Frederick II

(noun)

Frederick II (24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was a King in Prussia (1740–1772) and a King of Prussia (1772–1786) from the Hohenzollern dynasty. He is best known as a brilliant military campaigner and organizer of Prussian armies.

Related Terms

Examples of Frederick II in the following topics:

  • The Peace of Paris

    • The Treaty of Paris took no consideration of Great Britain's battered continental ally, Frederick II of Prussia.
    • Frederick would have to negotiate peace terms separately, in the Treaty of Hubertusburg.
    • For decades following the Seven Years War, Frederick II would consider the Treaty of Paris as a British betrayal.

  • A World War

    • For the Seven Years War, the British chose the greatest military strategist of the day, Frederick the Great (Frederick II) and his kingdom of Prussia as their principal partner.
    • Prussia was the rising power in central Europe and the British paid Frederick substantial subsidies to support his campaigns.
    • Having received reports of the clashes in North America and having secured the support of Great Britain with an Anglo-Prussian alliance, Frederick II crossed the border of Saxony, one of the small German states in league with Austria.
    • By 1763 Frederick had Silesia under his control and had occupied parts of Austria.

  • Frederick the Great

    • Frederick, the son of Frederick William I and his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, was born in Berlin in 1712.
    • With the death of Frederick I in 1713, Frederick William became King of Prussia, thus making young Frederick the crown prince.
    • Tensions eased slightly when Frederick William visited Küstrin a year later and Frederick was allowed to visit Berlin on the occasion of his sister Wilhelmine's marriage to Margrave Frederick of Bayreuth in 1731.
    • Frederick was restored to the Prussian Army as colonel.
    • Describe elements of Frederick II's upbringing and transformation into a Prussian leader

  • The Hohenzollerns

    • Frederick VI of Nuremberg was officially recognized as Margrave and Prince-elector Frederick I of Brandenburg at the Council of Constance in 1415.
    • The next elector, Frederick II, forced the submission of Berlin and Cölln, setting an example for the other towns of Brandenburg.
    • In 1701, Frederick crowned himself Frederick I, King in Prussia.
    • Frederick I, Elector of Brandenburg, also called Frederick VI of Nuremberg
    • At the Council of Constance in 1415, King Sigismund elevated Frederick to the rank of Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I.

  • Enlightened Despotism

    • Enlightened despotism is the theme of an essay by Frederick the Great, who ruled Prussia from 1740 to 1786, defending this system of government.
    • Catherine II of Russia was the most renowned and the longest-ruling female leader of Russia, reigning from 1762 until her death in 1796.
    • Calling himself the guardian of Catholicism, Joseph II struck vigorously at papal power.
    • Joseph II is plowing the field near Slawikowitz in rural southern Moravia on 19 August 1769.
    • Joseph II was one of the first rulers in Central Europe, who attempted to abolish serfdom but his plans met with resistance from the landholders.

  • Bohemian Period

    • The Bohemian Revolt (1618–1620) was an uprising of the Bohemian estates against the rule of the Habsburg dynasty, in particular Emperor Ferdinand II, which triggered the Thirty Years' War.
    • In 1609, Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia (1576–1612), increased Protestant rights.
    • Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609).
    • They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, Elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the Protestant Union).
    • After the death of Matthias in 1619, Ferdinand II was elected Holy Roman Emperor.

  • Danish Intervention

    • After the Bohemian Revolt was suppressed by Ferdinand II, the Danish King Christian IV, fearing that recent Catholic successes threatened his sovereignty as a Protestant nation, led troops against Ferdinand.
    • After this catastrophe, Frederick V, already in exile in The Hague, and under growing pressure from his father-in-law, James I, to end his involvement in the war, was forced to abandon any hope of launching further campaigns.
    • Frederick was forced to sign an armistice with Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, thus ending the 'Palatine Phase' of the Thirty Years' War.
    • Wallenstein pledged his army, which numbered between 30,000 and 100,000 soldiers, to Ferdinand II in return for the right to plunder the captured territories.
    • At this point, the Catholic League persuaded Ferdinand II to take back the Lutheran holdings that were, according to the Peace of Augsburg, rightfully the possession of the Catholic Church.

  • Prussia Under Frederick the Great

    • In 1781, Frederick decided to make coffee a royal monopoly.
    • An important aspect of Frederick's efforts is the absence of social order reform.
    • Frederick also loved animals and founded the first veterinary school in Germany.
    • Just like Catherine II, he recognized the educational skills the Jesuits had as an asset for the nation and was interested in attracting a diversity of skills to his country, whether from Jesuit teachers, Huguenot citizens, or Jewish merchants and bankers.
    • Analyze Frederick the Great's domestic reforms and his relationship with the Junker class

  • The Triumphs of Tsarina Elizabeth I

    • Elizabeth's half-nephew Peter II (the son of her half-brother from her father's first marriage) succeeded her mother and after his death in 1730, Elizabeth's first cousin, Empress Anna (ruled 1730-40), daughter of Peter the Great's elder brother Ivan V, ruled Russia.
    • Elizabeth regarded the 1756 alliance between Great Britain and Prussia as utterly subversive of the previous conventions between Great Britain and Russia and sided against Prussia over a personal dislike of Frederick the Great.
    • During the first six years of the war, Elizabeth focused on diplomatic (both covert and overt) and military efforts that aimed to deprive Frederick the Great and Prussia of their position as a the major European ruler and power.
    • Her Prussophile successor, Peter III, at once recalled Russian armies from Berlin and mediated Frederick's truce with Sweden.
    • He also placed a corps of his own troops under Frederick's command.

  • The War of Austrian Succession

    • Frederick the Great's 1740 invasion of resource-rich and strategically located Silesia, which marked the onset of the War of Austrian Succession, aimed to unify the disconnected lands under Frederick's rule.
    • Politically, Frederick used the 1537 Treaty of Brieg as a pretext for the invasion.
    • Frederick occupied Silesia, except for three fortresses at Glogau, Brieg and Breslau.
    • Frederick forced the Austrians to seek peace with him in the First Silesian War (1740–1742).
    • Evaluate Frederick the Great's actual goals against his stated rationale for the War of Austrian Succession