" Der Alte Fritz "
Frederick the Great. By G. P. Gooch. (Longman. 21s.)
DR. Goocit's new work is weighty. It is a presentation of the results of German scholarship on the career of Frederick the Great, reflecting perhaps a little too closely the lumbering efficiency of these authorities. It has been said of German scholars that they go down deeper and come up muddier than their foreign colleagues. It would be unfair and ungenerous to apply such comment to Dr. Gooch's present study, but particles of Teutonic dust adhere tenaciously to the pages of this book.
Dr. Gooch wears only German spectacles in contemplating his subject even if with a critical eye. The figure of Frederick and the form he imposed on the society and the Government of Prussia are not matters of debate among Germans alone. The French, too, have their contribution to make, from Voltaire's fascinated interest in the philosopher king and Mirabeau's case study of Frederician Prussia, to Lavisse's works of genius on Frederick's youth (mentioned in a footnote). The judgement of English contemporaries on Frederick, in particular of those shrewdest of our Ambassadors to the Court of Berlin, Hugh Elliott and James Harris (later Earl of Malmesbury), are brushed aside, the former without mention at all while the latter is allowed to say his piece in one page. Both these men filled their dispatches and correspondence with gloomy and witty comments upon Prussia and its ruler,, who hated England with a venom only equalled by their own distaste for his country. Amid the wealth of anecdote and illustration which Dr. Gooch has provided there might have been room for Elliott's famous brush with Frederick. The latter once asked him: " Who is this Hyder All who knows so well how to deal with you in India? " The Ambassador's reply was : " Sir, he is an old despot who has much despoiled his neighbours, but who, thank God, is now in his dotage."
The purpose of this new study of Frederick the Great, according to the preface, is : " To portray a unique and many-sided personality at once fascinating and repulsive from 'various angles, though no attempt has been made to cover the whole field." Dr, .Gooch is nothing if not thorough, and he surveys Frederick as the ruler, the writer and the man. The witnesses are well drilled, like Frederick's own soldiers, presenting their evidence with mechanical and monotonous precision. Almost every comment of note and all correspondence of relevance are to be found in these pages, presented in a style at times reminiscent of the tumescent language of Carlyle. But the essence of Frederick's achievement and the story of his personal circle are here. The magnitude of the task of the Hohen- zollems, the creation of a powerful modern State out of the un- promising material of the dunes and woods of Brandenburg territories devastated in the Thirty Years War—" Nature plunged in sand and mankind in misery " was Ambassador Elliott's comment—is effectively described in the early section of this book. The work was stupendous, and success only reached by a concentration on essentials, an efficient bureaucracy and as large an army as the resources of the State would bear. At no time was there any margin of safety. And the man himself, cold, dry and hard, bitter in his experience of human relationships, his Whole creation an effort of titanic will—isolated from his family and from his servants, Frederick created a machinery incapable of functioning without his presence.
This lonely little man, French in culture and speaking the language of the Berlin Huguenots, contemptuous of the writers and aspirations of eighteenth-century Germany, indifferent to religious belief, and with faith only in the trade union of kingship and in his own ability, is unique among the figures in the German Valhalla. In the analysis of his personality it is natural that German writers should, in general, concentrate on the safe ground of his military qualities: "Der Aire Fritz " and the figure of the "Front Soldat." As Dr. Gooch quotes from Gerhard Ritter's Freiburg University lectures published in 1936: "We front-line soldiers (in the first world war) felt the spirit of Frederick the Great still within us." Dr. Gooch has presented ample raw material for reflection upon the secretive and intricate character of Frederick. And for this one should be grateful. For as Frederick himself wrote (and Dr. Gooch quotes) in the autumn of his life, brooding on his experience in that inner desolate sanctum of his absolute majesty, his workroom at Potsdam : " Imperfection is our destiny. Man has to content himself with approximations."
F. W. DEAKIN.
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