FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA, surnamed "The Great," was the son of Frederick-William I and the Princess Sophia-Dorothea, daughter of George I of Great Britain, and was born in 1712.
His early years were spent under the restraint of an irksome military training, and a rigid system of education. His impatience under this discipline, his taste for music and French literature, and his devotion to his mother, gave rise to dissensions between father and son, and resulted in an attempt on the part of Frederick to escape to the court of his uncle, George II of England. Being seized in the act, his conduct was visited with still greater severity, and he was kept in close confinement, while his friend and confidant, Lieutenant Katt, was executed in his sight, after being barbarously ill-treated by the King. According to some reports, the Prince's life would have been sacrificed to the fury of his father, had not the Kings of Sweden and Poland interfered in his favor. Having humbly sued for pardon, he was liberated, and allowed to retire to Ruppin, which, with the town of Rheinsberg, was bestowed upon him in 1734. Here he continued to reside until the King's death, surrounded by men of learning, and in correspondence with Voltaire, whom he especially admired, and other philosophers; but on his accession to the throne in 1740, he laid aside these peaceful pursuits, and at once gave evidence of his legislative talents, and his determination to take an active share in the Political and warlike movements of the age. His first military exploit was to gain a victory at Mollwitz, over the Austrians in 1741, which nearly decided the fate of Silesia, and secured to Prussia the alliance of France and Bohemia. Another victory over the Empress Maria Theresa's troops, made him master of Upper and Lower Silesia, and closed the first Silesian war. The second Silesian war which closed in 1745, from which Frederick retired with augmented territories and the reputation of being one of the first commanders of his age, was followed by a peace of eleven years, which he devoted to the improvement of the various departments of government, and of the nation generally, to the organization of his army, and the indulgence of his literary tastes.
The third Silesian war, or "the Seven Years" War," was begun in 1756, by the invasion of Saxony - a step to which Frederick was driven by the fear that he was to be deprived of Silesia, by the allied confederation of France, Austria, Saxony and Russia. This contest, which was one of the most remarkable of modern times, secured to Frederick decided influence in the affairs of Europe generally, as the natural result of the pre-eminent genius he had shown both under defeat and victory; but although this war crippled the power of all engaged in it, it left the balance of European Power unchanged. It required all the skill and inventive genius of Frederick to repair the evils his country had suffered by the war. In 1772, he shared in the partition of Poland, and obtained as his portion, all Polish Prussia, and a part of Great Poland; and by the treaty of Teschen in 1779, Austria was obliged to consent to the union of the Franconian provinces with Prussia, and he was thus enabled to leave to his nephew and successor a powerful and well organized Kingdom, one half larger than it had been at his own accession, with a full treasury, and an army of 200,000 men. He died at the Chateau of Sans Souci, August 17th, 1786. Frederick the Great is said to have inherited all his father's excellencies, and none of his defects. His courage, fertility of resource and indomitable resolution, cannot be too highly praised. Not the least wonderful of his achievements was his contriving to carry on his bloody campaigns, without incurring a penny of debt. But not only was his government economical, but it was essentially just. Religious persecution was unknown, civil order everywhere prevailed; property was secure, and the press was free. On the other hand, Frederick's faults were far from being few. Education had made him French in all his ideas and prejudices; and in those days to be French was to be skeptical. He was utterly unconscious of the grand intellectual and spiritual life that was soon to spring up in Germany, and to make it; again the guiding star of Europe, as it had been in the days of Luther. He was, in fact, almost ignorant of hls native language, which, moreover, he despised as semi-barbaric; though before his death Goethe had published many of his finest lyrics: and Kant, besides a variety of lesser works, had also given to the world his master-piece, the Critique af Pure Reason. The new literature was essentially one of belief and aspiration, and therefore alien to the tendencies of the royal disciple of Voltaire, who had learned from his master to cherish contempt and suspicion of his fellow creatures. This disagreeable nature of his character increased with years. He declared the citizen class to be destitute alike of ability and honor, and relied not on the love of the nation, but on his army and purse.