Word: prussia
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Frederick the Great of Prussia, who called himself "the first servant of the state," was as much a tyrant as any monarch of the 18th century, but he liked to say of himself that he was "philosopher by instinct and politician by duty." He was also a patron of the arts. He played the flute to the accompaniment of one of Johann Sebastian Bach's sons; he wrote indifferent poetry under the tutelage of his sometime friend Voltaire; he was an avid collector of paintings and sculpture. In affairs of state, he was Prussian to the bone...
...inaccurate statement is made: "General Erich Ludendorff routed the Russians at Tannenberg before his reinforcements arrived." For some years, I have been teaching my classes that it was General Paul von Hindenburg who fulfilled the dream of his life in leading an army against an enemy in East Prussia, an area he knew as well as his own estate. With Ludendorff as his chief of staff, Hindenburg proceeded to set the trap for the advancing Russian army, and as they approached the outskirts of Tannenberg, his troops enveloped the left flank, destroying the major part of 4½ corps. This...
...death in 1913, Schlieffen had reiterated: "Make the right wing strong." But his successor, General Helmuth von Moltke, was a Christian Scientist, a cello player, and a cautious man: he weakened the right wing to strengthen the line elsewhere. When the preposterous Russians, unequipped, untrained and unafraid, invaded East Prussia, Moltke forgot Schlieffen and diverted two corps from the Belgian drive to the Russian front. The two corps were never needed; General Erich Ludendorff routed the Russians at Tannenberg before his reinforcements arrived...
...enlightened" ruler and admirer of Prussia's Frederick the Great, who made his peasants plant potatoes to ensure food supplies for his armies, Catherine hoped potato cultivation would relieve Russian poverty. It had little effect...
...general staff," akin to the Combined Chiefs of Staff in World War II, to meet today's monolithic Communist threat. But Fulbright would carry the idea a step further: for the kernel of his plan, he turns to 19th century history and the remarkable alliance of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia-and later, defeated France as well-built at the Congress of Vienna in the wake of the Napoleonic wars...