, and by the establishment of schools wherever the circumstances of the neighbourhood rendered it desirable. It is said that he sometimes founded as many as sixty schools in a single year. This period of his reign is also marked by the commencement of that revision of the Prussian law (a confused and corrupt mixture of Roman and Saxon jurisprudence) which led to the substitution of an entirely new code. In this important business the Chancellor Cocceii took the lead; but the system established by him underwent considerable alterations from time to time, and at last was remodelled in 1781. For the particular merits or imperfections of the code, the lawyers who drew it up are answerable, rather than the monarch; but the latter possesses the high honour of having proved himself, in this and other instances, sincerely desirous to assure to his subjects a pure and ready administration of justice. Sometimes this desire, joined to a certain love and habit of personal inquiry into all things, led the king to a meddling and mischievous interference with the course of justice, as in the instance of the miller Arnold, which probably is familiar to most readers; but in all cases his intention seems to have been pure, and his conduct proves him sincere in the injunction to his judges:—“If a suit arises between me and one of my subjects, and the case is a doubtful one, you should always decide against me.” If, as in the celebrated imprisonment of Baron Trenck, he chose to perform an arbitrary action, he did it openly, not by tampering with courts of justice: but these despotic measures were not frequent, and few countries have ever enjoyed a fuller practical license of speech and printing, than Prussia under a simply despotic form of government, administered by a prince naturally of impetuous passions and stern and unforgiving temper. That temper, however, was kept admirably within bounds, and seldom suffered to appear in civil affairs. His code is remarkable for the abolition of torture, and the toleration granted to all religions. The latter enactment, however, required no great share of liberality from Frederic, who avowed his indifference to all religions alike. In criminal cases he was opposed to severe punishments, and was always strongly averse to shedding blood. To his subjects, both in person and by letter, he was always accessible, and to the peasantry in particular he displayed paternal kindness, patience, and condescension.But, on the other hand, his military system was frightfully severe, both in its usual discipline and in its punishments. Numbers of soldiers deserted, or put an end to their lives, or committed crimes that they might be given up to justice. Yet his kindness and familiarity in the field, and his fearless exposure of his own person, endeared him exceedingly to his soldiers, and many pleasing anecdotes, honourable to both parties, are preserved, especially during the campaigns of the Seven Years’ War.

During this peace Austria had recruited her strength, and with it her inveterate hostility to Prussia; and it became known to Frederic that a secret agreement for the conquest and partition of his territories existed between Austria, Russia, and Saxony. The circumstances of the times were such that, though neither France nor England were cordially disposed towards him, it was yet open to him to negotiate an alliance with either. Frederic chose that of England; and France, forgetting ancient enmities, and her obvious political interest, immediately took part with Austria. The odds of force apparently were overwhelming; but, having made up his mind, the King of Prussia displayed his usual promptitude. He demanded an explanation of the views of the court of Vienna, and, on receiving an unsatisfactory answer, signified that he considered it a declaration of war. Knowing that the court of Saxony, contrary to existing treaties, was secretly engaged in the league against him, he marched an army into the electorate in August, 1756, and, almost unopposed, took military possession of it. He thus turned the enemy’s resources against himself, and drew from that unfortunate country continual supplies of men and money, without which he could scarcely have supported the protracted struggle which ensued, and which is celebrated under the title of the Seven Years’ War. The events of this war, however interesting to a military student, are singularly unfit for concise narration, and that from the very circumstances which displayed the King of Prussia’s talents to most advantage. Attacked on every side, compelled to hasten from the pursuit of a beaten, to make head in some other quarter against a threatening enemy, the activity, vigilance, and indomitable resolution of Frederic must strike all those who read these campaigns at length, and with the necessary help of maps and plans, though his profound tactical skill and readiness in emergencies may be fully appreciable only by the learned. But when these complicated events are reduced to a bare list of marches and countermarches, victories and defeats, the spirit vanishes, and a merecaput mortuumremains. The war being necessarily defensive, Frederic could seldom carry the seat of action into an enemy’s country. ThePrussian dominions were subject to continual ravage, and that country, as well as Saxony, paid a heavy price that the possession of Silesia might be decided between two rival sovereigns. Upon the whole, the first campaigns were favourable to Prussia; but the confessed superiority of that power in respect of generals (for the King was admirably supported by Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, Prince Henry of Prussia, Schwerin, Keith, and others) could not always countervail the great superiority of force with which it had to contend. The celebrated victory won by the Prussians at Prague, May 6, 1757, was balanced by a severe defeat at Kolin, the result, as Frederic confesses, of his own rashness; but, at the end of autumn, he retrieved the reverses of the summer, by the brilliant victories of Rosbach, and Leuthen or Lissa. In 1758, Frederic’s contempt of his enemy lulled him into a false security, in consequence of which he was surprised and defeated at Hochkirchen. But the campaigns of 1759 and 1760 were a succession of disasters by which Prussia was reduced to the verge of ruin; and it appears, from Frederic’s correspondence, that, in the autumn of the latter year, his reverses led him to contemplate suicide, in preference to consenting to what he thought dishonourable terms of peace. The next campaign was bloody and indecisive; and in the following year the secession of Russia and France induced Austria, then much exhausted, to consent to a peace, by which Silesia and the other possessions of Frederic were secured to him as he possessed them before the war. So that this enormous expense of blood and treasure produced no result whatever, except that of establishing the King of Prussia’s reputation as the first living general of Europe. Peace was signed at the castle of Hubertsburg, near Dresden, Feb. 15, 1763.

The brilliant military reputation which Frederic had acquired in this arduous contest did not tempt him to pursue the career of a conqueror. He had risked every thing to maintain possession of Silesia; but if his writings speak the real feelings of his mind, he was deeply sensible to the sufferings and evils which attend upon war. “The state of Prussia,” he himself says, in the ‘Histoire de mon Temps,’ “can only be compared to that of a man riddled with wounds, weakened by loss of blood, and ready to sink under the weight of his misfortunes. The nobility was exhausted, the commons ruined, numbers of villages were burnt, of towns ruined. Civil order was lost in a total anarchy: in a word, the desolation was universal.” To cure these evils Frederic applied his earnest attention; and by grants of money to those towns which had suffered most; by the commencementand continuation of various great works of public utility; by attention to agriculture; by draining marshes, and settling colonists in the barren, or ruined portions of his country; by cherishing manufactures (though not always with a useful or judicious zeal), he succeeded in repairing the exhausted population and resources of Prussia with a rapidity the more wonderful, because his military establishment was at the same time recruited and maintained at the enormous number, considering the size and wealth of the kingdom, of 200,000 men. One of his measures deserves especial notice, the emancipation of the peasants from hereditary servitude. This great undertaking he commenced at an early period of his reign, by giving up his own seignorial rights over the serfs on the crown domains: he completed it in the year 1766, by an edict abolishing servitude throughout his dominions. In 1765, he commenced a gradual alteration in the fiscal system of Prussia, suggested in part by the celebrated Helvetius. In the department of finance, though all his experiments did not succeed, he was very successful. He is said, in the course of his reign, to have raised the annual revenue to nearly double what it had been in his father’s time, and that without increasing the pressure of the people; and from his last biographer, he has obtained the praise of having “arrived, as far as any sovereign ever did, at perfection in that part of finance, which consists in the extracting as much as possible from the people, without overburthening or impoverishing them; and receiving into the royal coffers the sums so extracted, with the least possible deductions.”

In such cares and in his literary pursuits, among which we may especially mention his ‘History of the Seven Years War,’ passed the time of Frederic for ten years. In 1772, he engaged in the nefarious project for the first partition of Poland. Of the iniquity of that project it is not necessary to speak; the universal voice of Europe has condemned it. It does not seem, however, that the scheme originated, as has been said, with Frederic: on the contrary, it appears to have been conceived by Catherine II., and matured in conversations with Prince Henry, the King of Prussia’s brother, during a visit to St. Petersburg. By the treaty of partition, which was not finally arranged till 1777, Prussia gained a territory of no great extent, but of importance from its connecting Prussia Proper with the electoral dominions of Brandenburg and Silesia, and giving a compactness to the kingdom, of which it stood greatly in need. Frederic made some amends for his conduct in this matter, by the diligence with which he laboured to improve his acquisition. In this, as in most circumstances of internal administration, he was very successful; and thecountry, ruined by war, misgovernment, and the brutal sloth of its inhabitants, soon assumed the aspect of cheerful industry.

The King of Prussia once more led an army into the field, when, on the death of the Elector of Bavaria, childless, in 1778, Joseph II. of Austria conceived the plan of re-annexing to his own crown, under the plea of various antiquated feudal rights, the greater part of the Bavarian territories. Stimulated quite as much by jealousy of Austria, as by a sense of the injustice of this act, Frederic stood out as the assertor of the liberties of Germany, and proceeding with the utmost politeness from explanation to explanation, he marched an army into Bohemia in July, 1778. The war, however, which was terminated in the following spring by the peace of Teschen, was one of manœuvres, and partial engagements; in which Frederic’s skill in strategy shone with its usual lustre, and success, on the whole, rested with the Prussians. By the terms of the treaty, the Bavarian dominions were secured, nearly entire, to the rightful collateral heirs, whose several claims were settled, while certain minor stipulations were made in favour of Prussia.

A few years later, in 1785, Frederic again found occasion to oppose Austria, in defence of the integrity of the Germanic constitution. The Emperor Joseph, in prosecution of his designs on Bavaria, had formed a contract with the reigning elector, to exchange the Austrian provinces in the Netherlands for the Electorate. Dissenting from this arrangement, the heir to the succession entrusted the advocacy of his rights to Frederic, who lost no time in negotiating a confederation among the chief powers of Germany, (known by the name of the Germanic League,) to support the constitution of the empire, and the rights of its several princes. By this timely step Austria was compelled to forego the desired acquisition.

At this time Frederic’s constitution had begun to decay. He had long been a sufferer from gout, the natural consequence of indulgence in good eating and rich cookery, to which throughout his life he was addicted. Towards the end of the year he began to experience great difficulty of breathing. His complaints, aggravated by total neglect of medical advice, and an extravagant appetite, which he gratified by eating to excess of the most highly seasoned and unwholesome food, terminated in a confirmed dropsy. During the latter months of his life he suffered grievously from this complication of disorders; and through this period he displayed remarkable patience, and consideration for the feelings of those around him. No expression of suffering was allowed to pass his lips; and up to the last day of his life he continued to discharge with punctuality those political duties which he had imposed upon himself in youth and strength. Strangeto say, while he exhibited this extraordinary self-control in some respects, he would not abstain from the most extravagant excesses in diet, though they were almost always followed by a severe aggravation of his sufferings. Up to August 15, 1786, he continued, as usual, to receive and answer all communications, and to despatch the usual routine of civil and military business. On the following day he fell into a lethargy, from which he only partially recovered. He died in the course of the night of August 16.

The published works of the King of Prussia were collected in twenty-three volumes, 8vo. Amsterdam, 1790. We shall here mention, as completing the body of his historical works, the “Mémoires depuis la Paix de Hubertsbourg,” and “Mémoires de la Guerre de 1778.” Among his poems, the most remarkable is the “Art de la Guerre;” but these, as happens in most cases, where the writer has thought fit to employ a foreign language, have been little known or esteemed, since their author ceased to rivet the attention of the world by the brilliance of his actions, and the singularity of his character. A list of Frederic’s works is given at the end of the article in the “Biographie Universelle.” For his campaigns, see the works of Lloyd and Templehoff, and Jomini’s “Histoire critique et militaire des Guerres de Frédéric II.” Among the numerous lives of him, we may refer to the “Essai sur la Vie et le Règne de Frédéric II.,” by the Abbé Denina, who had been employed in the King of Prussia’s service. Much that relates to him is to be found among the writings of Voltaire. The lives by Gillies and Lord Dover will satisfy the curiosity of the English reader.

[Gate of the Palace at Potsdam.]

Engraved by B. Holl.DELAMBRE.From the original by Boillyin the possession of Delambre’s Family at Amiens.Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.

DELAMBRE.

Back to Index Next