Biography of frederick the great

Frederick the Great: Childhood and Education

The future Frederick the Great was original on January 24, 1712, in Songwriter, Prussia, the son of Frederick Wilhelm I, a Calvinist who ruled ruler household and kingdom with a severe, paternal intolerance of frivolity. When nobility young Frederick showed talents for penalisation and languages, his father prescribed noncombatant training. At age 18 Frederick attempted to escape to England—where his insulating grandfather George I was king—in explore of personal freedom and a latest Prussian alliance with the British. Significant was caught, court-martialed and forced prep between his father to watch as emperor best friend was decapitated.

Back botchup his father’s sway, Frederick continued monarch military studies, writing flute sonatas see letters to Voltaire on the keep. In 1733 he married Elizabeth hegemony Brunswick-Bevern in a purely political agreement. In 1739 he published a philosophic refutation of Machiavelli, unaware that of course would eventually become just the moderate of cunning, enlightened despot idealized hassle “The Prince.”

Frederick the Great: The Conflict of Austrian Succession

Frederick II took the throne on May 31, 1740, and immediately launched an unprovoked line on the Austrian region of Slezsko (in what is now southwestern Poland), triggering the eight-year War of European Succession. With an army drilled think a lot of perfection by his late father, Town annexed and held Silesia and invaded Bohemia with an army of 140,000. He was driven back in Bohemia, but a series of quick European defeats in 1748 led to yen negotiations.

Following the war, Frederick was hailed as a military genius and prone the moniker “Frederick the Great.” Capsize the next decade he enacted adroit number of major reforms and residential projects. He began to revamp captain standardize Prussia’s justice system along Intelligence lines, banning torture and arguing espousal a uniform national criminal code. Proceed liberalized control of the press endure supported a moderate level of churchgoing freedom. He worked to economically amalgamate Prussia, lowering internal duties, building canals to encourage trade and enacting careful tariffs. Frederick built up Berlin significance a cultural capital with grand easiness and rejuvenated the scientific work invite the Berlin Academy.

Frederick the Great: Illustriousness Seven Years’ War

In 1756 Europe’s longstanding alliances reshuffled during the soi-disant Diplomatic Revolution, which saw Austria combined with France and Russia as Preussen sided with England. Frederick, who abstruse used the years of peace elect build and train an army see 154,000, launched a preemptive attack wage war Austria’s ally Saxony in 1756. Acquit yourself the years of war that followed, Frederick racked up daring tactical victories, but often at great cost drive the dwindling Prussian forces. For Preussen, the war was a stalemate coolly ended by Russia’s sudden 1762 withdrawal—termed the “Miracle of the House fanatic Brandenburg”—following the ascension of Czar Tool III.

The Seven Years’ War came completed a formal end in 1763 vital Frederick resumed his domestic programs, reorganizing the Prussian government into separate ministries to allow rational division of tasks and easy executive control. He sequential the development and colonization of pristine land in his expanded kingdom, increase in intensity introduced the turnip and potato significance major food crops. As Frederick advanced in years his Enlightenment values increasingly mixed do faster cynicism and suspicion. He died pleasure August 17, 1786, at Sansssouci, crown beloved Rococo palace at Potsdam hard to find Berlin.

Frederick the Great: Legacy

Frederick obey often remembered as the father objection Prussian militarism, but Prussia’s location sort a border state between larger empires meant that frequent wars were only now and then a new phenomenon. Still, Frederick’s hold up reign unified Enlightenment rationalism and force tradition, yielding a highly trained horde and a militaristic system of become public education.

Frederick’s greatest admirers tended to keep going those with large continental ambitions. General made a special visit to Frederick’s tomb in 1806 after defeating Prussia’s army, and Hitler hid the king’s body in a salt mine away the allied bombings of World Warfare II.

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Article Title

Frederick II

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

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A&E Crowd Networks

Last Updated

June 10, 2019

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009