Frederick the great, the third king of Prussia, Frederick II, is one of the most outstanding leaders in German history and a brilliant myth of modern Germans.
Frederick was born in 17 14, and was deeply influenced by the Enlightenment in his early years. 1833, at the order of his father, King friedrich wilhelm, Frederick married Elizabeth of Brunswick-Bevan, Princess of Burns. In the same year, under the arrangement of his father, he began to contact with national politics and often visited countries as an imperial envoy. 1835 was sent to rhinesburg as a local governor. In the meantime, he wrote a political work "Anti-machiavellianism", which put forward the concept of "public servant" for the first time, and pointed out that the so-called king should take "the first public servant of the country" as the criterion, rather than playing politics. This book was well received by Voltaire. Since then, Frederick and Voltaire began to communicate closely.
When Frederick was 28, King friedrich wilhelm died of a heart attack. Frederick succeeded to the throne, known as Frederick II in history. When friedrich wilhelm died, he left Frederick II an elite standing army of 80,000 people, equivalent to the number of Austrian troops at that time, but the latter was ten times larger than Prussia. After taking office, Frederick immediately showed his outstanding leadership and abundant energy.
The Holy Roman Emperor charles vi died in 1740, and his daughter Tracy succeeded him as emperor. Frederick joined forces with France to send troops to Austria on the pretext that women had no right to inherit. However, Frederick's real intention was to seize the opportunity to annex the rich Silesia province. The sudden invasion of Silesia by 30,000 troops led by Frederick led to the first Silesia War, and Prussia finally won the rich Silesia.
However, peace did not last long. In 1744, Austria regained its vitality under the management of Queen Tracy, and Frederick felt that Austria's revived Silesia status was very unstable. So he launched another war, the second Silesia War. On February 25th, 65438, Prussia signed the Dresden Peace Treaty with Austria and Saxony. According to the peace treaty, Austria ceded almost the whole Silesia to Prussia, and the Second Silesia War ended. When welcoming Frederick's triumph, Berlin citizens first shouted the slogan "Long live the emperor", and then Frederick II won the title of "Friedrich the Great".
After that, Prussia ushered in ten years of peace. Frederick also began to turn his attention to domestic construction. First of all, under his auspices, the Berlin Academy of Sciences was established, and he himself became an honorary member. At the same time, Frederick began to allocate a royal fee as a science scholarship to encourage the development and progress of science and technology. On the other hand, he reformed basic education, requiring all aristocratic children to study in schools, and male children must also enter military schools and serve in the army for at least five years. With regard to the education of civilians, he also adopted the policy of popularizing compulsory education, and strived to improve the education level and quality of the whole country. On the other hand, Frederick also opened the freedom of speech and publication in Prussia for the first time, broke the news imprisonment of newspapers, and even allowed bookstores in Berlin to publicly display caricatures of him.
Frederick founded the Prussian National Bank and relaxed the conditions for lending to bankrupt farmers. Prussia's official international trade organization (Seehandelung) was also established, and Frederick himself became a major shareholder, mastering the privilege of overseas trade, mastering the patent of salt, and dealing in wood and iron products. This can be regarded as one of the precursors to the implementation of state capitalism. At the same time, it began to establish a national welfare system to help the vulnerable groups displaced by the war, provide free food for the poor, and open nursing homes for thousands of elderly people. For the sake of national unity and unity, Frederick was generous to all religious factions. Catholicism, Protestantism and even Judaism are treated equally. In his view, everyone can "enter heaven in his own way".
For Prussia, the most important thing is that Frederick personally participated in the formulation and promulgation of a national code, the Prussian National Law, which abolished all kinds of old feudal laws and regulations in various places and eliminated many traditional bad habits. This became the first book in Germany to abandon medieval habits, and it also had obvious enlightenment legacy. Frederick also took this opportunity to transform Prussia's judicial institutions and introduce the jury system.
Frederick didn't want the soaring military expenditure to affect or even destroy the development of the whole national economic system. So he put 80% of his income into the construction of the national army and tried not to deduct it from the budget of the national government. In this way, the policy of strengthening the army and the existence of the government will not bring too much negative impact on the development of capitalism. On the contrary, when Germany entered capitalism, these factors played a special leading role. 1747, Frederick wrote Military Instructions, a western military classic. His works summed up his own military experience and put forward some military viewpoints, which had a considerable influence on Napoleon's military thought and the formation of the German army in later generations and even the European and American troops today. He even put forward the most famous military truth, "this is the eternal axiom in war-to ensure your own flank and rear, and try to detour the enemy's flank and rear."
He trained the Prussian army severely and even cruelly, and was also famous for his strict stick discipline, requiring soldiers to obey orders as their first duty, even if they died, they would not retreat half a step. However, this does not mean that he is unkind to his subordinates. He himself said, "If soldiers are allowed to bleed for no reason, it is inhuman slaughter."
1752, the friendship between Frederick and Voltaire was further deepened. He invited Voltaire in exile to Berlin, and Voltaire agreed happily. At this time, in his view, Frederick was undoubtedly what he called an "enlightened despot". But then there was a rift between Frederick and Voltaire. On the one hand, Voltaire felt that Frederick was not enlightened enough. On the other hand, Frederick felt that Voltaire was too idealistic and purely a visionary. Results 1753 broke up and Voltaire left Berlin. However, the friendship between the two men was quickly rebuilt, and they kept in touch through letters, even during the next seven years' war.
In order to fight against the increasingly powerful Prussia, Austria began to contact France to discuss the possibility of an alliance. After Frederick discovered it, he concluded a defense alliance with Britain in June 65438 +0756 +65438 10, and the two sides signed the Treaty of Westminster. Later, stimulated by this treaty, France and Austria finally signed the Treaty of Versailles, which is also the nature of the defense alliance.
1756 On August 29th, Frederick, who was good at pre-empting, sent troops to Saxony for the first time, which started the Seven-Year War. Although the war went smoothly in the early days, with Russia, Sweden and other countries joining the Treaty of Versailles, Frederick was soon outnumbered. East Prussia was quickly occupied by Russia, Berlin was once attacked by Austrian troops, and Prussia almost perished.
However, 1762 1.5, Russian czar Elizabeth? Petrovna died of illness. Peter III, with Prussian descent, succeeded to the throne, and Peter III was Frederick's crazy worship and follower. He immediately ordered all Russian troops to cease fire and return all the land occupied by Russian troops to Prussia. Since then, on May 5, it signed an alliance treaty with Prussia, not only withdrawing from the anti-Prussian alliance, but also handing over 80,000 Russian troops to Frederick. Immediately, Sweden had to withdraw from the war, and Prussia miraculously turned defeat into victory.
1763, 15 In February, Prussia, Austria and Saxony signed the Hubertusburg Treaty, ending the seven-year war. After seven years of bloody national subjugation, Frederick miraculously defeated Austria and saved Silesia.
After the victory of the war, Frederick quickly and wholeheartedly began to devote himself to national reconstruction. He dismissed a large number of troops and sent them as reserves to the destroyed villages for reconstruction and reclamation. At the same time, the tax reduction policy was implemented for five consecutive years, and the country's productivity was carefully restored. At the same time, the policy of setting up tariff barriers to the outside world was adopted to help the industrial and commercial revival that was almost destroyed in the war. I drastically cut court expenses and ordered nobles to pay taxes. In this way, by 1770, Prussia's national situation had completely recovered, even surpassing that before the war in some aspects.
Prussia participated in three partition actions in Poland. During the American War of Independence, Frederick stood with France and supported the independence struggle between France and the American 13 colony. Frederick himself was more enthusiastic about the establishment of the continental army and encouraged officers in the general army to serve as volunteer officers in the United States. When the Declaration of Independence was published, he personally wrote a personal letter to George Washington. The book says, "The oldest general in Europe pays tribute to the most outstanding general in the new world." He has always been regarded as an idol and close friend by Washington.
Frederick left 30 volumes of works, including 7 volumes of history, 6 volumes of poetry and 3 volumes of military monographs. In addition to military regulations, it also includes modern history, seven-year war history, military suicide note, military model, disposal method and tactical outline, Brandenburg history and so on.
Frederick is good at playing the flute. He often gives concerts in his official residence and receives the guidance of musicians. He even discussed the range of the flute with Bach, and his playing skills were highly praised by Bach. He composed nearly 1000 pieces of flute music. Thanks to Frederick's efforts and innovation, the art of flute in Prussia has developed rapidly. Later musicians called it "the revival of flute" and "one of the greatest musicians in German history". Frederick also formulated modern flute playing norms and techniques.
By 1786, 72-year-old Frederick, like his father, died of heart failure and was childless for life. When the news of his death spread all over the world, Austrian emperor Joseph II said with great emotion: "An era is over." In the newly established United States, Washington asked all American troops to fly their flags at half mast. Twenty years after Frederick's death, Napoleon defeated the Prussian army in the battle of Jena, went to his grave, pointed a whip at his tombstone and said to his generals, "If he were still alive, we wouldn't be standing here."
Under the management of frederick the great, Prussia formally rose to become a European power. This is not only military, but also economic and cultural, which laid a solid foundation for Prussia to unify Germany in the future, thus opening a new chapter in history.