Frederick as Crown Prince, Painted by Antoine Pesne in 1739–40
Frederick painted by the court painter Antoine Pesne in 1739 or 1740, months before he inherited the throne and marched into Silesia. The army he took over had been built by his father; what he did with it was his own.
Frederick William I left his son a treasury in surplus and eighty thousand men drilled to a standard no other European army matched. Frederick's reforms were about what that instrument could be made to do: oblique attack, artillery moved with the line rather than behind it, cavalry trained to charge home with the sword instead of halting to fire, and a march discipline that let him arrive where he was not expected. The portrait hangs in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. See how Prussia built Europe's most feared army.
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
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