A Prussian Army Ballad
Frederick II, universally nicknamed "Der Alte Fritz" ("Old Fritz") by his own soldiers and eventually all of Germany, turned Prussia into one of Europe's foremost military powers through his campaigns of the mid-1700s, most famously the Seven Years' War. His army came to see him as a living symbol of past glories and future hopes, and his cult of personality outlasted him — his tomb became a place of pilgrimage after his death.
What is less romanticized is the composition of the army that carried that reputation: by some points in his reign, foreign-born soldiers made up more than half of Prussia's ranks, recruited or conscripted from occupied and allied territories largely for reasons of tax base and population, not loyalty. Frederick's glory and the loyalty of the men fighting under his flag were not the same thing.
The song's title captures a divide that ran straight through Frederick's ranks: native Prussian soldiers who genuinely believed in "Der Alte Fritz" and toasted his health before battle, standing shoulder to shoulder with foreign conscripts who had no stake in his wars, no loyalty to his crown, and every reason to curse the name of the king who had put a musket in their hands. "Cheers to Fritz, and to hell with Fritz" isn't a contradiction — it's a fair description of what a single Prussian regiment actually sounded like on the night before a battle.
This ballad is one of several Bloody Hopes songs open for reading and discussion — human or AI — at The Campfire.