Military Eugenics - The Potsdam Giants:

I'm unsure where I'm going with this one .. I was looking at 'Baltic amber' - which I rather like ( OK, call me a 'girl's blouse') when I saw mention of Giant Royal Guards being gifted in return for the 'Amber Room'.

In 1675 yet another "Royal" fruit & nutcase was enjoying his privilege & wealth - combined with his man-love - to collect a special body of  tall lads .. "Lange Keris" as his Prussian Regiment of Guards was sometimes called. I don't want to use his name but Frederick William I  did have some military training and did actually manage some improvements in training regimes and equipment. Link:

https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/history-of-war/the-potsdam-giants-how-the-king-of-prussia-bred-an-army-of-super-soldiers/
I suppose - in their defense - the European 'snobs & nobs' & royalty were an inbred and sickly lot (still are) who were supported in their indulgences by equally mendacious, venal & corruptly vicious underlings - hangers-on who would hope to thrive by supporting their masters whims and fetishes (still do).

This Irish-man James Kirkland at nearly 7 foot 2 inches was a favorite in in this impressive-pretty-big-boys-on-display-army .. one of many such press-ganged to parade through Frederick William I's bedroom whenever he was in need. - Fred liked to "drill" and paint his men every day.

There was some advantage for musket men being tall (as opposed to short) for speed at reloading and ramming but selecting above average super long shanks included guys suffering from GIGANTISM who would not necessarily make great fighting men due to skeletal and heart issues.

The British "royal" Guards Regiments used to be selected with a minimum height requirement and received two weeks extra training at parade work and drilling - my Dad volunteered-out into the WWII Commandos "in order to get away from the Irish Guards poofy English Public School Officers."

Personally - the hardest fighting men I've ever known were tough little blokes such as the Gurkhas who'd have presented a smaller target to projectiles and would have kept on going all day.

Prussian Frederick I and all the other royal dynasties - like Queen Victoria's nine kids - were cross-bred with the other European "Greats" - "Terribles" - and likely Mad-monks .. a crazed dynasty of Carlos II, Charles VI, Ferdinand I of Austria, George I, & George III.

 The Romanovs - sadly missed by the Russian serfs - had some of their executed remains identified in recent years by using genetic samples from the Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand's husband Philip Battenberg-Mountbatten Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Glücksborg.

Marty K.