The New International Encyclopædia/Frederick II., the Great

​FREDERICK II. (1712–86). King of Prussia from 1740 to 1786, known as the Great. He was born January 24, 1712, and was the son of Frederick William I. (q.v.) of Prussia and of Sophia Dorothea, daughter of George I. of England. The plan of education pursued by his father soon tended to render their relations unbearable. Frederick William insisted on instilling into his son his own practical instincts, and stifled the literary and artistic impulses which Frederick manifested at an early age. For the son’s faults, his inclination to extravagance and self-indulgence, the father had nothing but the harshest repressive measures. At last Frederick determined to escape the parental tyranny by flight to England. The plot was discovered, and the most severe punishment followed. Frederick’s aider and abettor, Lieutenant Katte, was beheaded before his eyes, and the Prince himself was led to expect a similar fate. The father, however, relented, and Frederick was placed, instead, in the War and Domain Bureau at Cüstrin, and made to work as an assistant clerk. Here he learned most valuable lessons with regard to the task of administering a great kingdom. A reconciliation finally took place between father and son. The only act which Frederick never forgave his father was his forced marriage, for reasons of State policy, with Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern, whom he respected but never loved.

Frederick’s great wars fall in the first half of his reign. Almost immediately after his accession, on the news of the death of the Emperor Charles VI., and the accession of his daughter, Maria Theresa, in the Hapsburg dominions, he invaded Silesia, basing his claim to a large part of the country on an old transaction in which Austria had played a grasping and dishonest part. (See Succession Wars.) In the first battle of the Silesian campaign—that of Mollwitz, April, 1741 Frederick’s General (Schwerin) found the situation so critical that he urged the King to fly for his life, and Frederick did not know until the next day that he had won the victory. Mollwitz gained for Frederick the French alliance, and practically decided the campaign. After the victory of Frederick at Chotusitz, Maria Theresa agreed to the Peace of Breslau (1742), in which France, however, was not included. In this treaty Austria ceded most of Silesia to Prussia. Two years later Frederick reëntered the struggle, ostensibly as the champion of the Emperor, the Bavarian Charles VII. France was still his ally, while Maria Theresa could count on England, Saxony, and Holland. Frederick took Prague, but was forced to abandon the city and make a disastrous retreat. He soon retrieved his fortunes, however, at Hohenfriedberg (June, 1745), and his victory over the Saxons at Kesseldorf (December, 1745) was followed by the Treaty of Dresden, which was a repetition of the Peace of Breslau. In 1756 Maria Theresa, inconsolable for the loss of Silesia, formed an alliance against Prussia with France (the old enemy of the Hapsburgs), Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. England, as the enemy of France, now sided with Frederick. The King of Prussia at once descended upon Saxony, thus opening the great struggle which involved all the European powers and their colonies. (See Seven Years’ War.) The outcome of this gigantic conflict, which was the culmination of Frederick’s military career, but which taxed the resources of his little kingdom to their utmost, left Prussia in 1763 territorially unchanged, and in the enjoyment of great military prestige.

Frederick had come through the war without incurring a national debt or increasing the direct taxes; on the other hand, he had inflated the currency; but by wise measures he soon put the finances of Prussia on a sound basis. He practiced the most rigid economy in the royal household, and was enabled to spend large sums in agricultural and industrial improvements. He reclaimed thousands of acres of waste land by a system of canals and drainage, peopled them with colonists, and set on foot a large number of industries, visiting at intervals every part of his dominions. He began a codification of the law, abolished serfdom within the royal domains, insisted on the impartial administration of justice, granted freedom of speech, and, at least in literary and scientific matters, liberty of the press. Tolerant toward every form of religious belief, he was one of the most intolerant of autocrats toward his Ministers. To his enlightened despotism were due the regulation of customs and the equalization of taxation. He grimly put a tax on the hired Hessians that passed through his dominions, as ‘on cattle bought and sold.’ Frederick took a great interest in the American Revolution, and admired and appreciated the greatness of Washington, and was one of the first sovereigns to conclude a commercial treaty with the United States. The desertion of Prussia by England at the critical period in the Seven Years’ War had inspired in Frederick a bitterness toward the latter country which permanently influenced his foreign policy. On the other hand, he had drawn closer to Russia after the death of his uncompromising enemy, the Empress Elizabeth, and he and Catharine II. were able to see their value as allies to each other: hence the partition of Poland.

Frederick’s relation to the intellectual development of Germany was peculiar. Although Prussia had become through him one of the great Continental powers, he had no sympathy whatever with German national aspirations. While he foresaw the future literary greatness of ​Germany, he ignored the eminent writers who were appearing upon the scene, and despised the German language, which he never wrote with ease. French he spoke and wrote fluently, though he did not spell it correctly. He cultivated the society of French writers and scholars, among them Voltaire and Maupertuis, whom he invited to Sans Souci. He was consistent in his admiration of Voltaire, though not blind to his personal weaknesses. Conversation with his literary friends, and playing on the flute, on which he was a really skillful performer, were Frederick’s only relaxation from incessant work. He was a voluminous writer. Of his numerous works, the most important are: Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Brandebourg; Histoire de la guerre de Sept Ans; and the Anti-Macchiavel, written before he became King, in which he laid down his views on government. The Berlin Academy published an edition of his collected works, in thirty volumes, edited by Preuss (1846–57).

Throughout his reign Frederick took the greatest interest in the improvement of the Prussian Army. He wrote for the guidance of his generals a number of works covering the whole science of war; and the army, which numbered 80,000 men when he ascended the throne, had been increased to nearly 200.000 in his lifetime. Frederick died August 17, 1786, at Sans Souci.

Consult: Tuttle, History of Prussia Under Frederick the Great (3 vols., Boston, 1888), the best work in English, unfortunately cut short at 1757 by the death of the scholarly author; Longman, Frederick the Great and the Seven Years’ War (New York, 1881), a useful little compendium. Carlyle, History of Frederick II. (London, 1888), is, on the whole, inadequate as history. These are the principal useful works in English. The greatest living authority is Koser, whose Friedrich der Grosse als Kronprinz (Stuttgart, 1901) is a small classic. His larger history is nearing completion. See also Lavisse, La jeunesse du grand Frédéric (Paris, 1891), and Le grand Frédéric avant l’avènement (Paris, 1893); Preuss, Friedrichs des Grossen Lebensgeschichte (Berlin, 1832–34); Kugler, Geschichte Friedrichs des Grossen (12th ed. Leipzig, 1887); and numerous other general and special studies, a bibliography of which may be found in Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire générale, vol. vii. (Paris, 1893–1900).

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FREDERICK THE GREAT

FROM A PAINTING BY GEORGE MEYN