example where he might have applied this principle inappropriately. In an autocracy with republican forms, there is nobody to ask for permission to go to war.
Kant’s reflection leads us to our last topic of analysis: foreign policy. Frederick did not care about the spirit or letter of republicanism in foreign policy decisions. There was only one person who had a say in whether or not the country would go to war. For that reason Kant’s defence of enlightened absolutism could only be limited. The control of foreign policy decisions by the people’s representatives called for a representative democracy.
Foreign policy
The eighteenth-century European state system was characterized above all by the ‘primacy of foreign policy’ (Ranke), numerous conflicts between the major powers, and a frequently ruthless scrambling for territories.58 Frederick was no exception (in spite of his name which means ‘rich in peace’); historians argue whether Frederick deserves the epithet ‘Great’. Friedrich Nietzsche suggested ‘the great thief’ as alternative title. Representatives of the European Enlightenment often appreciated his domestic policy, particularly the steps taken immediately after he ascended to the throne. The Marquis d’Argenson, French foreign minister from 1744 to 1747, was a representative example. His memoirs of 13 July 1740 stated: ‘Le roi de Prusse s’attire toujours les plus grands éloges.’59 This statement reflected the enthusiasm of intellectuals when Frederick abolished judicial torture, restricted press censorship and recognized religious toleration at the beginning of his reign. The king fostered a cultural renaissance that included revitalizing the Berlin Academy of Sciences with Maupertus and Euler.
Sympathetic observers became confused when Frederick started to conduct his foreign policy. His invasion of the Austrian province of Silesia in December 1740 violated eighteenth-century international law standards. The French philosophes were particularly upset that Frederick broke treaties with France twice (in June 1742 and December 1745). In August 1756, Frederick invaded neutral Saxony without a declaration of war and, in addition, he humiliated the royal family, relatives of the French Bourbons. Frederick’s conduct earned him the title ‘roi conquérant’.60 Finally, he probably inaugurated the First Partition of Poland (1772). Frederick’s performance was obnoxious by almost any moral or legal standard, whether of our own or of Kant’s century; as historian George Peabody Gooch has correctly remarked, ‘the rape of Silesia ranks with the partition of Poland among the sensational crimes of modern history’.61 There are many possible reasons why Frederick conducted an aggressive foreign policy. He himself admitted that he wanted to read about his deeds in newspapers and history books; he wanted to profit from ‘favourable conditions’; he desired more coherence for his scattered territories. It has also been argued that Brandenburg faced a deep structural crisis, and that foreign policy was aimed at mastering and overcoming it.62
Philosophers reacted in different ways. Frederick’s friend Voltaire was bewildered, but finally accepted the ambiguity of the ‘roi philosophe’ on the one hand and the ‘philosophe guerrier’ on the other. Rousseau was more straightforward in his assessment: ‘Il pense en philosophe et se conduit en roi. La gloire, l’intérêt, voilà son Dieu, sa loi!’63 For Rousseau, there was just one soul, not two, in the Prussian king: a soul that was dominated by ‘glory’ and ‘interests’, and more or less devoid of moral principles. Kant sided with Rousseau’s assessment. He was aware of the ruthless policy of contemporary princes and criticized it in his unpublished reflections. Kant complained, for instance, that the heroism of princes was mistakenly identified with their honour, and that historians preferred the military camp to the cabinet (XV, 610, 19–21, refl. 1400). Kant deplored the fact that princes did not care about justice, as long as they could expand their states (XV, 610, 19–21, refl. 1400, lines 21–3), and saw this as a form of barbarism. Kant implicitly criticized all of Frederick’s major foreign policy decisions. The capture of Silesia, the invasion of Saxony in 1756 and the First Partition of Poland violated Kant’s notion of states as moral or juridical persons. When Frederick broke his treaties with France, he undermined the notion of a contract and the possibility of lasting peace based on the principle pacta sunt servanda (VIII, 343–4). Kant’s readers could relate the second preliminary article to the partitions of Poland.64 Poland virtually disappeared as an independent state with the third and last partition in 1795 – the year Kant published Perpetual Peace.
Kant did not criticize Frederick’s foreign policy explicitly, but he condemned the philosopher who defended the king. In writings on Cicero, Frederick, and the relationship between politics and morality, Christian Garve (1742–98) offered a utilitarian apology of ruthless power politics as performed by the ‘roi philosophe’.65 Together with William Paley, Saint-Pierre, Hume and Beccaria, Garve can be seen as an early utilitarian ‘within a Christian framework’.66 In the appendix of Perpetual Peace, Kant dismissed Garve’s utilitarian maxims in foreign policy as incompatible with the principle of publicity (VIII, 383–6). Frederick’s preventive war of 1756 is the only major foreign policy decision supported by Kant’s writings, though only by implication. According to the Doctrine of Rights, states have a ‘right of preventive war’ if another state ‘engages in military preparations’ or if its increase in power is ‘menacing’ (VI, 346). In 1756, Frederick had every reason to believe that this was happening in Russia, Austria and France.67
Kant saw the implications of enlightened absolutism for foreign relations. Monarchs were always tempted to use their supreme power to wage war, thus ‘destroying the world’ (XXIII, 354, 24–8). In the first definitive article, Kant argued for the moral and pragmatic superiority of republicanism (see chapter 4 in this volume). He offered a vivid description of foreign policy decisions in a state under a non-republican constitution ‘where the subject is not a citizen’:
it is the simplest thing in the world to go to war. For the head of state is not a fellow citizen, but the owner of the state, and a war will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice so far as his banquets, hunts, pleasure palaces and court festivals are concerned. He can thus decide on war, without any significant reason, as a kind of amusement, and unconcernedly leave it to the diplomatic corps (who are always ready for such purposes) to justify the war for the sake of propriety. (VIII, 351)
In this passage, Kant also provided an accurate account of Frederick’s rule. For instance, Frederick decided to invade Silesia all by himself and presented his decision to Minister Podewils and Field Marshal Graf Schwerin in Rheinsberg on 29 October 1740. The king was convinced that the Austrian province was the best possible object ‘pour l’agrandissement le plus solide’, and had the resources ‘d’un pays riche, abondant, plein de commerce et peuplé’.68 Podewils and Schwerin tried in vain to change the king’s mind. As Frederick remarked, ‘the orders to the troops have already been given’.69 Frederick left the justification of the war ‘to the diplomatic corps’. Podewils produced a complicated and hardly convincing legal document in spring 1741.70 Frederick was rather ‘unconcerned’. When Podewils tried to explain the intricate legal problems involved, Frederick replied that this was a job for the ministers and lawyers. Frederick wrote on the margin of Podewils’s legal argument the arrogant and cynical comment: ‘Bravo: the work of an excellent charlatan!’71
It might be argued that Kant’s picture of ruthless monarchs waging wars at will is one-sided and historically inaccurate. In addition, historians disagree in their evaluation of (enlightened) absolutism and its warlike tendencies. Some historians argue that above all, the king is to blame. Their interpretation is closest to Kant; they emphasize royal prestige, the desire to expand, and individual ambition – they support Toynbee’s catchphrase of war as the sport of kings.72 Kings such as Louis XIV and Frederick II are seen as motivated by both the more traditional ideals of gloire, réputation and heroic deeds, and by the modern concept of reason of state.73 This thesis, however, is challenged by the claim that the aristocracy was responsible for eighteenth-century wars
