291 FREDERICK AND WARamounted to anything more pretentious than the idea of responsible
stewardship that he presented in his Essai sur les Formes de Gouverne-
ment et sur les Devoirs des Souverains (Oeuvres, IX).
Frederick was neither particularly effective as a despot, nor
'enlightened' in all his actions. The first of these statements may seem
to be contradicted by the atmosphere of bleak servitude which
oppressed so many of the foreigners who found themselves in Prussia.
Likewise Frederick's interventions in the most detailed matters of
army and state, and his accessibility to private petitioners, appear to
indicate an extraordinary degree of personal control.
All of this presents only the most superficial resemblance to a
militaristic totalitarianism on the twentieth-century model. If 70 per
cent of the revenues were devoted to the army, it was because the
state had so little else to spend its money on - education, the care of
the sick, and the management of law and local administration were
largely funded from local sources (Bleckwenn, 1978, 61-2). The
number of state officials was small, amounting to only 2,100-3,100
functionaries of all kinds in 1754, of which about 640 made up the
central bureaucracy, from ministers down to copy clerks. The
officialdom was also unresponsive to royal control, for there were
opportunities for obstruction at every level, from the conservative
Colleges at the centre, to the local Kriegs- und Domanen Kammern,
where the interests of the nobility were often paramount (Guibert,
1778, 54-5; Kiister, 1793, 154; Johnson 1975, 152-3). Frederick rarely
travelled to see the far western territories or East Prussia. Silesia more
than any province counted as his personal domain, and yet even here
he acquiesced in the frauds that were being practised against him by
the minister of state von Hoym.
The military machine itself escaped despotic control. The offi-
cers were the soul of obedience in operational matters, but they never
allowed themselves to be overborne by the king in weighty matters of
conscience (see p. 334). An appropriate tip or bribe was enough to
secure the foreigner ready access to the Berlin Arsenal, or to the arms
factory and the state prisoners at Spandau. The plans of the Prussian
fortresses, which were counted as a great secret, were shown to
Guibert in 1773 by Major Prince Hohenlohe.
Likewise Frederick's 'Enlightenment' knew some important
limitations. He could never bring himself to believe that mankind
was basically good, or that an increase in knowledge would bring
with it an advance in virtue. Moreover he dashed some of the most
cherished hopes of the philosophes when he embarked on war in 1740.
The relationship with Voltaire was kept up, with some notorious
interruptions, until Voltaire died in 1778,