Monarchies And The Great War

This volume challenges the traditional view that the First World War represents a pivotal turning point in the long history of monarchy, suggesting the picture is significantly more complex. Using a comparative approach, it explores the diverse roles played by monarchs during the Great War, and how these met the expectations of the monarchic institution in different states at a time of such crisis. Its contributors not only explore less familiar narratives, including the experiences of monarchs in Belgium and Italy, as well as the Austro-Hungarian, Japanese and Ottoman Empires, but also cast fresh light on more familiar accounts. In doing so, this book moves away from the conventional view that monarchy showed itself irrelevant in the Great War, by drawing on new approaches to diplomatic and international history - ones informed by cultural contextualization for instance - while grounding the research behind each chapter in a wide range of contemporary sources The chapters provide an innovative revisiting of the actual role of monarchy at this crucial period in European (indeed, global) history, and are framed by a substantial introductory chapter where the key factors explaining the survival or collapse of dynasties, and of the individuals occupying these thrones, are considered in a wide-ranging set of reflections that highlight the extent of common experiences as well as the differences.

Was the First World War really 'For King and Country'? This is the first full history of the monarchy's role.

The origins of World War I were different and varied. But it was Austria-Hungary which unleashed the war. After more than four years the Habsburg Monarchy was defeated and ended as a failed state.

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world. Through brilliant and often darkly comic portraits of these men and their lives, their foibles and obsessions, Miranda Carter delivers the tragicomic story of Europe’s early twentieth-century aristocracy, a solipsistic world preposterously out of kilter with its times.

This book explores mid-nineteenth-century French legitimism and the implications of popular support for a movement that has traditionally been portrayed as an aristocratic force intent on restoring the Old Regime. This type of monarchism has often been understood as a form of elitist patronage politics or, alternatively, identified with ultramontane Catholicism. Although historians have offered a more nuanced view in the last few decades, their work, nevertheless, has predominantly focused on legitimist leaders rather than their followers and their professed feelings of loyalty to monarchy and monarch. This book’s originality therefore is twofold: firstly as an analysis of popular rather than élite monarchism; and secondly, as a study which portrays this form of royalism as a political movement characteristic of a period which saw the emergence of mass politics, while parties were still non-existent. It not only discusses the social and cultural settings of (popular) monarchism, but also contributes to the history of political parties, citizenship and democracy.

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers, Britain, Germany and Russia, were ruled by three cousins: George V, King-Emperor of England, the British Empire and India; Wilhelm II, the last Kaiser; and Nicholas II, the last Tsar. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war which set twentieth century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world. Miranda Carter uses the cousins� correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. The Three Emperors is a brilliant and sometimes hilarious portrait of three men � damaged, egotistical Wilhelm, quiet, stubborn Nicholas and anxious, dutiful George � and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria � grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third � whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and of Edward VII, the playboy �arch-vulgarian� who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time it weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War One, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect. For all three men the war would be a disaster which destroyed for ever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

How much power does a monarch really have? How much autonomy do they enjoy? Who regulates the size of the royal family, their finances, the rules of succession? These are some of the questions considered in this edited collection on the monarchies of Europe. The book is written by experts from Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. It considers the constitutional and political role of monarchy, its powers and functions, how it is defined and regulated, the laws of succession and royal finances, relations with the media, the popularity of the monarchy and why it endures. No new political theory on this topic has been developed since Bagehot wrote about the monarchy in The English Constitution (1867). The same is true of the other European monarchies. 150 years on, with their formal powers greatly reduced, how has this ancient, hereditary institution managed to survive and what is a modern monarch's role? What theory can be derived about the role of monarchy in advanced democracies, and what lessons can the different European monarchies learn from each other? The public look to the monarchy to represent continuity, stability and tradition, but also want it to be modern, to reflect modern values and be a focus for national identity. The whole institution is shot through with contradictions, myths and misunderstandings. This book should lead to a more realistic debate about our expectations of the monarchy, its role and its future. The contributors are leading experts from all over Europe: Rudy Andeweg, Ian Bradley, Paul Bovend'Eert, Axel Calissendorff, Frank Cranmer, Robert Hazell, Olivia Hepsworth, Luc Heuschling, Helle Krunke, Bob Morris, Roger Mortimore, Lennart Nilsson, Philip Murphy, Quentin Pironnet, Bart van Poelgeest, Frank Prochaska, Charles Powell, Jean Seaton, Eivind Smith.

A detailed account of when Europe's kings went to war. This is the story of eight momentous years viewed, as it were, from the monarchical standpoint.