Frederick The Great

Frederick William was persuaded by Prince Eugene of Savoy to marry off his son Frederick II with Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Bevern, a scion of a minor German princely family. Though he resented the political marriage, Frederick II reluctantly gave in to the marriage on June 12, 1733.

Although he hardly cared for his wife and categorically neglected her including preventing her to visit his court in Potsdam after he became the king in 1740, she always remained devoted to her husband. He granted her the ‘Schönhausen Palace’ and several apartments at the ‘Berliner Stadtschloss’.

He made his brother Augustus William ‘Prince of Prussia’, the heir to the throne.

He was born on January 24, 1712, in Berlin to Frederick William I and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. His father became the King of Prussia in 1713 succeeding his grandfather Frederick I and he became the crown prince.

His father was a martinet who advocated centralized government and reined Brandenburg-Prussia with absolute monarchy and was considered a paranoiac who possessed a violent temper.

He was taken care of by the Huguenot governesses in his childhood along with several tutors. His education and upbringing was strictly and vehemently controlled by his father with whom he soon developed a bitter conflict and faced physical violence, humiliation and public criticism.

Since his father intensely scorned off his interest in arts and literature, he secretly maintained a library with the aid of his tutor Jacques Duhan, where he obtained books on French philosophy, poetry and Roman and Greek classics.

His mother, daughter of future King George I of Britain, was a polite and knowledgeable lady.

His first experience in active military service was during the ‘War of the Polish Succession’ when Prussia aided Austria with troops to combat France in the Rhineland. He came under the tutelage of the great Austrian commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy.

On May 31, 1740 when he became the King of Prussia succeeding his father, most of his territories were scattered and disconnected. With the objective of expanding and uniting several territories of Prussia, he successfully fought many wars.

He raised dispute on Maria Theresa’s succession after the death of her father Emperor Charles VI of the Holy Roman Empire. On December 16, 1740 the ‘War of Austrian Succession’ started and continued till 1748 and he soon invaded Silesia and occupied it in no time.

A series of Silesian wars followed. On April 10, 1741 he encountered the first major battle in Silesia, ‘Battle of Mollwitz’. Although Prussia became victorious in the battle, Frederick mistaken to have been defeated by the Austrians fled the battlefield giving command of the army to Field Marshal Kurt Schwerin, a move he later regretted.

On May 17, 1742 in the ‘Battle of Chotusitz’ the Austrian troops again combated the Prussian army but faced defeat by the powerful force led by Frederick II. The Austrians were compelled to sign the ‘Treaty of Breslau’ with Prussians in June 1742 that allowed Austria to retain only one section of Upper Silesia, the ‘Austrian or Czech Silesia’ while Prussia took control of rest of Silesia and Glatz County.