Frederick the Great witnesses the French Revolution

OS fan

Banned
Frederick the Great, absolutist king of Prussia, died in 1786, at the age of seventy-four, just three years before the French Revolution started.

But let's say he had survived, for at least five more years. What would he have said about this development? Could he have warned the other monarchs?
 
He would probably react the same way as the others, complete shock. Although depending how long he sticks around his style of enlightened despotism could really catch on among the European mainstream.
 

OS fan

Banned
Note that even nothing else changed, one thing almost certainly would: Frederick's successor sent an army to the Netherlands in 1787 to help Willem V (his brother-in-law) back to power. One should expect that Frederick had acted wiser.
 
Friedrich might be good for a surprise. He had pretty revolutionary ideas in some areas, and of course, in 1789 you could not yet foresee 1793, let alone 1806. He would most likely not do much about it, but he may well applaud the events.
 
Most of Europe applauded the events of the Revolution as late as 1791. Their relations to it only began to sour once it became clear the French were taking a turn for the far more radical than anyone had expected and the agreements of the Estates-General dissolved.

Avignon was one of the main things that really damaged the relations with the rest of Europe. After August 10th, 1792, and the storm of the Tuileries Palace any remaining sentiment for the French dissolved. The Russian and Swedish opinion had been shattered earlier.

Interestingly, from what was seen, the Prussians didn't really care that much about what the French did. They meekly agreed to a peace in the west allowing French forces to run rampant over the Rhine so that they could focus on asserting their authority on Poland and getting Gdansk and Posen, as well as a number of other areas, from Russia in a new Polish Partition.

So Frederick may not have thought very much at all of it.
 
Top