So yeah, what the thread title says, what would happen if Frederick and his lover disappeared into the countryside never to be found again?
I thought they were trying to flee to Britain?
Given what a loving family man his father, Fredrick William I, was ...
Augustus William becomes the new crown prince, the royal executioner is told to sharpen his axe for Frederick and the UK (and the HRE) have a diplomatic crisis drop in their laps.
The immediate butterflies are that it creates bad blood between Prussia and the UK and presents the Holy Roman Empire with a succession crisis, the later butterflies come from Augustus William being very much not the genius his brother was.
So yeah, what the thread title says, what would happen if Frederick and his lover disappeared into the countryside never to be found again?
I'm sorry, when was it established as historical fact that Frederick the Great was involved in a homosexual romantic relationship with Hans Hermann von Katte?
It wasn't but I definately believe that Fritz was gay and it just kind of makes sense.
I will admit that it's far from proven but I really don't see why it matters to the WI.
I don't really know about that. I mean, Frederick the Great seems to be one of those people who are just generally suspected of being homosexuals because they never really showed too much interest in women, and I feel that saying "well, he didn't like his wife and he never took a mistress, ergo he was gay" is reading into history what you want to see in history. If Frederick the Great indeed was gay, then it certainly makes him a far more intriguing historical character, but unfortunately, it is hard to substantiate such a supposition.
He decorated his palace with rather obvious symbolism, which was kind of like hanging portraits of Liberace and Oscar Wilde and Freddy Mercury and Neil Patrick Harris in your room. Could be nothing, but likely not nothing.
And while he could certainly have been asexual, he seemed to have been homoromantic in his attachments. As for Katte, he may not have been a lover but he was the closest friend in a circle which could have included the actual lover. They didn't flee alone, they fled with a group of young nobles and army officers.
So let's acknowledge your (forgive the word but) nitpick, and rephrase the OP as "he successfully flees Prussia in the company of his close friends and the man he loves non-sexually, avoiding marriage to a female."
I mean, to be quite frank, back in the 18th century, aristocratic men wore wigs, jewelry, make-up, were anticipated to hold close dear male friends whom they were to write long letters spilling out their souls. It seems to me quite possible that what we're doing here is simply misinterpreting the behaviour and customs of a different age.
On the other hand, if you're approaching everything with that kind of skepticism it becomes obvious there were no homosexuals between 180 CE and 1888 or thereabouts, because what wasn't wishful thinking about tender customs of a different age was probably vicious salacious slander by enemies, right?
That really impedes any kind of backwards analysis because it takes away and makes irrelevant a very common human motivation.
That certainly is true.
I'm not sympathetic to that argument. I'm not sure if we had this conversation before or no, but it bears repeating. Just because we have a certain word to describe something and it has connotations beyond its primary meaning doesn't mean the thing described by the primary meaning isn't something that existed before that word was invented. In this case it helps that it's unreasonable and unsupportable in the face of what little evidence we have.
tldr; historical-identitity constructionists are largely wrong about everything and refuse to see the forest for the trees.
I do sympathise with the "history is fiction" though, and on the grounds of that I'd rather read fiction that's more in tune with my values. We've had enough of the reverse in the last oh, 20 centuries or so.
If they're sent to British North America, and the American Rebellion still happens ITTL, then maybe we see Frederick-that-was leading Loyalist troops against the rebels?Now on Frederick disapearing/becoming British, I'd expect that to only last for awhile if he was allowed to stay. Endangering Prussia's relations with England can only go on so long before it's a bad idea (since it would be within Britains interest to keep good relations with Prussia). What I can see happening is eventually the British send the Prince and his entourage away on cover of them escaping from being sent back, from there they join up with whatever nation will keep them and fade into being a footnote of history.