It was rather remarkable that the state of Frederick William I found its completion in his successor- because considering not merely the conflict between father and son but, at least on the surface, the entirely different personalities and inclinations of both, this gave good reason to expect a radical change of policy internally as well as externally, and not a continuation and completion of Frederick William’s.
Already in 1731, when he was Crown Prince, and eight years before he wrote his Anti-Machiavelli, Frederick realized the geo-political factors underlying his concept of the lines along which Prussia’s foreign policy should be conducted. In his view a territorially fragmented kingdom stretching across the northern part of Central Europe had only two alternatives. The first was to live in harmony with all its neighbors, which would be equivalent to a permanent state of fearful impotence and mean a hopeless defensive position in case of conflict. The second alternative was to acquire, without too much regard for existing dynasties, such territories as would consolidate and round off the territory of the kingdom. Heavenly retribution need hardly be feared as long as within the state the fear of God and a sense of justice reigned supreme over atheism, party faction, greed and selfishness. Territorial consolidation of the state outwardly, accord and harmony within, were the determining principles of Frederick’s policy. From that position of strength the state could develop into a ‘refuge of the persecuted, the widows and orphans, the supporter of the poor and the terror of the unjust.’
Hardly upon the throne, he set about doing two things. Firstly, unlike his father, he completely ceased all further attempts to recover royal lands, thus formally acknowledging the right of private property of the nobility, and secondly, he abandoned the caution and timidity which had characterized the foreign policy of both his father and grandfather and instead pursued, recklessly at first power politics. He made his ‘Rendezvous with fame’ a policy which was to take the state to the brink of absolute disaster on several occasions, but from where it managed to merge victoriously. And on the battlefields of Silesia was finally forged the alliance between crown and aristocracy which henceforth was to characterize the Prussian state until 1918. However, it was an alliance in which the moment the crown was represented by a man of lesser value than Frederick, the nobility was bound to gain weight, though without ever eroding the at common denominator of Prussian society as a whole, the ideology of the state community. This ideology on which the Prussian state rested ensured that the social preponderance of one social class did not turn into abuse, a feature which strongly influenced contemporary observers and inclined them towards generalizations which, though true of Prussia, were hardly applicable to all parts of Germany.
The importance of the welfare of the community was not based upon altruistic motives but upon raison d’etat. In Frederick’s secret testaments, destined solely for his successor, be repeatedly urges that the monarch must be mild because he would be ruling over a diligent and well-tempered people from whom unprovoked domestic resistance was not to be expected. He implores his successor to encourage by rewards rather than urge through punishments, ‘to ease as much as possible fiscal burdens and to be aware at all time that…’ (the ruler) ‘…is only the first servant of the state. His guiding star should be exclusively the interest of the state to which his entire life should be dedicated. The welfare of the people must be his primary concern; it is inseparably connected with his own.’
In his domestic policy, viewed as a whole, he continued along the path laid down by his father; the encouragement of agriculture but with a greater emphasis on trade and manufacturing interests. The pillars of the state, economic and military, were still the aristocracy and the peasants, while the growing middle class could find access to the higher ranks of society via the bureaucracy where expertise had always been a prerequisite, even more so with the increasing complexity of government. It ‘could not dispense with people of this kind because the work for which the high-born councilors were unqualified simply had to be done’, especially during the years when Frederick’s reign was drawing to a close.
Where one notices a significant difference between father and son is in their attitudes to religion. Frederick William I still accepted that he would ultimately be accountable to God while his son saw his task as acting exclusively in the interests of the state as he interpreted them, a state whose first servant be considered himself to be and to which he owed his duty. Religions skeptic that he was, ‘duty’ to him became an ersatz religion. In contrast to the Hapsburgs domestic and foreign policy ceased to be subject solely to raison d’etat as Frederick understood it, even if that meant a total disregard for his own person. In 1741 he wrote to Count Podewils: ‘In the event of the misfortune that I should be captured alive, I order you at the risk of your head, to disregard any order I may issue from captivity, that you support my brother with your advice, and that the state undertakes nothing for my liberation which would be below its dignity. On the contrary!…I am king only when I am free. ‘Or again in 1757: ‘If I should fall into the hands of the enemy I forbid you to take the slightest regard for my person and disregard whatever I may write form captivity. In the case of such a misfortune occurring I shall sacrifice myself for the state…no province, no ransom must be offered and the war must be continued by the exploitation of all advantages as though I had never lived.’
This makes very clear Frederick’s idea that state and prince, irrespective of the person involved, are one and indivisible; the state was no longer a mere apparatus used by the prince for his individual ends, but a body to which the prince subordinated himself. It ceased to be an instrument of power wielded by the ruler and instead acquired a supra-individual personality. The unity of the state is emphasized, as opposed to the agglomeration of territories held together by the dynasty.
Many who had believed that with the accession of Frederick a reign of Epicurus would begin, found themselves very quickly and drastically disappointed. True, torture was, with certain exceptions, abolished and the whole legal process of punishment made more humane. The Academy of the Sciences which under Frederick William I had been in a state of decay was given a new injection of life by the appointment of the famous mathematician Maupertius as its president. Frederick’s relations with Voltaire could now be deepened and expanded. The initiative for the building of the Berlin Opera, built between 1741 and 1743 by Knobelsdorff, came during the first months of Frederick’s reign.
However, the primary focus of his attention was Prussia’s position as a power and his ambition to turn it into a great power. Although immediately after coming to the throne he dissolved his father’s Guard of Giants, he increased the army by seven infantry regiments which meant that by 1741 Prussia possessed an army of more than 100,000 men. Frederick was fully aware of the disproportion that existed between Prussia’s military might and the political role it played in Germany and Europe. He was not prepared to accept the humiliations which his father and grandfather had found necessary to accept. From the first moment of his accession he was determined to convey the impression of being a strong man. He personally conducted the correspondence with his envoys from his cabinet, which from the point of view of structure and purpose remained the same as it had been under Frederick William I. Absolute secrecy in his foreign policy was of the essence, therefore no ministers were informed; only his cabinet secretary, the Secret War Councilor Eichel who conducted the King’s correspondence, was informed of all the secrets of Frederick’s policy.
While the negotiations over Berg were still in process, Emperor Charles VI died unexpectedly on 20 October 1740. This changed Frederick’s horizon of ambitions. In Russia the Czarina had died, and her death and the ensuing confusion ensured for the time being Russia’s inactivity. Hapsburg territory, in particular the economically prosperous Silesia, would also provide Prussia with an advantageous springboard vis a vis Poland (if, as seemed likely it disintegrated in the near future) and at the same time threaten Saxony. Two days later he called a meeting with Minister Podewils and Field-Marshall Scherwin and informed them of his decision to obtain the richest province of the House of Hapsburg: Silesia. He wanted to hear their view as to how he could achieve this, not as to whether or not he should attempt it.
Of course there were claims dating back to the 16th century the time of the Elector Joachim II, and the treaty of 1537 according to which three Silesian duchies (Liegnitz, Brieg and Wohlau) were to come to Brandenburg after the death of the last of the line of the Piast princes. That line had in fact became extinct in 1675 but nothing had been done to press these claims seriously. For Frederick they now became pretexts with the aid of which he would break the jewel of Silesia out of the Hapsburg crown.
Podewils suggested settling the matter by negotiation. Frederick decided to confront Europe with a fait accompli: march before the winter, negotiate during the winter was his motto.
Frederick’s generalship was to develop to unexpected heights during the next 23 years, but that does not mean that on the eve of the First Silesian War he was a relative novice in the craft of war. For one thing he possessed the military training of every Prussian officer; for another, besides reading as Crown Prince the French philosophers and men of belle letters, he was also an avid student of the publications of the military writers of the period.
The Prussian army which Frederick commanded may well have been the first in Europe, but as an army it was still inexperienced. The true importance of light cavalry had not yet been recognized, the infantry had yet to withstand the test of fire. On the whole there existed general agreement among the tacticians of the period that with linear tactics of attack and defense concentrated fire was preferable to general fire or, as Scharnhorst was to put it later, individual firing was to be avoided, only entire salvos would yield any results. Ten men killed or wounded simultaneously would more likely result in the enemy battalion’s withdrawal than 50 killed by a salvo over the entire front of a battalion. Individual fire would lead to wastage of ammunitions and the quick wearing out of arms. Finally, the officers would lose control over their men. How effective concentrated fire could be was demonstrated at Fontenoy when British-Hanoverian guards met French ones. The respective officers even complimented each other on the first shot, and when the French guards suffered such heavy losses after the first salvo fired by the British, the rest of the French took to their heels.
The oblique order of battle is therefore what Delbruck quite rights calls a ‘tactical work of art’, which Frederick developed not at one stroke but over the years, putting into practice at least eight different variations of it. Just because it won Frederick some highly spectacular victories does not mean that by itself it was a guarantee of success; it could very well happen, as it did at Kunersdorf, that an enemy not thrown at the first attempt would hold his position which would ultimately lead to both lines meeting head on and thus to a battle with all the available forces deployed with none in reserve. That such an order of battle could be defeated by other tactics was amply demonstrated when it was carried by the Prussian army against the forces of Napoleon 1806. The best definition of the oblique order of battle is what supplied by Delbruck who describes it as that:
‘form of wing battle in which the entire line of battle represents a little-interrupted or uninterrupted front. It is a characteristic of the win battle that one wing is advanced while the other is withheld, and that that attacking wing is strengthened to catch the enemy of the flank or eve in the rear…The oblique battle order is a sub-form of the wing battle which was adapted to the elementary tactics of the epoch. The reinforcements of the attacking wing can consist of infantry in the form of preliminary attacks preceding the main attack or adding reserves during the battle as well as of cavalry or artillery.’
This represents approximately the body of ideas on military tactics which Frederick II possessed on the eve of the outbreak of the First Silesian War.
Without knowing or foreseeing the ultimate consequences of his action Frederick was determined to annex Silesia. The issue of the Pragmatic Sanction, that is to say the succession after the death of Charles VI of his daughter Maria Theresa to the Hapsburg throne, did not play any role at all, except as a tactical maneuver. In principle the question of the succession was completely without interest at all; it was an irrelevancy. Therefore his venture had nothing to do with those of the two princes who refused to sign the Pragmatic Sanction, the Electors of Saxony (who finally signed in 1733) and Bavaria. After all, Prussia began the war not Bavaria. Initially Frederick attempted to cover his action with a veneer of respectability. George II of Great Britain, his uncle, received assurances form his nephew that the latter’s troops were really on the march to safeguard the interests of the House of Hapsburg. He emphasized that since the death of Charles VI Austria had been at the point of disintegration, vulnerable to all its enemies. With such hypocritical nonsense Frederick tried to justify what, contrary to his expectations, became the greatest bloodletting which Central Europe experienced between the Thirty Years War and Wars of Napoleon.
In 1748 he issued new instructions for the General Directory, that is to say he revised those issued by his father. Whereas the latter’s aim had been to economize in order to yield a financial surplus each year. Frederick’s revision is evidence that he kept his eye on the general development of the kingdom’s economy. In order to provide greater incentives for the peasants to increase their productivity he expressly reduced their dues and burdens.
Frederick also resumed a piece of work begun by his father, namely the reform of the judiciary and judicial proceedings. This time Samuel von Cocceji, the son of Frederick William I’s legal expert, was entrusted with the task. First Frederick discussed with him the principles on which this reform was to based. In Cocceji’s view the reform required a thorough change in personnel and in the method of proceedings, and the introduction of a uniform legal code applicable throughout the country in conformity with the principle of centralization of the kingdom. To test Cocceji’s ideas Frederick suggested that he try out his reforms on one of the Pomeranian courts renowned for its slowness and backlog of cases. Cocceji agreed and in 1747 managed to get through some 3,000 cases, although occasionally by the use of methods which suggest recourse to rough and ready justice for the sake of speed. Nevertheless his performance was judged a success and Frederick now entrusted him with the reform of the Chamber Court. Immediate conflict ensued between Cocceji and Frederick’s minister of justice von Arnim, who considered the reform unnecessary and if carried out according to the pattern established in Pomerania, disastrous to the judicial process in Prussia. Around Arnim rallied the forces of the opposition, in part consisting of judges who in the days of Frederick William I had obtained office by contributing generously to this recruitment fund and who now had to fear losing their positions. Indeed 11 of them, all members of the Chamber Court, were dismissed. In spite of the sizeable opposition to Cocceji, Frederick back him throughout, even though this mean Arnim’s resignation. Cocceji moved form province to province replacing old, very often highly diverse, structures by a unified court system and the principles of the judicial process were clearly laid out in the Codex Fridericianus Marchicus of 1748.
On 16 August 1786 Frederick died at 74 years of age. No other Prussian monarch has exercised such profound influence, far beyond the political sphere. The history of his reign is not merely the history of the emerging dualism between the major powers in the Reich. Already during his lifetime his personality became for many the focal point of a reawakening of the German national consciousness. Through him the name of Prussia exercised the magnetism that attracted so many non-Prussians, among them almost all the members of the Prussian Reform Movement of 1807, to serve the Prussian state. Goethe, born in the Reich city of Frankfurt-an-Main, remarked that in his youth he had been ‘Fritzisch’ minded. ‘What mattered Prussia to us? It was the personality of the Great King which affected the emotions of us all.’ When after the Seven Years War preparations were made in Frankfurt for the election of Joseph II as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Goethe, together with the rest of the Frankfurt population, stood at the roadside to cheer the arrival of the Prussian representative. ‘All eyes were directed upon him. So high stood the King…in favor of the masses among which, in addition to Frankfurters, Germans from all regions were to be found.’
Goethe describes Frederick’s effect upon German literature:
Germany, so long submerged by foreign peoples, permeated by other nations, in learned and diplomatic negotiations dependent on foreign languages, was unable to form its own…If one looks closely, what German poetry was lacking was content, national content; we were not lacking in talent. The first true and higher content entered into German poetry through Frederick the Great and the deeds of the Seven Years War…Every national poetry must be shallow, must become shallow, if it is not based upon the humanly unique, upon the events of the peoples and their shepards…Kings have to be described in war and danger, in situations where they appear to be the first, because they decide the fate of the ultimate and therefore become much more interesting then the Gods themselves. In that sense every nation that has pride in itself must have an Epopoe, for which the form of the epic poem is not really necessary…The Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, gained for their literature a treasure which lacked opposition and which even later efforts could not replace. They approached the great concept which the Prussian writers had of their king, and the more diligently they did so the less he under whose inspiration they worked wanted to know of them…
Well we had not much to say in favor of the constitution of the Reich; we admitted that it consisted entirely of lawful misuses, but it rose therefore the higher over the present French constitution which is operating in a maze of lawless misuses, whose government displays its energies in the wrong places and therefore has to face the challenge that a thorough change in the state of affairs is widely prophesized. In contrast when we looked towards the north, from there shore Frederick, the Pole Star, around whom Germany, Europe, even world seemed to run.
Goethe was not the only contemporary who spoke and wrote of Frederick the Great in such terms. Without being aware of it, for the Germans he was culturally the great emancipator. Words of Frederick’s rejection of German literature and culture are frequently quoted, yet with particular reference to literature he said on the eve of his death: ‘I am like Moses, I can see the promised land, but I am too old to reach it.’ Frederick was not absorbed by Prussia. As a private person and thinker he maintained his detachment, but without him Prussia would not have existed as a concept.
He represents the root cause of a process of abstraction consisting of norms of behavior, attitudes and characteristics which acquired a life of their own, together with other postulates which had nothing to do with the King. They became an independent quantity, over which Frederick’s name was imposed. It was a unique process, a thoroughly individualistic even narcissistic human being became the representative of a supra-individual attitude, an attitude depersonalized, motivated only by the state and the community and the individual’s duty towards them.
Frederick William I had run through Berlin, swinging and wielding his cane upon the backs of the burghers shouting: ‘You should not fear me, you should love me!’ His son Frederick was not loved either, he was respected, admired and honored. There must have been only a few who loved him. He reigned as the ‘greatest curiosity of the century’. Life to him was the concrete, the empirically verifiable, for the concrete represented the challenge to change it according to his desire, his insight and his aims. This applied to his character as much as to his state or his attitude towards other states. As regards his personal conduct Frederick was honest enough to admit that he was what he was and what he wanted to be without trying to be an example to others, without caring what his contemporaries or later generations thought about him.
Whenever the predicate ‘Great’ is applied, it is a natural reaction to look immediately for the victims upon which that claim is based. If one is prepared to admit the attribute of greatness to Frederick, then let it be not because of his generalship or the battles he won, but for the stamina and dignity he showed in adversity. He was the last of Seneca’s disciples upon a Hohenzollern throne, even though Epicurus supplied some lighter touches to that otherwise ascetic appearance clad in shoddy uniform, a figure bent in pain over his cane, a face clear and severe, dominated by the penetrating gaze of his eyes.