CHAPTER ONE

It was a raw February morning in the year 1739, in the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Frederick William I, the soldier-king of Prussia. It was in the bleak city of Potsdam, the capital of a Prussia that, under the regime of this avaricious militarist had grown to become a menace to all the crowned heads of Europe.

But if the seventeenth century in Europe was the century of the great French “Sun King” Louis XIV, the eighteenth century was equally the century of the rise of Prussia as a great power. Yet under Frederick William I, it had not yet attained its full zenith of ascendancy, though it was respected and feared. But the story of the destiny of Prussia out of the most humble beginnings is also the story of the slow rise of the Hohenzollern family, which was to rule the kingdom of Prussia and which had its start in the most inconspicuous beginnings. It was a story of luck and violence, of bold claims and sudden betrayals.

And, thanks to the rule of Frederick William I, Prussia could boast a strong, well-drilled army, even though many were mercenaries. Prussia was fated to become the mighty Germany of colonisation and military coups a century later and in those days the expression “Powerful as a Prussian Junker” would symbolise the arrogant, blue-blooded clique of military aristocracy whose leader would one day be Chancellor Bismarck.. And finally, after Germany’s greatness in the nineteenth century, it would seem to have reached its ultimate potential in the twentieth, when Kaiser William declared war on the Allies in 1914 and seemed for the first few months to be destined to conquer all of Europe.

But the Prussian star was dimming and World War I plunged what had once been ancient and powerful Prussia and was now Germany into a catastrophic inflationary depression that was to pave the way for the Madman of Munich with his megalomaniac dreams of a Third Reich that would dominate the entire civilised world.

And perhaps it all began on this February day in the year of 1739, one year before Frederick William I’s despised poet-philosopher-musician son should ascend the throne of Prussia to become known as Frederick the Great.

At fifty-one, Frederick William I was already suffering from the stomach disorder which was to end his life within a year and elevate his despised son to the throne of Prussia. His choleric temper and his brutality were feared throughout the land, even by the lowliest prostitutes who plied their ancient trade in the little houses at the end of Grun Linden Strasse. Short of stature, with thin lips, piercing eyes and a broad nose, his sparse grey hair concealed by a florid wig, the King of Prussia prided himself on his moral sanctity and his utter hatred for the frivolous, the carnal and the unconventional.

Only nine years ago, when his son had been a stripling of eighteen, Frederick William had had the boy sent to prison and flogged, forced him to watch the execution of his best friends and for a terrible month, had even kept him under a suspended sentence of execution. He feared revolt and plotting and he had even believed that his young son, a dreamer and interested in the flute instead of in the bayonet and the soldier’s drill, was conspiring with the Austrians to dethrone him.

Young Frederick had survived that wretched youth and now he was a prince of the realm, but he still brooded over his father’s contempt and hatred of him, often shown openly in the royal court.

And on this dreary February day, his father was once again to show him that, though prince, he was not yet king nor ever would be so long as Frederick William held the sceptre and sat upon the royal throne of Prussia ... The King of Prussia had given audience to petitioners, from widows begging for a few Schillings to buy food for their children, to doddering old veterans of long-forgotten military campaigns asking for pensions. The court was cleared at last and the short, pompous and vindictive monarch, who had been suffering from a touch of gout of late, uttered a weary sigh as his faithful valet Joseph Grundzing obsequiously removed the magnificent regal robe and placed it reverently in a nearby closet.

Frederick William stretched himself out upon a sofa and the valet knelt to draw off the buckled shoes, making the monarch swear vilely as that shoe which was on his goutish foot seemed to pinch in the removal: “Schweinhund! Verdammte Dreek! Be careful, you clumsy idiot! Don’t you know that’s my bad foot?”

“A thousand pardons, Majesty,” Joseph Grundzing propitiated. “May I bring Your Majesty a mug of hot wine and spices?”

“Do so at once, you know it is my custom after an audience with these commoners,” the king testily growled. “And then give me my gazette.”

He tolerated Joseph Grundzing’s occasional laziness and even a bit of pilfering from the royal larder and wine cellar because the valet was also a clever spy and had contacts throughout the city of Potsdam. He had but to ask of Joseph Grundzing for a report on this woman or that man and within forty-eight hours there would be virtually a complete dossier. What concerned him now was what had concerned him for the past years: the conduct of his son, for he knew himself to be mortally ill and the thought that this namby-pamby boy whom he had almost put to death might sit in his place and rule Prussia made him sweat with fear and have ghastly nightmares in which he saw his kingdom divided and Prussia no more.

The valet hurried to bring the silver mug of mulled wine and knelt before the couch to hand it up to the podgy, spotted hands of his sovereign. The yellow-brownish marks on those hands were in reality the death warrant pronounced against the ruler of Prussia, though his doctors continued to bleed him by leeches or their scalpels and spoke of such innocuous maladies as “vapours” and “rheum.” The King of Prussia did not fear death, only its consequences in substituting his despised young son in his stead. And though he and his royal consort, Wilhelmina, had not bedded together for nearly a score of years, there were still occasions when his faithful valet acted the role of panderer to bring, discreetly, to be sure, delightfully complacent young ladies into the rear door of the palace at Potsdam to entertain Frederick William.

“Now, my gazette, Joseph!” he commanded in a querulous voice. “What of my son? Has he been behaving himself?”

“Thus far it seems so, Majesty,” the valet hastened to reply. “Though I have noticed of late he has his carriage take him to a little street off Viertel Square. It is said that he visits with an elderly schoolteacher and listens to the reading of poetry.”

“Pfui! That stupid, womanly lout!” Frederick William growled. “Hasn’t he got over that idiocy yet, Joseph? It almost cost him his head not long ago. And this is the man who is going to take over my mighty army when I am gone, is it? “He will read poetry to them instead of having drills. And the damned Austrians under Maria Theresa, that scheming bitch who gets her husband to do whatever she wants simply by having her bed put on casters and rolled out of his room if he doesn’t sign her decrees, will gobble up my poor Prussia!”

“He does show some manliness, though, Highness,” the valet soothingly put in. For he was an opportunist and he knew that his king was mortally ill and that if he seemed to hold the son in disregard, the latter might well end his valet’s sinecure when he assumed the throne. “I know that it is not my lowly business to dare mention the affairs of a prince, Majesty -”

“Say your mind, Joseph, do not mince words with me!” Frederick William grumbled as he took a hearty swig from his mug.

“Well, then, you will recall that Your Majesty once accused the young prince of caring more for his own kind than for the fair sex.”

“So I did and so it was true. Did I not have Captain Katte shot because certain information came to me that he and my son had some loathsome affection for each other? But what is on your mind, Joseph, what is really on it?”

“Why, sir, that this schoolteacher has a daughter who is quite attractive. And it is said that the Prince, your son, pays her court while he is reading his poetry before her father.”

“An intrigue,” Frederick William chuckled, his lips tight and his face composed in a sanctimonious look. “And so this little slut of a schoolteacher’s daughter aims high, does she?

“She wishes doubtless to ensnare my son into some disgusting liaison, so that she may be made a fine lady and perhaps even introduced at court. You will find out her name and you will describe her to me, Joseph.

“The young hussy may find herself sent to the Kurzwald Prison if she is not careful and made to strip of a cold morning for the executioner’s whip as she is lashed through the streets before she takes her new abode in a prison cell with bread and water and the matron’s tawse to discipline her!”

“I shall make diligent inquiries, Majesty, be sure,” the valet murmured.

“Aught else?”

“Very little, Sire. There is news that a young princess from Silesia is travelling incognito through Potsdam.”

“Now that is most interesting, Joseph! Silesia, once part of Poland, next became Germanized. Then, with the accession of the Hapsburgs on the Bohemian throne two centuries ago, it was allied with Austria. It has been my hope that one day Silesia will become part of Prussia. Yes, I must have news of this girl of royal blood. And I must find out why she comes to Potsdam and hides her rank from our royal court.”

“I shall learn that for you also, Sire. But now would you not like some diversion?”

“You sly dog, what have you done without my knowledge now?” Frederick William chuckled in rare good humour as he finished his mug of wine.

“There’s a little seamstress, Majesty, who was sentenced to be whipped in the public square and sent to the prison for having uttered slander against Your Majesty. But as it chanced, I was in the Magistrate’s court but yesterday and, seeing how comely the wench is, asked if I might not converse with her.

“When I did so, I proposed to her that she retract her insults and save herself at least the prison and she was most contrite, Majesty.”

“How contrite?”

“Why, so much so,” the valet leered, ‘that she besought me to use my good offices with Your Majesty to have you instead administer the thrashing and then to allow her with the gift of her body to show how abjectly she is truly devoted to your person.”

The King of Prussia burst into salacious laughter. Moral judge though he had been of his own son’s supposed iniquities, Frederick William was often assailed by the grossest lusts. “Take me to this little harlot who would rather have her King thrash her than the executioner. Let her now before I enter that if she pleases me, I may spare her the term in prison, but that in any case she shall be soundly thrashed!”