Old Duffer's Book Corner

The Wars Of
Frederick the Great

Dennis Showalter for Longman

From the Imbibing Bibliophile himself

Set somewhere between Christopher Duffy and Robert Asprey this is a difficult book to review. It clearly relies heavily on the more detailed works, but because that detail is too great we must depend on whether or not we believe the analysis the author derives. In my view the tactical detail is too great for the book to support, what results is really The Battles of Frederick the Great with everything else seen as the route by which Frederick responded to his last battle or the reason he was obliged to fight that next battle. Because we move through more battles in less pages than in, say, Duffy, we can discern the trends more quickly. It is an interesting picture; Frederick is a bit of a plunger and for every brilliant victory he loses one from pig-headedness and another from being surprised. The Prussian army is brave, but whether it is braver or not than its Austrian opponents is hard to say.

However, if brave means the same as desperate then Frederick probably outlasts the Habsburg generals. Like Napoleon in the book by Charles Esdaile Frederick comes across as a clever dick crossed with a psycho. Yet as Showalter says, Frederick established such a reputation for his army that it lasted beyond his death by twenty years. Something Napoleon also did - only his lasted fifty years, perhaps a fair measure of the two men.

Interesting but not outstanding.

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