Conflicts that Impacted the Cause of Monarchy
By: MadMonarchist
It is a simple fact of the human condition that the most major changes
in the world often coincide with the most major conflicts. The history
of monarchy is no different. While it does not benefit to dwell on it,
most monarchists are aware of the obvious fact that the institution has
been on the decline in the recent eras of history. Since monarchy was
the natural form of government that developed spontaneously all around
the world, this is really no surprise. Where do you go from ‘up’? For
most of human history, monarchy was not something that most people
fought about. It was something that was accepted and monarchies fought
each other for various reasons but rarely fought over the issue of
monarchy itself. However, there have been some conflicts that have
proven critical to the success or failure of monarchy as an institution,
as a form of government. Some of these I have considered will be
obvious and expected but others are probably less well known. There have
also been some conflicts which many have assumed have had a great
impact on monarchy but which, in fact, have actually had a negligible
impact on the cause of kings.
One which had an impact far out of proportion to its scope was the
English Civil Wars. Even though the republican dictatorship of Cromwell
ultimately failed and the monarchy was restored, the English Civil Wars
did lasting damage to the monarchist cause. For one thing, political
realities pushed most of the monarchies of Europe into recognizing the
Cromwellian regime and so set the precedent for monarchies at least
making peace with if not actively allying with a regicidal,
anti-monarchial republic. The republican victory also provided an
example that was taken up by others in the world, most significantly
numerous of the “Founding Fathers” of the United States of America. Even
though the republican dictatorship of Cromwell failed, the fact that
his Roundheads were victorious on the battlefield was immensely
significant. Because of this, even after the restoration of King Charles
II, the anti-monarchy crowd never felt themselves beaten, never
accepted defeat and so continued to hold the horrific image of the fate
that befell Charles I before the eyes of his sons until Britain went
through the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 when the nature of
the monarchy was so fundamentally changed that the legacy continues to
this day. It set a precedent, by events it set into motion, for the
supremacy of parliaments over the Crown in fact even if not always in
name.
As for the so-called “American Revolution” (more correctly the American
War for Independence), the effects of it on the cause of monarchy has
been considerable but probably not as significant as most think. Its
importance tends to be exaggerated for two reasons; American
hyper-patriots who like to think that the world revolves around the
United States and everyone follows their example and longs to be just
like America and, ironically, the anti-American crowd that has the same
mentality but viewed negatively rather than positively. They also tend
to look at how powerful the United States eventually became and so
simply assume that so powerful a country must have had a great deal of
influence on the rest of the world. It certainly did have some impact,
even if for no other reason than that it made a new generation of people
view republicanism as a viable possibility. It also aided in,
indirectly, bringing about the more consequential French Revolution
though it was certainly not the determining factor. Americans were more
influenced by fashionable liberal thought in Europe than Europeans were
by anything that came out of America.
For all of early American history, the United States simply did not
matter that much on the world stage. The British also learned lessons
from it that enabled monarchy to survive much longer in more diverse
parts of the world than might otherwise have been the case. It certainly
did not have much of an impact on its own neighbors. Canada staunchly
refused to follow the American example and as for Latin America, it
would take at least forty years for them to join in declaring
independence from Europe and none of them adopted very American-style
governments. Their independence came about mostly due to political
disputes in Spain and the most significant powers among them, Mexico and
Brazil, first became independent as monarchies. Eventually, the success
of America would have an impact on others around the world without
doubt but it is just as obvious that the revolutionaries who took to the
streets in places as diverse as Russia or China shouted out verses of
“La Marseillaise” and not “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Yankee Doodle
Dandy”. Most republics in the world have adopted the European model of
parliamentary republicanism rather than the American presidential model.
Obviously, the French Revolution was a conflict that had enormous impact
on the cause of monarchy worldwide. The Americas, Africa, Russia, even
Southeast Asia have been impacted by the French Revolution in their
republican movements. For example, the aforementioned political
divisions in Spain that spurred the Latin American wars for independence
were a direct result of the spread of the values of the French
Revolution to Spain and eventually a new French-imposed regime on the
‘Land of the Setting Sun’. The civil wars that plagued Spain for so long
afterward and which led to the loss of the empire were all based on
political disputes that were born out of the French Revolution. Even the
ultimate Allied victory in the Napoleonic Wars sometimes benefited the
republican cause in certain cases depending on which changes, caused by
the Revolution, were reversed and which were kept in place. It may not
have been immediate but tensions remained that would ultimately prove
detrimental to the monarchist cause. In both republics and monarchies
the conflict coincided with an increase in nationalism across Europe.
This did no harm, and in some cases even helped, monarchies which
managed to make themselves the champion of nationalist causes but it
proved very harmful to those who set themselves against it as people who
were forced to choose between their monarch or their fellow countrymen
tended to choose their countrymen.
France, it goes without saying, suffered the most from the French
Revolution in terms of its effect on monarchy. Even though the monarchy
was ultimately restored, as was the case in Britain, unlike the British
the French never managed to come to a consensus that allowed the
monarchy to survive. Efforts to reconcile the principles of the
Revolution with the traditional values of the ancien regime never
succeeded. Had the royalists of France been able to unite there would
undoubtedly still be a Kingdom of France today but the rift in the Royal
Family, caused by the Revolution, prevented this and ultimately
republicanism prevailed, in the words of Adolphe Thiers because the
republic was, “the form of government that divides France least”. The
Revolution, by destroying the traditional Kingdom of France, also
deprived the monarchist cause of what had previously been one of its
sharpest swords. For conservative, Catholic France, which had once sent
knights all over Europe, establishing monarchial states and spreading
Christian monarchy, to become a secular, left-leaning republic had a
huge impact on all sections of society and on countries and nations very
far removed from Western Europe.
The French were also involved in the conflict that, I think, had a far
greater impact on the monarchist cause than most realize which was the
Franco-Mexican War of the 1860’s. It can, of course, be hard to be
definitive and is very easy to romanticize “what might have been” but,
having given that period of Mexican history no small amount of study
over the years, I very much believe that it was one of the most pivotal
struggles in the contest between republicanism and monarchy that the
world has seen. I do believe that the subsequent history of not only
Mexico but much of Latin America would have been changed dramatically
for the better if the Second Mexican Empire had endured. I also tend to
think that it would have had a beneficial impact on the institution of
monarchy in Europe as well. Had Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota
persevered on the Mexican throne, putting all of their plans into
effect, and had Napoleon III carried on with his own further aspirations
for the region, I see no reason why the Mexican Empire could not have
become a monarchial power just as successful as the United States went
on to become. Of course, the United States (or at least the northern
half of it) is more responsible than anyone for the ultimate victory of
Juarez and the defeat of Maximilian so that, one could say that the
American Civil War was a pivotal conflict for the cause of monarchy as
the victory of the free states over the slave states in that conflict
doomed the cause of Maximilian and absolutely ensured the victory of
Juarez and the republicans. Though, that may, perhaps, be the reason
many monarchists do not wish to dwell on it.
Had Maximilian prevailed, the United States might today be the
odd-man-out in an American hemisphere predominately consisting of
monarchies. Maximilian envisioned the Americas with three primary
powers; the United States in the north, the Empire of Brazil in the
south (Maximilian loved Brazil) and the Empire of Mexico in the center.
It may be stretching things a bit, perhaps even more than a bit, but it
just might have had a beneficial effect on Europe as well. Suppose
Napoleon had been more concerned with his “Kingdom of the Andes” project
(perhaps working with President Gabriel Garcia Moreno of Ecuador who
was a Catholic monarchist at heart) and his Panama Canal idea and these
distracted him from falling into the trap set by Bismarck that provoked
the Franco-Prussian War. It might have delayed German unification but,
without the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, perhaps it may have prevented an
Austro-Serb conflict from spreading into the First World War.
Admittedly, that is quite a stretch but I do firmly believe that the
loss of the monarchist enterprise in Mexico was much more far-reaching
than most anyone today realizes. Under the sort of monarchy Maximilian
endeavored to create, there really would have been no reason why
Imperial Mexico could not have become just as successful as the United
States. It would have had a diverse and growing population (they wished
to encourage more European immigration just as America later had), it
had plenty of natural resources and it would have had a monarch that
believed in the same principles of economic freedom and private property
rights that allowed the United States to overtake Britain as the
world’s leading economy in the 1870’s. All the necessary ingredients
would have been in place and the Maximilian-style monarchy could very
easily have become an example to others in the region to start a new
trend favoring monarchy throughout Latin America and, perhaps, beyond.
Another example which most will surely be expecting is the First World
War. There is no doubt that World War I had a very negative impact on
the monarchist cause, beyond simply the loss of the monarchies in
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and eventually Turkey. The war itself
really did not have much of an immediate impact on the wider cause of
monarchy beyond these countries but the events which the war set into
motion certainly did. One area in which I differ from many monarchists I
know is my belief that the war itself was the problem, not which side
happened to win. I do not take the view that everything would have been
uniformly better if the Central Powers had emerged victorious, though
certainly in several cases that would have been true. Once started, I
see no reasonably probable way in which it could have failed to end in
disaster for both the winners and the losers. A negotiated peace, a
“peace without victors” may have been better but given how much both
sides had lost, I just don’t see that as being likely. The more one
loses the more one is going to demand in order to justify such
tremendous sacrifices. I also tend to think that, even if the United
States had stayed out of the last year of the war, the Allies would
still have won. The British blockade had been too successful, the advent
of tanks would have broken the deadlock and the non-German Central
Powers were already on the verge of collapse or in the process of
collapsing before the United States made any significant contribution at
all.
Two events which had an even bigger impact on the monarchist cause were
the Russian Revolution and World War II but, of course, both of these
were a direct result of the First World War and, in my view, would not
have happened without it. They still, possibly, could have been avoided
or minimized had different decisions been made but had it not been for
the First World War the problems that caused them would not have
surfaced in the first place. Poland and Czechoslovakia would never have
been republics were it not for the First World War and in those cases it
did matter that the Central Powers lost for sure. However, Romania,
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania would all have remained monarchies were
it not for the actions of the Soviet Union in World War II which only
came about because of the Russian Revolution which could have been
avoided or minimized had it not been for World War I. Of course, had the
Axis powers won World War II, there would have been huge loss of
monarchy in Western and Northern Europe (what would have happened in the
east is harder to speculate about) but every ill-effect for the
monarchies of Eastern Europe in World War II as it happened (Allied
victory) was a direct result of World War I by way of the Russian
Revolution. The fall of monarchies from Ethiopia to Indochina because of
communist revolutionaries, backed by the Soviet Union can all be traced
directly back to the Russian Revolution and World War I.
Where the Second World War does stand alone, at least somewhat, as a
conflict directly impacting the cause of monarchy was in the East Asian
theater of the war. In this case, the outcome of the war does matter as
much as the war itself in that the war upset the existing, mostly
pro-monarchy status quo but another, also mostly pro-monarchy state of
affairs could have emerged but only if the Empire of Japan had been
victorious. The problem with that, of course, is that Japan never had a
prayer of winning the war and so some will doubtless be bitter about
Japan upsetting the existing state of affairs with the succession of
attacks across Southeast Asia in late 1941 and early 1942. For the most
part, the impact was in the fact that the dominant power in East Asia
would have been a monarchy (the Empire of Japan) if Japan had won the
war rather than republican powers like China and the United States when
Japan lost. Other than that, not a great deal would have been different
on a country-by-country basis except that Manchuria and, perhaps, Inner
Mongolia, would have been monarchies after the war was over. China, the
Philippines, Burma, India and Indonesia would have become republics no
matter who won the war. Laos and Cambodia did remain monarchies but
Vietnam did not and, if Japan had won, it is probable that the Empire of
Vietnam that the Japanese belatedly established, would have endured
with Japanese support.
However, when it comes to conflicts which had at least a regional impact
on multiple monarchies, two or three stand out in my mind. The first
was the 1911 revolution in China. The impact of this should be obvious
as China has traditionally been the powerhouse of East Asia and the Qing
Empire consisted of more than just one country. The republican victory
spelled the end for monarchy in Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet as well as
giving moral and material support to republican copycat groups in other
countries, particularly Vietnam whether with the communist VietMinh or
the VNQDD which was effectively a Vietnamese version of the Chinese
Kuomintang. Furthermore, if not for the fall of the Qing Empire, there
might have been no Japanese intervention on the mainland beyond Korea
and thus no World War II in Asia and no consequent collapse of
monarchies with the end the colonial establishment in places like
Indochina, Indonesia, Burma or possibly even India though the case of
India is debatable. The other examples, and why I say “two or three” are
the revolutions in Egypt and Iran because they have, effectively,
handed off the role of bedeviling the cause of monarchy in their region.
The overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 is often credited with
awakening Arab nationalism but, in fact, that had already been done
during World War I with the British-backed Arab Revolt against the
Ottoman Turks. However, that led to a succession of almost uniformly
Arab monarchies emerging, the sole exceptions being Syria and Lebanon
(thanks to France). However, the Egyptian Revolution led to specifically
republican, anti-traditional and largely secular nationalist
revolutions or attempts at such throughout several areas of Africa and
the Middle East. It provided the inspiration for the 1958 overthrow of
the monarchy in Iraq and from 1962 to 1970 Egypt provided the most
support for the republican rebels in the civil war in the Kingdom of
Yemen with Saudi Arabia backing the royalists. The Nasser vision of
authoritarian socialist republicanism was also taken up by rebels in
Oman where royalist forces and republican forces clashed with
sympathetic regimes backing each; Great Britain, Imperial Iran, Jordan,
the UAE and Saudi Arabia backing the Oman monarchy and China, Soviet
Russia and East Germany among those backing the rebels.
Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 that country has become the
primary antagonist of the Arab monarchies in the Middle East with the
Ayatollah vowing to “export our revolution to the whole world”. An early
attempt to reach out to the Islamic Republic by Saudi Arabia was
slapped away by the Ayatollah, referring to Sunni Muslims as heretics
and the regime stated openly that there was ‘no room’ for monarchies in
Islam. It severed diplomatic relations with the distant Kingdom of
Morocco simply for having allowed the exiled Shah of Iran to visit the
country. However, more significant than its support for anti-monarchist
groups throughout the region, the example of the Iranian regime has
inspired religious radicals to rise up against existing monarchies just
as the Egyptian revolution once inspired nationalist radicals to do the
same. Over the years, Iran has pursued a very erratic foreign policy,
originally dominated by rigid adherence to their brand of religion but
later becoming much more unprincipled, in some cases (such as several
involving China and Russia) taking the side of non-Muslims against
fellow believers, even Shiites and people of Iranian ancestry. However,
their opposition to monarchy has remained fairly consistent and the
closer it is to Iran, whether in faith or in geography, the more they
tend to oppose it. The revolution set into motion a new trend that
spread even to Sunni countries which cast virtually all existing
monarchies in the region as being insufficiently fervent in their
religion and setting the example that a properly zealous cleric should
rule in place of a monarch.
Today, there are not really any major conflicts that exist or seem
eminent which would pose a threat to monarchy in general. Unfortunately,
that is not quite as good as it sounds. The institution has been so
greatly reduced that, though some fervent monarchists may not believe
it, most major powers no longer consider it worthy of much
consideration. Other priorities have taken precedence and various
regimes may oppose or tolerate existing monarchies depending on their
own national interest. It also means that the greatest threat to
existing monarchies is almost entirely internal and that can be harder
to deal with than external enemies. From what I have seen, there also
seems to be a fairly radical breach between some people in existing
monarchies and their governments (transcending parties and
administrations) as to who exactly constitutes a threat to their
continued existence. Many countries also like to maintain the appearance
of cordiality, pretending to be friendly with practically everyone,
even regimes that most everyone knows they thoroughly despise, that
every individual has cover to pick and choose their own ‘state of the
world’ as best pleases their existing views.
However, the best we can do is look to the past and try to gain the best
benefit from experience as we can, being careful to avoid making
justifications that would prompt us making the same mistakes again. On
the largest scale, it would seem hard to overstate the impact of the
French Revolution and the First World War on the monarchist cause around
the world. Others, such as the English Civil Wars and the
Franco-Mexican War would certainly not rise to that level but,
nonetheless, have had much more far reaching consequences than I think
most realize. These events can never be made not to have happened (which
would be wonderful) but by recognizing what they caused and why, we
can, perhaps, work to undo as much of the damage that they did as
possible.
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