Фридрих Великий

Не путать с Фридрихом II, императором Священной Римской империи .

Чтобы узнать о настольном варгейме, см. Фридрих Великий (игра) .

Фридрих Великий
Портрет 1763 года
Король Пруссии Курфюрст Бранденбурга
Царствование	31 мая 1740 г. - 17 августа 1786 г.
Предшественник	Фридрих Вильгельм I
Преемник	Фридрих Вильгельм II
Рожденный	( 1712-01-24 ) 24 января 1712 г. Берлин , Королевство Пруссия
Умер	17 августа 1786 г. (1786-08-17) (74 года) Потсдам , Королевство Пруссия
Похороны	Сан-Суси , Потсдам
Супруг	Элизабет Кристина Брауншвейг-Вольфенбюттель-Беверн ( м. 1733)
Царственное имя Фридрих II
Дом	Гогенцоллерн
Отец	Фридрих Вильгельм I Прусский
Мать	София Доротея Ганноверская
Подпись
Военная карьера
Услуга/ ветвь	Прусская армия
Битвы/войны	show Древовидный список War of the Austrian Succession First Silesian War Battle of Mollwitz Battle of Chotusitz Second Silesian War Battle of Hohenfriedberg Battle of Soor Battle of Hennersdorf Seven Years' War Third Silesian War Siege of Pirna Battle of Lobositz Battle of Prague Battle of Kolín Siege of Prague Battle of Rossbach Battle of Leuthen Siege of Breslau Siege of Olomouc Battle of Zorndorf Battle of Hochkirch Battle of Kunersdorf Siege of Dresden Battle of Liegnitz Battle of Torgau Battle of Burkersdorf Siege of Schweidnitz

Фридрих II ( нем . Friedrich II ; 24 января 1712 — 17 августа 1786) был монархом Пруссии с 1740 по 1786 год. Он был последним монархом Гогенцоллернов, титулованным королем в Пруссии , объявив себя королем Пруссии после аннексии Королевской Пруссии у Польши. – Речь Посполитая в 1772 году. Его наиболее значительные достижения включают его военные успехи в Силезских войнах , реорганизацию прусской армии , первый раздел Польши , а также его покровительство искусству и Просвещению . Под его правлением Пруссия значительно увеличила свои территории и стала крупной военной державой в Европе. Он стал известен как Фридрих Великий (нем. Friedrich der Große ) и получил прозвище « Старый Фриц » (нем. der Alte Fritz ).

В юности Фридрих больше интересовался музыкой и философией, чем военным искусством, что привело к столкновениям с его авторитарным отцом Фридрихом Вильгельмом I Прусским . Однако, взойдя на престол, он напал и аннексировал богатую австрийскую провинцию Силезию в 1742 году, завоевав военное признание. Он стал влиятельным военным теоретиком, чьи анализы основывались на его обширном личном боевом опыте и охватывали вопросы стратегии, тактики, мобильности и логистики.

Фридрих был сторонником просвещенного абсолютизма , утверждая, что правитель должен быть первым слугой государства. Он модернизировал прусскую бюрократию и государственную службу и проводил религиозную политику, которая варьировалась от толерантности до сегрегации. Он реформировал судебную систему и позволил людям более низкого статуса стать судьями и старшими бюрократами. Фридрих поощрял иммигрантов разного происхождения приезжать в Пруссию. Хотя протестантизм оставался излюбленной верой, он допускал свободу вероисповедания и терпимо относился к евреям и католикам в Пруссии, однако его действия не были полностью беспристрастными. Он поддерживал искусство и философов, которые ему нравились, и допускал свободу прессы и литературы. Фредерик почти наверняка был гомосексуалистом , и его сексуальность была предметом многочисленных исследований. Поскольку он умер бездетным, ему наследовал его племянник Фридрих Вильгельм II . Он похоронен в своей любимой резиденции Сан-Суси в Потсдаме .

Почти все немецкие историки XIX века превратили Фридриха в романтическую модель прославленного воина, восхваляя его лидерство, административную эффективность, преданность долгу и успехи в превращении Пруссии в великую державу. Фредерик оставался исторической фигурой, вызывающей восхищение, несмотря на поражение Германии в Первой мировой войне , и нацисты прославляли его как великого немецкого лидера, прообразовавшего Адольфа Гитлера , который лично боготворил его. Его репутация в Германии стала менее благоприятной после Второй мировой войны , отчасти из-за его статуса нацистского символа. Историки XXI века склонны рассматривать Фридриха как выдающегося военачальника и способного монарха, чья приверженность культуре просвещения и административной реформе заложила основу, позволившую Прусскому королевству конкурировать с австрийскими Габсбургами за лидерство среди немецких государств.

Ранняя жизнь

Фредерик был сыном тогдашнего наследного принца Фридриха Вильгельма Прусского и Софии Доротеи Ганноверской . Он родился между 23:00 и 12:00 24 января 1712 года в Берлинском дворце под одним именем Фридрих и был крещен Бенджамином Урсинусом фон Бэром 31 января. The birth was welcomed by his grandfather, Frederick I, as his two previous grandsons had died in infancy. With the death of Frederick I in 1713, his son Frederick William I became King in Prussia, thus making young Frederick the crown prince. Frederick had nine siblings who lived to adulthood. He had six sisters. The eldest was Wilhelmine, who became his closest sibling. He also had three younger brothers, including Augustus William and Henry. The new king wished for his children to be educated not as royalty, but as simple folk. They were tutored by a French woman, Madame de Montbail, who had also educated Frederick William.

Frederick William I, popularly dubbed the "Soldier King", had created a large and powerful army that included a regiment of his famous "Potsdam Giants"; he carefully managed the kingdom's wealth and developed a strong centralised government. He had a violent temper and ruled Brandenburg-Prussia with absolute authority. In contrast, Frederick's mother Sophia, whose father, George Louis of Brunswick-Lüneburg, had succeeded to the British throne as King George I in 1714, was polite, charismatic and learned. The political and personal differences between Frederick's parents created tensions, which affected Frederick's attitude toward culture, his role as a ruler, and his relationship with his father.

In his early youth, Frederick lived with his mother and sister Wilhelmine, although they regularly visited their father's hunting lodge at Königs Wusterhausen. Frederick and his older sister formed a close relationship, which lasted until her death in 1758. Frederick and his sisters were brought up by a Huguenot governess and tutor and learned French and German simultaneously. Undeterred by his father's desire that his education be entirely religious and pragmatic, the young Frederick developed a preference for music, literature, and French culture. Frederick Wilhelm thought these interests were effeminate, as they clashed with his militarism, resulting in his frequent beating and humiliation of Frederick. Nevertheless, Frederick, with the help of his tutor in Latin, Jacques Duhan, procured a 3,000-volume secret library of poetry, Greek and Roman classics, and philosophy to supplement his official lessons.

Frederick William I had been raised a Calvinist in spite of the Lutheran state faith in Prussia, but feared he was not one of God's elect. To avoid the possibility of his son Frederick being motivated by the same concerns, the king ordered that his heir not be taught about predestination. Despite his father's intention, Frederick appeared to have adopted a sense of predestination for himself.

Crown prince

See also: Sexuality of Frederick the Great

Portrait of 24-year-old Frederick as the crown prince of Prussia by Antoine Pesne (1736, Huis Doorn, Netherlands)

At age 16, Frederick formed an attachment to the king's 17-year-old page, Peter Karl Christoph von Keith. Wilhelmine recorded that the two "soon became inseparable.... He served my brother from feelings of real devotion". Wilhelmine would further record that "Though I had noticed that he was on more familiar terms with this page than was proper in his position, I did not know how intimate the friendship was." As Frederick was almost certainly homosexual, his relationship with Keith may have been homoerotic, although the extent of their intimacy remains ambiguous. When Frederick William heard rumours of their relationship, Keith was sent away to an unpopular regiment near the Dutch frontier.

In the mid-1720s, Queen Sophia Dorothea attempted to arrange the marriage of Frederick and his sister Wilhelmine to her brother King George II's children Amelia and Frederick, the heir apparent. Fearing an alliance between Prussia and Great Britain, Field Marshal von Seckendorff, the Austrian ambassador in Berlin, bribed the Prussian Minister of War, Field Marshal von Grumbkow, and the Prussian ambassador in London, Benjamin Reichenbach. The pair undermined the relationship between the British and Prussian courts using bribery and slander. Eventually Frederick William became angered by the idea of Frederick being married to an English wife and under the influence of the British court. Instead, he signed a treaty with Austria, which vaguely promised to acknowledge Prussia's rights to the principalities of Jülich-Berg, which led to the collapse of the marriage proposal.

Katte affair

Soon after his relationship with Keith ended, Frederick became close friends with Hans Hermann von Katte, a Prussian officer several years older than Frederick who became one of his boon companions and may have been his lover. After the English marriages became impossible, Frederick plotted to flee to Britain with Katte and other junior army officers. While the royal retinue was near Mannheim in the Electorate of the Palatinate, Robert Keith (Peter Keith's brother and one of Frederick's companions) had an attack of conscience when the conspirators were preparing to escape and begged Frederick William for forgiveness on 5 August 1730. Frederick and Katte were subsequently arrested and imprisoned in Küstrin. Because they were army officers who had tried to flee Prussia for Britain, Frederick William accused the pair of treason. The king briefly threatened the crown prince with execution, then considered forcing Frederick to renounce the succession in favour of his brother, Augustus William, although either option would have been difficult to justify to the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire. The king condemned Katte to death and forced Frederick to watch his beheading at Küstrin on 6 November; the crown prince fainted just before the fatal blow.

Frederick was granted a royal pardon and released on 18 November 1730, although he remained stripped of his military rank. He was forced to remain in Küstrin and began rigorous schooling in statecraft and administration for the War and Estates Departments. Tensions eased slightly when Frederick William visited Küstrin a year later, and Frederick was allowed to visit Berlin for his sister Wilhelmine's marriage to Margrave Frederick of Bayreuth on 20 November 1731. The crown prince returned to Berlin after finally being released from his tutelage at Küstrin on 26 February 1732 on condition that he marry Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern.

Marriage and War of the Polish Succession

Frederick's marriage to Elisabeth Christine at Schloss Salzdahlum by J. G. Schmidt (1733)

Frederick William considered marrying Frederick to Elisabeth of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the niece of Empress Anna of Russia, but this plan was ardently opposed by Prince Eugene of Savoy. Frederick himself proposed marrying Maria Theresa of Austria in return for renouncing the succession. Instead, Eugene persuaded Frederick William, through Seckendorff, that the crown prince should marry Elisabeth Christine, a Protestant relative of the Austrian Habsburgs. Frederick wrote to his sister that, "There can be neither love nor friendship between us", and he threatened suicide, but he went along with the wedding on 12 June 1733. He had little in common with his bride, and the marriage was resented as an example of the Austrian political interference that had plagued Prussia. Nevertheless, during their early married life, the royal couple resided at the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin. Later, Elisabeth Christine accompanied Frederick to Schloss Rheinsberg, where at this time she played an active role in his social life. After his father died and he ascended the throne, Frederick separated from Elisabeth. He granted her the Schönhausen Palace and apartments at the Berliner Stadtschloss, but he prohibited her from visiting his court in Potsdam. They had no children, and Frederick bestowed the title of the heir to the throne, "Prince of Prussia", on his brother Augustus William. Nevertheless, Elisabeth Christine remained devoted to him. Frederick gave her all the honours befitting her station, but never displayed any affection. After their separation, he would only see her on state occasions. These included visits to her on her birthday, among the rare occasions when Frederick did not wear military uniform.

Rheinsberg Palace, Frederick's residence from 1736 to 1740

In 1732, Frederick was restored to the Prussian Army as Colonel of the Regiment von der Goltz, stationed near Nauen and Neuruppin. When Prussia provided a contingent of troops to aid the Army of the Holy Roman Empire during the War of the Polish Succession, Frederick studied under Prince Eugene of Savoy during the campaign against France on the Rhine; he noted the weakness of the Imperial Army under Eugene's command, something that he would capitalise on at Austria's expense when he took the throne. Frederick William, weakened by gout and seeking to reconcile, granted Frederick Schloss Rheinsberg in Rheinsberg, north of Neuruppin. At Rheinsberg, Frederick assembled musicians, actors and other artists. He spent his time reading, watching and acting in dramatic plays, and composing and playing music. Frederick formed the Bayard Order to discuss warfare with his friends; Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué was made the grand master of the gatherings. Later, Frederick regarded this time as one of the happiest of his life.

Studying the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, such as The Prince, was considered necessary for any king in Europe to rule effectively. In 1739, Frederick finished his Anti-Machiavel, an idealistic rebuttal of Machiavelli. It was written in French—as were all of Frederick's works—and published anonymously in 1740, but Voltaire distributed it in Amsterdam to great popularity. Frederick's years dedicated to the arts instead of politics ended upon the 1740 death of Frederick William and his inheritance of the Kingdom of Prussia. Frederick and his father were reconciled at the latter's death, and Frederick later admitted, despite their constant conflict, that Frederick William had been an effective ruler: "What a terrible man he was. But he was just, intelligent, and skilled in the management of affairs... it was through his efforts, through his tireless labour, that I have been able to accomplish everything that I have done since."

Inheritance

Europe at the time when Frederick came to the throne in 1740, with Brandenburg–Prussia in violet

Europe at the time of Frederick's death in 1786. Prussia's territory has been greatly extended by his Silesian Wars, his inheritance of East Frisia and the First Partition of Poland.

Frederick was twenty-eight years old when his father died and he ascended to the throne of Prussia. Frederick William I had left him with a highly militarised state. Prussia was the twelfth largest country in Europe in terms of population, but its army was the fourth largest, after France, Russia and Austria. Prussia had one soldier for every 28 citizens, whereas Britain only had one for every 310, and the military absorbed 86% of Prussia's state budget. The Prussian infantry trained by Frederick William I were, at the time of Frederick's accession, arguably unrivalled in discipline and firepower. By 1770, Frederick had doubled the size of the huge army he had inherited. The situation is summed up in a widely translated and quoted aphorism attributed to Mirabeau, who asserted in 1786 that "La Prusse n'est pas un pays qui a une armée, c'est une armée qui a un pays" ("Prussia was not a state in possession of an army, but an army in possession of a state"). Using the resources his frugal father had cultivated, Frederick was eventually able to establish Prussia as the fifth and smallest European great power.

When Frederick ascended the throne as the third "King in Prussia" in 1740, his realm consisted of scattered territories, including Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in the west of the Holy Roman Empire; Brandenburg, Hither Pomerania, and Farther Pomerania in the east of the Empire; and the Kingdom of Prussia, the former Duchy of Prussia, outside of the Empire bordering the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was titled King in Prussia because his kingdom included only part of historic Prussia; he was to declare himself King of Prussia after the First Partition of Poland in 1772.

Reign

The major battles of
Frederick the Great

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap

200km
125miles

22

21

20

19

Dresden

18

17

16

15

14

13

12

11

Berlin

10

9

Prague

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

  

  First Silesian War

  Second Silesian War

  Third Silesian War

War of the Austrian Succession

Main articles: First Silesian War and Second Silesian War

When Frederick became king, he faced vulnerably disconnected holdings with a weak economic base. To strengthen Prussia's position, he fought wars mainly against Austria, whose Habsburg dynasty had reigned as Holy Roman Emperors continuously since the 15th century. Thus, upon succeeding to the throne on 31 May 1740, Frederick declined to endorse the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, a legal mechanism to ensure the inheritance of the Habsburg domains by Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Upon the death of Charles VI on 29 October 1740, Frederick disputed the 23-year-old Maria Theresa's right of succession to the Habsburg lands, while simultaneously asserting his own right to the Austrian province of Silesia based on a number of old, though ambiguous, Hohenzollern claims to parts of Silesia.

The First Silesian War (1740–1742, part of the War of the Austrian Succession) began on 16 December 1740 when Frederick invaded and quickly occupied almost all of Silesia within seven weeks. Though Frederick justified his occupation on dynastic grounds, the invasion of this militarily and politically vulnerable part of the Habsburg empire also had the potential to provide substantial long-term economic and strategic benefits. The occupation of Silesia added one of the most densely industrialised German regions to Frederick's kingdom and gave it control over the navigable Oder River. It nearly doubled Prussia's population and increased its territory by a third. It also prevented Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony, from seeking to connect his own disparate lands through Silesia.

Portrait of Frederick during his early reign by Antoine Pesne (c. 1740, Gripsholm Castle, Sweden)

In late March 1741, Frederick set out on campaign again to capture the few remaining fortresses within the province that were still holding out. He was surprised by the arrival of an Austrian army, which he fought at the Battle of Mollwitz on 10 April 1741. Though Frederick had served under Prince Eugene of Savoy, this was his first major battle in command of an army. Frederick's cavalry was disorganised by a charge of the Austrian horse. Believing his forces had been defeated, Frederick galloped away to avoid capture, leaving Field Marshal Kurt Schwerin to lead the disciplined Prussian infantry to victory. Frederick would later admit to humiliation at his abdication of command and would state that Mollwitz was his school. Disappointed with the performance of his cavalry, whose training his father had neglected in favour of the infantry, Frederick spent much of his time in Silesia establishing a new doctrine for them.

Encouraged by Frederick's victory at Mollwitz, the French and their ally, the Electorate of Bavaria, entered the war against Austria in early September 1741 and marched on Prague. Meanwhile, Frederick, alongside other members of the League of Nymphenburg, sponsored the candidacy of his ally Charles of Bavaria to be elected Holy Roman Emperor. In late November, the Franco-Bavarian forces took Prague, and Charles was crowned King of Bohemia. Subsequently, he was elected as the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII on 24 January 1742. After the Austrians pulled their army out of Silesia to defend Bohemia, Frederick pursued them and blocked their path to Prague. The Austrians counter-attacked on 17 May 1742, initiating the Battle of Chotusitz. Frederick's retrained cavalry proved more effective than at Mollwitz, but once more it was the discipline of the Prussian infantry that won the field and allowed Frederick to claim a major victory. This victory, along with the Franco-Bavarian forces capturing Prague, forced the Austrians to seek peace. The terms of the Treaty of Breslau, negotiated in June 1742, gave Prussia all of Silesia and Glatz County, with the Austrians retaining only the portion called Austrian or Czech Silesia.

Attack of Prussian Infantry, Hohenfriedberg by Carl Röchling (1913)

By 1743, the Austrians had subdued Bavaria and driven the French out of Bohemia. Frederick strongly suspected Maria Theresa would resume war in an attempt to recover Silesia. Accordingly, he renewed his alliance with France and preemptively invaded Bohemia in August 1744, beginning the Second Silesian War. In late August 1744, Frederick's army had crossed the Bohemian frontier, marched directly to Prague, and laid siege to the city, which surrendered on 16 September 1744 after a three-day bombardment. Frederick's troops immediately continued marching into the heart of central Bohemia, but Saxony had now joined the war against Prussia. Although the combined Austrian and Saxon armies outnumbered Frederick's forces, they refused to directly engage with Frederick's army, harassing his supply lines instead. Frederick was forced to withdraw to Silesia as winter approached. In the interim, Frederick successfully claimed his inheritance to the minor territory of East Frisia on the North Sea coast of Germany, occupying the territory after its last ruler died without issue in 1744.

In January 1745, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII of Bavaria died, taking Bavaria out of the war and allowing Maria Theresa's husband Francis of Lorraine to be eventually elected Holy Roman Emperor. Now able to focus solely on Frederick's army, the Austrians, who were reinforced by the Saxons, crossed the mountains to invade Silesia. After allowing them across, Frederick pinned them down and decisively defeated them at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg on 4 June 1745. Frederick subsequently advanced into Bohemia and defeated a counterattack by the Austrians at the Battle of Soor. Frederick then turned towards Dresden when he learned the Saxons were preparing to march on Berlin. However, on 15 December 1745, Prussian forces under the command of Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau soundly defeated the Saxons at the Battle of Kesselsdorf. After linking up his army with Leopold's, Frederick occupied the Saxon capitol of Dresden, forcing the Saxon elector, Augustus III, to capitulate.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Dresden, signed on 25 December 1745, Austria was forced to adhere to the terms of the Treaty of Breslau giving Silesia to Prussia. It was after the signing of the treaty that Frederick, then 33 years old, first became known as "the Great".

Seven Years' War

Main article: Third Silesian War

Though Frederick had withdrawn from the War of the Austrian Succession once Austria guaranteed his possession of Silesia, Austria remained embroiled in the war until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. Less than a year after the treaty was signed, Maria Theresa was once more seeking allies, particularly Russia and France, to eventually renew the war with Prussia to regain Silesia. During the ten years of peace that followed the signing of the Treaty of Dresden, Frederick prepared to defend his claim on Silesia by further fortifying the province, expanding his army, and reorganising his finances.

In 1756, Frederick attempted to forestall Britain's financing of a Russian army on Prussia's border by negotiating an alliance with Britain at the Convention of Westminster, by which Prussia would protect Hanover against French attack, and Britain would no longer subsidise Russia. This treaty triggered the Diplomatic Revolution in which Habsburg Austria and Bourbon France, who had been traditional enemies, allied together with Russia to defeat the Anglo-Prussian coalition. To strengthen his strategic position against this coalition, on 29 August 1756, Frederick's well-prepared army preemptively invaded Saxony. His invasion triggered the Third Silesian War and the larger Seven Years' War, both of which lasted until 1763. He quickly captured Dresden, besieged the trapped Saxon army in Pirna, and continued marching the remainder of his army toward North Bohemia, intending to winter there. At the Battle of Lobositz he claimed a close victory against an Austrian army that was aiming to relieve Pirna, but afterward withdrew his forces back to Saxony for the winter. When the Saxon forces in Pirna finally capitulated in October 1756, Frederick forcibly incorporated them into his own army. This action, along with his initial invasion of neutral Saxony, brought him widespread international criticism; but the conquest of Saxony provided him with significant financial, military, and strategic assets to sustain the war.

Frederick the Great at the Battle of Zorndorf by Carl Röchling (1904)

In the early spring of 1757, Frederick again invaded Bohemia. He was victorious against the Austrian army at the Battle of Prague on 6 May 1757, but his losses were so great he was unable to take the city, and settled for besieging it. On 18 June 1757, Frederick suffered his first major defeat at the Battle of Kolín, which forced him to abandon his invasion of Bohemia. When the French and the Austrians pursued him into Saxony and Silesia in the fall of 1757, Frederick defeated and repulsed a much larger Franco-Austrian army at the Battle of Rossbach and another Austrian army at the Battle of Leuthen. Frederick hoped these two victories would force Austria to negotiate, but Maria Theresa was determined not to make peace until she had recovered Silesia. Despite its strong performance, the losses suffered from combat, disease and desertion had severely reduced the quality of the Prussian army.

In the remaining years of the war, Frederick faced a coalition of enemies including Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and the Holy Roman Empire, supported only by Britain and its allies Hesse, Brunswick, and Hanover. In 1758 Frederick once more took the initiative by invading Moravia. By May, he had laid siege to Olomouc, but the Austrians were able to hold the town and destroyed Frederick's supply train, forcing him to retreat into Silesia. In the meantime, the Russian army had advanced within 100 miles (160 km) east of Berlin. In August, he fought the Russian forces to a draw at the Battle of Zorndorf, in which nearly a third of Frederick's soldiers were casualties. He then headed south to face the Austrian army in Saxony. There, he was defeated at the Battle of Hochkirch on 14 October, although the Austrian forces were not able to exploit their victory.

Frederick the Great after the defeat at the Battle of Hochkirch by Carl Röchling (c. 1900)

During the 1759 campaign, the Austrian and Russian forces took the initiative, which they kept for the remainder of the war. They joined and advanced on Berlin. Frederick's army, which consisted of a substantial number of quickly recruited, half-trained soldiers, attempted to check them at the Battle of Kunersdorf on 12 August, where he was defeated and his troops were routed. Almost half his army was destroyed, and Frederick almost became a casualty when a bullet smashed a snuffbox he was carrying. Nevertheless, the Austro-Russian forces hesitated and stopped their advance for the year, an event Frederick later called the "Miracle of the House of Brandenburg". Frederick spent the remainder of the year in a futile attempt to manoeuvre the Austrians out of Saxony, where they had recaptured Dresden. His effort cost him further losses when his general Friedrich August von Finck capitulated at Maxen on 20 November.

At the beginning of 1760, the Austrians moved to retake Silesia, where Frederick defeated them at the Battle of Liegnitz on 15 August. The victory did not allow Frederick to regain the initiative or prevent Russian and Austrian troops from raiding Berlin in October to extort a ransom from the city. At the end of the campaign season, Frederick fought his last major engagement of the war. He won a marginal victory at the Battle of Torgau on 3 November, which secured Berlin from further raids. Frederick became a casualty when he was hit in the chest by a spent bullet.

By 1761, both the Austrian and Prussian military forces were so exhausted that no major battles were fought between them. Frederick's position became even more desperate in 1761 when Britain, having achieved victory in the American and Indian theatres of the war, ended its financial support for Prussia after the death of King George II, Frederick's uncle. The Russian forces also continued their advance, occupying Pomerania and parts of Brandenburg. With the Russians slowly advancing towards Berlin, it looked as though Prussia was about to collapse. On 6 January 1762, Frederick wrote to Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, "We ought now to think of preserving for my nephew, by way of negotiation, whatever fragments of my territory we can save from the avidity of my enemies".

Portrait of Frederick by Wilhelm Camphausen (1870). One of many idealized portraits of Frederick.

The sudden death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia in January 1762 led to the succession of the Prussophile Peter III, her German nephew, who was also the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. This led to the collapse of the anti-Prussian coalition; Peter immediately promised to end the Russian occupation of East Prussia and Pomerania. One of Peter III's first diplomatic endeavours was to seek a Prussian title; Frederick obliged. Peter III was so enamoured of Frederick that he not only offered him the full use of a Russian corps for the remainder of the war against Austria, he also wrote to Frederick that he would rather have been a general in the Prussian army than Tsar of Russia. More significantly, Russia's about-face from an enemy of Prussia to its patron rattled the leadership of Sweden, who hastily made peace with Frederick. With the threat to his eastern borders over, and France also seeking peace after its defeats by Britain, Frederick was able to fight the Austrians to a stalemate. While the ensuing Treaty of Hubertusburg returned the European borders to what they had been before the Seven Years' War, Frederick's ability to retain Silesia in spite of the odds earned Prussia admiration throughout the German-speaking territories. A year following the Treaty of Hubertusburg, Catherine the Great signed an eight-year alliance with Prussia, albeit with conditions that favoured the Russians.

Frederick's ultimate success came at a heavy financial cost to Prussia. Part of the burden was covered by the Anglo-Prussian Convention, which gave Frederick an annual £670,000 in British subsidies from 1758 until 1762. These subsidies ceased when Frederick allied with Peter III, partly because of the changed political situation and because of Britain's decreasing willingness to pay the sums Frederick wanted. Frederick also financed the war by devaluing the Prussian coin five times; debased coins were produced with the help of Leipzig mintmasters, Veitel Heine Ephraim, Daniel Itzig and Moses Isaacs. He also debased the coinage of Saxony and Poland. This helped Frederick cover over 20 per cent of the cost of the war, but at the price of causing massive inflation and economic upheaval throughout the region. Saxony, occupied by Prussia for most of the conflict, was left nearly destitute as a result. While Prussia lost no territory, the population and army were severely depleted by constant combat and invasions by Austria, Russia and Sweden. The best of Frederick's officer corps were killed in the conflict. Although Frederick managed to bring his army up to 190,000 men by the time the economy had largely recovered in 1772, which made it the third-largest army in Europe, almost none of the officers in this army were veterans of his generation and the King's attitude towards them was extremely harsh. Frederick suffered a number of personal losses. Many of his closest friends and family members—including his brother Augustus William, his sister Wilhelmine, and his mother—had died while Frederick was engaged in the war.

First Partition of Poland

Main articles: First Partition of Poland and Prussian Partition

The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the First Partition in 1772

Portrait of Frederick by Anna Dorothea Therbusch (1772, Palace of Versailles, France)

Frederick sought to acquire and economically exploit Polish Prussia as part of his wider aim of enriching his kingdom. As early as 1731 Frederick had suggested that his country would benefit from annexing Polish territory, and had described Poland as an "artichoke, ready to be consumed leaf by leaf". By 1752, he had prepared the ground for the partition of Poland–Lithuania, aiming to achieve his goal of building a territorial bridge between Pomerania, Brandenburg, and his East Prussian provinces. The new territories would provide an increased tax base, manpower for the military, and serve as a surrogate for the overseas colonies of the other great powers.

Poland was vulnerable to partition due to poor governance and the interference of foreign powers in its internal affairs. Frederick himself was partly responsible for this weakness by opposing attempts at financial and political reform in Poland, and undermining the Polish economy by inflating its currency by his use of Polish coin dies. The profits exceeded 25 million thalers, twice the peacetime national budget of Prussia. He thwarted Polish efforts to create a stable economic system by building a customs fort at Marienwerder on the Vistula, Poland's major trade artery, and by bombarding Polish customs ports on the Vistula.

Frederick used Poland's religious dissension to keep the kingdom open to Prussian control. Poland was predominantly Roman Catholic, but approximately ten per cent of Poland's population, 600,000 Eastern Orthodox and 250,000 Protestants, were non-Catholic dissenters. During the 1760s, the dissenters' political importance was out of proportion to their numbers. Although dissenters still had substantial rights, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had increasingly been reducing their civic rights after a period of considerable religious and political freedom. Soon Protestants were barred from public offices and the Sejm (Polish Parliament). Frederick took advantage of this situation by becoming the protector of Protestant interests in Poland in the name of religious freedom. Frederick further opened Prussian control by signing an alliance with Catherine the Great who placed Stanisław August Poniatowski, a former lover and favourite, on the Polish throne.

After Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities in 1769–1770, Frederick's representative in Saint Petersburg, his brother Prince Henry, convinced Frederick and Maria Theresa that the balance of power would be maintained by a tripartite division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth instead of Russia taking land from the Ottomans. They agreed to the First Partition of Poland in 1772 without war. Frederick acquired most of Royal Prussia, annexing 38,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi) and 600,000 inhabitants. Although Frederick's share of the partition was the smallest of the partitioning powers, the lands he acquired had roughly the same economic value as the others and had great strategic value. The newly created province of West Prussia connected East Prussia and Farther Pomerania, granted Prussia control of the mouth of the Vistula River, and cut off Poland's sea trade. Maria Theresa had only reluctantly agreed to the partition, to which Frederick sarcastically commented, "she cries, but she takes".

Frederick undertook the exploitation of Polish territory under the pretext of an enlightened civilising mission that emphasised the supposed cultural superiority of Prussian ways. He saw Polish Prussia as barbaric and uncivilised, describing the inhabitants as "slovenly Polish trash". His long-term goal was to remove the Poles through Germanisation, which included appropriating Polish Crown lands and monasteries, introducing a military draft, encouraging German settlement in the region, and implementing a tax policy that disproportionately impoverished Polish nobles.

War of the Bavarian Succession

Main article: War of the Bavarian Succession

Colorized engraving of Frederick in a Waffenrock (1873)

Late in his life Frederick involved Prussia in the low-scale War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, in which he stifled Austrian attempts to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria. For their part, the Austrians tried to pressure the French to participate in the War of Bavarian Succession since there were guarantees under consideration related to the Peace of Westphalia, clauses which linked the Bourbon dynasty of France and the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty of Austria. Unfortunately for the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, the French court was unwilling to support him because they were already supporting the American revolutionaries in North America and the idea of an alliance with Austria had been unpopular in France since the end of the Seven Years' War. Frederick ended up as a beneficiary of the American Revolutionary War, as Austria was left more or less isolated.

Saxony and Russia, both of which had been Austria's allies in the Seven Years' War, were now allied with Prussia. Although Frederick was weary of war in his old age, he was determined not to allow Austrian dominance in German affairs. Frederick and Prince Henry marched the Prussian army into Bohemia to confront Joseph's army, but the two forces ultimately descended into a stalemate, largely living off the land and skirmishing. Frederick's longtime rival Maria Theresa, who was Joseph's mother and his co-ruler, did not want a new war with Prussia, and secretly sent messengers to Frederick to discuss peace negotiations. Finally, Catherine II of Russia threatened to enter the war on Frederick's side if peace was not negotiated, and Joseph reluctantly dropped his claim to Bavaria. When Joseph tried the scheme again in 1784, Frederick created the Fürstenbund (League of Princes), allowing himself to be seen as a defender of German liberties. To stop Joseph II's attempts to acquire Bavaria, Frederick enlisted the help of the Electors of Hanover and Saxony along with several other minor German princes. Perhaps even more significantly, Frederick benefited from the defection of the senior prelate of the German Church, the Archbishop of Mainz, who was also the arch-chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, which further strengthened Frederick and Prussia's standing amid the German states.

Policies

Administrative modernisation

Portrait of Frederick by Anton Graff (1781, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin).

In his earliest published work, the Anti-Machiavel, and his later Testament politique (Political Testament), Frederick wrote that the sovereign was the first servant of the state. Frederick helped transform Prussia from a European backwater to an economically strong and politically reformed state. He protected his industries with high tariffs and minimal restrictions on domestic trade. He increased the freedom of speech in press and literature, abolished most uses of judicial torture, and limited which crimes could be punished by death. Working with his Grand Chancellor Samuel von Cocceji, he reformed the judicial system and made it more efficient, and he moved the courts toward greater legal equality of all citizens by removing special courts for special social classes. The reform was completed after Frederick's death, resulting in the Prussian Law Code of 1794, which balanced absolutism with human rights and corporate privilege with equality before the law. Reception to the law code was mixed as it was often viewed as contradictory.

Frederick strove to put Prussia's fiscal system in order. In January 1750, Johann Philipp Graumann was appointed as Frederick's confidential adviser on finance, military affairs, and royal possessions, and the Director-General of all mint facilities. Graumann's currency reform slightly lowered the silver content of Prussian thaler from 1⁄12 Cologne mark of silver to 1⁄14, which brought the metal content of the thaler into alignment with its face value, and it standardised the Prussian coinage system. As a result, Prussian coins, which had been leaving the country nearly as fast as they were minted, remained in circulation in Prussia. Frederick estimated that he earned about one million thalers in profits on the seignorage. The coin eventually became universally accepted beyond Prussia and helped increase industry and trade. A gold coin, the Friedrich d'or, was also minted to oust the Dutch ducat from the Baltic trade. However, the fixed ratio between gold and silver led to the gold coins being perceived as more valuable, which caused them to leave circulation in Prussia. Unable to meet Frederick's expectations for profit, Graumann was removed in 1754.

Although Frederick's debasement of the coinage to fund the Seven Years' War left the Prussian monetary system in disarray, the Mint Edict of May 1763 brought it back to stability by fixing rates at which depreciated coins would be accepted and requiring tax payments in currency of prewar value. This resulted in a shortage of ready money, but Frederick controlled prices by releasing the grain stocks he held in reserve for military campaigns. Many other rulers soon followed the steps of Frederick in reforming their own currencies. The functionality and stability of the reform made the Prussian monetary system the standard in Northern Germany.

Around 1751, Frederick founded the Emden Company to promote trade with China. He introduced the lottery, fire insurance, and a giro discount and credit bank to stabilise the economy. One of Frederick's achievements after the Seven Years' War included the control of grain prices, whereby government storehouses would enable the civilian population to survive in needy regions, where the harvest was poor. He commissioned Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky to promote the trade and – to take on the competition with France – put a silk factory where 1,500 people found employment. Frederick followed Gotzkowsky's recommendations in the field of toll levies and import restrictions. When Gotzkowsky asked for a deferral during the Amsterdam banking crisis of 1763, Frederick took over his porcelain factory, now known as KPM.

Frederick modernised the Prussian civil service and promoted religious tolerance throughout his realm to attract more settlers in East Prussia. With the help of French experts, he organised a system of indirect taxation, which provided the state with more revenue than direct taxation; though French officials administering it may have pocketed some of the profit. He established new regulations for tax officials to reduce graft. In 1781, Frederick made coffee a royal monopoly and employed disabled soldiers, the coffee sniffers, to spy on citizens illegally roasting coffee, much to the annoyance of the general population.

Though Frederick started many reforms during his reign, his ability to see them to fulfillment was not as disciplined or thorough as his military successes.

Religion

St. Hedwig's Cathedral, the first Roman Catholic church built in Berlin since the Reformation, was erected by the sanction of Frederick, who also sketched its design.

In contrast to his devoutly Calvinist father, Frederick was a religious sceptic, who has been described as a deist. Frederick was pragmatic about religious faith. Three times during his life, he presented his own confession of Christian faith: during his imprisonment after Katte's execution in 1730, after his conquest of Silesia in 1741, and just before the start of the Seven Years' War in 1756. In each case, these confessions also served personal or political goals.

He tolerated all faiths in his realm, but Protestantism remained the favoured religion, and Catholics were not chosen for higher state positions. Frederick wanted development throughout the country, adapted to the needs of each region. He was interested in attracting a diversity of skills, whether from Jesuit teachers, Huguenot citizens, or Jewish merchants and bankers. Frederick retained Jesuits as teachers in Silesia, Warmia, and the Netze District, recognising their educational activities as an asset for the nation. He continued to support them after their suppression by Pope Clement XIV. He befriended the Roman Catholic Prince-Bishop of Warmia, Ignacy Krasicki, whom he asked to consecrate St. Hedwig's Cathedral in 1773. He accepted countless Protestant weavers from Bohemia, who were fleeing from the devoutly Catholic rule of Maria Theresa, granting them freedom from taxes and military service. Constantly looking for new colonists, he encouraged immigration by repeatedly emphasising that nationality and religion were of no concern to him. This policy allowed Prussia's population to recover very quickly from its considerable losses during Frederick's three wars.

Though Frederick was known to be more tolerant of Jews and Roman Catholics than many neighbouring German states, his practical-minded tolerance was not fully unprejudiced. Frederick wrote in his Testament politique:

We have too many Jews in the towns. They are needed on the Polish border because in these areas Hebrews alone perform trade. As soon as you get away from the frontier, the Jews become a disadvantage, they form cliques, they deal in contraband and get up to all manner of rascally tricks which are detrimental to Christian burghers and merchants. I have never persecuted anyone from this or any other sect; I think, however, it would be prudent to pay attention, so that their numbers do not increase.

The success in integrating the Jews into areas of society where Frederick encouraged them can be seen by Gerson von Bleichröder's role during the 19th century in financing Otto von Bismarck's efforts to unite Germany. Frederick was less tolerant of Catholicism in his occupied territories. In Silesia, he disregarded canon law to install clergy who were loyal to him. In Polish Prussia, he confiscated the Roman Catholic Church's goods and property, making clergy dependent on the government for their pay and defining how they were to perform their duties.

Like many leading Enlightenment figures, Frederick was a Freemason, having joined during a trip to Brunswick in 1738. His membership legitimised the group's presence in Prussia and protected it against charges of subversion. In 1786, he became the First Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree; his double-headed eagle emblem was used for 32nd and 33rd degree Masons following the adoption of seven additional degrees to the Masonic Rite.

Frederick's religious views resulted in his condemnation by the anti-revolutionary French Jesuit, Augustin Barruel. In his 1797 book, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme (Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism), Barruel described an influential conspiracy theory that accused King Frederick of taking part in a plot which led to the outbreak of the French Revolution and having been the secret "protector and adviser" of fellow-conspirators Voltaire, Jean le Rond d'Alembert, and Denis Diderot, who all sought "to destroy Christianity" and foment "rebellion against Kings and Monarchs".

Environment and agriculture

The King Everywhere by Robert Warthmüller (1886, German Historical Museum, Berlin). Frederick is depicted inspecting a potato harvest.

Frederick was keenly interested in land use, especially draining swamps and opening new farmland for colonisers to increase the kingdom's food supply. He called it Peuplierungspolitik (peopling policy). About 1,200 new villages were founded in his reign. He told Voltaire, "Whoever improves the soil, cultivates land lying waste and drains swamps, is making conquests from barbarism". Using improved technology enabled him to create new farmland through a massive drainage programme in the country's Oderbruch marshland. This programme created roughly 60,000 hectares (150,000 acres) of new farmland, but eliminated vast swaths of natural habitat, destroyed the region's biodiversity, and displaced numerous native plant and animal communities. Frederick saw this project as the "taming" and "conquering" of nature, considering uncultivated land "useless", an attitude that reflected his enlightenment era, rationalist sensibilities. He presided over the construction of canals for bringing crops to market, and introduced new crops, especially the potato and the turnip, to the country. For this, he was sometimes called Der Kartoffelkönig (the Potato King).

Frederick's potato campaign demonstrated an enlightenment view of promoting scientific agriculture and challenging tradition for the benefit of the populace.

Frederick's interest in land reclamation may have resulted from his upbringing. As a child, his father, Frederick William I, made young Frederick work in the region's provinces, teaching the boy about the area's agriculture and geography. This created an interest in cultivation and development that the boy retained when he became ruler.

Frederick founded the first veterinary school in Prussia. Unusually for the time and his aristocratic background, he criticised hunting as cruel, rough and uneducated. When someone once asked Frederick why he did not wear spurs on horseback, he replied, "Try sticking a fork into your naked stomach, and you will soon see why." He loved dogs and his horse and wanted to be buried with his greyhounds. In 1752, he wrote to his sister Wilhelmine that people indifferent to loyal animals would not be devoted to their human comrades. He was also close to nature and issued decrees to protect plants.

Arts and education

The Flute Concert of Sanssouci by Adolph Menzel (1852, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin). Frederick is depicted playing the flute in his music room at Sanssouci as C. P. E. Bach accompanies him on a fortepiano by Gottfried Silbermann.

Frederick was a patron of music. The court musicians he supported included C. P. E. Bach, Carl Heinrich Graun and Franz Benda. A meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam led to Bach's writing The Musical Offering. He was a talented musician and composer in his own right, playing the transverse flute, and composing 121 sonatas for flute and continuo, four concertos for flute and strings, four sinfonias, three military marches and seven arias. Additionally, the Hohenfriedberger Marsch was allegedly written by Frederick to commemorate his victory in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg. His flute sonatas were often composed in collaboration with Johann Joachim Quantz, who was Frederick's occasional music tutor in his youth and joined his court as composer and flute maker in 1741. Frederick's flute sonatas are written in the Baroque style in which flute plays the melody, sometimes imitating operatic vocal styles like the aria and recitative, while the accompaniment was usually played by just one instrument per part to highlight the delicate sound of the flute.

Frederick wrote sketches, outlines and libretti for opera that were included as part of the repertoire for the Berlin Opera House. These works, which were often completed in collaboration with Graun, included the operas Coriolano (1749), Silla (1753), Montezuma (1755), and Il tempio d'Amore (1756). Frederick saw opera as playing an important role in imparting enlightenment philosophy, using it to critique superstition and the Pietism that still held sway in Prussia. He attempted to broaden access to opera by making admission to it free.

Frederick also wrote philosophical works, publishing some of his writings under the title of The Works of a Sans-Souci Philosopher. Frederick corresponded with key French Enlightenment figures, including Voltaire, who at one point declared Frederick to be a philosopher-king, and the Marquis d'Argens, whom he appointed as Royal Chamberlain in 1742 and later as the Director of the Prussian Academy of Arts and Berlin State Opera. His openness to philosophy had its limits. He did not admire the encyclopédistes or the French intellectual avant-garde of his time, though he did shelter Rousseau from persecution for years. Once he ascended the Prussian throne, he found it increasingly difficult to apply the philosophical ideas of his youth to his role as king. (See slso: Relationship between Frederick and Voltaire).

Like many European rulers of the time who were influenced by the prestige of Louis XIV of France and his court, Frederick adopted French tastes and manners, though in Frederick's case, the extent of his Francophile tendencies might have been a reaction to the austerity of the family environment created by his father, who had a deep aversion for France and promoted an austere culture. He was educated by French tutors, and almost all the books in his library were written in French. French was Frederick's preferred language for speaking and writing, though he had to rely on proofreaders to correct his difficulties with spelling.

Though Frederick used German as his working language with his administration and with the army, he claimed to have never learned it properly and never fully mastered speaking or writing it. He disliked the German language, thinking it inharmonious and awkward. He once commented that German authors "pile parenthesis upon parenthesis, and often you find only at the end of an entire page the verb on which depends the meaning of the whole sentence". He considered the German culture of his time, particularly literature and theatre, to be inferior to that of France, believing that it had been hindered by the devastation of the Thirty Years' War. He suggested that it could eventually equal its rivals, but this would require a complete codification of the German language, the emergence of talented German authors and extensive patronage of the arts by Germanic rulers, which he believed would take a century or more. Frederick's love of French culture was not without limits: he disapproved of the luxury and extravagance of the French royal court, and ridiculed German princes, especially Augustus III, who imitated French sumptuousness. His own court remained quite Spartan, frugal and small and restricted to a limited circle of close friends, similar to his father's court, though Frederick and his friends were far more culturally inclined.

Despite his distaste for the German language, Frederick sponsored the Königliche Deutsche Gesellschaft (Royal German Society), founded in 1741, the aim of which was to promote and develop the German language. He allowed the association to be titled "royal" and have its seat at the Königsberg Castle, but he does not seem to have taken much interest in its work. Frederick also promoted the use of German instead of Latin in law, as in the legal document Project des Corporis Juris Fridericiani (Project of the Frederician Body of Laws), which was written in German with the aim of being clear and easily understandable. It was under his reign that Berlin became an important centre of German enlightenment.

Architecture and the fine arts

South, or garden façade and corps de logis of Sanssouci

Frederick had many famous buildings constructed in his capital, Berlin, most of which still stand today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library (today the State Library Berlin), St. Hedwig's Cathedral, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). A number of the buildings, including the Berlin State Opera House, a wing of Schloss Charlottenburg, and the renovation of Rheinsburg during Frederick's residence were built in a unique Rococo style that Frederick developed in collaboration with Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. This style became known as Frederician Rococo and is epitomised by Frederick's summer palace, Sanssouci (French for "carefree" or "without worry"), his primary residence and private refuge.

As a great patron of the arts, Frederick was a collector of paintings and ancient sculptures; his favourite artist was Jean-Antoine Watteau. His sense of aesthetics can be seen in the picture gallery at Sanssouci, which presents architecture, painting, sculpture and the decorative arts as a unified whole. The gilded stucco decorations of the ceilings were created by Johann Michael Merck and Carl Joseph Sartori. 17th-century Flemish and Dutch paintings filled the western wing and the gallery's central building, while Italian paintings from the High Renaissance and Baroque were exhibited in the eastern wing. Sculptures were arranged symmetrically or in rows in relation to the architecture.

Science and the Berlin Academy

The Round Table of King Frederick II in Sanssouci by Adolph Menzel (1849,Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin). Frederick is seated at the center with Voltaire (leaning forward in a purple coat), Marquis d'Argens, George Keith, Algarotti, La Mettrie, and Marquis d'Argens.

When Frederick ascended the throne in 1740, he reinstituted the Prussian Academy of Sciences (Berlin Academy), which his father had closed down as an economy measure. Frederick's goal was to make Berlin a European cultural centre that rivalled London and Paris. He invited intellectuals from across Europe to join the academy, made French the official language and made speculative philosophy the most important topic of study. The membership was strong in mathematics and philosophy and included Immanuel Kant, D'Alembert, Pierre Louis de Maupertuis, and Étienne de Condillac. However the academy was in a crisis for two decades at mid-century, due in part to scandals and internal rivalries such as the debates between Newtonianism and Leibnizian views, and the personality conflict between Voltaire and Maupertuis. At a higher level Maupertuis, director of the Berlin Academy from 1746 to 1759 and a monarchist, argued that the action of individuals was shaped by the character of the institution that contained them, and they worked for the glory of the state. By contrast, d'Alembert took a republican approach and emphasised the international Republic of Letters as the vehicle for scientific advance. By 1789, the academy had gained international repute while making major contributions to German culture and thought. For example, the mathematicians he recruited for the Berlin Academy – including Leonhard Euler, Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Johann Heinrich Lambert, and Johann Castillon – made it a world-class centre for mathematical research. Other intellectuals attracted to the philosopher's kingdom were Francesco Algarotti, d'Argens, and Julien Offray de La Mettrie.

Military theory

Frederick the Great Surveying the Field of Battle by Hugo Ungewitter (1906)

Contrary to his father's fears, Frederick became a capable military commander. With the exception of his first battlefield experience at the Battle of Mollwitz, Frederick proved himself courageous in battle. He frequently led his military forces personally and had multiple horses shot from under him during battle. During his reign he commanded the Prussian Army at sixteen major battles and various sieges, skirmishes and other actions, ultimately obtaining almost all his political objectives. He is often admired for his tactical skills, especially his use of the oblique order of battle, an attack focused on one flank of the opposing line, allowing a local advantage even if his forces were outnumbered overall. Even more important were his operational successes, especially the use of interior lines to prevent the unification of numerically superior opposing armies and defend the Prussian core territory.

Napoleon Bonaparte saw the Prussian king as a military commander of the first rank; after Napoleon's victory over the Fourth Coalition in 1807, he visited Frederick's tomb in Potsdam and remarked to his officers, "Gentlemen, if this man were still alive I would not be here". Napoleon frequently "pored through Frederick's campaign narratives and had a statuette of him placed in his personal cabinet".

Frederick's most notable military victories on the battlefield were the Battle of Hohenfriedberg, a tactical victory, fought during the War of Austrian Succession in June 1745; the Battle of Rossbach, where Frederick defeated a combined Franco-Austrian army of 41,000 with only 21,000 soldiers (10,000 dead for the Franco-Austrian side with only 550 casualties for Prussia); and the Battle of Leuthen, in which Frederick's 39,000 troops inflicted 22,000 casualties, including 12,000 prisoners, on Charles of Lorraine's Austrian force of 65,000.

Frederick believed that creating alliances was necessary, as Prussia did not have the resources of nations like France or Austria. Though his reign was regularly involved in war, he did not advocate for protracted warfare. He stated that for Prussia, wars should be short and quick: long wars would destroy the army's discipline, depopulate the country, and exhaust its resources.

Frederick was an influential military theorist whose analysis emerged from his extensive personal battlefield experience and covered issues of strategy, tactics, mobility and logistics. Emperor Joseph II wrote, "When the King of Prussia speaks on problems connected with the art of war, which he has studied intensively and on which he has read every conceivable book, then everything is taut, solid and uncommonly instructive. There are no circumlocutions, he gives factual and historical proof of the assertions he makes, for he is well versed in history."

Robert Citino describes Frederick's strategic approach:

In war ... he usually saw one path to victory, and that was fixing the enemy army in place, maneuvering near or even around it to give himself a favorable position for the attack, and then smashing it with an overwhelming blow from an unexpected direction. He was the most aggressive field commander of the century, perhaps of all time, and one who constantly pushed the limits of the possible.

The historian Dennis Showalter argues: "The King was also more consistently willing than any of his contemporaries to seek decision through offensive operations." These offensive operations were not acts of blind aggression; Frederick considered foresight to be among the most important attributes when fighting.

Much of the structure of the modern German General Staff owed its existence and design to Frederick, along with the accompanying autonomy given to commanders in the field. According to Citino, "When later generations of Prussian-German staff officers looked back to the age of Frederick, they saw a commander who repeatedly, even joyfully, risked everything on a single day's battle – his army, his kingdom, often his very life." As far as Frederick was concerned, there were two major battlefield considerations – speed of march and speed of fire. Confident in the performance of men he selected for command when compared to those of his enemy, Frederick once quipped that a general considered audacious in another country would be ordinary in Prussia because Prussian generals will dare anything that is possible for men to execute.

After the Seven Years' War, the Prussian military acquired a formidable reputation across Europe. Esteemed for efficiency and success in battle, it became a model emulated by other European powers, particularly Russia and France. Frederick continues to be held in high regard as a military theorist and has been described as representing the embodiment of the art of war.

Later years and death

Grave of Frederick at Sanssouci with potatoes, where he was buried after the German reunification. (He wished to rest next to his dogs, but this was originally ignored.)

Near the end of his life, Frederick grew increasingly solitary. His circle of close friends at Sanssouci gradually died off with few replacements, and Frederick became increasingly critical and arbitrary, to the frustration of the civil service and officer corps. Frederick was immensely popular among the Prussian people because of his enlightened reforms and military glory; the citizens of Berlin always cheered him when he returned from administrative or military reviews. He was nicknamed Der Alte Fritz (The Old Fritz) by the Prussian people, and this name became part of his legacy. Frederick derived little pleasure from his popularity, preferring instead the company of his pet Italian greyhounds, whom he referred to as his "marquises de Pompadour" as a jibe at the French royal mistress. Even in his late 60s and early 70s when he was increasingly crippled by asthma, gout and other ailments, he rose before dawn, drank six to eight cups of coffee a day, "laced with mustard and peppercorns", and attended to state business with characteristic tenacity.

On the morning of 17 August 1786, Frederick died in an armchair in his study at Sanssouci, aged 74. He left instructions that he should be buried next to his greyhounds on the vineyard terrace of Sanssouci. His nephew and successor Frederick William II instead ordered he be entombed next to his father in the Potsdam Garrison Church. Near the end of World War II, German dictator Adolf Hitler ordered Frederick's coffin to be hidden in a salt mine to protect it from destruction. The United States Army relocated the remains to Marburg in 1946; in 1953, the coffins of Frederick and his father were moved to Burg Hohenzollern.

On the 205th anniversary of his death, on 17 August 1991, Frederick's coffin lay in state in the court of honour at Sanssouci, covered by a Prussian flag and escorted by a Bundeswehr guard of honour. After nightfall, Frederick's body was interred in the vineyard terrace—in the crypt he had built there—without pomp, in accordance with his will. Visitors to his grave often place potatoes on the gravestone in honour of his role in promoting the potato in Prussia.

Historiography and legacy

See also: Portraits of Frederick the Great

Фредерик цитируется на нацистском пропагандистском плакате « Еженедельный лозунг НСДАП» от 24 августа 1941 года.

Frederick's legacy has been subject to a wide variety of interpretations. For instance, Thomas Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great (8 vol. 1858–1865) emphasised the power of one great "hero", in this case Frederick, to shape history. In German memory, Frederick became a great national icon and many Germans said he was the greatest monarch in modern history. These claims particularly were popular in the 19th century. For example, German historians often made him the romantic model of a glorified warrior, praising his leadership, administrative efficiency, devotion to duty and success in building up Prussia to a leading role in Europe. Frederick's popularity as a heroic figure remained high in Germany even after World War I.

Между 1933 и 1945 годами нацисты прославляли Фридриха как предшественника Адольфа Гитлера. В попытке узаконить нацистский режим министр пропаганды Йозеф Геббельс поручил художникам создать причудливые образы Фридриха, Бисмарка и Гитлера вместе, чтобы создать среди них ощущение исторического континуума. На протяжении Второй мировой войны Гитлер часто сравнивал себя с Фридрихом. и копию портрета Фредерика работы Антона Граффа он хранил при себе до конца в бункере фюрера в Берлине.

После войны роль Пруссии в истории Германии была сведена к минимуму, а репутация Фридриха понизилась как на Востоке, так и на Востоке. и Западная Германия , отчасти из-за увлечения им нацистов и его связи с прусским милитаризмом. Во второй половине 20-го века политическое отношение к образу Фридриха было двойственным, особенно в коммунистической Восточной Германии. Например, сразу после Второй мировой войны изображения Пруссии были удалены из общественных мест. включая конную статую Фредерика на Унтер-ден-Линден , но в 1980 году его статуя была установлена ​​заново. После окончания Холодной войны репутация Фредерика в объединенной Германии продолжала расти.

В 21 веке мнение о Фредерике как о способном и эффективном лидере среди военных историков остается сильным. Однако оригинальность его достижений дискуссионна. многие из них были основаны на уже идущих разработках. Его изучали как модель лидера-слуги в исследованиях управления. и пользуется большим уважением за покровительство искусству. Его считали образцом просвещенного абсолютизма. хотя этот ярлык был поставлен под сомнение в 21 веке, поскольку многие принципы просвещения прямо контрастируют с его военной репутацией.

Библиография

Избранные произведения на английском языке

• АнтиМакиавел: Опровержение принца Макиавелли . Перевод Соннино, Пол. Афины, Огайо: Издательство Университета Огайо. 1980 [1740]. ISBN  9780821405598 .
• История моего времени . Посмертные произведения Фридриха II. Король Пруссии. Том. 1. Перевод Холкрофта, Томаса . Лондон: GGJ и Дж. Робинсон. 1789 [1746].
• История Семилетней войны, часть I. Посмертные произведения Фридриха II. Король Пруссии. Том. 2. Перевод Холкрофта Томаса . Лондон: GGJ и Дж. Робинсон. 1789 [1788].
• История Семилетней войны, часть II . Посмертные произведения Фридриха II. Король Пруссии. Том. 3. Перевод Холкрофта, Томаса . Лондон: GGJ и Дж. Робинсон. 1789 [1788].
• Мемуары от Губертсбургского мира до раздела Польши . Посмертные произведения Фридриха II. Король Пруссии. Том. 4. Перевод Холкрофта Томаса . Лондон: GGJ и Дж. Робинсон. 1789 [1788].
• Военные инструкции короля Пруссии своим генералам . Перевод Фостера Т. Лондона: Дж. Кратвелл. 1818 [1747].
• Мемуары Бранденбургского дома, к которым добавлены четыре диссертации . Лондон: Дж. Нурс. 1758 [1750].

Коллекции

• Пройсс, JDE, изд. (1846–1857). Фридриха Великого ( Произведения на французском языке). (31 т.)
• Дройсен, Иоганн Густав, изд. Великого (на немецком языке Политическая переписка Фридриха ). (46 тт.)

Издания музыки

• Спитта, Филипп , изд. Музыкальные произведения: ( Фридрих Великий на немецком языке). Лейпциг: Breitkopf & Härtel. OCLC   257496423 .

См. также

• Андре Ноэль (шеф-повар)

Ссылки

Источники

Книги

• Адлер, Саймон (2020). Политическая экономия в Габсбургской монархии 1750–1774: вклад Людвига Цинцендорфа . Чам, Швейцария: Пэлгрейв Макмиллан. ISBN  978-3-030-31006-6 . OCLC   1144785160 .
• Алфорд, Кеннет Д. (2000). Нацистские грабежи: великие истории о сокровищах Второй мировой войны . Да Капо Пресс. ISBN  978-0-306-82090-8 . OCLC   883414554 .
• Андерсон, Фред (2001). Горнило войны: Семилетняя война и судьба империи в Британской Северной Америке, 1754–1766 гг . Нью-Йорк: Винтажные книги. ISBN  978-0-375-70636-3 . OCLC   906979201 .
• Арамайо, Роберто Р. (2019). Химера короля-философа: вокруг кантовского различия между моральным политиком и политическим моралистом: дилеммы власти, или разочарованный роман между этикой и политикой (PDF) . Мадрид: Ediciones Alamanda. OCLC   1154081295 . Архивировано (PDF) из оригинала 3 марта 2021 года.
• Эспри, Роберт Б. (1986). Фридрих Великий: Великолепная загадка . Нью-Йорк: Тикнор и Филдс. ISBN  978-0-89919-352-6 . OCLC   1018166962 .
• Бейн, Роберт Нисбет (1911). «Елизавета Петровна» . В Чисхолме, Хью (ред.). Британская энциклопедия . Том. 9 (11-е изд.). Издательство Кембриджского университета.
• Баррюэль, Огюстен (1799). Антихристианский заговор . Мемуары, иллюстрирующие историю якобинства. Том. И. Хартфорд, Коннектикут: Хадсон и Гудвин. OCLC   745190442 .
• Бентли, Майкл (2002). Компаньон к историографии . Оксфордшир, Великобритания: Тейлор и Фрэнсис. ISBN  978-0-203-99145-9 . OCLC   1113786932 .
• Берридж, Ванесса (2015). Сад принцессы: королевская интрига и нерассказанная история Кью . Эмберли Паблишинг Лимитед. ISBN  978-1-4456-4336-6 . OCLC   958484538 .
• Биллоуз, Ричард (1995). Короли и колонисты: аспекты македонского империализма . Лейден, Нидерланды: EJBrill. ISBN  978-90-04-10177-7 . OCLC   465569961 .
• Блэкборн, Дэвид (2006). Покорение природы: вода, ландшафт и создание современной Германии . Нью-Йорк: WW Norton & Company. ISBN  978-0-393-06212-0 . OCLC   939012570 .
• Бланнинг, TCW (2016). Фридрих Великий: король Пруссии . Нью-Йорк: Рэндом Хаус. ISBN  978-1-4000-6812-8 . OCLC   994869052 .
• Бонни, Ричард; Трим, Дэвид Дж.Б. (2006). Преследования и плюрализм: кальвинисты и религиозные меньшинства в Европе раннего Нового времени, 1550-1700 гг . Питер Лэнг. ISBN  978-3-03910-570-0 . OCLC   799969494 .
• Брунхаус, Джей (2006). Путеводитель Maverick по Берлину . Лондон, Великобритания: Издательство Pelican Publishing. ISBN  978-1-58980-301-5 . OCLC   68263059 .
• Ситино, Роберт М. (2005). Немецкий путь войны: от Тридцатилетней войны до Третьего рейха . Лоуренс, Канзас: Университетское издательство Канзаса. ISBN  978-0-7006-1624-4 . OCLC   255036325 .
• Принцесса Кристиан Шлезвиг-Гольштейнская (1888 г.). Введение. Мемуары Вильгельмины, маркграфины Байрейтской . Вильгельмина Прусская, маркграфина Бранденбург-Байройтская . Перевод принцессы Кристиан Шлезвиг-Гольштейн. Нью-Йорк: Харпер и братья. стр. 5–14. ОСЛК   352010 .
• Кларк, Кристофер (2006). Железное королевство: взлет и падение Пруссии 1600–1947 гг . Кембридж, Массачусетс: Belknap Press издательства Гарвардского университета. ISBN  978-0-674-02385-7 . OCLC   988484180 .
• Кромптон, Луи (2003). Гомосексуализм и цивилизация . Издательство Гарвардского университета. ISBN  978-0-674-03006-0 . OCLC   727025329 .
• Коннелли, Оуэн (2002). О войне и лидерстве: слова боевых командиров от Фридриха Великого до Нормана Шварцкопфа . Принстон, Нью-Джерси: Издательство Принстонского университета. ISBN  0-691-03186-Х . OCLC   636080992 .
• Крейг, Гордон Александр (1978). Германия, 1866–1945 гг . Оксфорд, Великобритания: Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-822113-5 . ОСЛК   3730700 .
• Дэвис, Норман (1996). Европа: История . Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-820171-7 . OCLC   851818872 .
• Дилтей, Вильгельм (1972) [1927]. «Фредерик и Академия» . В Парет, Питер (ред.). Фридрих Великий. Профиль . Нью-Йорк: Хилл и Ван. ISBN  0-8090-4678-4 . OCLC   1147898734 .
• Даффи, Кристофер (1985). Фридрих Великий: Военная жизнь . Лондон: Рутледж и Кеган Пол. ISBN  978-0-7100-9649-4 . OCLC   851984981 .
• Эрл, Ребекка (2020). Кормление людей: политика картофеля . Кембридж, Англия: Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-1-108-48406-0 . OCLC   1157281407 .
• Эгремонт, Макс (2011). Забытая земля: Путешествия среди призраков Восточной Пруссии . Нью-Йорк: Фаррар, Штраус и Жиру. ISBN  978-0-374-53356-4 . OCLC   812066422 .
• Элкинс, TH; Хофмайстер, Б. (2005) [1988]. Берлин: Пространственная структура разделенного города . Оксфордшир, Великобритания: Тейлор и Фрэнсис. ISBN  978-1-135-83505-7 . OCLC   230766184 .
• Эрганг, Роберт (2017) [1941]. Потсдамский фюрер: Фридрих Вильгельм I, отец прусского милитаризма . Бородинские книги. ISBN  978-1-78720-424-9 . OCLC   982450924 .
• Фрейзер, Дэвид (2001). Фридрих Великий: король Пруссии . Нью-Йорк: Фромм Интернэшнл. ISBN  978-0-88064-261-3 . OCLC   316869398 .
• Фридрих, Карин (2000). Другая Пруссия: Королевская Пруссия, Польша и Свобода, 1569–1772 гг . Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-0-521-58335-0 . OCLC   827756844 .
• Гейнс, Джеймс Р. (2006). Вечер во дворце разума: Бах встречается с Фридрихом Великим в эпоху Просвещения . Нью-Йорк: Харпер Многолетник. ISBN  978-0-00-715658-0 . OCLC   1114563339 . .
• Герлиц, Вальтер (1957) [1950]. История немецкого генерального штаба, 1657–1945 гг . Нью-Йорк: Фредерик А. Прегер. OCLC   638655829 .
• Гуч, врач общей практики (1990) [1947]. Фридрих Великий, Правитель, Писатель, Человек . Лондон: Дорсет Пресс. ISBN  0-88029-481-7 . OCLC   945677799 .
• Гундольф, Фридрих (1972). «Очерк Фридриха о немецкой литературе» . В Парет, Питер (ред.). Фридрих Великий. Профиль . Нью-Йорк: Хилл и Ван. ISBN  0-8090-4678-4 . OCLC   1147898734 .
• Гамильтон, Эндрю (1880). «Королева» . Райнсберг: Мемориалы Фридриха Великого и принца Генриха Прусского . Том. Я. Лондон: Джон Мюррей. OCLC   831959319 .
• Хассал, Артур (1896). Баланс сил, 1715–1789 гг . Периоды европейской истории. Нью-Йорк: Макмиллан. OCLC   1013337056 .
• Хендерсон, Вирджиния (1963). Исследования экономической политики Фридриха Великого . Оксфордшир, Великобритания: Тейлор и Фрэнсис. ISBN  978-0-415-38203-8 . OCLC   762511848 .
• Герц, Дебора (2008). Как евреи стали немцами: история обращения и ассимиляции в Берлине . Издательство Йельского университета. ISBN  978-0-300-15003-2 . OCLC   1054870517 .
• Ходжеттс, Э. А. Брейли (1914). Жизнь Екатерины Великой в ​​России . Нью-Йорк: Бретано. OCLC   752702416 .
• Хоффманн, Хилмар (1997). Триумф пропаганды: кино и национал-социализм, 1933–1945, Том 1 . Книги Бергана. ISBN  978-1-57181-122-6 . OCLC   833642907 .
• Холборн, Хаджо (1982). История современной Германии: 1648–1840 гг . Том. 1. Издательство Принстонского университета. ISBN  978-0-691-00796-0 . OCLC   1043227086 .
• Какел, Кэрролл П. (2013). Холокост как колониальный геноцид: «индийские войны» Гитлера на «Диком Востоке» . Нью-Йорк: Спрингер. ISBN  978-1-137-39169-8 . OCLC   865160408 .
• Йоханссон, Уоррен (2016). «Фридрих II (Великий) Прусский (1712–1786)» . В Дайнсе, Уэйн Р. (ред.). Энциклопедия гомосексуализма . Том. I. Оксфордшир, Великобритания: Тейлор и Фрэнсис. стр. 428–429 .
• Каплан, Герберт Х. (1962). Первый раздел Польши . Нью-Йорк: Издательство Колумбийского университета. OCLC   59019600 .
• Кауфманн, Томас ДаКоста (1995). Двор, монастырь и город: искусство и культура Центральной Европы, 1450–1800 гг . Чикаго: Издательство Чикагского университета. ISBN  978-0-226-42729-4 . OCLC   904781018 .
• Кеннеди, Майкл ; Борн, Джойс, ред. (2006) [1985]. Оксфордский музыкальный словарь . Нью-Йорк: Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-861459-3 . OCLC   315814951 .
• Кершоу, Ян (2000). Гитлер 1936–1945: Немезида . Нью-Йорк: WW Нортон. ISBN  0-393-04994-9 . OCLC   759932866 .
• Кох, HW (1978). История Пруссии . Нью-Йорк: Barnes & Noble Books. ISBN  978-0-88029-158-3 . OCLC   878984854 .
• Конопчинский, Владислав (1919). Краткий очерк польской истории . Перевод Бенетта, Фрэнсиса. Женева: Imprimerie Atar. OCLC   1041592137 .
• Криммер, Элизабет ; Симпсон, Патрисия Энн (2011). "Введение" . В Криммере, Элизабет; Симпсон, Патрисия Энн (ред.). Просвещенная война: немецкие теории и культура ведения войны от Фридриха Великого до Клаузевица . Рочестер, Нью-Йорк: Камден Хаус. ISBN  978-1-282-99415-7 . OCLC   642845346 .
• Куглер, Франц Теодор (1845) [1840]. История Фридриха Великого: понимание полной истории Силезских кампаний и Семилетней войны . Перевод Мориарти, Эдвард Обри. Иллюстрировано Менцелем, Адольфом . Лондон: Генри Г. Бон. ОСЛК   249507287 .
• Кулак, Тереза ​​(2015). «Хозяйство и социально-экономические процессы в Силезском крае (с середины XVIII века до 1918 года)». В Харке, Люсина; Вишевский, Пшемыслав; Жерелик, Росцислав (ред.). Силезия под властью Гогенцоллернов (1741–1918) (PDF) . Кий регион? Идеологическое и территориальное единство Силезии (ок. 1000–2000). Том. 3. Вроцлав, Польша: eBooki.com.pl. OCLC   1073799048 . Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 26 июля 2020 года.
• Лэдд, Брайан (2018). Призраки Берлина: противостояние немецкой истории в городском ландшафте . Чикаго: Издательство Чикагского университета. ISBN  978-0-226-55872-1 . OCLC   1039503412 .
• Лависс, Эрнест (1892). «Конфликт между отцом и сыном» . Юность Фридриха Великого . Перевод Коулмана, Мэри Бушнелл. Чикаго: Григгс и компания. OCLC   560874037 .
• Либерлес, Роберт (2012). Евреи приветствуют кофе: традиции и инновации в Германии раннего Нового времени . Издательство Университета Брандейса. ISBN  978-1-61168-246-5 . OCLC   793207865 .
• Лифшиц, Ави (2021). Введение. Философские сочинения Фридриха Великого . Король Пруссии Фридрих II. Перевод ученого Анжелы. Принстон, Нью-Джерси: Издательство Принстонского университета. ISBN  9780691176420 . OCLC   1151104252 .
• Локк, Ян (1999). Великолепные монархи . Лондон: Макмиллан. п. 8. ISBN  978-0-330-37496-5 . OCLC   40982247 .
• Лонгман, Фредерик (1899). Фридрих Великий и Семилетняя война . Ф. В. Лонгман. ОСЛК   3555337 .
• Ловенштейн, Стивен М. (1994). Берлинская еврейская община: Просвещение, семья и кризис, 1770–1830 гг . Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-535942-8 . OCLC   468053530 .
• Луковский, Ежи Тадеуш (2013) [1991]. Безумие свободы: Речь Посполитая в восемнадцатом веке, 1697-1795 гг . Рутледж. п. 176. ИСБН  978-1-136-10364-3 . OCLC   469802840 .
• Луваас, Джей (1999) [1966]. Введение. Фридрих Великий о военном искусстве . Король Пруссии Фридрих II. Перевод Лувааса, Джея (ред.). Нью-Йорк: Свободная пресса. ISBN  0-306-80908-7 . OCLC   1023180593 .
• МакДонох, Джайлз (2000). Фридрих Великий: жизнь в делах и письмах . Нью-Йорк: Гриффин Святого Мартина. ISBN  0-312-25318-4 . OCLC   247328824 .
• Мелтон, Джеймс Ван Хорн (2001). Подъем общественности в Европе Просвещения . Кембридж, Великобритания: Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-0-521-46969-2 . OCLC   1267424369 .
• Миддлтон, Ричард (1985) [1692]. Колокола Победы. Министерство Питта-Ньюкасла и ведение Семилетней войны 1757–1762 гг . Кембридж, Великобритания: Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-0-521-26546-1 . OCLC   185308412 .
• Митфорд, Нэнси (1984) [1970]. Фридрих Великий . Нью-Йорк: EP Даттон. ISBN  0-525-48147-8 . OCLC   317097274 .
• Озмент, Стивен (2005). Могучая крепость: новая история немецкого народа . Нью-Йорк: Харпер Многолетник. ISBN  978-0-06-093483-5 . OCLC   876581764 .
• Филиппсон, Мартин (1905). «Первый раздел Польши и война за баварское наследство» . В Райте, Джон Генри (тр.) (ред.). Эпоха Фридриха Великого . История всех народов с древнейших времен: универсальная историческая библиотека. Том. XV. Филадельфия: Lea Brothers & Co. OCLC   7148407 .
• Реддэуэй, Уильям Фиддиан (1904). Фридрих Великий и возвышение Пруссии . Нью-Йорк: Сыновья ГП Патнэма. OCLC   1154299633 .
• Редман, Герберт Дж. (2014). Фридрих Великий и Семилетняя война 1756–1763 гг . Джефферсон, Северная Каролина: McFarland & Company. ISBN  978-0-7864-7669-5 . OCLC   911211481 .
• Рейли, Роберт Р. (1975). Введение. Об игре на флейте . Кванц, Иоганн Иоахим. Перевод Рейли, Эдварда Р. Нью-Йорк: Ширмер. OCLC   993453962 .
• Райнерс, Людвиг (1960). Фридрих Великий: Биография . Нью-Йорк: GP Putnam & Sons. OCLC   221946415 .
• Ричард, Эрнст (1913). История немецкой цивилизации. Общий обзор . Нью-Йорк: Издательство Macmillan. OCLC   551574 .
• Риттер, Герхард (1974) [1936]. Фридрих Великий: исторический очерк . Перевод Питера Перета. Беркли: Издательство Калифорнийского университета. OCLC   969781207 .
• Сент-Бёв, Шарль Огюстен (1877) [1865]. «Фридрих Великий» . Понедельник-чаты . Перевод Мэтьюза, Уильяма. Чикаго: Найт и Леонард. OCLC   226414234 .
• Шидер, Теодор (2000) [1983]. Фридрих Великий . Отредактировано и переведено Беркли, Сабиной и Скоттом, Ее Величество Нью-Йорк: Аддисон Уэсли Лонгманн. ISBN  0-582-01768-8 . OCLC   50663120 .
• Шуи, Флориан (2013). Мятежные пруссаки: городская политическая культура при Фридрихе Великом и его преемниках . Оксфорд, Великобритания: Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-959396-5 . OCLC   868492693 .
• Швейцер, Карл В. (1989). Англия, Пруссия и Семилетняя война: исследования политики альянса и дипломатии . Эдвин Меллен Пресс. ISBN  978-0-88946-465-0 . OCLC   925033688 .
• Скотт, Хэмиш (2001). Возникновение восточных держав 1756–1775 гг . Кембридж, Великобритания: Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-0-521-79269-1 . OCLC   45888917 .
• Шоу, Уильям Артур (1895). История валюты, 1252–1894: отчет о золотых и серебряных деньгах и денежных стандартах Европы и Америки, а также исследование влияния валютных и валютных явлений на коммерческий и национальный прогресс и благосостояние . Лондон: Уилсон и Милн. OCLC   472824658 .
• Шоуолтер, Деннис Э. (1986). Предисловие . Фридрих Великий: Великолепная загадка . Эспри , Роберт Б. Нью-Йорк: Тикнор и Филдс. ISBN  978-0-89919-352-6 . OCLC   1018166962 .
• Шоуолтер, Деннис Э. (1996). Войны Фридриха Великого . Лонгман. ISBN  978-0-582-06259-7 . OCLC   32236821 .
• Шоуолтер, Деннис Э. (2012). Фридрих Великий: Военная история . Барнсли, Великобритания: Книги о ручке и мече. ISBN  978-1-78303-479-6 . OCLC   848270249 .
• Саймон, Эдит. (1963). Становление Фридриха Великого . Бостон: Литтл, Браун и компания. OCLC   633592760 .
• Снайдер, Луи (1971). "Введение" . В Снайдере, Луи (ред.). Фридрих Великий . Энглвуд Клиффс: Прентис-Холл. ISBN  978-0-13-330605-7 . ОСЛК   111960 .
• Стерн, Фриц Ричард (1977). Золото и железо: Бисмарк, Бляйхредер и строительство Германской империи . Кнопф. ISBN  978-0-394-49545-3 . OCLC   895758966 .
• Столлберг-Риллинджер, Барбара (2018). Священная Римская империя: Краткая история . Принстон, Нью-Джерси: Издательство Принстонского университета. ISBN  978-0-691-17911-7 . OCLC   1077613642 .
• Стоун, Дэвид (2006). Борьба за Отечество: История немецкого солдата с 1648 года до наших дней . Херндон, Вирджиния: Потомакские книги. ISBN  978-1-84486-036-4 . ОСЛК   255309021 .
• Страчан, Хью (2000). «Военная модернизация, 1789-1918» . В Бланнинге, TCW (ред.). Оксфордская история современной Европы . Оксфорд, Великобритания: Издательство Оксфордского университета. ISBN  978-0-19-285371-4 . OCLC   1264970240 .
• Сабо, Франц. Эй Джей (2008). Семилетняя война в Европе . Оксфордшир, Великобритания: Фрэнсис и Тейлор. ISBN  978-0-582-29272-7 . OCLC   470987920 .
• Тетер, Магда (2005). Евреи и еретики в католической Польше: осажденная церковь в эпоху после Реформации . Кембридж, Великобритания: Издательство Кембриджского университета. ISBN  978-0-521-85673-7 . OCLC   1264880635 .
• Таттл, Герберт (1888). История Пруссии . Том. III. Нью-Йорк: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. OCLC   6178216 .
• Уэйт, Артур Эдвард (1994) [1921]. Новая энциклопедия масонства . Том. Я. Нью-Йорк: Wings Books. ISBN  978-0-517-19148-4 . OCLC   777435960 .

Журнальные статьи

• Арслефф, Ганс (1989). «Берлинская академия при Фридрихе Великом» . История гуманитарных наук . 2 (2): 193–206. дои : 10.1177/095269518900200203 . S2CID   144502234 .
• Эштон, Боди (2019). «Королевская власть, сексуальность и куртуазная мужественность: Фридрих Великий и Пруссия на пороге современности» (PDF) . Исторический журнал АНУ II (1): 109–136. дои : 10.22459/ANUHJII.2019.11 . S2CID   194264613 . Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 16 июля 2020 года.
• Бурк, Джон (1947). «Фридрих Великий как меломан и музыкант». Музыка и письма . 28 (1): 63–77. дои : 10.1093/мл/XXVIII.1.63 . JSTOR   854712 .
• Каджори, Флориан (1927). «Фридрих Великий о математике и математиках». Американский математический ежемесячник . 32 (3): 122–130. дои : 10.1080/00029890.1927.11986664 . JSTOR   2298702 .
• Каррут, Уильям Х. (1899). «Религия Фридриха Великого. С иллюстрациями Адольфа Менцеля» . Открытый суд . 1899 (10): 580–598. JSTOR   2298702 . Архивировано из оригинала 20 марта 2020 года.
• Фэй, Сидни Б. (1945). : Церковь и государство в Силезии при Фридрихе II (1740–1786) «Рецензируемая работа Фрэнсиса Хануса ». Американский исторический обзор . 50 (3): 527–528. дои : 10.2307/1843138 . JSTOR   1843138 .
• Формент, Бруно (2012). «Афины Фридриха: сокрушение суеверий и возрождение чудесного в Кенигличской оперном театре в Берлине». Кембриджский оперный журнал . 24 (1): 1–42. дои : 10.1017/S0954586712000146 . JSTOR   23256492 . S2CID   193195979 .
• Хаген, Уильям В. (1976). «Разделы Польши и кризис старого режима в Пруссии 1772-1806». Центральноевропейская история . 9 (2): 115–128. дои : 10.1017/S0008938900018136 . JSTOR   4545765 . S2CID   143976746 .
• Хаворт, Пол Леланд (апрель 1904 г.). «Фридрих Великий и американская революция». Американский исторический обзор . 9 (3): 460–478. дои : 10.2307/1833470 . hdl : 2027/loc.ark:/13960/t4dn4jz77 . JSTOR   1833470 .
• Израиль, Джонатан (2006). «Просвещение! Какое просветление? [Обзор Энциклопедии Просвещения ]». Журнал истории идей . 67 (3): 523–545. дои : 10.1353/jhi.2006.0025 . JSTOR   30141040 . S2CID   159524449 .
• Клиппель, Дитхельм (1999). «Правовые формы: изменение законодательства в Германии в старом режиме и в Формарце» (PDF) . Труды Британской академии . 100 : 43–59. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 2 марта 2021 года . Проверено 2 марта 2021 г.
• Клоес, Эндрю (2016). «Притворная ортодоксия в эпоху Просвещения: Фридрих Великий и его исповедание веры» . Гарвардское богословское обозрение . 109 (1): 102–128. дои : 10.1017/S0017816015000504 . S2CID   163011048 .
• Лангхоф, Ян Г; Гюльденберг, Стефан (2020). «Служащее лидерство: систематический обзор литературы — к модели предшественников и результатов» . Немецкий журнал управления персоналом . 34 (1): 32–68. дои : 10.1177/2397002219869903 . ISSN   2397-0022 . S2CID   203079516 .
• Лангхоф, Ян Г.; Гюльденберг, Стефан (2019). «Король Фридрих Великий – антимакиавеллиец и лидер-слуга?» . Журнал истории менеджмента . 26 (2): 137–164. дои : 10.1108/JMH-05-2019-0034 . ISSN   1751-1348 . S2CID   210582785 .
• Лоуи, Андреа Капелл (1990). «Фридрих Великий: флейтист и композитор». Музыкальный симпозиум колледжа . 30 (1): 117–125. JSTOR   40374049 .
• Олескевич, Мэри (осень 2012 г.). «Флейтист Сан-Суси: Фридрих «Великий» как композитор и исполнитель» (PDF) . Ежеквартальный журнал флейтистов . 38 (1): 18–26. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 14 мая 2021 года.
• Парет, Питер (2012). «Фридрих Великий: Необычная жизнь, отраженная по-разному» . Исторически говоря . 13 (1): 29–33. дои : 10.1353/hsp.2012.0011 . S2CID   161323897 .
• Пулвер, Джеффри (1912). «Музыка при дворе Фридриха Великого» . Музыкальные времена . 53 (835): 599–601. дои : 10.2307/907651 . JSTOR   907651 .
• Веревки, Артур Р. (1891). «Вторжение Фридриха Великого в Саксонию и прусские «Mémoire Raisonné», 1756 год». Труды Королевского исторического общества . 5 : 157–175. дои : 10.2307/3678050 . JSTOR   3678050 . S2CID   163496270 .
• Роуз, Дж. Холланд (1914a). «Фридрих Великий и Англия, 1756-1763». Английский исторический обзор . 29 (113): 79–93. дои : 10.1093/ehr/XXIX.CXIII.79 . JSTOR   551264 .
• Роуз, Дж. Холланд (1914b). «Фридрих Великий и Англия, 1756–1763 (продолжение)». Английский исторический обзор . 29 (114): 257–275. doi : 10.1093/ehr/XXIX.CXIV.257 . JSTOR   551224 .
• Шуи, Флориан (2011). «Оппозиция налогоплательщиков и налогово-бюджетная реформа в Пруссии около 1766-1787 гг.». Исторический журнал . 54 (2): 371–399. дои : 10.1017/S0018246X11000069 . JSTOR   23017977 . S2CID   159768370 .
• Спенсер, Фрэнк (1956). «Англо-прусский разрыв 1762 года: исторический пересмотр». История . 41 (141–143): 100–112. дои : 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1956.tb02169.x . JSTOR   24402910 .
• Терн, Клаудия (2008). «Фридрих II Прусский и придворная опера» [Фридрих II Прусский и оперный театр] (PDF) . Коллоквиум Friedrich300 (на немецком языке). 2 . ISSN   1867-948X . Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 12 сентября 2021 г.
• Терролл, Мэри (1990). «Культура науки в Берлине Фридриха Великого». История науки . 28 (4): 333–364. Бибкод : 1990HisSc..28..333T . дои : 10.1177/007327539002800401 . S2CID   143320471 .
• Валентин, Вьетнам (1934). «Некоторые интерпретации Фридриха Великого». История . Новая серия. 19 (74): 115–123. дои : 10.1111/j.1468-229X.1934.tb01802.x . JSTOR   24401202 .
• Вейль, Герман (1960). «Судебная реформа в Пруссии восемнадцатого века: Самуэль фон Кокчеджи и объединение судов». Американский журнал истории права . 4 (3): 226–240. дои : 10.2307/844051 . JSTOR   844051 .
• Уолтхолл, Чарльз (осень 1986 г.). «Посвящение Фридриху Великому — королевскому флейтисту» (PDF) . Ежеквартальный журнал флейтистов . Том. 11, нет. 5. С. 5–10. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 27 февраля 2021 года.

Диссертации и диссертации

• Смилл, Шерил Линн (2010). Как стать известным писателем: Франческо Альгаротти (1712–1764) и использование сетей в Европе восемнадцатого века (доктор философии). Университет Макгилла. Архивировано из оригинала 29 апреля 2021 года.
• Сторринг, Адам Линдси (2017). Фридрих Великий и смысл войны, 1730–1755 (PDF) (доктор философии). Кембриджский университет. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 12 ноября 2020 года.

Онлайн

• Алингс, Рейнхард (2022). «Не спрашивай – не говори – Был ли Фридрих геем?» . Фонд прусских дворцов и садов Берлин-Бранденбург, Новый дворец и парк Сан-Суси (на немецком языке). Архивировано из оригинала 29 июня 2022 года.
• «Картинная галерея в парке Сан-Суси в Потсдаме отмечает 250-летие выставкой» . artdaily.org . 2013.
• Барон, Клементина В. (2015). «Пруссия — это не страна, у которой есть армия, это армия, у которой есть страна».] . Исторические цитаты: Мирабо и Пруссия (на французском языке). Архивировано из оригинала 2 декабря 2020 года.
• Ситино, Роберт М. (2010). «Спросите MHQ: 10 лучших немецких военачальников по версии Роберта Ситино» . HistoryMet/ask-mhq-robert-citinos-top-10-german-military-commanders.htm . Архивировано из оригинала 30 июля 2016 года . Проверено 2 июня 2016 г.
• «Прусский король и его деньги» (PDF) . Немецкий Бундесбанк Евросистема . 2013. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 5 апреля 2021 года.
• Дас Гупта, Оливер (24 января 2013 г.). «Старый Фриц» — любитель животных . Süddeutsche Zeitung (на немецком языке). Архивировано из оригинала 21 декабря 2020 года.
• Донохью, Стив (2016). « Фридрих Великий иногда достигает величия» . Христианский научный монитор . Архивировано из оригинала 15 марта 2017 года.
• Гаффни, Томас Л. (15 июня 2020 г.). «Двуглавый орел и масонство шотландского обряда» (PDF) . Совет Колорадо Кадош Орейшн . Архивировано (PDF) из оригинала 16 мая 2021 года . Проверено 21 декабря 2022 г.
• "Geschichte der St. Hedwigs-Kathedrale" [История собора Святой Ядвиги]. Санкт-Хедвиг Митте (на немецком языке). Архивировано из оригинала 19 июля 2021 года . Проверено 4 сентября 2021 г.
• Хайльбрунн, Якоб (12 сентября 2012 г.). «Из Пруссии с любовью» . Нью-Йорк Таймс . Архивировано из оригинала 19 сентября 2015 года.
• «Категория: Федерик II» . Международный проект библиотеки музыкальных партитур (IMSLP)/Музыкальная библиотека Петруччи . 2018. Архивировано из оригинала 3 февраля 2022 года.
• Крисмански, Бернд (2022). «Правдиво ли Хогарт изображает старого фрица с кривым клювом? - Знакомые нам картинки от Песне до Мензеля этого не показывают» (PDF) . Гейдельбергский университет: arthistoricum.net . стр. 24–30. Архивировано (PDF) из оригинала 9 декабря 2022 года.
• Джонс, Тамара (18 августа 1991 г.). «Фридрих Великий в мире, а не в Германии» . Лос-Анджелес Таймс . Архивировано из оригинала 8 ноября 2020 года.
• Лау, Карлхайнц (2012). «Фридрих II - Фридрих Великий: ГДР и прусский король» [Фридрих II - Фридрих Великий: ГДР и прусский король]. bpb.de (на немецком языке). Архивировано из оригинала 17 августа 2021 года . Проверено 17 сентября 2021 г.
• «Der preußische «Kartoffelkönig» » [Прусский «Картофельный король»]. Die Welt (на немецком языке). 2012. Архивировано из оригинала 2 января 2021 года.
• Робинсон, Мэтт (2021). «Привез ли Фридрих Великий картофель в Германию? – Разрушение мифов о Берлине» . Берлинские впечатления . Архивировано из оригинала 11 декабря 2023 года.
• Сгард, Жан. «Бойер Д'Аржанс» . Dictionnaire des Journalistes (1600–1789) (на французском языке). Архивировано из оригинала 10 ноября 2013 года.
• Зонтхаймер, Михаэль [на немецком языке] (март 2016 г.). Фридрих II в Пруссии и Мария Терезия в Австрии. Их борьба за власть разделила империю». « Плохой человек: соперники едва ли могут быть более разными, чем Их борьба за власть расколола империю. Германская империя 962–1871: Возникновение нации (на немецком языке). Зеркало . стр. 104–107. Архивировано из оригинала 12 июля 2018 года.

Аудиовизуальный

• Бланнинг, TCW (2015). «В наше время: Фридрих Великий» . Звуки BBC (подкаст). Брэгг, Мелвин (ведущий), Коль, Кэтрин и Бишоп, Томас.

Первоисточники

• де Катт, Анри (1916) [1884]. Фридрих Великий: Мемуары его читателя Анри де Катта (1758–1760) . Том. I. Перевод Флинта, ФС Лондон: Констебль и компания.
• де Катт, Анри (1916) [1884]. Фридрих Великий: Мемуары его читателя Анри де Катта (1758–1760) . Том. II. Перевод Флинта, FS Лондон: Констебль и компания.
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (2015) [1740]. «Глава I: Что такое сильный принц на самом деле и как этого достичь» . Опровержение принца Макиавелли, или АнтиМакиавелла . (Анонимный перевод).
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1834 г.) [1740 г.]. Фридлендер, Готлиб (ред.). АнтиМакиавелли или экзамен принца «Де Макиавелли»: Corrigé pour la plus grande party d'après le manuscrite original de Frédéric II [ АнтиМакиавелли или исследование «Государя» Макиавелли: исправлено по большей части из оригинального манускрипта Фридриха II ] (на французском языке). Гамбург: Фридрих Пертес.
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1740 г.). Вольтер (ред.). Анти-Макиавелли, или, Essai de critique sur le Prince de Machiavelli [ Анти-Макиавелли или Критическое эссе о принце Макиавелли ] (на французском языке). Брюссель: Франсуа Поппинс.
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1971) [1769]. «Завещание Фридриха, 1769 год» . В Снайдере, Луи Л. (ред.). Фридрих Великий . Энглвуд Клиффс, Нью-Джерси: Прентисс-Холл. стр. 69–73. OCLC   1158321391 .
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1758) [1750]. «О нравах, обычаях, промышленности и прогрессе человеческого понимания в искусстве и науках» . Мемуары Бранденбургского дома, к которым добавлены четыре диссертации . Лондон: Дж. Нурс. стр. 280–281 .
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1758) [1750]. «Суеверия и религия» . Мемуары Бранденбургского дома, к которым добавлены четыре диссертации . Лондон: Дж. Нурс. п. 239 .
• Король Пруссии Фридрих II (1970) [1752]. «Политический завет» (PDF) . В Макартни, Калифорния (ред.). Династии Габсбургов и Гогенцоллернов в семнадцатом и восемнадцатом веках . Перевод Макартни, Калифорния, Нью-Йорк: HarperCollins. Архивировано из оригинала (PDF) 24 февраля 2021 года — через «История Германии в документах и ​​изображениях».
• Валори, Ги Луи Анри (1820). маркиза де Валори ( Воспоминания о переговорах на французском языке). Париж: Chez Firmin Didot, Pere et Fils.
• Вильгельмина Прусская, маркграфина Бранденбург-Байройтская (1888 г.). Мемуары Вильгельмины, маркграфины Байрейтской . Перевод принцессы Кристиан Шлезвиг-Гольштейн . Нью-Йорк: Харпер и братья.

Внешние ссылки

• Работы Фридриха Великого или о нем в Интернет-архиве
• Работы Фридриха Великого в Project Gutenberg
• Цифровое издание произведений Фридриха Великого в Трирском университете (на немецком и французском языках)
• Бесплатные партитуры Фридриха Великого в рамках Международного проекта библиотеки музыкальных партитур (IMSLP)
• Бесплатные партитуры в проекте Mutopia
• История Фридриха II Прусского , Томас Карлайл в Project Gutenberg
• Вольтер и Фридрих Великий , автор Литтон Стрейчи, в Интернет-архиве.