Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "What Was Prussia?" video.

  1. Prussia was the first state to enter the industrial revolution after Britain (and possibly Belgium). It was in the forefront in many areas like religious toleration and freedom of the press and abandonment of torture. Prussia was also early in introducing Conscription, and the Prussian school system have been copied by most countries in the world and many countries used modified copies of the same school system that Frederick the great created. Frederick the great turned a backwater with no natural resources into the strongest economy in Germany and greatly increased the size of the population in his kingdom. Prussia have a reputation of being a warlike militaristic kingdom, but it spend less years in war than any of the other great powers during the 18th century. And many other countries would probably want to have the same economic model as Prussia, but the problem was that most German states did have a very small population and could therefore not have a large army of over 200.000 men as a reliable customer for mass produced goods in textiles, iron making, making of fire arms and leather. The huge Prussian army could mean large orders for companies and it would be possible to start mass producing things. But for minor German states like Hannover and Baden this was simply not possible to do because their population and army was too small. So they could not have any strong state-led economic growth like Prussia. Instead did their governments have to rely on supporting existing industries, or having their governments creating a few new industries and then privatizing them after a few years because their countries did not have enough tax payers and economic muscles to support all new industries year after year like Prussia did. So Hannover had to rely on civilian products instead and selling sails for ships. And Baden produced low quality drinking glass. And the Prussian rhineland was a purely civilian economy. Saxony was an economy something in between militaristic Prussia and civilian Rhineland. Saxony did also make cannon balls like Prussia and invest heavily into making uniforms and opening new iron mines to secure the access to this important strategic resource in times of war. Saxony also had many flourishing civilian industries, and the Kingdom was one of the richest countries on the planet during the early 1700s thanks to its high-tech products of that day - the making of high quality luxury porcelain. Saxony had learned the art of how to make porcelain, and the government tried to keep it a well guarded state secret how to make it since it didn't want other countries to also make it and get competition from other countries. The kingdom of Saxony earned enormous amounts of money from their porcelain, and the King August the strong did have so much money that he not only could spend large amounts of money on making a large army, or bribing Polish nobleman so he could become the new King of Poland, but August could also spend large amounts of money on building projects in Saxony and on his personal luxury consumption. He was a fat guy who once upon a time was considered handsome by the women. He was the father of kids of many hundred different women, and he was called "the strong" because of his strong hands - he was able to bend a horse shoe with his own bare hands. August and Frederick the greats daddy - Frederick Vilhelm, used to go out and party togheter and get drunk, and August could then order a salute of many hundreds of cannons, or feasting on cakes made with over 600 eggs. But August did suck at warfare and he lost the battles he fought against Sweden in the great northern war despite always having the odds in his own favour. Anyhow, he would later on die. And then Saxony was taken over by a new monarch, and the country got invaded by Frederick the Great who plundered the Kingdom. Frederick also used industrial espionage and tried to steal the technology of making Meissen porcelain. And Prussia then learned to make porcelain on their own.
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  2.  @Chinaball-fx7gi  Was the Roman empire the father of Italy? no? perhaps? Likewise do I think it is difficult to see the Holy Roman Empire as the father of Germany. German nationalism was rare back in the days. For example did Frederick the Great himself despise the idea of the creation of a unified Germany. And many Germans felt other loyalities than to the German state. Many felt more loyal to their Habsburg or Hohenzoller rules than towards Germany. And many kings and aristocrats were conservatives that rather kept their own power and privilegies than creating a new country and lose their standing. German nationalism get complicated further when the idea of creating a greater Germany comes up. Should the Netherlands be included? The Netherlands have the oldest national anthem in the world, and in the song text you can read that the people of the Netherlands see themselves as Germans under the Spanish king. And what about Switzerland, should they be included into Germany despite their own history and diaclect and large majority of minority ethnic groups? Bohemia is filled with slavs and Piemonte with Italians and they are not Germans, so should they be included into Germany since they are part of the Austrian empire? And what about the much less loyal Hungary which also have huge cultural and societal differences?
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  3. His father was very abusive. He behaded Frederick's best friend and forced him to watch. Frederick William also forced Frederick to marry an ugly boring girl that he didn't like instead of a princess from England which was attactive and which Frederick liked and which would have given Frederick prestige and a confidence boost. Frederick william however hated the idea of giving his son any joy in life, and Frederick William also sucked at the game of world politics and made a wrong bet to pick a pro-Austria marriage candidate for his son. And later on he regreted his pro-Austrian stance. Personally I wonder if this could have given Frederick the Great an own personal reason for hating Austria and wanting revenge and starting the Silesian wars, but this is just a theory. Frederick William was a bully and he did beat up Frederick's teacher for teaching him latin. Frederick William hated such things as latin, philosophy, fashion, flute playing and culture - which all were things that his son loved. Frederick William himself was more of a 1600s kind of person. He was very religious and intolerant and unopenminded. He was a simple man in that sense that he was totally uninterested in any deeper intellectual reasoning. He had 3 hobbies and those were in the following order; his solidiers in his army, drinking alchohol and hunting. He was a very loyal husband to his wife, and a man of his position could easily have fucked around if he wanted to, but he didn't. He was a christian. And a bully and a tyrant. And life for his subjects were not a funny one. He never gave them anything. His only two things he cared about was his army and a good economy. He had a strong sense of duty, and while other Kings in Europe wasted tax money on luxuries for themselves, so did Frederick WIlliam live a simple life without luxury. Frederick the Great however was more generous towards his own people and opened military food depots whenever food prices got high so that the poor people could afford to eat. He hated his fathers religious intolerance and the instead tolerated all faiths, even if he contempted christianity in private. Frederick also used his newly won freedom when his father died to live out his cultural and intellectual passions. But he also kept surprisingly many of his fathers policies intact, and did keep budgetary dicipline for his government instead of wasting money of fun stuff. And he did anger many friends by refusing to give them nice jobs and titles within his government in a nepostic way. Frederick the Great also inherited his fathers contempt for Austria, and the military and the economy were still top priorities for the nation. And many of his fathers advisors could keep their jobs thanks to their competance, eventhough Frederick did not like them in the past.
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  4. German "education" is mostly only about world war II and the holocaust. Two important topics, but German history is much more than only that. You got the germanic tribes fighting against Rome, you got Charlemagne, an the Baltic crusades, and the Hanseatic league, the reformation, the 30 years war, the silesian wars, Frederick the great, the industrial revolution in Germany and the scientific exploration, the cultural greatness of Germany and its many musicians and castles, and then of course Bismarck and the creation of Germany + its colonial empire...
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  5. Brandenburg was a little kingdom centered around Berlin. Then this kingdom got a little land in todays Poland. This kingdom was poor and unimportant. But in the early 1700s it started to build a big powerful army, and army so large that it could even play in the same league as the most powerful countries in the world back then. It would be like Ireland having an army that could compete with USA or China today. A king named Frederick the Great then fought some wars with this army and conquered an extremely rich province named Silesia. And Fredericks big army, plus the good training of his men, plus the genius of Frederick as a General time and time again won great victories on the battlefield and prevented his little Kingdom from getting destroyed from his powerful enemies France, Austria, Russia and Sweden. His army did something equal to a country today fighting against USA, Russia and Germany at the same time and still coming out of the war without getting crushed. Prussia's achievement is quite respectable. And even those who think Frederick were lucky should admit that his empire would not have lasted as long as it did if Frederick did not save victory out of the jaws of defeat at places like Leuthen and Rossbach. Frederick the great would go out of the war as a respected man all over Europe. And other countries wanted to copy Frederick and his style. Enlightenment ideas became popular thanks to him. Troops started to goose step also in other countries. Frederick also made peace with his old enemies by making an agreement with Russia and Austria to divide Poland and eat that country up, and then all three countries would get a piece each of the Polish cake. Frederick the Great would then later on die, and after him was a new kingdom with a population more than twice as large. The economy was much stronger. The government had enormous surpluses. And the army was one of the strongest in Europe. Prussia was now a great power. But still was the country much smaller than the other big country of the German speaking world - Austria. And it was not until the leader Bismarck this thing would change. Bismarck modernized the Prussian army, and in 1866 would the modern Prussian army fight a war against Austria - and the war ended in a total victory at Königgrätz where 260.000 Prussians attacked 260.000 Austrians. And the Austrian army was totally crushed with the Prussians only losing 1900 men. Austria was crushed. And it was no longer any doubt that Prussia was the strongest state in Germany. And later on would all German cities and provinces join Prussia in creating the country Germany 5 years later.
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  6. If you want a longer answer then I recommend Pierre Gaxotte's biography about Frederick the Great, which is my favourite. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.278723/page/n8
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  7. Austria was religious intolerant against the protestants - which was the reason the religious wars in Germany happened. The Habsburg monarchy in Austria and Spain was also seen as a threat to the rest of Europe - which thought that they were trying to take over the entire world.. and the enormous amount of silver from America that flowed into Europe was used to hire mercenaries and build huge armies. And the rest of Europe came togheter to defend their own freedom which were under threat. The Netherlands hated the heavy taxation and the religious opression of Spain. Sweden felt threatened by Austria which was catholic and had a large population and if Austria had conquered northern Germany then Sweden would have gotten a hostile neighbour with so much new powers and more resources that it would impossible to defeat it. Denmark shared Swedens worries. England and Spain was religious enemies and rivals in oceanic trade. France was catholic, but it was terrified of a united Germany, and if Austria would manage to get Germany unified then France would get a dangerous neighbour with resources larger than its own. And the Ottoman empire did have friendly relations with England and it had fought wars against the habsburgs - both against Austria and against Spain. And the Ottoman empire didn't like the trade competition that Spain and Portugal gave it. And the ibrerian peoples arrogance and religious intolerance did not do much to help the relations with the ottomans either. So the thirty years war 1618-1648 could be seen as a world war where the Habsburgers tried to take over the world - like other crazy Germans in history. And if Frederick the great would have been defeated a century later the I doubt that Austria would have been a good empire. It was Frederick the Great who was first with religious toleration and freedom of the press, while Austria was just a lame half-assed copy of Prussia. Austria still burned jews to death under the rule of Joseph II. And multiculturalism was not an easy thing. The Habsburg army proves the point. The Hungrian troops hated to by under the command of a German general and they strongly opposed any such attempts. And the German troops in turn did have the same feelings towards the Hungrians, so there was this feeling of mutual contempt and cooperation was uneasy, even if the Maria Theresia made several visits to Hungary and did her best to get their support. Hungary was still a feudal barbarian land where the aristocrats plundered the country and opressed the peasants into the harshed form of serfdom. Hungary made up more than a third of Habsburgs population, but it contributed with less than 10% of the tax revenues to the empire. Partly because the Hungarians was selfish and didn't wanted to contribute too much to the Germans, but also partly because the Hungarian aristocrats wanted to steal things from their peasants themselves and they had no intention to share their loot. Hungary was economically backwards and underdeveloped. The only real thing keeping togheter the Habsburg monarchy and all Hungarians, Croats, Czechs, Italians, Germans, French and Dutch living in it was their love and loyalty to their dictator/monarch. And the social order of the empire was not Prussian meritocracy, but more of aristocratic oppression. The huge empire had been born out of royal marriage diplomacy which had given the Habsburg large amounts ot lands through inheritance. And many of the balkan states had joined the Habsburg's only because they thought that getting protection from Austria was a less bad choice than taking the risk of being occupied by the Ottoman empire.
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  8. The Prussian kingdom was a very large entity inside Germany and only a few German provinces were large enough to challange it (like Bavaria). Many small provinces were so small that there was really no opposition they could offer. And the way the German state was constructed also gave Prussia dominance in the most the important issues. There are many countries where people despises their capital. As a Swede I think that Stockholm holds way too much power and that it is egoistical and navel gazing and that the ruling class there doesn't give a shit about the northern half of the country. And in France people seems to share this contempt for their capitol as the yellow vests protests against higher fuel prices that makes it impossible to work and live on the countryside. And in the UK does London and the rest of the country go different ways... London voted remain while the rest of the country voted Brexit, London is dominated by a globalist political and financial elite with very little in common with red blooded brits. And in many ways do many people (like John Cleese) consider it doubtful if it is even an English city. And in America does neighter democrats or republicans talk about Washington in a positive way. Instead it is seen as a distant machinery to rural middle America. So considering that Germany was a young nation in 1871, and many Germans were unused to being a nation state and more used to governing things very locally it is hardly surprising that many Germans saw the rule of Prussia in a very negative way. And probably even more so than in most other countries. Italy was also a country that united very lately and also suffers from strong local patriotism of its different regions.
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  9. Good idea. Sumeria was the first country on the planet and deserves all land that was stolen from it thousands of years ago. Iraq, mesopotamia, Babylonia and Persia are all made up bullshit countries. We need to go back to the old borders from 4300 years ago.
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  10. NOt all crusaders were bad violent people!!! You cannot judge all for the actions of a few you bigot!!
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