Vincent Cronin's CATHERINE EMRESS OF ALL THE RUSSIAS doesn't mention that the war games with Peter III taught her anything about war games but if you stop and think about it, despite her lack of interest, she was absorbing military data she'd need later herself as Empress.
Cronin writes:
p. 67>>Peter was reared by his father in the new strict military tradition whose presiding genius was Frederick William of Prussia. Uniforms, belts... punishment, the fatherland--these were the key words.<<
p. 68 >>This world of boots snapping to attention, of kettledrums and bugles, excluded what was soft and gentle. Women were partly feared, partly resented. Its effects on King Frederick II... was to render them incapable of normal married life. the Duke of Holstein treated his sons less severely than Frederick William treated his; on the other hand Peter had no mother to turn to for soft words and kisses. So the leather shoulder belt of army life cut deep into his young spirit.
As she [Cath. II] came to understand Peter's boyhood, Catherine decided that the best means of weaning him from it was to go along with his war games and to be sypathetic to all his odd activities. the way to his heart would be via Holstein.
So Catherine, who anyway had never carred much for dolls, learned the names of the regiments of toy soliders and joined with zest in the bedroom battles between them.<<
Peter went as far as dressing up the servents, he asked Cath. to carry a musket and so the stories flow for Peter's obsession with all military things.
One of the stories Cath. retold was that of a scene about a whipping of one of Peter's English King Charles. All dog lovers would instantly hate Peter for what he did to that poor dog. While I detest anyone who abuses animals, I try to understand what motivated Peter III's cruelty. Peter III was trying to become a soldier and to harden his soft heart he had to learn to bear the screams of pain from things he loved so he'd not show his weakness in front of his future soldiers.... As a future Tsar he could not show any kind of emotions or he'd suffer the greatest of humiliations.... The significance of a poor dog's pain was helping him [he thought] become a man, like his father and more importantly, like the great Frederick II.
Over on p 71, Cronin gives us additional insight into Peter's behavior:
>>The strict Lutheranism of Holstein, in which he had been educated, put a cloak of secrecy and even shame about a man's private parts. Catherine recalled that Peter never undressed or dress in their bedroom, he always retired to one of his own rooms and shut the door.<<
Although Cath. II was raised as a Lutheran, I don't think it affected her as much as it did Peter III. We should go into her religious views at another time.
Everything Peter III did was to press him closer to the kind of man he believed he could be as he would lead Russian troops to victories.
Down the page on 71 Peter's motives are explained:
>>...Peter had another motive..., a complex one having its roots in the recent history of Holstein. In 1713 Denmark had invaded the duchy of Holstein and seized important province of Schleswig. Peter's father had gone to St. Petersburg and secured a solemn promise from Peter the Great, his future father-in-law, that Russia would force Denmark to restor Schleswig to Holstein. But in the peace negotiatiation following Russia's long war with Sweden Peter the great, bowing on this to European opposition, broke his promise and allowed denmark to retian Schleswig. Young Peter, brought up originally for the Swedish not the Russian throne, had been taught to see Russia as the great betrayer of Holstein.<<
So what do you, upon reading this, believe what could have and probably was going through young Peter III's head as he moved is tin soliders and whipped his dog? Could one of his battles have anything to do with Holstein?
Peter fought every moment against Elisabeth's demands of the Russian world including their religion....Peter III rebelled even to the point of not taking steam baths demanded during Easter Communion with the Russians, who find Easter the high point of the Orthodox year....
As the youthful and ambitious Cath. II drew in the Russian religion before her marriage, the child Peter stuck his tongue out at the Orthodox priests and their rituals.
Peter III confided in Cath. II, who learned his secrets.... He hung onto his Luteranism, even kept a forbidden prayer book which he showed Cath. II in hopes she'd join him...
And, so the story is far more complex than his mere playing with tin soldiers and dolls, and, often never explained in books about Cath. II "the Great".
AGRBear