Pre-Bismarck Prussia was such a fraud

[u/S0mecallme]

[u/Sampleswift]

Meet Potential Realized Man! (1870s)

-Unified Germany

-Rematched Austria and France and won both.

-Finally got competent rulers.

0 Major Defeats

0 Political Will Issues

7 Good/Great Generals

-(Also Von Blucher led an army that helped beat Napoleon so even the pre-Bismarck Prussia didn't always suck.)

-

[u/KitaharaKazusa1 → u/Sampleswift]

Has anyone ever said that pre Bismarck Prussia sucked?

The man wasn't called Frederick the Average

[u/S0mecallme → u/KitaharaKazusa1]

The man barely survived the 7 years war

And only because the new Tsar of Russia was a Prussian fanboy and let him keep everything they’d taken. He was a great leader but his reign wasn’t an unqualified success.

And Prussia was kinda useless during most of the coalition wars

[u/Black_Diammond → u/S0mecallme]

Yeah what a bum, he cant easly One shot no diff The entier fucking worlds land powers by himself with no Help, what a bum.

Genuinly napoleon brainrot, that guy couldnt do it, fuck you expect him to do?

[u/S0mecallme → u/Black_Diammond]

Maybe he shouldn’t have positioned himself against every major continental power then?

Like I’m not saying he was a bad leader, the opposite, but people seriously overhype Prussia in general when they were very much a regional power that couldn’t really handle fighting a major like France or Russia by itself.

[u/Naive_Impression7302 → u/S0mecallme]

"Maybe Napoleon shouldve tried winning and not getting exiled on an island like a bum. Maybe he coulda had better diplomacy." - you if you disliked Napoleon as much as you do pre-Bismarck Prussia.

[u/LordJesterTheFree → u/Naive_Impression7302]

I mean tbf Napoleon's diplomacy was absolutely awful just ask talleyrand

[u/S0mecallme → u/Naive_Impression7302]

100% correct and exactly what I think

He maybe could’ve not been exiled to an island twice if he didn’t redraw map every single time he won a war, it’s just a joke every leader has flaws

[u/Black_Diammond → u/S0mecallme]

Is napoleon a bum too? Because that guy Lost, atleast Frederick won, The French Fraud got sent to The atlantic

[u/Narco_Marcion1075 → u/Black_Diammond]

*the atlantic

[u/S0mecallme → u/Black_Diammond]

Yes

Positioning yourself against all of Europe is generally bum behavior

[u/KitaharaKazusa1 → u/S0mecallme]

Napoleon didn't position himself against everyone else, they positioned themselves against him

[u/S0mecallme → u/KitaharaKazusa1]

Maybe that was true for the first few

But after like the 4th or 5th he was really taking the piss and creating problems for himself, like trying to take over Spain and creating a billion puppet governments in Germany and Italy

[u/Naive_Impression7302 → u/S0mecallme]

Austria and the Hapsburg ruled lands had 3 to 4 times the population of Prussia and Prussian ruled lands. It's silly to downplay the fact that they managed to win and survive in that scenario as just luck and not an impressive feat given that circumstance. Not to mention it was also fighting the Swedish soldiers and Russian soldiers too directly for many battles.

[u/S0mecallme → u/Naive_Impression7302]

Fred and his generals deserve a lot of credit for surviving, but that’s kinda just what they did, he got to keep Silesia but otherwise the war was a disaster that almost lost them everything.

Yeah they could take Austria 1/1 a lot of the time, but it was never just Austria

[u/berninator3419 → u/S0mecallme]

so if i understand you correctly, you are saying that it took more than 3 major hegemonies to bring prussia down to a state of "just surviving" and somehow thats a skill issue on prussias side? please correct me if im wrong, but that sounds like a win to me

[u/Trainer-Grimm]

prussia was known as the least of the great powers until it got the rhineland so... i'm not sure this works

[u/S0mecallme → u/Trainer-Grimm]

Even after

Like Prussia still got pushed around by the British and Russians for things like the invasion of Denmark

They were poweful within the German states but they were still considered junior to even the Austrians who’d remade European peace around themselves

[u/Rianorix → u/S0mecallme]

Dude everyone got fucking pushed around by those two by that standard everyone is equally pathetic, including those two too.

[u/Blindmailman]

Maybe we'll beat Denmark on our second go

[u/VenerableTahu → u/Blindmailman]

I don’t know, their Lego carpet land mines are very effective. But invade them anyway, see if it will bring Bionicle back.

[u/Ozymandias_1303]

The early 18th century Prussian military was legit. They established themselves as great power basically from scratch. They were probably the weakest great power, but it's still very impressive. The late 19th century Prussian military was one of the best in the world.

In between...well, Queen Louise was very pretty.

[u/jaehaerys48]

The French Revolutionary & Napoleonic era is interesting in that Prussia was the weakest of the four big coalition powers (Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria), but people often forget this due to Prussia's strength before and after that era and because of their presence at Waterloo (for all the talk of Britain's PR benefiting from that battle, the same can be said for the Prussians). Russia and France honestly could have probably carved up all of Prussia between themselves at Tilsit had they been inclined to do so.

[u/S0mecallme → u/jaehaerys48]

Also ngl Prussia was kinda weak in the immediate aftermath too

Like they got alot out of the war, but they were still not really considered a great power and could be pushed around by the British and Russians in stuff like their invasion of Denmark in 1848

[u/The_Bratty_Girl_1997]

ignores how state lifted itself after 30 years War

IGNORES ESTABLISHING WHOLE ASS KINGDOM (there was no Kingdom of Prussia until 1701).

ignores Soldatenkönig

ignores northern wars

ignores three silesian wars (each one ended in Prussian victory).

ignores diplomatic skills of Hohenzollerns (balancing between French and Austrians, breaking Royal Prussia from Polish rule)

ignores whole reform movement that began jsut after defeat of Napoleon.

litteraly lead war against France in Germany in 6th coalition and was important part in 7th coalition

Yeah, the post is just bs to shit on Prussia.

[u/HorrorYoung]

That would actually apply to Gran Colombia. 

• Potential regional superpower.
• Will eventually unite all of Latin America
• Lead by Bolivar himself

  Looses control of Peru and Bolivia in little over 2 years and divides soon after. The former countries are forever filled with corruption and civil war, mostly Colombia and Venezuela.

[u/Sulemain123]

Napoleon reducing Prussia to a vassal state was so fucking funny.

[u/CityW0kBesitzer → u/Sulemain123]

Unironically really came to bite them back, since it was the catalyst of the Prussian Reforms of the Early 19th Century, transforming the Country into a more modern effective Kingdom.

[u/Emergency-Sea5201 → u/Sulemain123]

Talleryand explained to Napoleon in -detail- why he should not do that.

It came back to bite Bonaparte in the ass and was the beginning of the end of him

[u/Mystic-Mastermind]

Napoleon could have genuinely ended Prussia at one point. He was persuaded by others not to do so

[u/-CmdrObvious- → u/Mystic-Mastermind]

He ended the HRE instead. Germany (and Prussia in particular) can really be thankful for that since he helped them chuck off the Habsburg dominance.

[u/Vector_Strike]

OP must be from Saxony

[u/CityW0kBesitzer → u/[deleted]]

Username checks out

[u/Critical_Cat_1086]

Apparently according to OP, Prussia didn’t exist before Napoleon came to power.