In Our Time - Frederick the Great

Episode Date: July 2, 2015

Frederick the Great ruled Prussia from 1740 until his death in 1786. Born in 1712, he increased the power of the state, he made Prussia the leading military power in Europe and his bold campaigns had great implications for the European political landscape. An absolute monarch in the age of enlightenment, he was a prolific writer, attracted figures such as Voltaire to his court, fostered education and put Berlin firmly on the cultural map. He was much admired by Napoleon and was often romanticised by German historians, becoming a hero for many in united Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. Others, however, vilified him for aspects such as his militarism and the partition of Poland. With Tim Blanning Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of CambridgeKatrin Kohl Professor of German Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Jesus CollegeAnd Thomas Biskup Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of HullProducer: Simon Tillotson.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time. For more details about in our time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com. uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello. In 1740 in Berlin, Frederick II, the new king in Prussia took an opportunity that earned him the title Frederick the Great. In Vienna, the Holy Roman Emperor had died suddenly, and in St. Petersburg, the Russian Empress, died shortly afterwards. Frederick took advantage of the turmoil, seizing the rich Austrian province of Silesia to the south.

before his Saxon neighbour had their chance. He was 28. He fought off a broad alliance for over 20 years, with only Britain offering occasional support. His eventual victory turned Prussia from a small state into a leading European power, a significant achievement for a man whose father had threatened to execute him, who considered himself a philosopher, was a gifted flute player, and became arguably the most enlightened ruler of his age. With me to discuss Frederick the Great R. Tim Blanning, Emeritus Professor of Modern European History at the University of Cambridge. Catherine Cole, Professor of German Literature at the University of Oxford

and a fellow of Jesus College, and Thomas Biscop, lecturer in early modern history at the University of Hill. Howell, sorry. Tim Blanning, what was Prussia's place in Europe in Frederick's childhood? Frederick summed it up

when he came to the throne in 1740 and wrote about his, what he had inherited when he came to the throne. And he said that Prussia was like a hermaphrodite. It wasn't quite a nation. It wasn't quite a state, but it was a bit more than an electorate. It was somewhere in between a minor state and a major one. And did that annoy him?

Did he determine to do something about it? He was absolutely determined to do something about it. He had to make a name for himself. He'd come. He came to the throne with a very useful inheritance indeed from his father, but he had been so abused by his. father during the previous 28 years that he was psychologically damaged. And in part his invasion of Cilesia in December 1740 is a kind of therapy. He's showing that he's more of a man than

his father was who had never been able to decide to use the instrument that he had created. But this father of his was the Frederick William. There was a Frederick, then a Frederick William, then the Frederick. And he was always in military uniform in public. He built up a massive army for the size of the place, an enormous army. And he built up a big pile of money. But he was determined that this boy of his would become a military man. He gave him a tremendous

education though, but he also hammered him in public, didn't he? I think he gave a most awful childhood. He wanted Frederick to be a chip off the old block. And if the old block is hit too hard, then the chip can spin off in all kinds of unexpected directions. And that's what happened with Frederick. He wanted Frederick to

be, oh, three or four things. He tells his tutors that he must become a thrifty manager of his money, he must become an enthusiastic and dedicated soldier, he must become a dedicated huntsman. Frederick William I was very keen on hunting, and last but not least, he had to become a pious Christian. His father was a parsimonious Calvinist, wasn't he? He was indeed, yes. Now,

there was this incident where Frederick and a friend of his, the two young men in the army, because he served in various stations in the army. He really got to... When Frederick was 18, tried to flee from the army, tried to get to England and were caught. And can you tell us what happened then? Yes, I can, although I think I ought to add that he had been

so abused by this time that flight seemed to be... Abuse, we mean hit in public, that's what we're talking about. Humiliated, humiliated in public, physically abused in public. Frederick William I first told Frederick, if my father had behaved to me like I behaved to you, I would have killed myself. And there's plenty of that going on.

And by 1730, Frederick's absolutely desperate. And so he tries to run away. Yes, he tries to run away to England. It was a fiasco. Indeed, I think psychologists today would interpret it more as a cry for help than a serious attempt. With a friend, but there's two of them had to go. Well, he had those who would set it up for him. Lieutenant von Kata was the most important of them.

There's another one, Ford von Kite, who gets away, who does actually. escape. Well, it was abortive. It was over even before it started. Frederick is caught. Qatar is arrested. Frederick has brought back to Kestrine on the river Oder. He's interrogated. And for a long time, Frederick thought that he was actually going to be executed for desertion. Qatar is executed. Indeed, Frederick is made to watch the execution. He's beheaded in front of his very eyes. And at that point, he collapsed, not surprisingly. Kata and he had a very close relationship. whether it was a sexual relationship has been much debated. It's possible, but the jury's out on that one.

In fact, it'll never come back in because we never be able to be certain about it. But it was a really terrible experience. So take a sign, we'll step aside for a moment from that, because you've been very graphic and covered everything there. Tim, thank you very much. Kattron Cole, before he met his father took him over at the age of seven, that fantastic age of seven,

which seems to appear everywhere in every religion, civilized, whatever, never mind. His mother, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, looked after him. He was brought up in this court of women in a way, and can you tell us about that? Well, I think it was a very complex environment in which to grow up, and we get an insight into that from his sister's memoirs, Wilhelmina, who paints a picture of a childhood that was probably very unhappy, in the sense that...

Sorry, can I just go... We're talking about the first seven years, aren't we now, with his mother? Yes. Right, thank you, sorry. I think it was unhappy in the sense that the children felt part of a world that was full of intrigue, where they were constantly under pressure from the father's side, from the mother's side, and from the various courtiers who were pandering to different bits of the system. And I think that will have partly caused a lot of negative pressure.

I think it also will have brought Frederick and Villhelmina very close together, and they shared a lot of interests, cultural interests. I think they must have developed a joint fascination with and love for dogs that were very important throughout their lives. And at a very late stage, or in Unsulci, which was Frederick's, yes, his home in many ways later on. He built a temple of friendship for Villeneuve, which shows her sitting in the middle,

and there's quite a small statue, holding a book and with a dog. Can I get back to that childhood? His mother was very educated. It's there that he, as I understand it, please tell me if I'm wrong. It would be helpful for all of us. He got interest in literature, in music, he went on to be a composer, a very good flautism.

All that sort of stuff happened in the first few years. Yes. I think in this environment, he was, working with private tutors and he developed a passion for literature which never left him and which remained a powerful force later on right the way through his life and I think he began to see he must have begun very early on to see himself in terms of his cultural life which he later on managed to marry up with his military aspirations and I think the concept of fame is absolutely central in all of that. Now, at what point

exactly he would have started... Can you develop that? That's very interesting. The concept of fame. You think he had that as a little boy? I don't know at what point that starts and the documentation I think is probably not there to tell us. But he clearly started reading classical literature through his tutors as one did

at the time at an early stage and it became part of his mental furniture. And I think from the very start in this environment which was both private and public, and in many ways very rich culturally, but also full of tensions, political tensions. He will have developed an ability to see himself as a public figure at the same time as a private figure. I think the basis for that role is being laid at a very early stage. Do we have evidence that he carried on the idea of himself being a cultured boy,

when his father, as it were, took him over at the age of seven, that he's still trying to hold on that. Absolutely. And there was scope for realising that. So in the years right up to when he came to the throne, there were periods when he was able to develop that side of his personality in quite a full way. But it was always in tension with his father's aspirations who emphasised the military aspirations, the military aspirations,

religious aspirations and so on. And it really was coming very much from his mother's side. Thomas Piscop, at the beginning of his reign, he was already calling himself a philosopher, which was shorthand for a non-Christian. That's one of the things that were shorthand for. And he went to war almost immediately. It turned out to be crucial.

Why did he want to go to war so quickly? And why did he choose to invade Silesia? Was there any provocation? There was no provocation. And actually the invasion of Silesia came as a totally surprise to the Habsburgs, to the whole of Europe, and perhaps even to Frederick himself, because Sir Alizier had not figured very prominently in his political plans before he exceeded to the throne. There was a couple of reasons. First, Sir Alisa was a very rich and fertile province,

which contributed about 25% of the Habsburg's overall budget. Enormous. It's quite a lot. It was also very rich and very strong in trade and manufacturing. Areas Frederick's core provinces around Berlin were notoriously lacking. Well, secondly, there were strategic considerations. Frederick feared not without reason that if he didn't take Silesia for himself, the neighbouring Saxons might take it. And you should keep in mind that in 1740 Prussia was not yet a great power, and his main rivals were not yet the Habsburgs, but the electors of Saxony, who were also elected kings of Poland. Now Sarlesia separated Poland and Saxony, and had Saxon plans to acquire at least part of Sarlesia succeeded, a year. A year,

huge landlock might have emerged between the River Elbe and the west and the suburbs of Kiev in the east, in the east, and Saxony, Poland might have become the next great power in central Europe, not Brandenburg. Sorry, please go on. Certainly, I think there's another aspect.

Sarlesea was the only Habsburg province bordering on Prussian territory. And if Frederick was to benefit from the dynastic crisis of the House of Habsburg, he had to strike in Salyza. And he really wanted to strike. He wanted to use the army he got from his father. He wanted to announce himself on the European stage with an Iqla, a big bang,

and as he wrote to his friend Jordan, he wanted to read his name in the Gazettes. As early as 1745, when he returned from war after the peace of Dresden, he had his Berlin papers instructed to welcome him back to Berlin as Frederick the Great, only five years after accession to the throne. And that was, I think, what his invasion of St. Lisier was really about. So it was an extremely clever, intelligent move, winch to expand your small monarchy? Yes, it was, you know, like you might say in football, it was a kind of six-point gain.

You took something your rivals might have got, plus you made yourself a name on the European stage. Was it a quick campaign? Did he go in there with this massive army as far, 80,000 people, his father had built up? Did he go in there and take it easily, or was it a tough battle? Well, the actual occupation of Silesia,

in the middle of peace, was easy. In the winter of 1740, 71, The Austrians attacked his army, and he won his first victory at Molditz. Well, he didn't win it. His generals won it for him, because at the crisis of the battle, he actually escaped from the battle and hit somewhere. It was almost captured by the Austrians, an episode he liked to gloss over later in his histories of his reign. So the first campaign was pretty easy for him, and he managed to conclude peace with Mariah Thereseau, the Habsburg, Queen of Hungary and Queen of Bohemia,

already in 1742, because by then, not only Prussia was attacking the Habsburg monarchy, but also Saxony, Bavaria, France. So the Habsburgs were encircled by various European powers and glad to be able to get rid of at least Prussia. But he spent the next 23 years holding on to Silesia and making sure he secured it, and at one stage in the 70 years were,

massive powers arranged against him. Austria, as I remember, Austria, France, Russia and Sweden. And he had support from Britain, intermittent support, but real support. And he managed to come through that. Well, he managed to come through that because on paper, the coalition, the anti-froderation coalition was overwhelming. I mean, just consider that Prussia had around 3 million inhabitants at the time. France alone had 20 million inhabitants.

But in practice, this coalition was faced by the same. problems many alliances in the 18th century and well into the Napoleonic period were confronted with. All partners had different aims. The Habsburgs wanted to dismember the Prussian monarchy, where he was France was fighting Britain in the colonies and on the ocean. There was a problem of distance and communication. The Russian armies in the east were very often about a thousand miles away from French armies on the Rhine and it was very difficult to coordinate action. And thirdly, of course, Frederick was his own master. He wasn't responsible to anybody else. Whereas the generals he confronted had to report back to the courts of Vienna, St. Petersburg,

and Versailles all the time. They couldn't act independently, and that was an advantage of Frederick. And it helped that his two most senior generals were his brother and his cousin, his brother particularly was extremely good general. Tim Blanning. Yes, I just wanted to add about this concentration of authority, civilian authority with military authority. Unity of command is a shorthand way of referring to that. This looks like being a huge advantage and it was, as Thomas has just said, that meant he could move much more

quickly, much more decisively. But there was a downside to this. And that was that if things went wrong, then he had the power to make things very wrong indeed. So for example, at Coonersdorf, which was the great disaster in 1759, when he came within an ace of total destruction and talked about suicide, any

other commander who didn't enjoy unity of command would have stopped at some stage in the battle and not pushed it. But because Frederick had absolute despotic authority, he could make a complete pig's ear of it, which he did. So unity of command,

okay, it works most of the time, but when it goes against you, it goes against you very badly. As Napoleon found out. But Napoleon was a great admirer of his. Napoleon thought him the greatest tactician in history. So Napoleon was no slouch, so why did he say, why did he use that phrase? Well, Napoleon was wrong about lots of things.

And he was wrong about that. Two, I think the comment was made in reference to Frederick's great masterpiece, which was the Battle of Leighton in 1757, the 5th of December 1757. And that was an extraordinarily brilliant battle. There's no doubt about that. But for every one that Frederick won, he lost one. I don't see him as a great general, actually. A great warlord, but not a great general.

You've got to be brisk about the distinction there, Tim. Okay. Warlord and general. What's the difference? And why does it matter? It matters a lot. His brother, Prince Henry, was a simply brilliant general. He never lost a battle.

He never lost an engagement. He'd lots of brilliant things. Frederick himself paid tribute to him. And yet, if Prince Henry had been in charge at the Battle of Kunistorf or after it, he would have made peace. And Cilesia would have been returned to Austria. It's quite clear that would have done.

But what Frederick had as a warlord was this indomitable will to go on, on, on, on, on Utrans, right to the end. no matter what it costs and he could take his army with him. And that's why, at the end of the day, they eventually emerged, you know, totally exhausted but victorious. Prince Henry would have given it all the way. Catherine Cole, at the start of his reign,

there was great excitement among German intellectuals and artists and so on. This was obviously an extraordinary cultivated man. He wrote books. He wrote verse. He composed music. He played the flute and so on. And they thought, here we go. And what happened?

Well, what happened was that he came to the throne and everybody expected him to be a peaceful monarch who would focus on the arts, would support them, would above all support the German arts, and that for literature meant literature in German. Whereas his military campaign straight away turned that on its head. Nobody really quite knew how to situate. that, but there was tremendous enthusiasm also for his military prowess, amongst writers who later on,

and sometimes simultaneously, also criticised the conquering spirit. So there was quite a lot of tension there, and I think different tendencies within the response, and there's no unified response, and I think that's perhaps one of the hallmarks of his reign in cultural terms. In relation to German literature, I think German culture generally, but he did a lot for German culture in putting it on the map, in putting it in touch with Europe. What's your focus of the word culture? I think culture would encompass perhaps the world of the arts,

the humanities, dialogue, architecture, and also the sciences. So there was, I think the tension was perceived between his military focus on battles, on spending a lot of the money, on wars, on military campaigns. But at the same time, that also, in fact, gave tremendous impetus to a lot of his cultural initiatives,

like, for example, architecture, which after every battle, he straight away then commissioned new projects. But weren't, Isn't there a bit castammer, the fact that as I understand it, French was his first language, and he wrote in French and liked to speak in French and so on, and only his footnotes were in German. Certainly for German writers, that was a tremendous blow. And they were, at that point, there were a number of writers, so Lessing was one of them, Heldar was another one, Klopstock was another one.

Klopstock was a writer who had, who wrote an epic from the mid-1740s, which the attention was to put Germany on the map, finally, or German culture, and Klubstock believed that that is what he was doing. Lessing was trying to establish a national theatre. All those endeavours could have been supported by Frederick in ways that incorporated the German language and saw the German language as central,

whereas in fact he wasn't at all interested in anything that was happening in the German language. and focused rather on the French connections. On the other hand, that was also tremendously enriching because it gave a European dimension to all cultural endeavour, including literature. You wanted to come in that. I was going to come in a little earlier

just to say something about Frederick's attitude to culture. It's not just ordinary patronage for him. It's a substitute religion. He didn't believe in any form of a revealed religion, indeed had only greatest contempt for it. But he had to find some kind of transcendental substitute and he finds it in culture. He's quite eloquent on this point.

In prose and in verse, he says, quite explicitly, this is what opens up a spiritual world for him. And so when, right at the very beginning of the reign, one of the first things he does is to commission the largest opera house in Europe, north of the Alps, he's creating not just an opera house,

but a temple of the arts. It's freestanding. It's not part of the royal panace. It's something which for him is his it's dedicated to Apollo and the muses and that's the superscription on this temple of art. I'll come back in a second right. Thomas Biscop, to the contrary,

he was particularly welcoming my French intellectuals and most spectacularly of the great Voltaire, Condida, philosophique and so and so forth, who came, he was hunted around Eurovoltaire and he found, for three years anyway, a place of great toleration, as other people did,

in the core of Frederick. And Voltaire became, will you tell me how important Voltaire was to Frederick? Voltaire was at Frederick's court

as a Chamberlain. It was a courtier for three years, but the correspondence spans more than four decades. It started when Frederick was a crown prince

and it ended only with Voltaire's death in 1778. Voltaire was about 15 years older than Frederick and he was French and I think

that shaped their relationship for a long time. And he was just sorry to interrupt I'm sorry to interrupt but just so that listeners, Voltaire was incredibly famous. For a man who sought fame

this was, well, probably the most famous man in Europe, Voltaire. And infamous at the same time in some country. He was already very famous in the 1730s and became ever more famous of the next few decades in a way parallel to Frederick. So they both rose to ever, ever greater fame

in the cause of the 1740s, 50s and 60s. Now, Frederick used Voltaire as a kind of tutor, an agent and an editor of his works. Both when Voltaire was present at Frederick's court and in correspondence, Voltaire was actually asked to correct Frederick's French. Voltaire introduced Frederick to French poetry and he taught him the basics of his concept of history, which Frederick then took on in his own

historical works, which in turn were edited by Voltaire. But secondly, Voltaire was absolutely central to Frederick's image making. Frederick wanted to be remembered by posterity as a great monarch. And he knew that in the 18th century, those who would determine the place of monarchs in history were enlightened writers. And above all, of course, the literary superstar of the age, Voltaire.

So from the start on, their relationship was a very public affair. They knew their letters would be published sooner or later. And indeed, the letters Voltaire wrote from Potsdam back to Paris were expected to be circulated in Paris amongst philosoph, to

to spread the fame of Frederick as the man who elevated Sandy and poor Bramdenburg Prussia to a civilized nation. What was there a personal relationship? Did they... I'm sorry, this is rubbish, but did they get on?

Well, obviously they got on, but how well did they get on? Well, they met only after a long time. I mean, they started their correspondence in the 1730s, and they only met, I think, in 1750. So they had a long time to prepare for this. and they always said that they really liked each other and they were splendid.

But of course things turned sour after a short time. Here we have two big eagles. Voltaire who wouldn't tolerate any other eminent French writers at Frederick's court, who wanted to be top dog at Frederick's court. And Frederick, who really wanted to use Voltaire as one of his courtiers. Of course, the most eminent and prominent one, but he really treated him pretty badly in a number of ways. And we have the correspondence between Frederick and his brothers

and between Frederick's brothers, you know, where they say, where they kind of treat Voltaire as a kind of court gesture and say, oh, Voltaire amused us again so much last night at dinner. You know, so in a way, we shouldn't just think of Voltaire as the great philosopher and writer at Frederick's court,

but also as a kind of sociable figure invited to amuse the court. The same way that Mozart was put down at the courts, isn't it? Tim, do you want you to come in? Yeah, I did because just one thing, one very important service that Voltaire performed for Frederick was to brush up his French. Frederick's French was very good, but it wasn't perfect. And so Frederick sends his draft poems and prose and so on to Frederick for it to be polished.

And one of the reasons why they found out was the story went around. I think La Maitre, who was a refugee in Prussia and Steneck, put it about the Voltaire, and said, oh no, the king has sent me another basket of dirty laundry. to be washed. And that got back to Frederick. It was intended to get back to him, and he didn't like the sound of that one little bit. Voltaire was basically a rascal. I mean, throughout his life, he was a rascal, and he

got involved in a couple of really murky business deals while he was in Prussia, between 1550 and 1753. These were well publicised, and Frederick found them very offensive and humiliating. You mentioned that he abhorred all religions,

and he did gain a great reputation for toleration. what else would he tolerate that other rulers were not tolerating at the time? Well, I don't think there's any doubt that the Prussia that Frederick created was the most tolerant state in Europe. A French envoy, the Duke de Nivené, who was there in 1756, reported back. He said, toleration in Prussia is universal, unqualified and absolute. This is the most tolerant state in Europe. And this was a man who'd lived in Prussia for some months, so he was speaking with some authority.

and I think that is clear. So L'Ametri, whom I just mentioned, the most notorious materialist philosopher in Europe. You write the book about Man as a Machine? Very good. Man a machine is how it's usually translated. But you're absolutely right. Yes.

That had actually been burned by the public hangman in the Dutch Republic, which had the reputation of being the most tolerant state in Europe, along with Great Britain. Well, La Métte Rie was drummed out of France. He drummed out of the Dutch Republic. But Frederick welcomes him with us. open arms. He gives him a pension. He admits him to his intimate circle, his

circle and team, and makes a fuss of him. And that was a gesture that Frederick loved to make. Here is the most notorious atheist in Europe, and I am looking after him. Catherine Kohl, now, can we talk about his writing? He was a prolific writer of books and of letters, but he wrote history often to his own great advantage. But can you tell us about his writing? Well, I think that's where the concern with fame comes into it And I think really that is a unifying theme that runs through And a unifying drive. So that I would agree that he see, with Tim,

that he sees the arts as a sort of substitute religion. But I think above all, as we've also already discussed, there is a sense in which everything serves to put Prussia on the map and puts Frederick in the position of being the ruler of a great state and the arts and the sciences form part of that his own literature forms part of that and he wrote a lot of poems he ride the way through his life

but then you're good they're not very good they're conventional but that I think it may be rather difficult to tell at the moment how good they are, how they fit into the picture. I think what interests me partly is the way in which he's using the classical topoy, the classical commonplaces, amongst which fame is absolutely central, the god of Apollo versus the god of Mars. It's marrying up those concepts, making something bigger than that.

the sum of its parts, which I think was his great talent. And I think the poetry forms part of that. And it was conventional by comparison with a lot of what was being written in German at the time. It fitted very much into the classical heritage that France propagated and that he was in a way getting through Voltaire, partly enabling himself to take part in a conversation that was timeless. He wasn't, the kind of poetry he wrote was connected up with his historical writings. His historical writings were above all concerned with telling a story that would show a development towards where Prussia was now. Thomas Baskop, he turned his attention to Poland, as did other countries.

Poland was vast at the time, and one way and another, between them, they eliminated it. Poland was not eliminated during Frederick's reign it was eliminated in the 1790s But they started Not entirely wrong He did start the process They started carving it up And it's a process that once it got underway

They went back in the habit of going back And carving off a bit more of Poland To add to their possession Several people around Poland That is right Although of course it's only in hindsight That we can see it as a process of carving it all up But nevertheless it happened

It happened It happened it happened It started in the first petition occurred in 1772, but of course the process had started earlier because Poland was a rather weak state. So what did he go for it for? What did he get out of it? Well, he wanted to get Western Prussia out of it, above all. Unlike Silesia, Western Prussia, called Royal Prussia, because it belonged to the Polish crown, had been in Frederick's political considerations for a long time since the 1730s, really.

Now, the main chunk of Frederick's territories around Berlin, the capital was separated by the other chunk in the east, East, East Prussia, by West Prussia. And he wanted to link these two. And he succeeded in 1772 getting West Prussia out of it. It was actually the smaller part he got. So the Habsbergs and Russia, who took other parts of Poland and the south and in the east, they got much more out of it. But he got the link. He got the link. He got the link. I mean, that's really smart, isn't it? Yes. He got his two halves of his thing of the kingdom joined together. And although the Habsburgs got what they later called the Kingdom of Galicia,

they were actually quite annoyed that Frederick got that link because they didn't want Frederick to gain anything further in addition to Salyza. Never mind the width, feel the quality. That was what Frederick said. Did he actually say that? Yes, he did. Well, where's that effect? It sounds better in French.

But what he also got on, this is something he paid special emphasis on, is that he got the complete control of the river Vistula and that gave him control of the Polish grain trade and it meant therefore that Prussians would never ever starve again and that he did that he did write in his history there was another short-term consideration in organizing that and he did orchestrate the first partition of Poland which was to get him out of a potential war between Russian-Oskirts

and he said an example of what this kept partitioning in Poland or there's no Poland left for a hundred now I've got to move one I'm sorry because this Tim he was forced into a political marriage when he actually embraced it in a way because he got out of his father's grip he got his own palace and his own court and that sort of thing

there's no children in the marriage as soon as his father died as soon as he inherited the throne he sent his wife away he scarcely saw it again ever and other rulers are children which helped the succession question and so on even then

rumours were circulating about the fact that he might be homosexual Were they important? Did they imping? What effect did they have? Well, I think it was very important, and I've no doubt in my mind, that he was homosexual. I know Thomas is going to say in a moment that the word homosexual wasn't invented until the 19th century, and he's absolutely right. Well, certainly gay wasn't, so when else do I hear? Exactly so. But there are plenty of phenomena which existed, like liberalism and nationalism, where the words didn't come into much later. But people, when, for example, Frederick William I, called Frederick, effeminate, and a sodomite, he knew pretty well

what he had in mind. And I don't think there's any doubt that Frederick was homosexual, and when his father died in 1740, he could come out, and in effect that's what he did. For example, his valet, with whom he had almost certainly had a sexual relationship for several years,

he gave to him a noble estate, which was an extraordinary gift for a new king to give to his valet. His most recent conquest, his most recent boyfriend, Algarotti, he made a count, lavished him with skiffs, took him on his coronation journey to Kurnigsbeg, like a royal mistress, as one observer said, sitting in his carriage, like a royal mistress.

There's never ever going to be absolute certainty on this. How could there be? We're never ever going to find, I don't suppose, a piece of paper on which Frederick writes, this is what I did last night, with whom, and this is exactly, we're never going to find that. But the weight of evidence, I think, is overwhelming, and it was important to him. Catherine, can I ask you, how did this, Freddie the Great, we're talking about military conquests, we're talking about Napoleon admiring him, the warlord that Tim spoke. How did this play at the time, sorry to use that word, what did people think about it at the time? What his reputation?

Well, were those two things held equally? Did people ignore one to emphasise the other? What was going on? I think he was seen as a great ruler. He was seen as Frederick the Great in the way that he himself orchestrated. And that meant that his image improved over time phenomenally. He had already, he simply, from the word go, had put himself on the world stage. And he used all possible means to support that and promote that.

And so, for instance, one of the great tools for that was the Berlin Academy, which he... Founded by Leibniz. It was founded by Leibniz, so it already existed. And I think it's an example of the way in which Frederick managed to take what was given to him and turn it into something that would promote his position. And so he strengthened it.

He gave it the royal support. He turned it into a royal academy. And interestingly, Voltaire writes to him that he's had a dream that Frederick should do this. This is in 1740. And I think it was a week after he came to the throne that he was already looking at reports for how to put the Berlin Academy onto a new footing.

Can we, Thomas, can we get, can you just scan for us quite quickly the great architectural achievements, the great push into that area, which were remarkable? Well, as Tim said already, right from the start, he planned to transform Berlin,

into a capital worthy of a great king. He had a plan to build a new palace in Berlin. He didn't like the old palace in which he had been treated so badly by his father. That didn't happen in the end. But he had the city centre of Berlin rebuild with the opera house a series of palaces not for himself, but for his siblings, for his brothers. They all got huge palaces. Prince Henry, for instance, got what now is the palace housing, Berlin's university.

He also had Potsdam. transformed. He had the city palace. He preferred Pottsdam, didn't he? He preferred Pottsen. He didn't like Berlin. And he had Potsdam totally rebuilt. The city palace and Zonso-Ce Palace built from the 1740s. Actually, after 1748, he completely decamped to Potsdam for the remainder of his life. He spent the summers in Zonsu-Ce Palace and the winters in the

city palace in Potsdam. He only came back to Berlin for certain ceremonial occasions and for the winter carnival season at court. That was actually, and that's where his wife comes in. So Tim just discussed Frederick's sexuality, but Frederick was married for 53 years, and his wife had an important role to play, because somebody had to maintain the royal court in Berlin. You couldn't be a king in the 18th century without maintaining a proper court, entertaining ambassadors, entertaining other visiting relations. And that was what the Queen did.

Tim Blanning, we've got this man, you've talked about his enlightenment, all three of you, and the cultural contribution, even though you've been brisk, you've been very rounded with it. He was nevertheless an absoluteist. So how did those two knit together, Tim? I don't think there's a contradiction there. Frederick certainly denied that there was.

He applied reason to problems of politics and he applied reason to his own personal life, he applied reason to cultural policies, and he came up with his answers, and he would have said, the rational way to approach political authority is to concentrate it. If you divide it, you get a shambles like in England,

or if you divide it between a king and his mistress, then you get the sort of decadence you find in France. You have the greatest contempt for Louis VIII, incidentally. What we need is a single deciding will, because that means reason can be brought to bear, and reason can achieve its maximum effect. So he wouldn't have seen a problem there. He wasn't a liberal.

Catherine, yeah. I think one aspect is also perhaps interesting that we see in the way in which he provoked debate. He provoked contradictions in many ways. And I think those often were productive contradictions. So in the prize questions that were asked for the Berlin Academy, They provoked debate across the languages, across the nations. They had massive impact, and people wanted to gain the prize.

So there was a sense of injecting a sense of provocation, competition, using the classical, sort of agonistic structures for productive effect. How, Thomas Biscop, we're coming towards the end now, unfortunately. He died in 1786, we're now where we are. How has his reputation changed since then? Well, Frederick, from the 18th century to 1945 really, has always been instrumentalised for political purposes in Germany. Much of the debate around him was born out of political hopes or fear.

So for 18th century patriots in Prussia, he was the epitome of an emerging Prussian national spirit varies for 19th century Germany. nationalists. He was the precursor of German unity. Of Bismarck. Indeed, a precursor of Bismarck. For conservative politicians in the 19th century, he was the great defender of the nobility.

For liberals, he was the champion of toleration. So he was many things to many people. And of course, in the 20th century, his will to persevere against adverse circumstances in war was taken up in the First World War, as well as in the Second World War by German propagandists to argue for a continuation of war. It's no coincidence that Frederick's portrait

was in Hitler's bunker in the spring of 1945. He can't be blamed for that, can he? No, he can't be blamed for that. But it contributed actually to the fact that after World War II, Frederick was largely forgotten in West Germany for two or three decades. Although since the 1980s, there has been a kind of renewed interest in Frederick, which you can observe even now in Sonsal Sea Palace's tourist jobs. Was there any sense in which he foresaw,

a great human, sorry, and great German state, Tim, with Berlin at the centre of it? No, I don't think so at all. Well, I think he saw a greater Prussia. And he certainly had plans for expanding Prussia, perhaps without limits. But I don't think he had any concept of the United Germany or a nation state. He was, as much as he was nationalist, he was a Prussian nationalist. Anything more to say? Perhaps just to say, in relation to German literature, for instance, there is a very interesting effect,

which is that Goethe and Schiller saw Frederick as being important because he didn't support it. And therefore, that became then the energising force for independence. Thank you very much, Catherine Cole, Tim Blanning and Thomas Biscop. We'll be back for our last programme in the series next week. Thanks for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests.

Well, thank you all very much. I do well over time. I hope you enjoyed it. Yes, thank you. You were very good. I don't think we've got anything actually very wrong, did we? Yeah, I think I'm not sure. I entirely agree with your description of Frederick's sexuality. We don't know what he did. I think he made a point of making it not public and keeping it secret to a degree at least. He's to playing with it. So, I mean, his brother, Henry, he was openly homosexual. Everyone knows that. And everyone knows that. And Frederick was more careful.

careful in this respect. So, but, um, yes. He was also partly playing with, I mean, he was able to play with lots of different models, wasn't he? So I think Jane, don't see heterosexual model in any of very clearly there? Well, no, but the question, the question is what, what role do relationships between men play in that, in a, in a context that is as public as the one he was inhabiting, where he also opened up semi-private spheres, but they were never fully private, were they? And the whole classical heritage meant that there were

many different ways in which sexuality could be brought into close male relationships, which, where you didn't need to necessarily draw boundaries between different, between the heterosexual and the homosexual. It wasn't a binary

in quite the same way, and I think that's been shown for Guta and various other I just don't buy into that. I know lots and lots of being written about boundaries merging and fuzzy and so on. When it comes down to it, there is actually quite an important difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality and contemporaries were well aware of it and so was Frederick. And he liked to make statements about his sexuality. So, for example, at Sanssoucée, looking out of his library window, what does he see?

he sees at the end of an avenue for which he has organized a very elaborate bower, a statue of Antinus, for which he paid a huge sum of money. Now, Antenus was the catamite of the Emperor Hadrian, who had given his life for Hadrian's life to save Haydrian, Hadrian had turned him into a god. And there is this naked, naked boy standing, and Fred, it looked straight out at him. The Temple of Friendship, which you mentioned, or one of you mentioned, which he erected for his sister, Vilhelmina, is surrounded by medallions,

and each medallion shows a pair of ancient, from classical antiquity, of male lovers. I mean, this is a statement which seems to me to be pretty clear. On the biggest fresco in the new palace, he has this gigantic fresco painted by Van Lowe. What's the subject? Ganymede is introduced to Olympus. Now, come on, this is a code which even I can read. No, I think you're right. I mean, but I think we should see it also as part of a larger aristocratic culture playing with all these things.

You know, I mean, it's no coincidence that he had Agarotti at his court, you know, who was in England, he was part of Burlington Circle or Hervey and so on. So it's a kind of European aristocratic liberty in culture which plays with various aspects of sexuality. And what the certain, and I agree with you, I mean, he may have been homosexual or not. And he probably had at least homosexual inclinations. But I mean, what is also clear is that it got him into trouble very often, you know, because during the Seven Years War, he was attacked openly by the French and or by propagandists of the French as a sodomite. You know, and that was taken on later on by Habsburg propagandists again in the late 1780s and 90s. He was accused as a sodomate tyrant.

So that was, so that he exposed himself by taking part in that French-dominated liberty in culture. He exposed himself dangerously. Exactly. And he's asking for it. Indeed. And he writes this long verse epic called Palladium. This is very, very, very significant, I think. It's about an episode in the Seven Years War.

It's an episode on the Austrian. Oh, it's in the Austrian. Of course it is. I'm sorry. It's in the third Silesian war. No, second Sialism War. I beg upon, Thomas, thank you very much. Yes, it's an episode when Dajé,

who is secretary to the Mackey de Valourri, who is the French ambassador, is taken prisoner by a group of Austrian hussars. and allows that they were looking for Valourie and Darjeet allows them to think that he is Valerie so he's taken off. Anyway, that's the basis for this long and sort of jokey verse epic by Frederick, in which, among other things,

D'Aj who is speaking through Dajé, Darjeet recounts his youth in a Jesuit seminary where he is first of all propositioned by one of the Jesuit fathers and he turns the first one down. The second one is a bit more important, so he sort of gives in, and there's clearly a homosexual encounter takes place,

and he's persuaded by a long apollogia in favour of homosexuality, which the Jesuit presents, and which ends for contemporaries in a really very shocking way, in which he says that, I mean, as everyone knows, Jesus Christ's favourite disciple, John, was his catamite, was his Antenus.

And this is, and this is, and this poem wasn't kept secret in the secret drawer, it was printed. It was printed in a very small number of copies. But one copy found it was given to Voltaire. So that had meant the whole of Europe knew about it. If you want to ask if you want to keep something secret, give it to Voltaire. But you always want to keep... If you're a public and that's wrong way around.

No, no one might. Well, you always had difficulties negotiating secrecy, I think. You know, he always had difficulties negotiating secrecy. I mean, he knew that his literary production was highly contentious, that they say the least, and could be turned against him. So he always had these things printed in very small. numbers, but under the proviso that these prints were not allowed to be taken out of Prussia. However, that never worked, and in the Seven Years War, one of these prints was published by the

French to embarrass Frederick. So afterwards, he didn't actually, he continued writing these things, but he never had them printed again. There are many more Radio 4 arts and discussion programs to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.co.ukh, radio 4.