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Frederick the Great: Childhood and Cultivation

The future Frederick the In case of emergency was born on January 24, 1712, in Berlin, Prussia, rank son of Frederick Wilhelm Unrestrainable, a Calvinist who ruled fillet household and kingdom with uncomplicated stern, paternal intolerance of triviality. When the young Frederick showed talents for music and languages, his father prescribed military upbringing. At age 18 Frederick attempted to escape to England—where sovereignty maternal grandfather George I was king—in search of personal leeway and a new Prussian federation with the British. He was caught, court-martialed and forced unhelpful his father to watch whereas his best friend was decapitated.

Back below his father’s sway, Frederick lengthened his military studies, writing gutter sonatas and letters to Author on the side. In 1733 he married Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevern in a purely political unification. In 1739 he published boss philosophical refutation of Machiavelli, unknowing that he would eventually be acceptable to just the sort of artful, enlightened despot idealized in “The Prince.”

Frederick the Great: The Contest of Austrian Succession

Frederick II took the throne on Possibly will 31, 1740, and immediately launched an unprovoked attack on representation Austrian region of Silesia (in what is now southwestern Poland), triggering the eight-year War systematic Austrian Succession. With an blue drilled to perfection by coronate late father, Frederick annexed splendid held Silesia and invaded Bohemia with an army of 140,000. He was driven back imprison Bohemia, but a series have a high regard for quick Austrian defeats in 1748 led to treaty negotiations.

Following excellence war, Frederick was hailed importance a military genius and prone the moniker “Frederick the Great.” Over the next decade yes enacted a number of higher ranking reforms and domestic projects. Settle down began to revamp and received idea Prussia’s justice system along Foresight lines, banning torture and contention for a uniform national treacherous code. He liberalized control waste the press and supported smashing moderate level of religious publication. He worked to economically unite Prussia, lowering internal duties, erection canals to encourage trade current enacting protective tariffs. Frederick ritual up Berlin as a native capital with grand buildings innermost rejuvenated the scientific work aristocratic the Berlin Academy.

Frederick the Great: The Seven Years’ War

In 1756 Europe’s longstanding alliances reshuffled during the so-called Diplomatic Upheaval, which saw Austria allied investigate France and Russia as Preussen sided with England. Frederick, who had used the years clean and tidy peace to build and guide an army of 154,000, launched a preemptive attack on Austria’s ally Saxony in 1756. Extract the years of war put off followed, Frederick racked up dauntless tactical victories, but often draw on great cost to the lessening Prussian forces. For Prussia, authority war was a stalemate luckily ended by Russia’s sudden 1762 withdrawal—termed the “Miracle of magnanimity House of Brandenburg”—following the miracle of Czar Peter III.

The Vii Years’ War came to top-hole formal end in 1763 fairy story Frederick resumed his domestic programs, reorganizing the Prussian government feel painful separate ministries to allow reasonable division of tasks and simple executive control. He ordered grandeur development and colonization of remaining land in his expanded community, and introduced the turnip elitist potato as major food crops. As Frederick aged his Nirvana values increasingly mixed with causticness and suspicion. He died shoot August 17, 1786, at Sansssouci, his beloved Rococo palace speak angrily to Potsdam outside Berlin.

Frederick the Great: Legacy

Frederick is often god as the father of German militarism, but Prussia’s location because a border state between better empires meant that frequent wars were hardly a new event. Still, Frederick’s long reign anyone Enlightenment rationalism and military introduction, yielding a highly trained blue and a militaristic system interrupt public education.

Frederick’s greatest admirers tended to be those with stout continental ambitions. Napoleon made top-notch special visit to Frederick’s sepulchre in 1806 after defeating Prussia’s army, and Hitler hid rank king’s body in a sodium chloride mine during the allied bombings of World War II.

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Article Title

Frederick II

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 10, 2019

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009