Frederick The Great: The First Modern Military Celebrity

By Dennis Showalter | Military History  | 2 comments  | Print This Post  | Email This Post

In the end, it was their king who kept the Prussian army on task in the war’s waning years. Frederick was in part a figurehead, a tangible focus for soldiers in the absence of such ideals as patriotism or religion. But the campfire tales and tavern legends did not rest entirely on a phantasm sustained by the gallows and the firing squad. Frederick demonstrated the kind of endurance he demanded of his men. On the march and in camp he was present and visible. His soldiers had seen Frederick rally the broken ranks at Hochkirch and knew a spent ball had struck him at Torgau. This was no Alexander, no white-plumed Henry of Navarre. Frederick was a workaday warrior who commanded respect by not demanding it.

Likewise, Prussian officers were neither courtiers nor uniformed bureaucrats, but men of war. Frederick’s indifference to dress and rank set the tone: Officers’ insignia were not introduced until after the war, and Frederick granted lieutenants the same direct access as that granted to generals. And the king’s unpredictable harshness contributed not a little to the cohesion of his officers.

Frederick’s demeanor also struck a chord among his soldiers. Warfare in the 18th century was largely a matter of endurance rather than performance. While battles seldom lasted longer than a day, their close-quarters nature tried a soldier’s capacity to stand firm. Campaigns, particularly in the barren expanses of East Prussia and central Europe, were exercises in survival. By willingly sharing the general lot of his soldiers, Frederick engendered admiration as well as loyalty.

What today’s soldiers might refer to as “chickenshit” was also remarkably absent from a Prussian camp. While expecting clockwork precision on parade, Frederick didn’t drive hard on field exercises. Pickets and sentries were kept to a minimum. Duties were functional and shared within each company. Discipline was relaxed while on the march. Frederick enjoyed riding along with his men and trading barbs with them in dialect. Only in camp would he impose his authority; and in common parlance, it was as if God himself had descended to earth dressed in a common soldier’s blue coat.

Following the 1763 Treaty of Hubertusburg, Frederick’s image as general, statesman and Landesvater (father of his country) only flourished, despite his professed indifference to public opinion. In fact, this nonchalance paradoxically enhanced the king’s appeal. In turn, Prussia’s reputation attracted soldiers and administrators from throughout Germany. They wanted to be part of the best.

Postwar adulation of Frederick’s military genius was by no means universal among his officers, who remembered the fiascoes as well as the triumphs. But with the passage of time, the Seven Years’ War took on a meaning for them similar to that held by veterans of the American Civil War a century later. It was the defining event of their lives, not to be trivialized. Perhaps things had not been as bad as they recalled. While Frederick lived, his critics kept silent.

By the mid-1770s, the Prussian army looked on Frederick as a symbol of past glories and future hopes. A parallel could be drawn to Robert E. Lee’s status in the Army of Northern Virginia by the end of 1862. In each case independent thought gave way to a general feeling the “old man” knew what he was doing, even if the wisdom of a particular course might not be apparent. Dissent was tantamount to disloyalty.

Ironically, the monarch who initially sought a state and an army in which charismatic leadership was superfluous ultimately became the center of the first modern cult of personality. To a degree, “Old Fritz” was the creation of his soldiers and subjects, a Teflon monarch to whom no criticism stuck because he was a projection of their own needs, desires and myths. For good or ill, Frederick II of Prussia remains Frederick the Great.

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Tags: 17th - 18th Century, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, Social History