C O V E R S T O R Y

Crazy, vindictiveand nasty,

but still great

FREDERICK IIDennis Showalter

Frederick U's first act on assuming [he throne of Prussia in1740 was to take his state to war—a consequence, helater explained, of possessing a weli-trained army, a fulltreasury and a desire to eslabüsh a reputation. For thenext quarter century he confronted Europe in arms andemerged victorious, but at a price that left his kingdomshaken to its physical and moral core. As many as a quar-

ter million Prussians died in uniform, to say nothing of civilianlosses. Provinces were devastated, people scattered, the currencydebased. The social contract of the Paissian state—service andloyalty in return ior stability and proteciion—was broken.

Despite such costs, Frederick always makes the short list of his-tory's great captains. Yel that legacy is no less questionable: In areign that stretched to 1786, Prussia's military leader focused ondrill and discipline, leaching the army of initiative and inspiration.He insisted that common soldiers should fear their own officersmore than the enemy, yet monitored his generals so closely thatnone could be trusted to perform independently. Frederick car-ried grudges against entire regiments for decades.

In an age when physical courage was taken for granted insenior officers, Frederick tv̂ dce left major battlefields—Mollwitzin 1741 and Lohositz in 1756—under dubious circumstances.Nor was his post-battle behavior such as to impress fightingmen. After the defeat of Kolin in 1757, he spent hours aimlesslydrawing circles in the dirt with a stick, then left his army, ex-plaining that he needed rest. After losing at Kunersdorf in 1759,the king turned command over to a subordinate, grandiloquentlydeclaring he would not survive the disaster. A more generous gen-

In this 18th century painting, Frederick tl, king of Prussia, takeson the mantle of "Old Fritz," a visible presence on the march.

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1ILITARY HISTORY

eration may speak of post-traumaticstress- Eighteenth century armies hadblunter words for such conduct. Never-theless, the man who brought Prussiathrough three brutal wars, oversaw ilsreconstruction and secured its status asa great power was far more than thesum of his negatives.

As crown prince, Frederick hadconcluded that Prussia, whichstretched from the Rhine Riverdeep into the

Kingdom of Poland,could not avoid beingdrawn into conflict\'irtually anywhere inEurope. But his coun-try lacked the mili-tary, economic anddiplomatic strengthto support its geo-graphic position. Ex-pansion was a ne-cessity, not just forPrussia's welfare, butfor its very survival.

Frederick rational-ized his position by appealing to "reasonof state," a principle independent ofmoral guidelines applying to individu-als. His Anti-Machiaviel, publishedanonymously in 1740—the year of hisaccession to the throne—argued thatlaw and ethics in intemationai relationsshould be based on neither the interestsof the ruler nor those of his people. In-stead, they should be fundamentallyconsistent, subject lo rational calcula-tion and governed by principles thatcould be learned and applied in thesame way one maintains and repairs aclock. This trope remained central to hisforeign policy throughout his reign.

Fredericks concept of statecraft inturn convinced him that Prussia mustfight only short, decisive wars—partly

To a degree,'Old Fritz'was thecreation

of hissoldiers and

subjects,a Teflonmonarch

to conserve scarce resources, partly toconvince the losers to make and keepthe peace, and partly to deter potentialchallengers. This required developmentof a forward-loaded military, able tospring to war from a standstill withstrong initial results.

While Frederick did not necessarilyseek battle for its own sake, he heldnothing back once the fighting started.His enemies responded by denying himthe initiative whenever possible, fight-

ing only under favor-able conditions andlimiting their tacticalcommitments.

Early on, Freder-ick would experiencethe randomness ofcombat. At the Battleof Moilwitz in 1741,ihe day seemed thor-oughly lost until thelast-gasp advance ofihe Prussian infantryiLirned the tide. The1745 Battle of Soorbegan when the Aus-

irians surprised the Prussian camp andended when Frederick improvised vic-tory from the sheer fighting power of hismen. The 1758 Battle of Hochkirch wasan even more comprehensive surprisethat Frederick dismissed as an outpostfight until taught better by round shotfrom his own captured guns. He re-sponded to these reverses by striving tomake Prussia's militar '̂ indomitable, thusminimizing what Prussian genera! andmilitary theorist Carl von Clausewitz(1780-1831) would later call the "fog andfriction" of war. Even in peacetime, Fred-erick's army would account for as muchas three-fourths of public expenditure.

In ]8th century Prussia, all citizensowed service to the state. The burden ofdirect military service fell entirely on

The 1758 Battle of Zorndorf, in which Frederic

such least-favored subjects as farmworkers, peasants and unskilled urbanworkers. The conscripiion process sys-tematically lapped Prussia's domesticmanpower. It succeeded less by directcompulsion than due to the willingnessof families and communities to lurnisha limited proportion of their sons eachyear, and the state allowed local entitieslatitude in deciding which individualswould serve.

FREDERICK THE PRETTY GOOD? From the Silesian Wars (1740-1742 and 1744-1745) through the Seven Years* Wa

o

Battle of MollwitzSilesiaApril 10,1741Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

Battle of CbotusitzBobemiaMay 17,1742Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

eattleofHobenfriedburgSilesiaJune 4,1745Vs. Austria, SaxonyOutcome: Victory

Battle of SoorBobemiaSeptember 30,1745Vs. Austria, SaxonyOutcome: Victory

Battle oflennersdortMoraviaNovember 24,1745Is. Austria, SaxonyOutcome: Victory

Battle of LobositzSaxonyOctober 1,1756Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

Battle of PragueBobemiaMay 6.1757/S.Austria)utcome: Victory

Battle of KolinBohemiaJune 18.1757Vs. AustriaOutcome: Defeat

ILITARY HISTORY

tops won a brutal but inconclusive victory over the Russians, typifies the randomness of conflict during the Seven Years' War.

Building on that good faith, Freder-ick iniegrated the state economy into itswar-making function. He instiluiional-ized annual field exercises involving asmany men as might serve in a fair-sizedbattle—44,000 in 1753. While expen-sive, sueh maneuvers were not just forshow. They served to test formationsand tactics, to practice large-scale ma-neuvers, to achieve precise concertamong regiments and to accustom

senior officers to handling troops understress. They were also public displays ofraw power, designed to deter any statethinking of confronting "Old Fritz" andhis faithful grenadiers.

The failure of that deterrence, andthe resulting Seven Years' War (1756-1763) between Prussia and the coalitionof Austria, Russia and France, testedFrederick's system to its limits, produc-ing some surprising results.

Compulsion might put men inuniform, but neither force norconditioning can keep men inthe ranks at the height of abattle, particularly during the era of theSeven Years' War, when conflict resem-bled nothing so much as feeding twocandles into a blowtorch and seeingwhich melted first.

A soldier's relationship to the statediffers essentially from all others because

(1756-1763), Frederick's war record is a mix of decisive wins and crushing defeats that led to uitimate victory.

B;9tlle or RossbachSaxonyHovember 5,1757Vs. France, HolyRoman EmpireOutcome: Victory

Battle of LeuthenSilesiaDecember 5,1757Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

Battle of ZorndorfSilesiaAugust 25,1758Vs. RussiaOutcome: Stalemate

Battle of HochkirchSaxonyOctober 14,1758Vs. AustriaOutcome: Defeat

Battle of KunersdorfSilesiaAugust 12,1759Vs. Russia, AustriaOutcome: Defeat

Battle of TorgauSaxonyRovember3.n60Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

Battle Qf BurkersdorfSilesiaIuly21,1762Vs. AustriaOutcome: Victory

Treaty of Hubertusbu^February 15,1763Austria and Saxouyrecognize Prussianpossession of Silesia

it involves a commitment to dying. Yetfor most soldiers the "death clause" re-mains largely dormant. An individualcan spend 30 honorable years in uni-form and face only collateral risks suchas training accidents. Even in war thecommitment is not absolute. As casualtylists mount, however, soldiers are in-creasingly likely to scrutinize the moralfine print in their agreements with theirrespective states.

During the Landsknecht era of the late15th to îate 16th century and the ThinyYears" War (1618-1648), becominga sol-dier meant being able to carry a sword,wear outrageous clothing and swaggerin ways denied the peasant or artisan. Inlater years the introduction of uniformsand systematic enforcement of campand garrison discipline removed muchof the patina of liberty from a life thaiwas likely to be nasty, brutish and short.In its place emerged a commitment-dependence cycle, whereby the statedemonstrated concern for the soldiers'well-being as a means of boosting thesoldiers' dependence on the state.

Frederick took the commitment-dependence cycle further than any of hiscounterparts. Prussia's uniforms wereamong ihe best in Europe. Its medicalcare in peace and war was superior tothat typically available to civilians. Itsveterans had good opportunities forpublic employment or maintenance inone of the garrison companies thatserved as both local security force andde facto retirement home. As the SevenYears' War dragged on, however, retain-ing a soldiers fealty would require morethan material appeals. It would takeleadership, and not merely that of abattle captain but a Kiicgshcir (warlord).

At the 1757 Battle of Kolin, in one ofthe final desperate attacks against theAustrian line, Frederick would shiftfrom an institutionalized model of lead-ership to one far more personal, seekingfor the first time to inspire his men di-rectly While his battle cr)' of "Rogues!Do you want to live forever?" wasscarcely on a par with the rhetoric of aJulius Caesar, it did strike at least oneresponsive chord, when a musketeerreportedly repîied. "Fritz, we've earnedour 50 cents for today!"

While almost certainly apocryphal,the exchange is portentous. The armyhad suffered heavy and irreplaceable ca-sualties at Lobositz, Kolin and in Frontof Prague. Russian troops invaded EastPrussia that summer, while a mass ofFrench troops reinforced with contin-gents from the Holy Roman Empire ad-vanced against Frederick from the west.The king's unprovoked attack on Saxony

* After thedefeat of Kolin

in 1757, he spenthours aimlesslydrawing circlesin the dirt with

a stick, thenleft his army'

and subsequent plundering of that statehad deprived him of whatever s>Tnpathyhe might have garnered elsewhere inGermany Pmssia's prospects were grim.

The victory at Rossbach on Novem-ber 5, 1757, furthered Frederick's trans-formation. The phrase allegedly utteredby a French officer to his Prussian captor,•'Sir, you are an army—we are a travel-ing whorehouse," reflected a baggagetrain that actually did include "valets,ser\'ants, cooks, hairdressers, courtesans,priests and actors...dressing gowns,hairnets, sunshades, nightgowns andparrots." Propagandists seized on thatfact to trumpet the purported Prussianvirtues of simplicity and chastity, andFrederick became legend, unwittinglylending his name to taverns, streets andtowns as far off as Pennsylvania.

As Frederick had learned, however,warfare can be random. The Prussian sur-render at Breslau on November 25,1757,marked the nadir of an ill-conductedlocal campaign that left Berlin v-ulnerable,and when the king arrived in Silesia onDecember 2, he was left with one option:fight.. .and win. His behavior over thecoming days would lay the foundationsfor the myth of Old Fritz. Contempo-rar>' accounts describe a man overcom-ing sickness and exhaustion, movingfrom bivouac to bivouac, warming him-self at the men's fires, listening to storiesand hearing complaints, and promisingreward for loyal service. The kingcapped his performance on December 3,when he invited not only his generalsbut also the army's regiment and battal-ion commanders to his headquarters.

Frederick appeared before his offi-cers not as a commander radiating con-fidence and vitality, but as a tired, agingman in a threadbare and snuff-staineduniiorm. The army, he declared in abarely audible voice, would attack. Itsonly alteiTiatives were \ictory or death,"We are fighting for our glory, for ourhonor and for our wives and chil-dren .., .Those who stand with me canrest assured I will look after their fami-lies if they are killed. Anyone wishing loretire can go now, but will have no fur-ther claim on my benevolence," Lestanyone think he had gone soft, Freder-ick finished by vowing that any cavair)'regiment failing in its duty would loseits horses and any infantr)' battalion thaiflinched faced confiscation of its colors,the ceremonial braid from its uniformsand even its swords.

The Parchwitz speech, named for thecampsite, was a subtle blend of sincer-ity and artifice that lost nothing in theretelling. Years afterward men could re-metnber everything they saw andheard—regardless of whether they wereactually present. Two days later, on De-cember 5, 1757, the Pnjssian army out-maneuvered, then smashed, the Austriansat Leuthen.

After Leuthen there were no moreeasy victories, no more brilliant maneu-vers—just the close-quaners massacresat Zorndorf (1758) and Kunersdorf inSilesia (1759), at Hochkirch (1758) and

ILITARY HISTORY

finally at Torgau (1760). None suggesteda warrior king who led by force of willand intelligence. Yet his amiy enduredpart of the winter of 1759-60 in tentspitched on the Silesian plateau. Whileshort on rations and racked by dysen-tery and respiratory diseases, it neitherexploded in mutiny nor dissolved in de-senion. The following summer, many ofthe same men took part in a month'sworth of forced marches that saw manystragglers but few deserters.

These were no longer the seasonedsoldiers who had filled Prussia's ranksin 1756. By the spring of 1761, ihree-fifths of the army's replacements stiilcame from the regimental depots, butmany were foreigners—prisoners of warpressured into taking new colors,brought in by recruiting pañíes that dif-fered little from press gangs, the flotsamof five years' hard war. About half of theprewar officer corps was gone, andsome of their replacements were asyoung as 13. Yet this unpromising amal-gam continued to stand its groundagainst steadily improving enemies.When Russia's Empress Elizabeth diedunexpectedly in 1763, Erederick wasable to exit from the Seven Years War,his kingdom and reputation intact.

I n the end, it was their king who keptthe Prussian army on [ask in thewar's waning years. Frederick was inpart a figurehead, a tangible focusfor soldiers in the absence of such idealsas patriotism or religion. But the camp-fire tales and tavern legends did not restentirely on a phantasm sustained by thegallows and the ftring squad. Frederickdemonstrated the kind oí endurance hedemanded of his men. On the marchand in camp he was present and visible.His soldiers had seen Frederick rally thebroken ranks at Hochkirch and knew aspent ball had struck him at Torgau.This was no Alexander, no white-plumed Henry of Navarre. Frederickwas a workaday warrior who com-manded respect by not demanding it.

Likewise, Prussian officers were nei-ther couniers nor uniformed bureaucrats,but men of war. Frederick's indifferenceto dress and rank set the tone: Officers'insignia were not introduced until after

the war, and Frederick granted lieu-tenants the same direct access as thatgranted to generals. And the king's un-predictable harshness contributed nota little to the cohesion of his officers.

Frederick's demeanor also strucka chord among his soldiers. Warfare inthe 18th century was largely a matter ofendurance rather than performance.While battles seldom lasted longer than

* Postwaradulation

of Frederick'smilitary genius

was by nomeans universal

among hissenior officers*

a day, their close-quarters nature tried asoldier's capacity to stand firm. Cam-paigns, particularly in the barren ex-panses of East Prussia and centra!Furope, were exercises m survival. Bywillingly sharing the general lot of hissoldiers, Frederick engendered admira-tion as well as loyalty

What today's soldiers might refer toas "chickenshit" was also remarkablyabsent from a Prussian camp. While ex-pecting clockwork precision on parade,Erederick didn't drive hard on field ex-ercises. Pickets and sentries were kept toa minimum. Duties were functional andshared within each company Disciplinewas relaxed while on the march. Fred-erick enjoyed riding along with his menand trading barbs with them in dialect.Only in camp would he impose his au-

thority; and in common parlance, it wasas if God himself had descended to earthdressed in a common soldier's blue coat.

Following the 1763 Treaty of Hu-bertusburg, Frederick's image asgeneral, statesman and Landes-vater (father of his country) onlyflourished, despite his professed indif-ference to public opinion. In fact, thisnonchalance paradoxically enhancedthe king's appeal. In turn, Prussia's repu-tation attracted soldiers and administra-tors from throughout Germany. Theywanted to be part of the best.

Postwar adulation of Frederick's mili-tary genius was by no means universalamong his officers, who rememberedthe fiascoes as well as the triumphs. Butwith the passage of time, the SevenYears' War took on a meaning for themsimilar to that held by veterans of theAmerican Civil War a century later. Itwas the defining event of their lives, notto be trivialized. Perhaps things hadnot been as bad as they recalled. WhileFrederick lived, his critics kept silent.

By the mid-1770s, the Prussian armylooked on Frederick as a symbol of pastglories and future hopes. A parallelcould be drawn to Robert E. Lee's statusin the Army of Northern Virginia bythe end of 1862. In each case independ-ent thought gave way to a general feel-ing the "old man" knew what he wasdoing, even if the wisdom of a particu-lar course might not be apparent. Dis-sent was tantamount to disloyalty

Ironically, the monarch who initiallysought a state and an army in whichcharismatic leadership was superfluousultimately became the center of the firstmodem cult of personality To a degree,"Old Fritz" was the creation of his soldiersand subjects, a Teflon monarch to whomno criticism stuck because he was a pro-jection of their own needs, desires andmyths. For good or ill, Frederick 11 ofPrussia remains Frederick the Great. (Sb

For further reading, Dennis Showallerrecommends: Frederick the Great, byTheodor Schieder, edited and translated bySabrina Berkeley and H.M. Scott; andFrederick the Great: King of Prussia, byDavid Fraser.