von P. F. K., Frankfort on Main, 1860) was circulated more widely than the author intended, and in the French translation gave rise to much indignation in France. In 1861 Frederick Charles became general of cavalry. He was then commander of the III. (Brandenburg) army corps. This post he held from 1860 to 1870, except during the campaigns of 1864 and 1866, and in it he displayed his real qualities as a troop leader. His self-imposed task was to raise the military spirit of his troops to the highest possible level, and ten years of his continuous and thorough training brought the III. corps to a pitch of real efficiency which the Guard corps alone, in virtue of its special recruiting powers, slightly surpassed. Prince Frederick Charles’ work was tested to the full when von Alvensleben and the III. corps engaged the whole French army on the 16th of August 1870. In 1864 the prince once more fought against the Danes under his old leader “Papa” Wrangel. The Prussian contingent under Frederick Charles formed a corps of the allied army, and half of it was drawn from the III. corps. After the storming of the Düppel lines the prince succeeded Wrangel in the supreme command, with Lieutenant-General Freiherr von Moltke as his chief of staff. These two great soldiers then planned and brilliantly carried out the capture of the island of Alsen, after which the war came to an end.
In 1866 came the Seven Weeks’ War with Austria. Prince Frederick Charles was appointed to command the I. Army, which he led through the mountains into Bohemia, driving before him the Austrians and Saxons to the upper Elbe, where on the 3rd of July took place the decisive battle of Königgrätz or Sadowa. This was brought on by the initiative of the leader of the I. Army, which had to bear the brunt of the fighting until the advance of the II. Army turned the Austrian flank. After the peace he returned to the III. army corps, which he finally left, in July 1870, when appointed to command the II. German Army in the war with France. In the early days of the advance the prince’s ruthless energy led to much friction between the I. and II. Armies (see Franco-German War), while his strategical mistakes seriously embarrassed the great headquarters staff. The advance of the II. Army beyond the Saar to the Moselle and from that river to the Meuse displayed more energy than careful strategy, but herein at least the “Red Prince” (as he was called from the colour of his favourite hussar uniform) was in thorough sympathy with the king’s headquarters on the one hand and the feelings of the troops on the other. Then came the discovery that the French were not in front, but to the right rear of the II. Army (August 16). Alvensleben with the III. corps held the French to their ground at Vionville while the prince hurried together his scattered forces. He himself directed with superb tactical skill the last efforts of the Germans at Vionville, and the victory of St Privat on the 18th was due to his leadership (see Metz), which shone all the more by contrast with the failures of the I. Army at Gravelotte. The prince was left in command of the forces which blockaded Bazaine in Metz, and received the surrender of that place and of the last remaining field army of the enemy. He was promoted at once to the rank of general field marshal, and shortly afterwards the II. Army was despatched to aid in crushing the newly organized army of the French republic on the Loire. Here again he retrieved strategical errors by energy and tactical skill, and his work was in the end crowned by the victory of Le Mans on the 12th of January 1871. Of all the subordinate leaders on the German side none enjoyed a greater and a better deserved reputation than the Red Prince.
He now became inspector-general of the 3rd “army inspection,” and a little later inspector of cavalry, and in the latter post he was largely instrumental in bringing the German cavalry to the degree of perfection in manœuvre and general training which it gradually attained in the years after the war. He never ceased to improve his own soldierly qualities by further study and by the conduct of manœvres on a large scale. His sternness of character kept him aloof from the court and from his own family, and he spent his leisure months chiefly on his various country estates. In 1872 and in 1882 he travelled in the Mediterranean and the Near East. He died on the 15th of June 1885 at Klein-Glienicke near Berlin, and was buried at the adjacent church of Nikolskoe. His third daughter, Princess Louise Margareta, was married, in March 1879, to the duke of Connaught.
FREDERICK HENRY (1584–1647), prince of Orange, the
youngest child of William the Silent, was born at Delft about
six months before his father’s assassination on the 29th of January
1584. His mother, Louise de Coligny, was daughter of the famous
Huguenot leader, Admiral de Coligny, and was the fourth wife
of William the Silent. The boy was trained to arms by his elder
brother, Maurice of Nassau, one of the first generals of his age.
On the death of Maurice in 1625, Frederick Henry succeeded
him in his paternal dignities and estates, and also in the stadtholderates
of the five provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht,
Overysel and Gelderland, and in the important posts of captain
and admiral-general of the Union. Frederick Henry proved
himself scarcely inferior to his brother as a general, and a far
more capable statesman and politician. During twenty-two
years he remained at the head of affairs in the United Provinces,
and in his time the power of the stadtholderate reached its highest
point. The “Period of Frederick Henry,” as it is usually styled
by Dutch writers, is generally accounted the golden age of the
republic. It was marked by great military and naval triumphs,
by world-wide maritime and commercial expansion, and by a
wonderful outburst of activity in the domains of art and literature.
The chief military exploits of Frederick Henry were the sieges
and captures of Hertogenbosch in 1629, of Maastricht in 1632,
of Breda in 1637, of Sas van Ghent in 1644, and of Hulst in 1645.
During the greater part of his administration the alliance with
France against Spain had been the pivot of Frederick Henry’s
foreign policy, but in his last years he sacrificed the French
alliance for the sake of concluding a separate peace with Spain,
by which the United Provinces obtained from that power all the
advantages for which they had for eighty years been contending.
Frederick Henry died on the 14th of March 1647, and was buried
with great pomp beside his father and brother at Delft. The
treaty of Münster, ending the long struggle between the Dutch
and the Spaniards, was not actually signed until the 30th of
January 1648, the illness and death of the stadtholder having
caused a delay in the negotiations. Frederick Henry was married
in 1625 to Amalia von Solms, and left one son, William II. of
Orange, and four daughters.
Frederick Henry left an account of his campaigns in his Mémoires de Frédéric Henri (Amsterdam, 1743). See Cambridge Mod. Hist. vol. iv. chap. 24, and the bibliography on p. 931.
FREDERICK LOUIS (1707–1751), prince of Wales, eldest son
of George II., was born at Hanover on the 20th of January 1707.
After his grandfather, George I., became king of Great Britain
and Ireland in 1714, Frederick was known as duke of Gloucester[1]
and made a knight of the Garter, having previously been betrothed
to Wilhelmina Sophia Dorothea (1709–1758), daughter
of Frederick William I., king of Prussia, and sister of Frederick
the Great. Although he was anxious to marry this lady, the
match was rendered impossible by the dislike of George II. and
Frederick William for each other. Soon after his father became
king in 1727 Frederick took up his residence in England and in
1729 was created prince of Wales; but the relations between
George II. and his son were very unfriendly, and there existed
between them the jealousy which Stubbs calls the “incurable
bane of royalty.” The faults were not all on one side. The
prince’s character was not attractive, and the king refused to
make him an adequate allowance. In 1735 Frederick wrote,
or inspired the writing of, the Histoire du prince Titi, a book
containing offensive caricatures of both king and queen; and
losing no opportunity of irritating his father, “he made,” says
Lecky, “his court the special centre of opposition to the government,
and he exerted all his influence for the ruin of Walpole.”
After a marriage between the prince and Lady Diana Spencer,
afterwards the wife of John, 4th duke of Bedford, had been
frustrated by Walpole, Frederick was married in April 1736 to
- ↑ Frederick was never actually created duke of Gloucester, and when he was raised to the peerage in 1736 it was as duke of Edinburgh only. See G. E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage, sub “Gloucester.”
