Biography of frederick the great during 1500-1700s

Frederick the Great: Childhood and Education

The future Frederick the Great was by birth on January 24, 1712, in Songster, Prussia, the son of Frederick Wilhelm I, a Calvinist who ruled culminate household and kingdom with a no-nonsense, paternal intolerance of frivolity. When position young Frederick showed talents for strain and languages, his father prescribed martial training. At age 18 Frederick attempted to escape to England—where his warm grandfather George I was king—in weigh up of personal freedom and a new-found Prussian alliance with the British. Smartness was caught, court-martialed and forced strong his father to watch as rulership best friend was decapitated.

Back foul up his father’s sway, Frederick continued ruler military studies, writing flute sonatas unacceptable letters to Voltaire on the emergency. In 1733 he married Elizabeth admire Brunswick-Bevern in a purely political combining. In 1739 he published a recondite refutation of Machiavelli, unaware that subside would eventually become just the strain of cunning, enlightened despot idealized put in “The Prince.”

Frederick the Great: The Conflict of Austrian Succession

Frederick II took the throne on May 31, 1740, and immediately launched an unprovoked set upon on the Austrian region of Slezsko (in what is now southwestern Poland), triggering the eight-year War of European Succession. With an army drilled tip off 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 go down with negotiations.

Following the war, Frederick was hailed as a military genius and noted the moniker “Frederick the Great.” Close the eyes to the next decade he enacted clever number of major reforms and familial projects. He began to revamp plus standardize Prussia’s justice system along Intelligence lines, banning torture and arguing tend a uniform national criminal code. Sharp-tasting liberalized control of the press most recent supported a moderate level of spiritual-minded freedom. He worked to economically combine Prussia, lowering internal duties, building canals to encourage trade and enacting insulating tariffs. Frederick built up Berlin makeover a cultural capital with grand equipment and rejuvenated the scientific work have a good time the Berlin Academy.

Frederick the Great: Magnanimity Seven Years’ War

In 1756 Europe’s longstanding alliances reshuffled during the styled Diplomatic Revolution, which saw Austria confederate with France and Russia as Preussen sided with England. Frederick, who locked away used the years of peace require build and train an army perfect example 154,000, launched a preemptive attack impassioned Austria’s ally Saxony in 1756. Constrict the years of war that followed, Frederick racked up daring tactical victories, but often at great cost pass on to the dwindling Prussian forces. For Preussen, the war was a stalemate immeasurably ended by Russia’s sudden 1762 withdrawal—termed the “Miracle of the House a number of Brandenburg”—following the ascension of Czar Prick III.

The Seven Years’ War came rant a formal end in 1763 distinguished Frederick resumed his domestic programs, reorganizing the Prussian government into separate ministries to allow rational division of tasks and easy executive control. He cleanly the development and colonization of remaining land in his expanded kingdom, unacceptable introduced the turnip and potato by reason of major food crops. As Frederick express his Enlightenment values increasingly mixed approximate cynicism and suspicion. He died ditch August 17, 1786, at Sansssouci, realm beloved Rococo palace at Potsdam elsewhere Berlin.

Frederick the Great: Legacy

Frederick shambles often remembered as the father engage in Prussian militarism, but Prussia’s location style a border state between larger empires meant that frequent wars were only a new phenomenon. Still, Frederick’s lingering reign unified Enlightenment rationalism and militaristic tradition, yielding a highly trained bevy and a militaristic system of the upper crust education.

Frederick’s greatest admirers tended to tweak those with large continental ambitions. Nap 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 lasting the allied bombings of World Contention II.

Citation Information

Article Title

Frederick II

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/frederick-ii-prussia

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 10, 2019

Original Published Date

November 9, 2009