From: Joe Johnson <jjohnson%astroatc.UUCP@cs.wisc.edu>
Subject: Frederick the Great, Bavaria and Ludwig II.
Organization: NCR Corporation -- Law Department
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 17:34:57 GMT


From Joe Johnson <jjohnson%astroatc.UUCP@cs.wisc.edu>

>From richard welty <welty@balltown.cma.com>

>In article <BzB9qq.16v@law7.DaytonOH.NCR.COM> you write:
>>From "patterson,george r" <patter@dasher.cc.bellcore.com>

>>So, finally, we get to his son, Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), who
>>fought wars with virtually any Germanic noble who resisted him, nearly
>>unifying the Germanic states. This gave him the power to successfully
>>fight Austria, France, and Russia. It was during his reign that units of
>>the Bavarian military became Prussian. Of course, your ancestor may have
>>been a mercenary soldier; much of the Prussian army were mercenaries.

>umm, not really.  Bavaria was an independent kingdom until the
>very end of the 1800s, when german politics and chancellor Bismark finally
>forced Bavarian King Ludwig (sometimes characterized as ``mad Ludwig'') to
>acknowledge Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia as the German emperor, thus creating
>the Second Reich.

>cheers,
>  richard

To start with Frederick, he did not come close to unifying Germany; at the
time of his death in 1786, there were between 300 and 400 separate German
states within the Holy Roman Empire. German unification was not Frederick's
goal - he wanted to raise Prussia to the same level as the other major
German power Austria, and he succeeded more or less.

Frederick fought two major wars, both of which were fought primarily
against Austria. Shortly after he came to the throne in 1740, Frederick
went back on his approval of the Pragmatic Sanction and attacked Austria.
His goal was to force Maria Theresa to give up Silesia, and after a
struggle of a few years, Austria ceded Silesia to Prussia, ending the War
of the Austrian Succession. Maria Theresa made recovery of Silesia a top
priority, which (among other factors) led to the Seven Years War in 1756,
with Austria, Russia and France pitted against the UK and Prussia. Most of
the smaller German states chose one side or the other; I believe Bavaria
fought against Prussia, but I'm not certain.

Frederick's situation in 1756 was not good: he was facing the bulk of the
Austrian and Russian armies. On the other hand, the Prussian army was
qualitatively better, Frederick himself was an able general, and the
Austrians and Russians had trouble coordinating their military actions.
Frederick had a number of major victories, but he suffered a roughly equal
number of defeats. By 1762 he was in big trouble. Berlin had been
temporarily occupied at least once, the Prussian economy was ruined and
Frederick was seriously thinking about suicide - as opposed to surrender.
At this point the Russian Czarina died and the coalition against Frederick
fell apart. Frederick even got to keep most of Silesia in the peace
settlement.

Frederick fought in no other major wars, and spent the rest of his reign
rebuilding Prussia. Apart from Silesia, his only other major acquisition
was the Polish territory he took in the 1st Partition of Poland.

With regard to Bavaria, it, along with a number of other German states,
remained fully independent until 1871. During the Franco-Prussian war, the
German princes, including the King of Bavaria, offered the office of
Emperor to the King of Prussia and the Second Reich was created. Of course
this was pretty much as Bismarck had planned. The Empire was federal in
nature, so all of the members (roughly 26 I think - Prussia was the
largest and Bavaria was second) retained control over their own internal
matters; all of the foreign policy was handled from Berlin. The states even
retained some control over their own armed forces. The Wittelsbachs thus
ruled in Bavaria until the revolution of November 1918 forced them out,
along with the Kaiser, the King of Saxony, etc.

Ludwig II (the "mad" king) was deposed by a group that included members of
his own family, mainly due to his spendthrift ways. I don't recall the date
offhand, but I think it was in the late 1880s. He had essentially
bankrupted the state with his castle building program. Bismarck liked
Ludwig and was sympathetic to his plight, but felt that he could not
interfere in what was an internal Bavarian dispute. After Ludwig's death
(suicide or murder?) he was succeeded by an uncle or maybe a cousin.

joe

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