Despite the assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, there was no widespread popular expectation amongst contemporaries that this episode would develop into something more significant than another Balkan war (that was fairly widely anticipated). As late as 26 July 1914, the British newspapers were speculating on the implications associated with the anticipated arrival on British shores of the German Kaiserâs third (and still unmarried) son for Cowes Week, and remaining into September, with his British royal cousins. Some columns hinted that a possible marriage with the popular Princess Patricia of Connaught.1 According to the Court Circular, that same day, 26 July, George V âwas visited by Prince Henry [Heinrich] of Prussiaâ, who was Wilhelm IIâs well-regarded younger brother.2 Heinrich and King George got on well, having had in common the experience of being career naval officers (Heinrich was still serving, having reached the rank of Grand Admiral in 1909).3 The Prince had come across for Cowes Week as per usual. Generally, by late July, the royal families of Europe, and most of the leading European statesmen and diplomats, were winding down their political and diplomatic business for the summer. They were planning summer holidays, which meant for most either flocking to spas like Baden-Baden in Germany or resorts like those in the South of France or returning to their own estates.4 The French President, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary were all on a series of European visits, the first named only returning to Paris from Saint Petersburg on 29 July after cutting short plans to visit Norway and Denmark.5 What kept many British statesmen in London (on weekdays at least) into late July was the crisis in Ulster, rather than the one potentially engulfing Europe.6 Things changed in the last days of July and early August, as the danger of a pan-European war was finally acknowledged. Consequently, not only PoincarĂ© but other eminent figures, including members of the various European royal families, felt forced to cancel engagements in order to rush home.7 The Dowager Empress Marie of Russia had been staying with her sister, Queen Alexandra, at Marlborough House in London, planning to spend August with her at Sandringham in Norfolk. Her last minute return to Russia saw her forced to make a roundabout journey through Denmark and Finland as her usual route via Berlin was blocked.8 In August 1914, European royals found themselves on opposing sides to relatives who had been part of their social as well as formal diplomatic circles in peacetime.9 This was far from unusual, of course, as an examination of the dynastic wars of the eighteenth century underline. But this time, there was a difference.
The Perspective Taken
This is not, though, a volume primarily about war or its origins and causes. Instead it is one which focuses on how the institution of monarchy, in its various modern manifestations, performed (and perhaps more importantly, was perceived to perform) in the context of modern warfare. The lens used focuses on the expectations of contemporaries in relation to what monarchs should and could do, and the implications of that for the monarchic style of government. Using the First World War as the frame, the case studies in this collection explore the pressure that war placed upon individual monarchies, the public reactions to their performances, and how these do (or do not) relate to the survival or collapse of the belligerent monarchies involved. What was, we believe, different about the events of July to September 1914 was the fact that, as the opening paragraphs to this Introduction underline, there was, as late as the last week of July, no expectation of war on a pan-European (let alone global) scale.
Apart from anything else, this meant that monarchs and their families (including sisters, cousins and aunts who might be married into families who would turn out to be on the opposing side) were, to a considerable extent, taken by surprise by the late summer escalation of tensions. Consequently, rulers and their relations had to react to the rapidly developing crisis on, essentially, a âspur-of-the-momentâ basis, including when engaging their subjects in what they felt to be an appropriate reaction to this suddenly looming major conflict. In Britain, for instance, newspapers reported that, according to an announcement by the Prime Minister, George V had been in contact with Tsar Nicholas II and Kaiser Wilhelm II to try to resolve the crisisâbut until after the formal declaration of war, the constitutionally conscious Kingâs main positive public initiative (besides cancelling attendance at Goodwood Races and Cowes Week) was to organise a day of prayer on Sunday 2 August, in which he took the lead.10 As this volume reveals, the intricacies of monarchical reactions to the imminent conflict depended heavily upon their character and the political framework in which they operated. The majority of case studies included here focus on European examples, but not exclusivelyâthe Ottoman Empire is also considered, as is Japan, as part of the process of exploring the impact and implications of modern warfare for the institution of monarchy throughout the twentieth century, and the extent to which there are common threads across those states possessing a monarchical form of government. In the Ottoman Empire, for example, Palabıyık argues that, as with Britain, it was the politicians (what he describes as the âruling triumvirateâ) who made the decision that the Empire could not be neutral and had to choose a side.11 Did this make the institution of monarchy substantially irrelevant in either of these two imperial states, foreshadowing a further diminution in the power of the one, and the disappearance of the other as a feature of the post-war political landscape? We argue that, rather than showing that monarchy was no longer a robust institution, unsuitable for the world that emerged from the chaos of the Great War, this volume illustrates the complexity of choices that were made in a post-war world. Further, that a serious consideration of the institution of monarchy, accompanied by positive assessments of its performance within particular states, needs to be intrinsic to both micro, or individual state, histories of the war and the more macro global assessments of its impact.
The Historiography of War and Modern Monarchy
There is a rich literature in other languages, and German in particular, which reflects on aspects of the issues discussed in this volume. Regarding academic texts in English, however, serious academic considerations on the topic of monarchies at war are lacking in both scope and depth. This is evidenced by the contents of the most seminal academic work of recent years, Jay Winterâs three-volume edited collection, the Cambridge History of the First World War.12 This provides a survey of the Great War that is, in many ways, all-encompassing. The collection opens up a wide range of new areas for consideration, including contributions to cultural history depicting aspects of the private lives of citizens in participant states, the impact of war on populations in occupied territories and on refugees. However, what the collection does not examine in any serious detail is the role played by monarchies during that war. The different monarchies do feature, of course, especially in the second volume which examines the role of the state.13 However, in terms of both the individuals and the institution of monarchy itself, they are reflected upon in a wider context of individual states or are mentioned in passing and consistently in ways that substantially take their subordinate role or negative impact for granted. Certainly, in the various chapters reflecting on state policy and individual figures there is, overall, more focus on politicians, especially elected ones, than on monarchs, as representing the way forward for post-1918 states.
Where, in this collection and in other workânotably that by John Röhl and Dominic Lievenâmonarchy is discussed, the focus is rarely on the institution as a specific topic for consideration. Instead, the focus is primarily on individual European monarchs in ways which contextualise these characters as practising an essentially European style of monarchy which was outdated by the end of the conflict.14 As part of this, their commentary is pursued predominantly through the trope of decline and decay, with an emphasis on the ways in which individual rulers contributed, by their conduct and strategies during the Great War period, to the final collapse of the institution in their countries.15 Lieven makes the point that relations between the Romanov and Habsburg dynasties had broken down so extensively, that during the Balkan Wars of 1912â1913, which preceded the Great War, the Tsar felt no shared âcommunity of fateâ with either the Habsburg Empire, or with the Ottomans. Indeed, he insists that Nicholas II felt that it was desirable and in Russiaâs best interests that these âpolyglot imperial monstrositiesâ should collapse and disappear.16 There is, however, in Lievenâs account no indication that Nicholas II and his advisers saw any dangerous implications for the survival of the Russian monarchical institution should these other empires disappear.
John Röhl, in his preface to the German edition of his magisterial volume on the Kaiserâs personal monarchy insisted that he was âconcerned with the conditions necessary for the survival of the monarchical form of government in the twentieth centuryâ.17 For Röhl, the key factor has been the âpernicious influenceâ of Wilhelm IIâs style of personal monarchy, whichâworking against the âgrowing democratic spirit of the timeââmeant that predictions about the end of the Hohenzollerns as the ruling German dynasty were made even before the events of 1914â1918 brought matters to a crisis. We would agree with his conclusion that a âKaiser who either could not or would not understand what was required of monarchy if it was to survive in a modern pluralist societyâ was almost inevitably headed for disaster.18 However, we would also point out that the implications of Röhlâs comments are to the effect that Wilhelm IIâs personal idiosyncrasies brought down the Hohenzollerns, rather than it being that the institution in Germany was so inherently flawed that it was impossible for it to adapt to the challenges he identified. This has ramifications, as Boffâs chapter on Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria in this collection underlines. The focus in the chapter is on the gap in scholarship relating to Rupprechtâs experience of command of the Sixth Army, and the difficulties he had in intera...