Frederick the Great | Biography, Wars and Reign of Frederick II, King of Prussia (1712-1786)

Welcome to House of History. In the last couple of episodes, we looked at Prussian society and its development and progression. We left off at the death of Prussia's soldier-king in 1740, a man that dedicated his entire life to building up Prussia's notoriously large military apparatus, renowned for its discipline. The curiosity of his reign was that he felt his army was too valuable to use in battle. And as such, this week his son, Frederick II, King in Prussia, ascends to the Prussian throne at the age of 28, inheriting a giant war-chest stocked with gold and an army that was polished, well-trained and battle-ready. Young Frederick wasted no time and immediately put his army to the test, not for a legitimate or righteous cause, but simply because he could. During this king's reign, Prussia would finally manage to force itself among the ranks of European great powers. After all, there is a reason why this king became known as Frederick the Great. Welcome to the complete history of Prussia. History of Prussia In May 1740, Prussia's soldier-king passed away after his 27-year-long reign. Now, before we look at what his son and successor did, it is important to understand the power relations on the European continent at the time of his ascension. Ever since the Treaty of Westphalia that concluded a 30-year war in 1648 had been signed, the Holy Roman Empire had been a shadow of its former self. It was a patchwork of states, dominions and duchies, with German princes attempting to seize as much power as they could. Over the years, the two ancient European powers, Austria and France, were joined by Britain and Russia, with the old powers of Poland, Spain and the Ottoman Empire in decline, and Holland and Sweden unable to maintain themselves among the European giants. Now, four months after Frederick became king, the opportunity of a lifetime presented itself to him. In October, the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI had died without a male heir. Before his death, he had issued the Pragmatic Sanction. This meant so much as that the Habsburg hereditary territories were allowed to pass to a woman, his daughter Maria Theresa. Yet internal strife in Austria about this led to a weak and divided empire. Austria had just participated in the War of the Polish Succession and settled a poor peace with the Ottomans. All troops had been transferred from Silesia to Hungary. Here is where Frederick saw an opening. In Russia, Tsarina Anna had passed away in factions that court-fought over control since she was succeeded by her infant son Ivan VI. The British were preoccupied with a war against Spain, and France would be happy to support weakening their arch-rival Austria. As soon as Maria Theresa ascended to the throne, some other European monarchs broke their promise of recognising her. With her put in a difficult position, Frederick figured perhaps she would be willing to pay for the recognition. And he figured, since he had one of the largest unused armies of Europe anyway, he should first take his desired payment and afterward start the negotiations. As you can see on the map, Prussia didn't require Silesia to link their territories, and all his advisors fought him on it. He surely couldn't suddenly wage war on the most powerful dynasty in their vicinity. Nevertheless, Frederick ignored the attempts to dissuade him. In his own words, the satisfaction of having my name in the journals and later in history seduced me. Besides that, Silesia yielded the most tax from any of the Habsburg lands as one of the most densely industrialised areas at the time. As such, on the 16th of December 1740, 27.000 soldiers under Frederick's command crossed the border with Silesia. It would be the most important decision during his entire reign as king. There was barely any resistance, as most Habsburg forces were garrisoned in Hungary. Within six weeks, Frederick controlled the entire state, including its capital, Breslau. The Habsburgs required some time to prepare their forces for an imminent counterattack to such an unprovoked and illegitimate invasion. At the Battle of Morwitz in spring 1741, Prussian forces halted the Habsburg advance. It cemented Prussia's authority over Silesia. Following this battle, a coalition was created with France and Spain, which signalled the start of the war of the Austrian succession. You see, literally every European power thought they could gain something from the internally weakened Habsburg Empire. And like a bunch of hyenas, they formed an alliance of thieves, if you will, to try and get the most out of it. But as you know, there is no honour among thieves, especially not with the young and ambitious Frederick. So, a little over a year later, it was Frederick who betrayed the alliance. He signed a separate peace with Maria Theresa. She was losing the war and was all too happy to cede Silesia if Prussia halted their military campaign. The coalition continued their war against the Habsburgs, but Frederick was now an outside observer, improving his military and reflecting on the mistakes made during the campaign earlier. When two years later, in August 1744, Maria Theresa gained the upper hand against the coalition, Frederick saw his newly-acquired Silesia under potential threat again. He once again rallied its forces against her, with very impressive victories at Hohenfriedensburg and Suhr as a result. After another year of war with several other victories for Prussia, Maria Theresa once again was willing to accept Frederick's terms on Silesia. Frederick once again signed a separate peace treaty behind the back of his allies. All in all, the Austrian Succession War lasted 8 years and all sides involved were to look back at a costly and largely useless war, except for Prussia, the instigator of the entire conflict. They had left the war three years before it officially ended with an entirely new territory, Silesia. The victory of a smaller German principality over the Habsburg Empire was a first. Frederick certainly shook the European theatre with his antics. It also proved the superiority of the Prussian army he inherited, with many anecdotes of battles where, even though vastly outnumbered, Prussian soldiers still moved like brick walls towards their enemies. Now, of course, Frederick's behaviour was completely immoral, but it was the way politics were practised during the day, and it certainly would not be the last time during Frederick's reign that he used unscrupulous power politics. In his actions, Frederick didn't much differ from other rulers of his day. At any rate, he was a gambler. Fortunately for him, in the case of Silesia, it had paid off. Following their loss of their richest territory, the Habsburg monarchy now made it one, if not the most important foreign policy objective, to reclaim it from Prussia. An anti-Prussian coalition was the first step in achieving this. In Russia, Tsarina Elizabeth had seized the throne in a coup, and the unexpected rise of Prussia worried the Russians about a potential competitor in Eastern Europe. Already in 1746, Russia signed an alliance with Vienna, with one of the secret clauses describing the partition of the Hohenzollern lands. In the aftermath of the Silesian War, something that is called the Diplomatic Revolution took place. The change in Austria's foreign policy stood at the core. Their traditional ally had been the British Empire, but now a young minister, Count Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, managed to convince Maria Theresa that the interests of a naval and continental power were too conflicting to sustain an alliance. Vienna started to look at France, their traditional enemy, with an open stance to bury the hatchet. Meanwhile, France was openly allied with Prussia. Conflicts between France and Britain started to arise, however. Competing interests in India and the Americas led to armed conflicts. Meanwhile, Britain was subsidising Russian troops to pressure Prussia's eastern border, which in turn led to one of Frederick's fatal mistakes in foreign policy. He decided to close an alliance with Britain, the Convention of Westminster of 1756, without consulting his ally France. In turn, the British withdrew their subsidies from Russia. Frederick gambled that his alliance with Britain would not outweigh the Franco-Austrian animosity. This time, however, he was wrong. When news of Prussia's alliance reached Versailles, rage ensued. In the background, Austria had been open to an alliance with the French for years and as such, Louis XV accepted the Austrian offer of a defensive alliance in what became the First Treaty of Versailles. Meanwhile, because of the Anglo-Prussian alliance, the Russian Tsarina Elizabeth wasn't too happy about the subsidies from Britain being withdrawn and decided to join the anti-Prussian coalition. Now, the triple alliance of Austria, France and Russia agreed among themselves that they would reduce Prussia to the Margravate of Brandenburg. The rest of its territory would be shared among them. Considering it was three great powers facing a much smaller, not real great power, these aims weren't too ambitious. Britain's theatres of war were on the other side of the world and there lay Frederick's Prussia, isolated in central Europe, surrounded by three enemies. And each of these enemies had a bigger army than Prussia had. Frederick was all too aware of the perilous situation he was in. And just like before, he didn't wait for his enemy's first move. On the 29th of August 1756, Frederick launched a massive assault into the electorate of Saxony. So, the Prussian army marched into Saxony. You're not wrong if you ask yourself, Saxony? We never talked about Saxony, just about the great powers. Exactly. Frederick wrongly believed Saxony had joined the anti-Prussian coalition. Nevertheless, the invasion of Saxony launched a proper preventive war. Frederick managed to secure a strategic stronghold against the other great powers that had been preparing their invasion. Saxony was conquered without too much effort. Its army forcibly incorporated in the Prussian army, without much success by the way. Saxon soldiers deserted whenever the opportunity presented itself. And its population had to pay taxes. Saxony ended up paying over one-third of Prussia's war costs during the war. The first 10 months Prussia was on the offensive and then for two years it defended itself against the great powers with unexpected success. In the last three years, Prussia was desperately clinging on, with no hope for survival in sight. It was a near-miracle that Prussia as a state survived these last few years, with the war devolving to a bitter struggle day in, day out. Let's start at the beginnings. With the invasion of Saxony, the anti-Prussian coalition now acquired a righteous cause in mobilising and attack the state. In May 1757, the Second Treaty of Versailles was concluded, with France pledging 129.000 troops and 12 million livres until Silesia was returned to Austria. The Russians pledged 80.000 troops, setting their eyes on annexing East Prussia. Territories of the Holy Roman Empire pledged 40.000 troops, but even Swedes joined the war effort in the hopes of annexing Pomerania. The situation was looking very grim for Frederick and Prussia as a whole. This wasn't just a regular war, but a war that would determine whether Prussia as an entity would be wiped off the face of the earth or not. Now, there were several problems Frederick's adversaries had to deal with. First of all, due to his occupation of Saxony, Frederick had the Sudeten mountains of Bohemia shielding him. The British were subsidising him for about a fifth of the war costs and he fought a war on familiar territory, while France and Russia were far from home at risk of overstretching. Furthermore, while Maria Theresa saw it as a destroy Prussia because of the Silesia debacle, France and Sweden didn't feel the need to go all out. The Russo-Austrian alliance had the strongest interest in destroying Prussia, but these were also the most contradictory. Neither side wanted the other to gain too much from the war. Basically, every battle Frederick fought, even if he emerged victoriously, cost him many soldiers and he never properly turned the odds in his favour. For example, during summer 1757, Frederick invaded Bohemia. It was there an Austrian army waited for him at Prague. The Battle of Prague was the greatest battle of the century up to that point, with around 60.000 men on each side. Prussia emerged victoriously, but Austria simply retreated into Prague, now under siege, and defended the city as the relief force was approaching. It was then Frederick made the crucial decision to split his army into two in order to prevent the relief force from reaching the city. At the Battle of Kolin, 33.000 Prussians approached 54.000 Austrian soldiers, a near 2 to 1 ratio. Frederick lost 8.000 soldiers and had to abandon the siege of Prague and withdraw from Bohemia altogether. With France and imperial troops in the west, Austrian forces slowly pushing into Silesia and the Russian forces occupying eastern Prussia, which admittedly, was barely defended, it is incredible that Prussia, without any allies on the ground, managed to hold on. What followed was true Prussian strategic cunning. Moving here and there in small battalions, tiny but superb military units managed to hold much larger forces. There were three glorious victories during this time. The most impressive one must have been the Battle of Rosbach in November that year. 20.000 Prussians faced a French imperial force twice as large as theirs. Due to Frederick's capable command, they managed to flank the forces, subjecting them to bombardments and assaults. Eventually, the Prussian army lost 500 soldiers, with the French imperial forces losing 10.000. Several months later, during the winter, they defeated the Austrians in Silesia. In the next summer, in 1758, the Russians were defeated at Zondorf, although this victory came at a very heavy cost. It was these victories that skyrocketed Frederick's fame throughout Europe. In central Europe emerged a David that had slain three Goliaths. His adversaries were not slain, however, and throughout the months the Prussian rank started thinning out. The new recruits Frederick used to supplement his battalions with were not of the quality of the grenadiers he was used to. At Kunersdorf in 1559, Frederick took a gamble and engaged the combined Austrian-Russian force in a decisive battle. It resulted in a crushing defeat and the last lines of defence of Prussia fell. The army was in disarray and all that was left for Frederick was clinging on, hoping that some miracle would occur. Obviously, the war took a toll on Prussia's population. Taxes were increased, conscription criteria were lowered and the currency was devalued. Primary sources show the ordinary men simply ducked and hoped the war would blow over. They did not notice the war was waging on their territory, aside from their financial struggles. As for the soldiers, they were subject to the iron discipline of the war machine. The king himself, subject to a hopeless war with no end in sight, managed to persevere. And it is perhaps Frederick's stubbornness that eventually led to salvation. Now, it is pretty obvious the whole situation devolved into a war of attrition. It is then very surprising how this war came to an end and honestly, as an external observer, I think it is one of the comedies of history. The salvation came in 1762 when the Russian Tsarina died and her son, Grand Duke Peter III became Tsar. This Peter was an admirer of Prussian military and of Frederick himself. On a whim, he immediately declared not just peace but switched sides and allied himself with Prussia. This very strange turn of events turned out to be Prussia's lucky break. The other powers besieging Prussia started to have doubts too. Their covers were empty, the war of attrition didn't seem to progress and it had been going on for years, without seemingly much progress. The Russo-Prussian alliance was short-lived. Tsar Peter was assassinated in a palace coup and his wife Catherine, who orchestrated the coup, later known as the Great, took over. She withdrew from the Prussian alliance but adhered to the peace. When the Swedes decided to give up, as they still had not secured Pomerania and France suffered heavy defeats in India and Canada, leading them to throw in the towel as well. On the 15th of February 1763, the Peace of Hubertusburg was signed, where Maria Theresa too agreed to adhere to the status quo. The terms were rather shameful if you consider what kind of incredible war went before it. The status quo was restored, nothing truly changed. Saxony was restored, Silesia and East Prussia remained with Prussia. No one had won anything tangible, but Prussia had won in terms of reputation. It stood up against the three European great powers and Nevertheless, Prussia and its population had suffered tremendously from the war. It is said that following the Peace of Hubertusburg, Frederick exclaimed that he would never, ever attack so much as a cat from now on. And ever since that war, he stuck to what he said. The last two decades of his reign consisted of increasing Prussia's internal strength, draining marshes and attracting foreigners to deserted areas. From now on, Prussia's foreign policy became defensive and cautious. Frederick would only use his military to prevent the Habsburg monarchy from becoming stronger in the region. Such was the case when it tried to acquire Bavaria. Frederick allied himself with Russia, stating it pays to cultivate the friendship of those barbarians. It really did pay, and for another century Prussia would adhere to this principle. The Russian threat to the East, one of Frederick's greatest worries during these years, had been neutralised. Obviously, for good measure Frederick ensured the expansion and upkeep of the army in case an alliance fell through. When he passed away in 1786, Prussia had an army of 200.000 on a population of nearly 6 million. Being the 13th largest European state in population, it now had the third largest army. This led to the memorable saying of an adjutant of the army, the Prussian monarchy is not a country which has an army, but an army which has a country. Aside from that, in the wake of the war, Frederick ordered the creation of an institute to take care of war-invalids. A sort of primitive form of social benefits to former soldiers started to emerge. Basically, a wide range of very modern social policies for that time was implemented in Prussian society. But yet, that wasn't all Frederick achieved during his last years. Having a look at this map, which shows Prussia at the time of Frederick's death in 1786. Notice how Prussia and Brandenburg are linked by land, something the Hohenzollerns had been striving for for over 150 years. During the last 30 years of the 18th century, a country larger than France, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, disappeared altogether. For the sake of time I'll spare you the details, but due to its system where the crown could be supported or opposed by nobles, it suffered much internal turmoil, something that was exacerbated and exploited by its neighbours Prussia and Russia. When particular chaos arose under the new king, Stanislaw August Ponciatowski, Prussia and Russia supported his opposition, leading to the Commonwealth gliding towards a state of anarchy. It was a perfect situation for Frederick to propose a partition of Poland to the Habsburgs and Russia, with he himself mainly caring for the territories known as Royal Prussia, the lands that divided the Brandenburg-Margravid and East Prussia. However, the first move was made by Maria Theresa, annexing several Polish enclaves in northern Hungary. Now, Russia and Prussia too eagerly divided the Polish pie, if you will. There was barely any resistance to Prussia annexing the territories due to the internal turmoil the Commonwealth suffered. Prussia gained the smallest and least populated part of the partitioning powers, but it did gain the land that now finally linked Brandenburg with East Prussia. In short, the mission of Prussian rulers that had been there for centuries was complete. The disjointed territories now became a cohesive body. While there was barely any resistance, the Polish nobility did not necessarily welcome the annexation. Frederick taxed them at a higher rate than any German nobility and county diets were forbidden. And of course, the Polish were Catholics, whereas their new ruler was a Calvinist. Although something can be said for Frederick having more affinity with the Enlightenment and being agnostic, only really entertaining religion for practical purposes. Now, for the next 14 years Frederick intervened more in these new territories than any other, issuing far-reaching administrative reform, improving towns, draining marshes and building canals. Frederick's political testament makes it evident that he, just like his father, saw himself as the first servant of the state. There are multiple sources that state he told advisors, and even his brother Henry, that he had dedicated his entire life to the state. In terms of his policies, we can see that as well. And aside from the primitive social policies, Frederick also ordered the creation of one of the largest codes of law of history. The Prussian General Legal Code of Law served as more or less the constitution for Prussia for generations to come. When Frederick the Great passed away in 1786, he left Prussia as an oddity in Europe. There were only frontiers, its western territories were indefensible in the event of a war. It was a small great power, and it had a military that certainly inspired all, but it could not remain in this state. It was too vulnerable to a hostile great power. Frederick thanked his epitaph, the Great, to a multitude of things, mainly his political cunning, with Napoleon referring to him as the greatest tactical genius of all time. But also his love for music, his generally well-developed sense of culture, interest in the arts and correspondence with many famous philosophers at the time, among whom Voltaire. Due to his opportunism during the First Silesian War, his resilience during the Seven Years' War and his diplomatic skill during the partition of Poland, Prussia was truly put on the European map. While it was a small great power these decades, it had shown that it had the potential to become a definite great power, challenging any of the traditional European great powers if necessary. Now, Frederick passed away childless and was succeeded by his nephew, Frederick Wilhelm II. During this king's reign, Prussia did expand more than any Prussian ruler had ever achieved so far. But in other respects, he was the complete opposite of his uncle and his reign was the first step of a period of decline. If that sounds interesting, consider subscribing to my channel. Thank you for watching this video. Make sure you check out the entire playlist of the history of Prussia if you haven't already. I would also like to thank all my Patrons for their generous support. If you enjoy House of History and want to support my work, consider checking me on Patreon. For just 1$ a month you will gain access to the exclusive Patreon series. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.