WI: Frederick the "Not-so-Great"?

Supposing that a boy is still born to Frederick William I, King in Prussia, and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. However, he does not have the talents of his OTL "brother".

Would Prussia thus not rise to its OTL role as fifth European power, Austrian foil, and German unifier? While I think so, I would also like to see your thoughts on the matter. :)
 
Without Fredrick I doubt Prussia would be more than a mid ranger like Bavaria... Perhaps Saxony could take it's place...
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Supposing that a boy is still born to Frederick William I, King in Prussia, and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. However, he does not have the talents of his OTL "brother".

This is a quite easy POD, which can be done with OTL Frederick, just keep the guy from catching a lucky break. Prussia only barely survived the 7YW, keep Peter III away from the Russian throne a year or two, and Prussia would have been defeated and almost a century of gain would have been lost and the Kingdom of Prussia would have becomed the Electorate of Brandenburg again. Frederick would have been remembered as a guy whom overreached and lost everything.
 
This is a quite easy POD, which can be done with OTL Frederick, just keep the guy from catching a lucky break. Prussia only barely survived the 7YW, keep Peter III away from the Russian throne a year or two, and Prussia would have been defeated and almost a century of gain would have been lost and the Kingdom of Prussia would have becomed the Electorate of Brandenburg again. Frederick would have been remembered as a guy whom overreached and lost everything.

My biggest question is whether Austria would try to go after Silesia again.

Of course, domestically speaking if our alt-Frederick doesn't have the competence to go with the enlightened absolutism on vogue at the time, then Brandenburg-Prussia likely won't attract intelligentsia.
 
Incidentally, FtG had two elder brothers who died in infancy. Let one of them live and be just an average ruler - -
 
The militaristic attitude of Prussia and the over-the-average quality of his army were already visible under fis father reign, and since Napoleonic wars would make a tabula rasa of whatever prussia gained before, making it cilnging to Russia for support, I think that there would not be so much of on impact in europe.
One interesting side effect would be on colonial warfare: without an european front comparable to OTL in the 7 years war, could France manage keep some of its oversea territories?
 
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