On 5 November 1757, Prussia seemed to be finished. At Rossbach a superior French army marched on and threatened to eliminate Prussia as a European power.
How would history have gone without his gambling – without his invasion of Silesia, without his pointless provocation of Tsarina Elisabeth (at an evening round table!)?
No war and no trauma in every generation? No “German mission” of Prussia? No 1871? No World War I? No cultural and social decadence?
[1] Berthold Seewald: Friedrichs Ass hieß Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, WELT, 5.11.2017