Frederick II’s first act on assuming the throne of Prussia in 1740 was to take his state to war—a consequence, he later explained, of possessing a well-trained army, a full treasury and a desire to establish a reputation. For the next quarter century he confronted Europe in arms and emerged victorious, but at a price that left his kingdom shaken to its physical and moral core. As many as a quarter million Prussians died in uniform, to say nothing of civilian losses. Provinces were devastated, people scattered, the currency debased. The social contract of the Prussian state—service and loyalty in return for stability and protection—was broken.

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Despite such costs, Frederick always makes the short list of history’s great captains. Yet that legacy is no less questionable: In a reign that stretched to 1786, Prussia’s military leader focused on drill and discipline, leaching the army of initiative and inspiration. He insisted that common soldiers should fear their own officers more than the enemy, yet monitored his generals so closely that none could be trusted to perform independently. Frederick carried grudges against entire regiments for decades.

In an age when physical courage was taken for granted in senior officers, Frederick twice left major battlefields—Mollwitz in 1741 and Lobositz in 1756—under dubious circumstances. Nor was his post-battle behavior such as to impress fighting men. After the defeat of Kolin in 1757, he spent hours aimlessly drawing circles in the dirt with a stick, then left his army, explaining that he needed rest. After losing at Kunersdorf in 1759, the king turned command over to a subordinate, grandiloquently declaring he would not survive the disaster. A more generous generation may speak of post-traumatic stress. Eighteenth century armies had blunter words for such conduct. Nevertheless, the man who brought Prussia through three brutal wars, oversaw its reconstruction and secured its status as a great power was far more than the sum of his negatives.

As crown prince, Frederick had concluded that Prussia, which stretched from the Rhine River deep into the Kingdom of Poland, could not avoid being drawn into conflict virtually anywhere in Europe. But his country lacked the military, economic and diplomatic strength to support its geographic position. Expansion was a necessity, not just for Prussia’s welfare, but for its very survival.

Frederick rationalized his position by appealing to “reason of state,” a principle independent of moral guidelines applying to individuals. His Anti-Machiaviel, published anonymously in 1740—the year of his accession to the throne—argued that law and ethics in international relations should be based on neither the interests of the ruler nor those of his people. Instead, they should be fundamentally consistent, subject to rational calculation and governed by principles that could be learned and applied in the same way one maintains and repairs a clock. This trope remained central to his foreign policy throughout his reign.

Frederick’s concept of statecraft in turn convinced him that Prussia must fight only short, decisive wars—partly to conserve scarce resources, partly to convince the losers to make and keep the peace, and partly to deter potential challengers. This required development of a forward-loaded military, able to spring to war from a standstill with strong initial results.

While Frederick did not necessarily seek battle for its own sake, he held nothing back once the fighting started. His enemies responded by denying him the initiative whenever possible, fighting only under favorable conditions and limiting their tactical commitments.

Early on, Frederick would experience the randomness of combat. At the Battle of Mollwitz in 1741, the day seemed thoroughly lost until the last-gasp advance of the Prussian infantry turned the tide. The 1745 Battle of Soor began when the Austrians surprised the Prussian camp and ended when Frederick improvised victory from the sheer fighting power of his men. The 1758 Battle of Hochkirch was an even more comprehensive surprise that Frederick dismissed as an outpost fight until taught better by round shot from his own captured guns. He responded to these reverses by striving to make Prussia’s military indomitable, thus minimizing what Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) would later call the “fog and friction” of war. Even in peacetime, Frederick’s army would account for as much as three-fourths of public expenditure.

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