339 FREDERICK AND WAR16-18). Many of the items of uniform had a distinctively 'Prussian'
appearance. In 1792, in the course of the long debate concerning the
memorial statue to Frederick, the artist Daniel Chodowiecki ex-
plained that he and most of the general public rejected the notion of
an Old Fritz in classical garb, and were 'for the clothing which
Frederick wore from his youth until his dying day. This is what I call
"the Prussian Costume". It was devised by his father, carried by the
entire Prussian army, and is now imitated by all the other armies in
the world' (Volz, 1926-7, III, 276-7).
The military spirit was produced by the working of time and
tradition, and the efforts of a monarch who led his armies in war and
devoted himself to the interests of his peoples in time of peace. By the
end of the reign the affectation of weariness had long since given way
to the reality. In 1785 a boy watched from a crowd when Frederick
returned from a review to the palace of Princess Amalie in the
Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. He led his old crippled sister up the steps,
and the couple disappeared inside. The spectators stood for a few
minutes in silence, then went their way:
And yet nothing had really happened! There was no splendour,
no fireworks, no salutes of cannon, no drums or fifes, no music,
nothing to keep the crowd amused beforehand. It was just a
seventy-three-year-old man, badly dressed and covered in dust,
who was returning from his laborious daily task.
(Friedrich August Ludwig von der Marwitz, in Volz, 1926-7, III, 202)