A Monarchist Hero for Today

Picture in your mind (I doubt it will require much imagination) this scenario which I certainly see. You have a European country, a monarchy, which seems to have had it. The country is being overrun by foreign invaders, the people are demoralized, the religious leaders seem to be as often as not taking the side of the invaders, your monarch does not seem to be much of a monarch, inspires no one and seems more intent on simply securing a comfortable life than saving the country. The populace is divided and many people seem to simply be looking out for their own selfish interests and not for their society, their nation, as a whole. If you see the things that I see, you might think I am talking about any number of countries today. The Kingdom of Sweden might be a good guess. However, I have no doubt some of you already know that I am actually describing the Kingdom of France in or about 1429 AD. It certainly seems highly reminiscent of the present day in a number of ways, though just as certainly radically dissimilar in more.

France was in a state of crisis and a great and ardently monarchist, pious champion stepped forward to save it. That person was, of course, an illiterate, teenage, peasant girl from Domremy in northeastern France. Acting on revelations from God, she went to the French monarch, King Charles VII; though she referred to him as the “Dauphin” because he had not been crowned and was, frankly, not acting very kingly; and told him that she was on a divine mission to see him become a proper King of France and to drive the foreign invaders (the English) from their sacred soil. The two spoke privately and the existence of God and some sort of divine intervention is absolutely the only rational, reasonable answer because, after a short, private, meeting between the two, Charles VII made this illiterate, teenage, peasant girl the commander of the armies of France with his blessing to go forth and meet the enemy, as it happened, the formidable English army besieging the city of Orleans. Joan, known then as the “Maid of Lorraine” or the “Maid of Orleans”, rallied the dispirited French, hurled herself into battle, was grievously wounded in the process, but won a stunning victory, smashing the English army and lifting the siege.

The war turned around, Joan and her army cleared the English from the Loire valley, saw Charles VII properly anointed and crowned in the cathedral at Rheims and then, after hitting a bit of snag at Paris, went on to further battles in the course of which she was captured by the forces of the Duke of Burgundy, sold to the English, put on trial by a Church court, declared a heretic and burned at the stake in 1431. In the aftermath, however, the English-Burgundian alliance collapsed, the Duke of Burgundy switched sides, the English were driven out of France and King Charles VII became the ruler of a united country. None of this would have been possible without Joan of Arc. Few dispute that had she not lifted the siege of Orleans, France would have been doomed. The traditional coronation solidified the loyalty of the people behind Charles VII and more than anything else, Joan of Arc revived the French national spirit which had completely broken down after so many years of fighting, so many internal divisions and a number of humiliating defeats at the hands of England.

All of this is clearly impressive but why does it make Joan a model hero for monarchists today? It seems to me, there are a number of reasons. For one, Joan revived the French national spirit, giving them back their proper sense of themselves as French, identifying with their nation and not simply their village, town or province which might just as easily belong to the English king as the French king of the Duke of Burgundy. She mad the French proud to be French again, made them believe in their unique identity and purpose. This is something, it seems to me, everyone needs more of today in practically every country. That goes for traditionalists, conservatives and right-wingers just as much as those of the liberal, leftist or revolutionary varieties. The left hates their countries for what they were, which is fine as they wish to destroy them anyway. However, the right tends to hate their countries for what they are and this is deliberate for you will hardly have much zeal to fight for the salvation of your country if you do not love it. Joan lived in what was possibly the darkest period in the history of France, she could have easily been discouraged, but she fought for the France that could be, that should be and looked beyond the divided, dispirited country that was.

Also, very much like today, Joan had to confront traditional institutions that were less than ideal. However, she had a quality that made her immune to the damage this could cause. Joan of Arc possessed a type of loyalty that seems exceedingly rare in this day and age, even among many who call themselves monarchists or royalists. The King she fought for was hardly inspiring by most accounts. Was he even the rightful king anyway? Plenty at the time would argue Charles VII had no right to the throne at all, perhaps because they believed in the legality of the claim of the child King Henry VI of England, which was not based on nothing let us not forget, or because they considered Charles VII to be of illegitimate birth. For them, his cousin, the Duke of Orleans (another Charles) was the legitimate heir to the throne. So you had an English child on one side with a treaty signed by the previous king of France that made him heir and on the other side the son of said king who many believed not to be his actual son at all. Joan did not get bogged down in all of that, though she had the benefit of divine revelations.

The primary point though is that Joan was loyal to a king who was, under the best of interpretations, not as loyal to her in return. If you only know the story of Joan of Arc from the numerous films, you would probably be inclined to think Charles VII to be a real villain and regret the fact that Joan had fought so hard to see him placed on the throne. He is often portrayed as outright betraying her to the enemy, selling her out in order to be rid of her. People who have studied Joan of Arc far more than I have do not usually go this far but will say that it remains essentially unknown why Charles VII did not do more to try to save her. Personally, I see no evidence that the King set her up to be captured but neither did he go to great lengths to save her which is why I say he was not as loyal to her as she had been to him. Nonetheless, like the Biblical injunction to “obey not only the good and the gentle but also the harsh”, this did not matter to Joan. She never faltered in her own loyalty, she fought the battles that made it possible for the king to do what he needed to do and she urged him toward the proper course of action but her loyalty did not depend on the King acting as she saw fit or of him reciprocating her commitment.

You could say much the same for the relationship between Joan of Arc and the Roman Catholic Church. She was to her last breath utterly devoted and faithful to the Church which persecuted her, falsely accused her, condemned her and finally sent her to a fiery death. In the years that followed her verdict was overturned by the Church and the bishop who presided at her trial was excommunicated but this was all after the fact (and it still took 500 years to have her canonized, which is rather lengthy even by Catholic standards). It could have been no comfort to Joan at the time and yet, even while surrounded by Catholic clerics and scholars, most presumably in sympathy with the foreign invaders of France that Joan was fighting against, she still maintained her belief in God and the Church of which her beloved country was the “Eldest Daughter”. In an even more perverse way, we often see this today and Joan of Arc sets the example of being faithful even if those charged with upholding that faith are extremely unfaithful.

Joan of Arc had her priorities in order; to restore the king, expel the foreigners, unite the country and obey God. If you believe (and I do) that she was on a divine mission from God, this means that these were also the priorities of the Almighty, which is something anyone claiming to be any sort of Christian should take very seriously. She did not hate the English, she pleaded with them to leave peacefully, even to join with her in fighting heretics and unbelievers, but she was adamant that France belonged to the French and not to the English. The wellbeing of her people was more important to her than the wellbeing of foreigners. She fought for her king, even if he was not the ideal monarch. I am sure it would have been easier to fight for someone like King Louis IX but a St Louis is rare, Charles VII was the man God had placed in her life. She fought for him anyway and if he or the Church did not do what they were supposed to, that was up to God to deal with. All she could do is show them the way and that is exactly what she did. This is important for monarchists today to learn from. If you are not happy with modern monarchs currently reigning or in exile, I sympathize but a King Edward III, Louis IX or Otto the Great are rare and if you are waiting for the ideal king to come along and save civilization for you, I am afraid you will be waiting for a very long time.

Joan of Arc did not wait. She took action. But, you may be saying, she was a saint and had God on her side. True, but who is to say God is not on your side too? God spoke to Joan of Arc, God may be speaking to you too but you just are not LISTENING!

Monarchist Profile: Lady Mary Bankes

The English Civil Wars produced a great many heroic figures and one of my favorites is Mary Bankes though not all that many seem to know her story. This is, perhaps, not surprising as she rather goes against the preferred narrative of modern feminists in that Mrs. Bankes was a staunch royalist. She was born Mary Hawtry in Ruislip, Middlesex, England to Ralph Hawtry, Esquire of Ruislip and Mary Altham though exactly when I cannot say. August 8 is sometimes listed as the day of her birth but the date seems very unclear as I have seen accounts of her being born as early as 1598 to as late as 1605. In any event, her early years seem to have been blissfully uneventful. In or about 1618 she was married to Sir John Bankes who would go on to become the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Attorney-General to King Charles I of Britain. He was obviously a successful man with a fine legal career and in 1635 he purchased Corfe Castle in Dorset, with all attending manorial rights and obligations, from Lady Elizabeth Coke.

Sir John Bankes Esq.

Lady Mary was also quite successful at her task of wife and mother, giving Sir John ten children, six daughters and four sons (Ralph, Jerome, Charles, William, Alice, Jane, Mary, Joanna, Elizabeth and Arabella). However, their domestic happiness was cut short thanks to the antics of the Parliamentarians. In 1643 Sir John Bankes was called away by the King to take up arms against the enemies of the Crown at London and Oxford and so he departed, leaving Corfe Castle in the charge of his wife with their children, household staff and five fighting men for security. This would prove crucial as Corfe Castle was at the time the only armed royalist castle an the coast of Dorsetshire, having four cannons on its walls. The importance of the castle did not escape the notice of the rebel Roundheads (Parliamentarians) and not long after Sir John left about 40 Roundhead sailors appeared and demanded that the artillery be turned over to them. Well, Lady Mary was having none of that and promptly had her maids and the five men put the cannon in action and frighten the rebels away with a few shots.

That act of defiance showed what Lady Mary Bankes was made of but she also knew that it was a momentary victory and that the real importance of her position was the castle itself rather than the cannon. The enemy had retreated but were not far away and so she did, ultimately, decide to hand the guns over so that she could gather supplies which would enable her tiny household army to withstand a siege. This was very good planning indeed as not long after, in June of 1643, more Roundheads appeared, this time about 600 of them and laid siege to the castle. This went on for more than a month when the rebels began to feel rather silly being held at bay by a handful of men and some women and children so they began to attack the castle. Once again, Lady Mary, with her household, held off these trespassers by pelting them with stones and fiery embers from the castle walls until, after losing over a hundred men killed or wounded in August, the Roundheads conceded the victory to Lady Mary and pulled back.

The siege of Corfe Castle

It helped that a sizeable force of royalists was in the neighborhood as well and these came to call on the castle with Sir John even able to visit his wife and children briefly. A few more soldiers were left behind, bringing the total number of defenders up to 80 at most, but soon the situation shifted back to the way it had been before. The castle was still too important to abandon entirely and the rebel forces returned but remained at a distance. This second siege continued and continued for years. For Lady Mary, this was her darkest hour and at the end of 1644 her husband Sir John died at the age of 55, making her son Sir Ralph Bankes and the new lord of the manor. In spite of this heartache, Mary remained just as tenacious as ever and refused to surrender her fortress to the enemies of the King even as another year and another passed by. 1645 came and went and Corfe Castle still stood defiant, defended by Mary Bankes and her gallant little band. The enemy, perhaps remembering the more than a hundred casualties they had suffered trying to storm the place, simply remained at a safe distance to wait their enemy out.

The time for waiting finally ended in 1646. That year a young royalist officer, named Colonel Cromwell no less, managed to slip inside the castle with a small group of soldiers to offer Lady Mary the chance to escape. She was grateful for any help of course but refused to abandon her home to the enemy and, after all, she had been holding them off well enough for the past few years. However, this second siege would not go on for much longer, though, among her tiny force of children and scullery maids, it was one of the men of the small group of actual soldiers present who was to doom her little outpost. One of the men with her in the castle, one Lt. Colonel Thomas Pittman, slipped outside the castle walls to the enemy camp and offered to betray his King in exchange for his own safety. He persuaded the garrison commander, Colonel Henry Anketell to go to Somerset for reinforcements but the troops that came were Roundheads with their coats turned inside out. About half made it inside before Anketell suspected something and shut the small sally gate. Unfortunately, enough made it inside to secure key positions and hold them until morning when they were joined by a major Parliamentarian attack.

Modern ruins of Corfe Castle

Lady Mary Bankes, with most of her home overrun by the enemy, finally had no choice but to agree to surrender. Although, she did not do so until having her maids and children throw all the family silverware down a well so that it could not be melted down and used to fund the Parliamentarian cause. She was defiant to the very end. However, even the Roundheads were so impressed by her tenacity in holding off such superior forces for so long that they allowed her to keep the keys to the castle as a mark of respect. Not wishing to ever endure such an ordeal again, the Parliament ordered the castle demolished immediately. Lady Mary, for her part, retired to Eastcourt manor, purchased by her sons Sir Ralph and Jerome and remained there until her death on April 11, 1661. She was an extraordinary woman who earned an honored place in the pages of history for her steadfast and determined defense of her home for the sake of King and Country. Had King Charles I been blessed with a few more people with the courage and tenacity of Mary Bankes, he might just have won the war.

Monarchist Profile: Lt. Colonel Pál Prónay

Altogether, the story of the Hungarian soldier, monarchist and counter-revolutionary Pal Pronay is not a pleasant one. However, having already looked into the likes of Charles Dupin or even Baron von Ungern himself, monarchists with a villainous reputation are not unknown here and he is too significant a figure to ignore. Pál Prónay de Tótpróna et Blatnicza was born on November 2, 1874 in Romhany in the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary (Austria-Hungary at the time of course). His family was not very remarkable, being of the gentry class but only just and when the young Pronay decided to embark upon a military career he was able to attend the Lahne Military Institute. After graduation, however, his career was hardly exceptional. Promotions came slowly for Pronay, even in a time and place where rising through the ranks of the officer corps was quite difficult, as he was seen as being rather bad tempered. Reports about him show a man who certainly had drive and a degree of skill but who was hard to work with and believed to be excessively harsh, even brutal, when it came to the discipline of the men under his command.

During World War I, Pronay served in an Austro-Hungarian cavalry regiment, as a captain, but was not all that remarkable. He saw some action, earned some medals but never advanced beyond a mid-level field officer. Pronay was harsh but certainly loyal and dedicated to his country and his Kaiser-Kiraly. The ultimate end of the war and the defeat of Austria-Hungary was a bitter pill for him and he was not content to simply give up on the cause of his country, even if it was to stand alone as the Kingdom of Hungary after the ethnic minority areas were detaching themselves. All too often people forget that, of all the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary was the only one which was erased from the map completely after the war. This was especially infuriating for the Hungarians who had never been enthusiastic about the war in the first place. In spite of this, after the war, the Kingdom of Hungary was stripped of two-thirds of its territory and, after land had been given away to Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and so on about one-third of Hungarian-speaking people found themselves a Magyar minority in surrounding Slavic countries.

Added to this treatment, which was due to wartime agreements by the French and British with minority dissidents of Austria-Hungary and would take effect over a couple of years, in the immediate aftermath was internal disorder as the disease of communism, first unleashed in Russia, spread rapidly to the west. With the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary being forced to leave, the government proved totally incapable of maintaining order. A communist revolution erupted and seized power in March of 1919. It would not escape the notice of Pal Pronay that the dictator of the newly proclaimed Hungarian Soviet Republic was a Soviet Russian trained Jew named Bela Kun. Nor did it escape notice that all but one of the leaders of the communist revolution in Hungary were Jewish.

Bela Kun

When considering the eventual backlash, unpleasant as some may find it, this was significant. Jews had been disproportionately represented in the communist movement in Russia, it was Kurt Eisner, a Jew, who brought down the Bavarian monarchy and proclaimed the Bavarian Soviet Republic the year before and which was still holding on to power when Bela Kun took over in Budapest. Jews were disproportionately represented in the communist movement of Antonio Gramsci in the Biennio Rosso in Italy, the uprisings of “Red Week” in The Netherlands in 1918 (David Wijnkoop, one of the founders of the Dutch Communist Party was Jewish) and the short-lived Slovak Soviet Republic of 1919. The following year, another Jew named Ludovic-Oscar Frossard would found the French Communist Party (and ironically enough end up serving in the Vichy government of Nazi collaborators in World War II). One could go on but the point is too many Jews were too highly placed in these communist revolutionary movements to go unnoticed or be shrugged off as pure coincidence by many people.

In Hungary, Bela Kun only managed to hold on to power for a matter of months but it was a brutal period. Bully boys, trussed up in leather outfits assaulted and murdered hundreds of people in what became known as the Red Terror (and just about every country that has had an experience with communism has had a Red Terror). They targeted class enemies, landlords, Catholic clerics and anyone they considered counter-revolutionary, such as monarchists, but also anyone with whom they happened to have a particular grudge. This Soviet regime was, in the end, brought down when their antics sparked the intervention of the Kingdom of Romania and so it was that, after participating in their crushing defeat during the war, Hungarians had to endure the humiliation of watching their former defeated foes of the Romanian army march down the streets of Budapest. A new government was formed led, oddly enough in what was now a land-locked country, by former Admiral Miklos Horthy who called for officers to join in forming a new Hungarian National Army. Pal Pronay was quick to come forward and for a time even commanded Horthy’s bodyguard.

Pal Pronay

However, his rise to fame, or infamy to most, came in the summer of 1919 when he formed the first fighting unit of what would become known as the White Guards. For the next two years Pronay and his men swept through the Hungarian countryside meting out justice or taking revenge on those who had perpetrated the communist takeover of the country. This soon became known as the “White Terror” by those targeted, many of whom were Jews. His methods were brutal and he never made any effort to conceal that fact. The Red Terror which prompted this backlash, however, is not always mentioned nor the fact that this was in the context of a people watching their country, not just the traditional order but the country itself, on the precipice of being wiped out entirely. There were killings, there were mutilations (cutting off an ear was a fairly common practice) but the context of this cruelty is all too often forgotten. Like the vicious fighting between the Reds and the Whites in the Russian Civil War, this was not two sides meeting in traditional combat but two factions fighting for the very survival of their country as it had always been.

It is also worth repeating that not all of those who fell prey to Pronay and his troops were Jews. This was retribution against all those who had been communists, revolutionaries or enemies of the traditional Kingdom of Hungary. The extent to which Jews were targeted was because of the preponderance of Jews in the leadership of the communist takeover and not simply for being Jews. Again, three out of the four top leaders of the communist coup were Jews and the leadership overall was up to 75% Jewish and because of that, few of the counterrevolutionaries were very willing to give any Jew the benefit of the doubt. It was not, however, a purely racial or religious matter but was the effect of actual facts about who had perpetrated the communist takeover, the Red Terror and the subsequent humiliation of having the Romanian army march into Hungary. Pronay was not alone in what he did though he was probably the most zealous and the least inclined toward any pity or compassion on anyone he thought associated with the enemies of the old Kingdom of Hungary. His goal was to see the Kingdom of Hungary fully restored and to, as he put it, “restore the traditional good relations between the landlords and estate servants,”.

Admiral Horthy

Once the Romanians marched home and Admiral Horthy had consolidated his hold over the whole country, things became easier. Pronay, as a lieutenant colonel, had grown his band to a full battalion and billeted them in the Hotel Britannia. He wished to purge Budapest of its entire Jewish population, viewing them as suspect, before another communist coup could be launched but Admiral Horthy restrained him as already the media reports about the White Terror were causing outrage among the other countries of Europe. The Hungarian ruling class began to turn on the White Guards and though Pronay was able to shield his men for a time, eventually Pronay lost his command after being found guilty of insulting the leader of parliament and extorting a Jewish politician. Thoroughly disgusted with the Horthy government, he moved to the border and carried on with some of his troops as they had before, setting up his own sort of fiefdom where he was his own law and government. He also fell out over the failure of Horthy to restore the Hungarian monarchy in full.

Officially, the country was the Kingdom of Hungary and officially the Emperor of Austria, Blessed Charles I, was still King Charles IV of Hungary, however the King was away in exile and Horthy ruled on his behalf as regent. In 1921 the Kaiser-Kiraly (Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary) made two attempts to regain his throne. The first was more of a false start, while the second was more serious. Neither Pronay or any other Hungarian monarchist had much chance to support the first attempt but in the second Pronay was able to at least take to the field somewhat and wanted nothing more than to see King Charles IV restored to the throne and Admiral Horthy sent packing. The effort, as we know, did not succeed and this represented the final break between Horthy and Pronay (though undoubtedly the King would have been horrified by Pronay’s actions more than anyone). His battalion carried on for a short time under a new commander but was itself dissolved in 1922.

Pal Pronay tried to keep up the struggle though, by going into politics as a far-right critic of the ruling government. He tried to start his own political movement, generally labeled fascist of course, but made little progress before, in 1932, being charged with incitement to civil disorder, stripped of his rank and sent to prison for half a year. Not much was heard from him during World War II as the end of the war on the east approached Hungary in October of 1944 he briefly reemerged again. When Horthy tried to make peace with the Soviets, he was ousted and the pro-Nazi Hungarian fascist party known as the Arrow Cross Party was put in power. Despite being almost 70 years old, Pal Pronay once again assembled a small military unit and began hunting down the enemies of his Hungary. By this point, however, time had run out. Pronay survived the siege of Budapest and carried on fighting the communists until he was captured on March 20, 1945 and sentenced to 20 years of forced labor for sabotage and espionage by the Soviet Union. He died in a Soviet gulag sometime in late 1947 or early 1948.

Monarchists in the German Military of World War II

After the victorious German blitzkrieg of 1940, Adolf Hitler was angered by the exiled German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, referring to the victorious troops as his own. This is usually understood as being a reference on the part of the ex-Kaiser to the fact that the German military leadership of World War II had been the officer-cadets and junior officers of World War I; they had learned their trade in the Kaiser’s Germany. However, there was more literal truth to the Kaiser’s statement than many people realized. The military of Nazi Germany was not filled with hardcore Nazis, though some certainly leaned in that direction. Many were apolitical men who considered matters of government to be none of their business and not the sort of thing for professional military men to concern themselves with. However, there were also those who were monarchists and who were very conscious of the distinction that they were fighting for their German Fatherland and not Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. There may have been more monarchists than can ever be known for sure since so many did see expressing political opinions as unseemly and due to the fact that, after the Nazis came to power, voicing any support for any other form of government would have meant ruination for themselves and their families.

Korvettenkapitan Hermann Ehrhardt

Even before the Nazis came to power, being too openly monarchist could be disastrous for a German military officer even under the Weimar Republic. Army commander Colonel General Hans von Seeckt brought about the end of his military career when he invited Prince Wilhelm, the Kaiser’s grandson, to the army’s 1926 autumn maneuvers. There had also been a backlash after an earlier coup attempt against the republic in which many monarchists participated. Imperial Naval Captain Hermann Ehrhardt, leader of one of the best Freikorps units in the post-Great War chaotic period in Germany had to flee the country after taking part in the Kapp Putsch but later returned and opposed the Nazis first bid to seize power in Bavaria. Targeted for assassination during the “Night of the Long Knives” he managed to escape to Austria and eluded the Nazi regime throughout World War II. General Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, who came from the untitled Prussian nobility, was assumed by most to be of monarchist sympathies and though he clashed with the Nazis, was called out of retirement to serve in World War II but was later executed for his part in the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Major General Ferdinand von Bredow, a monarchist and head of military intelligence, did not escape and was murdered in the “Night of the Long Knives”.

GFM Gerd von Rundstedt

The most senior German officer known to be a monarchist was General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. He came from a Prussian aristocratic family with a history of military service stretching back to the army of the revered Frederick the Great. He was a staff officer in World War I and was later made colonel-in-chief of the Eighteenth Regiment. He stands out in photographs for his preference to wear the collar lace of his regiment rather than the usual collar rank insignia for general officers. Called out of retirement for the Polish campaign, he was known for being a brilliant commander when it came to broad planning, a master of the “big picture” while leaving the details to others. When SS units, working behind the lines, began massacring Jews he had them banned from his area of operations. He was commander of Army Group A in the blitzkrieg in Western Europe and commander of Army Group South in the invasion of the Soviet Union, leading the conquest of the Ukraine.

During these years, he was contacted by members of the anti-Nazi resistance who tried to enlist him in their cause but, while he sympathized, he refused to take part, fearing the chaos that would follow the violent overthrow of the regime. Dismissed for clashing with Hitler, he was later reinstated and made commander of the western front, where he disagreed with his subordinate, Field Marshal Rommel, over how best to repel the expected Allied invasion that came in June of 1944 in Normandy. When he remarked that, after the defeat at Normandy, Germany should make peace he was dismissed again but was again recalled later and presided over the defeat of the Allied invasion of The Netherlands known as Operation Market Garden. He was still commander of the western front when the Ardennes offensive was launched (resulting in the Battle of the Bulge) and in the aftermath oversaw the establishment of a new defensive line along the Rhine. However, Hitler was as erratic as ever and von Rundstedt was dismissed again, for the last time, in March of 1945, replaced by Luftwaffe Field Marshal Albert Kesselring.

GFM Fedor von Bock

Another senior military figure known to be a monarchist, and another Prussian from a long-standing military family, was General Field Marshal Fedor von Bock. A product of German and Russian aristocratic stock, he was born in what is now Poland and was the nephew of Colonel General Erich von Falkenhayn, mastermind of the Verdun offensive in World War I. He served as a junior officer in that conflict in the army group of Bavarian Crown Prince Rupprecht, with whom he became close friends, and so distinguished himself that he earned the coveted Pour le Merite (aka the Blue Max), Imperial Germany’s equivalent of the Victoria Cross. He was a staunch opponent of the Allied restrictions placed on the German military by the Treaty of Versailles and as such approved of some Nazi policies in regard to rearmament and reasserting German independence, however, he had no love for the Nazi regime itself. He was a staunch monarchist and continued to make regular visits to the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II in The Netherlands. Hitler would have liked to do away with him but he was simply too valuable as a military leader. He led German forces into Vienna after the union with Austria and into Czechoslovakia after that country was dismembered and occupied.

During World War II, von Bock commanded Army Group North in the conquest of Poland and Army Group B in the invasion of France and the Low Countries. When the invasion of the Soviet Union came in 1941 he was part of a bloc of German monarchist commanders on the eastern front. He commanded Army Group Center while on his flanks were Army Group North commanded by monarchist Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb and Army Group South commanded by monarchist Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. He disagreed with Hitler’s meddling in the campaign and favored pressing on to Moscow as rapidly as possible with his panzer divisions, leaving Russian armies to be mopped up by the slower infantry rather than taking the time to encircle and wipe out each enemy force. The constant order to divert his armored forces to the north or south on such errands were, he warned, wasting their resources and slowing down the campaign. When his forces were given the key role in the drive on Moscow (Operation Typhoon) von Bock was shown to have been correct all along. The delays had allowed the Russians to reinforce their positions and the High Command ordered him to dispatch his armored forces under the famous panzer General Heinz Guderian toward Bryansk to encircle more Red Army forces rather than pressing ahead. A combination of stiff Russian resistance, these diversions of resources and increasingly bad weather finally brought the offensive to a halt just short of Moscow.

Field Marshal von Bock was later dismissed by Hitler after continued disagreements over the Fuhrer’s handling of the Russian campaign. Von Bock was also frustrated by the treatment of Russian civilians and Hitler’s opposition to enlisting anti-communist Russians in the Axis cause (the Russian Liberation Army of General Andrei Vlasov). As a known monarchist who opposed the Nazi regime, he was naturally approached by members of the resistance who were plotting Hitler’s assassination. Like von Rundstedt, von Bock sympathized but refused to get involved. He was convinced that the SS were too powerful and that SS Chief Himmler would prevent any coup from being successful even if they did manage to kill Hitler. He remained in retirement until 1945 when Admiral Karl Doenitz took over leadership of the Reich after Hitler’s suicide. Von Bock set out to meet with the new Fuhrer, presumably to take up a military post again but his car was attacked by British aircraft on his way to Kiel. Fedor von Bock thus became the only German Field Marshal of World War II to die by hostile fire.

GFM Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb

The aforementioned Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb was another monarchist to rise to prominence in the German military in World War II. He was a Bavarian with a long record of service to his country, serving in China during the Boxer Rebellion as an artillery officer and then seeing extensive service, both in the field and as a staff officer in World War I, predominately on the eastern front. In 1915 he earned the Knights Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph, a very prestigious Bavarian decoration, and was elevated to the rank of knight and minor nobility, Wilhelm Leeb becoming Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb. Staying in the army, it was Ritter von Leeb who commanded the troops that suppressed the first Nazi attempt to take power in the Munich “Beer Hall Putsch” of 1923. Needless to say, Hitler despised the Bavarian royalist and after coming to power promptly promoted him to Colonel General and retired him. Talented officers of such experience as Ritter von Leeb were rare though and Hitler had to tolerate him when necessary. In the occupation of Czechoslovakia he was briefly recalled and given command of an army but then quickly retired again when the Allies did not respond.

When World War II broke out, Ritter von Leeb was recalled to duty again for the blitzkrieg in the west, given command of Army Group C. However, he annoyed Hitler again by objecting to the violations of Dutch and Belgian neutrality which Germany had promised to respect. He was a man of honor and integrity but, of course, such values were not always appreciated by the new leadership in Berlin. Nonetheless, he gave his usual service, displaying his expert leadership and for his contribution to the victory over the Allies in the west was awarded the Knights Iron Cross and promoted to Field Marshal. For the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler decided he could not do without him and gave Ritter von Leeb command of Army Group North. His forces performed magnificently, smashing through Soviet resistance and quickly moving to surround the key, historic city of Leningrad. It might have been taken but at that crucial time, he was ordered to divert forces from his command to the south. Leningrad would never be taken but would be the scene of the longest siege in modern military history. When Ritter von Leeb advised staying on the defensive so that Army Group Center could be reinforced and push toward Moscow, Hitler accused him of timidity and blamed his Catholicism, saying that von Leeb would rather pray than fight. Ritter von Leeb was just as disgusted with Hitler’s micromanaging of the war and asked to be relieved of command. Hitler promptly granted his request and he never saw active service again.

Kapitan zur See Hans Langsdorff

There were, presumably, quite a few monarchists serving in the German military of World War II but the political situation as well as the prevailing sensibilities and traditions of the officer corps prevented most from ever making their monarchist sentiments explicitly known. However, some managed to send signals that would seem to most to be a clear message as to their true political opinions. So, lastly, we will look at the case of a famous German naval officer in World War II. Prior to the conflict, partly because of treaty restrictions and partly because of an intentional naval strategy, Germany built a number of vessels known as “pocket battleships”. These were designed to be lighter and faster than most any other warships while still packing the powerful punch of the full-size battlewagons. Of these, probably the most famous was the Admiral Graf Spee commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff. Captain Langsdorff had served in the High Seas Fleet in World War I, earning the Iron Cross for his actions at the Battle of Jutland and he continued to advance his career in the inter-war years. In 1938 he was given command of the Admiral Graf Spee and the following year, with the outbreak of war, set out with orders to do as much damage as possible to British shipping lanes in the South Atlantic. As such, merchant ships were to be his primary targets while he was to outrun any warships he encountered, especially those he could not outgun.

Captain Langsdorff did his duty brilliantly, sinking nine British ships for a total of 50,000 tons of lost shipping. The British Admiralty was thrown into a panic as resources were diverted from far and wide to hunt down and sink the Graf Spee. However, Captain Langsdorff was no pirate but truly an officer and a gentlemen. He followed all the appropriate rules for war at sea and no one from any of the ships he sunk were killed. The pocket battleship was soon packed full of British prisoners and they were unanimous in attesting to how well treated they were by the German captain. However, the brief, brilliant career of the Graf Spee was soon to come to an end as more British warships moved into the area. Eventually, the pocket battleship was cornered in Montevideo, Uruguay by the Royal Navy. After a brief battle off the Rio de la Plata, Captain Langsdorff was ordered to scuttle his ship rather than see it interned by the Uruguayan authorities. He did so and after seeing to the well being of his crew, Captain Hans Langsdorff dressed in his best uniform, wrapped himself in a German naval ensign and shot himself in the head. It was a tragic, noble end to a promising naval officer. In his death, he also sent a message that strongly suggests that Captain Langsdorff was of monarchist sympathies for the flag he wrapped himself in before taking his own life was not the swastika flag of Nazi Germany, but the ensign of the old Imperial German Navy under which, in service to the King of Prussia and German Kaiser, he had begun his career. In death, he had shown the world what his true loyalties were.

Monarchist Profile: General Jose de la Serna e Hinajosa

Don Jose de la Serna e Hinajosa, first Count of los Andes, was effectively, if not officially, the last Spanish viceroy of Peru but more significantly was in command of the last period of struggle between the forces of the Spanish Crown and republicanism in South America. Born in 1770, like many young Spanish noblemen, he became an officer in the army early in life and had a career typical of the difficult position Spain was faced with in that time and place. At the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, he fought the French. Then, when Spain was forced into an alliance with France, he fought the British. When that alliance ended, he fought the French again, was taken prisoner but escaped and then traveled a bit before making his way back to Spain where he fought the French again in the Peninsular War alongside the British who were then allied to Spain. He saw that campaign through to the end when the French were finally driven from the Iberian peninsula in 1813. Once that war was over and King Fernando VII was safely restored to his throne, attention turned toward the vast Spanish empire in America.

During the wars with France, the Spanish colonies had been isolated and independence movements, some more revolutionary and republican than others, began to break out. The other monarchies of Europe were mostly concerned with events in their own continent and cared little about what happened in other parts of the world where they had no significant interests. On the other hand, the United States was quick to grant recognition and at least moral support to any colony that broke away from Europe and the British Empire did the same while also giving both official and unofficial support to such independence movements as a way of eliminating Spain as a colonial rival and breaking the Spanish monopoly on trade with Latin America. Obviously, for the Spanish empire, this was the moment of the greatest crisis and more revolutionary movements broke out and gained ground under such dynamic leaders as Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin and others. Don Jose de la Serna, by then a major general, was dispatched to the Viceroyalty of Peru to take command of Spanish royalist forces there and put down all rebellions against the Crown.

Peru was the strongest bastion of royalist sentiment in South America and the hope was that it could be secured as used as a base from which republican rebels could be suppressed one by one in neighboring regions such as Colombia and Argentina. But, the Spanish faced internal as well as external difficulties. Commanders often wavered according to their politics and discord between officials and generals were far from uncommon. The case of General De la Serna illustrates this. Arriving in 1816, he was first posted to Alto Peru, in what is now Bolivia, and ordered to march against the rebels in northern Argentina by the Viceroy of Peru, Don Joaquin de la Pezuela. However, De la Serna opposed this plan as being too ambitious and was often at odds with the Viceroy who was an old-fashioned royal absolutist while De la Serna was a more liberal moderate, leaning in the direction of a constitutional monarchy. This was hardly uncommon, nor was it unique to Spain. During the American War for Independence most of the British commanders sent to suppress the rebel colonists were Whigs who sympathized with their complaints against the London government. Nonetheless, De la Serna began to move but made it only as far south as Salta in the Lerma Valley of northern Argentina in early 1817 when he was surprised by the appearance of a rebel army under Jose de San Martin who had crossed the mountains from Argentina, conquered Chile and was moving north.

This forced De la Serna to halt his advance and fall back to a defensive position in Bolivia. He soon had his hands full dealing with insurgents in the area which began to rise up with the appearance of San Martin and his Army of the Andes. Frustrated by the situation and his only worsening relationship with the Viceroy, De la Serna finally requested permission to resign and go home to Spain, a request which was ultimately granted in May of 1819. By September, all was in order and he handed his command over to General Jose de Canterac and prepared to return home. However, he did not do so and, in light of subsequent events, one can only wonder if, perhaps, he never intended to retire at all but that this was a charade on his part. As was not uncommon in the Spanish colonies, De la Serna had his own following of loyal supporters who were convinced that he was the only one who could save them from the threat of an invasion by the rebel forces under San Martin in Chile. They applied a great deal of pressure on the Viceroy to have De la Serna appointed to some position of great importance.

Hoping to placate them, De la Pezuela had De la Serna promoted to lieutenant general and made president of the war council in Lima. But his supporters were not placated. In September of 1820 Jose de San Martin landed in the coastal city of Pisco, Peru and prepared to march on Lima. The De la Serna faction then made their real bid for power, pressuring De la Pezuela to resign and make De la Serna Viceroy of Peru. De la Pezuela, however, refused to be pressured and, in what he likely regarded as a test of loyalty, ordered De la Serna himself to put down the uprising that favored him. If it was a test, De la Serna failed, saying that he did not have sufficient forces to suppress them. De la Pezuela had been the victim of a very well managed coup. He was beaten and knew it and so on the evening of January 29, 1821 he resigned and handed power over to Don Jose de la Serna, making him Viceroy of Peru. Sadly, this too was not unusual and, also as usual, the Spanish government simply went along with what had already happened ‘on the ground’ and validated the decision.

Meeting of San Martin and la Serna

By that time, Jose de San Martin was almost upon Lima and the new Viceroy sent a Spanish envoy, who had just arrived with instructions to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, to begin negotiations with the rebels. The talks were long and arduous but ultimately hopeless. The King of Spain was willing to concede practically everything; local self-rule, a new government, complete autonomy, but he would not concede his sovereignty and the rebels demanded nothing less than complete independence. Starting on May 3, the talks continued until June 25 when both sized recognized that no agreement was possible and force of arms would have to decide the issue. Unfortunately for the royalists, their military situation had not improved in the meantime and the following month Lima was evacuated and Jose de San Martin marched in to occupy the city and, on July 15, 1821, issue the Peruvian declaration of independence. Viceroy De la Serna retreated to Cuzco but the forces of the Crown were rapidly falling apart. When the rebels besieged Callao, De la Serna sent General Jose de Canterac to lift the siege with 4,000 men. Unfortunately, he did not succeed and the starving garrison surrendered in September. Royalist forces remaining in Bolivia broke off on their own, refusing to follow orders from De la Serna and internecine dispute among the royalists became more problematic.

In August of 1824 Canterac was defeated at the Battle of Junin by Simon Bolivar as rebel forces from around South America converged on the royalist armies, giving them their first victory in Peru itself. Viceroy La Serna decided to ‘go for broke’ and fight one decisive battle that would settle everything. The result was the Battle of Ayacucho against the rebel army of Antonio Jose de Sucre. The Spanish royalists consisted of only 500 Spanish soldiers, the remainder being local loyalists and native militiamen while the rebel army, not very different in size, included men from all over Spanish America; Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Chile and others as well as the British Legions of volunteers which included men from across the British Isles and Germany who were supporting the cause of Latin American independence. The Spanish forces were also weakened by having troops dispatched to fight other royalists as the conflict between constitutional and absolute monarchists had carried over to America. The result was not difficult to foresee. De la Serna was defeated at the Battle of Ayacucho, forced to surrender and with that defeat, Peruvian independence was secured and the power of the Spanish Crown was removed from South America from that time forward. The rebel victory was so complete and far-reaching that some Spanish historians have speculated that it was all a show rather than a real contest, that the liberal-minded Spanish officers had already agreed in advance to surrender to the rebels. This, of course, is a very serious accusation and one that would be difficult to either prove or refute, however, given the pattern of behavior some royalist officers exhibited, such as La Serna himself, it is understandable that some would suspect a conspiracy.

His Catholic Majesty King Fernando VII, however, seemed to have no doubts about the loyalty of La Serna, granting him the title of Count of the Andes after he returned to Spain. He was given a lofty command appropriate for his rank, Captain-General of Granada, where he finished out his military career. He died in Cadiz in 1832. His life and military career were illustrative of the problems that beset the Spanish empire in the early 19th Century as well as the internal divisions, both in Spain and in America, that precipitated its ultimate demise.

Monarchist Profile: General Julius Jacob von Haynau

The story of General Julius Jacob von Haynau is somewhat illustrative of the problems which caused a steady decline in the fortunes of the Austrian Empire. A very controversial figure in his own time, loved by some, hated by others, his case is also indicative of the monarchist position in Europe today. During the Revolutions of 1848 he played an instrumental role in the preservation of the Hapsburg monarchy when the Austrian Empire teetered on the brink of destruction. Some regarded him distastefully as an unpleasant but necessary tool in the Austrian arsenal while others in Austria openly hailed him as a war hero and a savior of the monarchy, his troops dubbing him “the Hapsburg Tiger”. On the other hand, to others, particularly the Italians and Hungarians, he was known as the instrument of ruthless oppression and given more than one very unflattering nicknames by those he opposed. Yet, today, while Austria has forgotten him, there are those in Hungary who have not and so it is the critical view of the man that has lingered. Such criticism is, it must be said, not unfounded. He was a ruthless individual whose actions demonstrate why the Hapsburg monarchy was so hated by certain subject peoples. Yet, those ruthless actions were undertaken against internal enemies, people who von Haynau viewed as traitors pure and simple and thus not to be spared or pitied.

Strictly speaking, Julius Jacob von Haynau was a Hessian rather than an Austrian. He was born on October 14, 1786 in Hessen-Kassel, birthplace of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and source of some of the most prized German mercenary soldiers. Like many professional soldiers of history, von Haynau was of lofty though illegitimate birth being the natural son of the Hessian Prince-Elector Wilhelm I by Rosa Dorothea Ritter. It was the child’s paternal grandfather, Friedrich II, who supplied the famous Hessian troops to Britain’s King George III to fight in America. Wilhelm I recognized his son and made provision for his care and education. Like his grandfather (who had served with Frederick the Great), little Julius planned on a career in the army and because of his father was assured a place in the military as an officer-cadet. So, at the age of 15 von Haynau joined the Austrian Imperial Army in 1801. He proved a quick study and a capable soldier. With the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars it was a particularly dangerous but essential profession. Still, he found time, on October 11, 1808 to start a family of his own, marrying Therese von Weber, appropriately the daughter of a high-ranking officer. The couple had a very successful marriage of over forty years before Therese died in 1850.

In 1809, only a year after his wedding, Haynau fought at the Battle of Wagram, where he was wounded in a crushing Austrian defeat at the hands of Napoleon. His father-in-law died the same year at the Battle of Aspern-Essling. It was a difficult period for Austria but von Haynau gained valuable experience in the art of war and continued to distinguish himself in numerous battles. His military star continued to rise as the Napoleonic Wars threw into sharp contrast where the talent and the incompetence was in the Austrian army. Even as a young officer von Haynau was known for being rather volatile and ill-tempered but very effective against the enemy. When he had an army of Frenchmen in front of him, his personality was a strength, his fury an asset but when battles were not raging he tended to clash with his superiors. Nonetheless, his violent tendencies on and off the battlefield were not an impediment to his career and he earned numerous promotions, rising to the rank of field marshal lieutenant during extensive and meritorious service from 1815 to 1847. He reached the pinnacle of his career with a reputation for fiery aggression and also with a deep-seated hatred of rebels, republicans and revolutionaries, no doubt due to experiences in the wars with France.

The Austrian Emperor had no more ardent servant and no more merciless guard dog that von Haynau. When revolutions began to break out and spread all across Europe in 1848, both his military talent and loyal ferocity became urgent necessities as the venerable Hapsburg monarchy stood in very real danger of total collapse. One of the first areas where rebellion broke out was in northern Italy, that region conquered by France but placed under Austrian rule after the Napoleonic Wars. Haynau arrived on the scene and set to work methodically suppressing the revolutionary outbreak. Austrian troops had withdrawn to their fortress and shelled the town of Brescia, causing considerable damage and then went on a rampage when the rebels surrendered. Haynau was unbothered by such actions. His was no ‘soft hand’ and brutal floggings were quite common in the period of Austrian rule but the most notorious actions he took, it should be remembered, were in reprisal to an atrocity by the rebels who massacred a group of wounded Austrian soldiers at a hospital in Brescia. Understandably outraged by such an infamy, von Haynau ordered immediate retribution, his Austrian execution squads working over time. This was, obviously, not cruelty simply for the sake of cruelty but was a natural reaction to a ghastly crime, something which is not always remembered. However, the violent temper of von Haynau meant that, while most of those who were executed were justly guilty, there were many innocent Italians who died as well.

Because so many were killed, and not just the guilty, von Haynau became a hated figure known to the Italians as “the Hyena of Brescia”. This was the image that became best known, while the atrocity of the rebels was often conveniently omitted of course. Still, it must be said that von Haynau was not terribly bothered by such name-calling and believed that such ruthlessness would instill fear and obedience. As such, being called horrific names was simply proof, to his mind, that he was succeeding in eliminating the enemies of his emperor. And there were certainly plenty of enemies to choose from, even as 1848 turned to 1849. One of the most serious rebellions to shake the Austrian Empire was in the Kingdom of Hungary and with so much trouble to quell in so many areas, defeating the Hungarian rebels was proving to be despairingly difficult. General von Haynau was recalled to Vienna from Italy and given orders to go to Hungary and put down the revolutionary forces there. So perilous was the situation that Emperor Francis Joseph had accepted the offer of assistance from Tsar Nicholas I of Russia who sent his reliable army in to aid in crushing the Hungarians.

This gave von Haynau an added incentive. Not only was there his usual zeal to strike down harshly all those who opposed the Hapsburg monarchy, he also had to make sure that the laurels of victory were not taken by the Russians so that the locals would remember who it was who had brought them to heel. Haynau was convinced that the Russian army was not needed anyway and that, with his own troops who were veterans of suppressing revolt in Italy, the Hungarians could be easily dealt with by Austria alone. 1848 had been sufficiently disastrous that not everyone agreed and the helping hand of the “Iron Tsar” was not going to be refused. So, General von Haynau charged into Hungary with more zeal to succeed than ever before and, as usual, he was brilliantly effective at defeating the rebels and ruthlessly harsh in punishing their supporters. As in Italy, any Hungarian man or woman who was believed to have sympathized with the rebels were publicly flogged and all active participants were of course killed. The most famous (or infamous for most of Hungary) of these mass executions was the hanging of thirteen rebel Hungarian generals at Arad on October 6, 1849. For his success in suppressing rebellion, von Haynau was honored in Vienna and for leading them to victory his soldiers adored him. However, in Hungary he gained another nickname, “the Hangman of Arad”.

General von Haynau was appointed to a garrison command in Hungary when the trouble was over but, again, his temperament was not made for peacetime and he soon resigned after feuding with the local civilian officials. General von Haynau retired from the army and traveled around Europe, though his unsavory reputation reached across the continent and even to America. While visiting London he was assaulted by two laborers and more than once had to endure ugly scenes on his travels. He died on March 14, 1853 and was buried with all due honors for a man who had been a loyal soldier and defender of his Emperor and the Hapsburg monarchy. To much of the rest of the world, he was remembered as an almost storybook villain, his name being resurrected during the First World War even in Britain to stoke hatred of the Austrian enemy who most Brits were not sure why they were even fighting.

Was he harsh? Certainly, but his cruelty was cruelty with a purpose rather than simply being for its own sake and he was also a very effective soldier, a man who faced death and not just dealt it out. Today, when he is remembered at all, it is usually as simply an executioner or someone who had women beaten in public. This must be accepted as part of the reason why some were never going to be reconciled to Hapsburg rule, that is a price that comes with such measures. Yet, it should also not be forgotten that this was a man who had first faced death, seen battle and been wounded fighting in a gruesome world war spawned by a revolution and for him there were only two sides; the loyal and the disloyal. Today most tend to take for granted that anything and everything subversive must be tolerated but, in those days, treason was not taken so lightly and for very good reason. It is a judgment call as to whether the harsh methods of Haynau had an ultimately positive or negative effect but what is not disputable is that he was an excellent soldier, a loyal subject and an uncompromising defender of the Hapsburg monarchy.

Monarchist Monarchs, Part II

Continued from Part I

After the Revolutions of 1848 most monarchs in Europe adopted a hyper-conservative attitude. The last thing they wanted to do was take any unnecessary risks. Those constitutional monarchies which had not undergone the same level of upheaval also became even less sympathetic towards absolute monarchies that got into trouble. Yet, there emerged a rather unlikely champion of monarchy in those days; a former revolutionary and the nephew of the man who had conquered Europe and made the crowned heads quake: Emperor Napoleon III of the French. I confess that he is not one I enjoy including on such a list but he does, I think, warrant inclusion if for no other reason than his sponsorship of the restoration of the Mexican Empire under Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Of the two, Maximilian was the more honorable character but nonetheless it was Louis Napoleon who made the restoration of monarchy in Mexico possible. Did he do a great deal to inadvertently thwart the succession of this operation? Yes. Did he ultimately go back on his word and abandon Mexico to republicanism? Yes. But who did more? Many, many people thought that a good, solid monarchy would be just the thing to deliver Mexico from the chaos of a continuous succession of republican dictators yet no one else was willing to actually pledge the men and the money to bring about such a thing. Napoleon III did it and more than that, had things gone differently, he had planned to do more. He tried to learn from the mistakes of his uncle and he did manage to make himself acceptable as a member of the club of European monarchs. He was on decent terms with Austria and Spain, friendly with Italy and Queen Victoria of Great Britain was charmed by him. Even the Pope could scarcely say a bad word about him as it was only the presence of French troops that maintained papal political control over the city of Rome.

Unlike his uncle, Napoleon III preferred not to risk trying for major territorial expansion in Europe but to focus instead on spreading French influence abroad, which he did from the Americas to Africa and the Middle East to East Asia. This was certainly part of the reasoning behind his push into Mexico but it is also true that there was genuine concern for the Church and the conservatives in Mexico (particularly by Empress Eugenie) and an understanding that monarchy could make Mexico a stable and prosperous country. And who ever did more? What other world leader ever returned to a state after roughly forty years of republicanism and successfully restored a monarchy? It can truthfully and legitimately be argued that Napoleon III didn’t do enough or failed to see it through; but who did more? And his campaign to bring French-friendly monarchies to the New World did not stop at Mexico. He had big plans to bring to life new monarchies in South America as well, on the west coast, under appropriate princes. He had engaged in correspondence with local leaders towards the goal of making a “Kingdom of the Andes” from a base in Ecuador. If other (more legitimate) monarchs had gone to such pains rather than rushing over each other to recognize South American republics, the trend away from monarchy in politics might have died an early death. His biggest problem was that he was often too short-sighted in his foreign policy but he was also the victim of circumstances beyond his control.

While he certainly could have handled things better in regards to Mexico, the bottom line is that he did not just pull out when things got difficult. In fact, he was forced to pull out when his armies were on the cusp of victory. The life or death of the revived Mexican Empire ultimately depended entirely on the outcome of the American Civil War. The United States of America was never going to accept a French-backed monarchy in Mexico and France was simply not strong enough to win in a fight against the Union forces whose armies were vastly more numerous and much better equipped than his own. The only hope for success in the Mexican adventure was if the Confederates succeeded in winning their independence. Napoleon recognized this but knew that his support alone would not be enough to ensure a Confederate victory and while the British came close, they ultimately refused to get involved. Britain and France together might have ensured a Confederate victory and thus secured the safety of the Mexican Empire but as that did not happen, Imperial Mexico was doomed as soon as the Confederates were defeated. Napoleon III did not just retreat from Mexico, he was ordered to withdraw by the victorious Union forces and he had no other choice in the face of the overwhelming force the USA could have deployed against him.

So, in the end, the Mexican Empire fell and the French Empire fell not so long after. This saw the creation of the German Empire which ultimately produced a very monarchist monarch in the much-maligned German Kaiser Wilhelm II. Aside from his paranoid fear of Asians, Kaiser Wilhelm II demonstrated throughout his reign a strident commitment to monarchy and monarchial solidarity. From the earliest days of his reign he was always warning about the danger of republicanism and the need for monarchs to stand together in guarding against it. During the Spanish-American War he urged his fellow European monarchs to come together to aid the Kingdom of Spain and stop American expansion but he was ignored. He was aghast that the Russian Empire would ally with republican France and tried, though perhaps not in the best way, to bring Russia into alliance with the other major continental monarchies; Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. He was always talking about the rights and responsibilities of monarchs and the looming threat of republicanism. While he ended up being blamed for the calamity that was the First World War, the Kaiser himself tended to attribute the disaster to a lack of monarchial unity as demonstrated by his royal cousins the Tsar of Russia and King of Great Britain allying with republican France.

The First World War, as we have discussed here often (this year in particular), was a disaster for all involved and once it began there was no way that it could possibly have ended well. However, we can see that the Central Powers, under the leadership of the Kaiser, was much more intent on seeing the inevitable changes that would come about because of the war be on the side of monarchy. The survival of some monarchies certainly depended on an Allied victory but the Allies were not too concerned if emerging states were monarchies or republics. No such ambivalence existed where Kaiser Wilhelm II was concerned. Where German troops were victorious new monarchies emerged, all with German princes in charge of course. These included the short-lived Kingdom of Finland, the United Baltic Duchy, the Kingdom of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland and some sort of monarchy for the Ukraine, whether under a Hetman or an imported German prince or Austrian Archduke. There was even talk of putting one of the Kaiser’s son on the throne of Ireland if the Allies had been defeated. On the other side of the world, the government of the Republic of China in part justified its declaration of war against Germany by claiming that the Germans had supported efforts to restore the last Manchu Emperor to power. It was only because the Allies won that Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland all ended up becoming republics and the Ukraine was, of course, absorbed by the Soviet Union.

That issue, of course, brings up the one black spot on the monarchist record of the Kaiser; allowing the passage of Vladimir Lenin back to Russia. Even there, however, I cannot bring myself to be as critical of the Kaiser as others have been. For one thing, no one could have known how it would end up working out, the Kaiser had grave misgivings about it but Imperial Germany was in a fight for its very survival and it should, perhaps, not be so shocking that they would use any weapon in their arsenal, no matter how distasteful, to help ward off their own immediate destruction. It is also possible that some of the other monarchies, on the Allied side, might have survived a Central Powers victory. There were many who wanted to annex the Kingdom of Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg but perhaps this might have been avoided or at the very least perhaps they may have survived as a monarchy within the German Empire. The Kaiser was absolutely furious when his cousin the King of Romania entered the war against him and yet, once defeated, the King of Romania lost some territory and resources but not his throne. Likewise, while mostly assume (and probably legitimately so) that Serbia would have been annexed by Austria-Hungary it is at least possible that this might not have happened given how opposed the Hungarians were too it who did not want to see more Slavs in the empire to compete with them for political power. What we do know is that the downfall of the Kaiser meant republics in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and a monarchy without a monarch in Hungary.

The Kaiser was not alone in this of course, Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary (or Kaiser Karl I) was certainly devoted to the cause of monarchy and to seeing new monarchies emerge from the conflict but by the time these issues came up it was clear that it was the Germans who were driving force of the Central Powers war effort. Still, Emperor Charles deserves at the very least an honorable mention for his refusal to abdicate as well as his efforts to restore himself in Hungary. I have always been most impressed by those monarchs, be it the last Emperor of Austria-Hungary or the last Emperor of China, who actively worked for their own restoration. I wish more non-reigning monarchs displayed as much zeal. However, with the end of the First World War there also came an end to the dominance in Europe of traditional monarchies. The next historical period which had immense consequences for the cause of monarchy was World War II and in that conflict, in Europe, monarchs would not play a very prominent role. Asia, however, was a very different story. In Asia, republicanism was an alien and almost totally unknown concept until very recent history. Prior to World War I and the Russian Revolution and the creation of the French Syrian mandate, there was not a single republic on the entire Asian continent. That all began to change with the historically pivotal collapse of the monarchy in China, then came the Soviet victory in the Russian Civil War and the absorption of Outer Mongolia as a Soviet republic in all but name.

Communist expansion and communist subversion in republican China spurred to action the industrious Empire of Japan and during World War II there was no monarch whose forces displayed a greater commitment to the monarchist cause than that of His Majesty the Showa Emperor of Japan (better known as Emperor Hirohito in the west). Given the Japanese tradition, the Showa Emperor could not and did not go around expressing his views on monarchy in the same way that someone like the German Kaiser did. However, the entire imperial institution and the very monarchist culture surrounding the Emperor of Japan helped ensure that, more than any other power in World War II, Japan pursued a very pro-monarchist foreign policy. The biggest and best example of this was the key role of the Japanese in the restoration of the last Qing Emperor to the throne of the revived Manchu Empire (better known as Manchukuo though that is simply “Manchuria” in Chinese). That was not something that Japan really had to do, after the “Mukden Incident” the Japanese were in total control of Manchuria and could have done with it as they pleased but they did the right thing and restored the Manchu Emperor (PuYi) to his legitimate throne. Even more than that though, while some of the more disreputable characters involved did undermine it with their actions, Manchukuo was to represent a sort of “showcase” for monarchy in Asia as an example of righteous royal government and unity of the five races.

During the course of the war, everywhere Japanese forces went, support for monarchy followed wherever possible. China and the Philippines already had republican governments and Indonesia had no single royal heir but Japan restored the Manchu monarchy, allied with the Thai monarchy (though the King was absent at the time, being at school in Switzerland), kept in place the existing Malaysian monarchs other than a couple who were removed so that more legitimate monarchs could be restored and eventually Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were supported in asserting their independence under their traditional monarchies. In Burma there was no royal restoration, merely the declaration of an independent “State of Burma” but it is worth noting that the leader, Dr. Ba Maw, was the son of a staunch Burmese monarchist and was treated with very royalist pomp and ceremony. It is not unthinkable that a restoration might have occurred if Japan had prevailed in the war. According to one reader of this web log, some Japanese offered to make Sukarno the monarch of Indonesia but I have seen no confirmation of that.

We do know that Japan supported the Prince De Wang or Demchukdongrub as leader of an autonomous Inner Mongolia who had pan-Mongol monarchist ambitions and the Mongols were included in the list of titles of the Emperor of Manchukuo (as he was the heir to the title of “Great Khan of the Mongols” as well) so there is no doubt that a Japanese victory would have meant a monarchist revival in Mongolia to some degree (depending on how things developed with the Soviets). Japan did also consider, if it ever became possible (which it didn’t) creating an independent monarchy in Xinjiang (or “East Turkestan”) under an Ottoman prince. That would not technically have been an imported royal ruler either as the area was essentially the ancestral homeland of the Ottoman Turks before they moved west and occupied Anatolia. The farthest west Japanese speculation about monarchist alliances reached was Afghanistan where Japan had intermittent contact with Prince Sardar Mohammed Hashim Khan, uncle of the Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah, though other than an exchange of moral support and some economic investment Japan was never able to do anything of any significance as far afield as Afghanistan. Naturally, national interest was involved in all of these moves as it was for France in Mexico and as it was for Germany in Eastern Europe but again, as in those cases, those who would discount these efforts must be asked; who did more? If the Japanese vision for East Asia had prevailed there would have been monarchies in Japan, Korea (though subordinate to Japan), Manchuria, at least Inner and perhaps even Outer Mongolia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, possibly Xinjiang and perhaps even in Burma whereas, the way things actually did work out, we have only monarchies in Japan, Thailand, Malaysia (plus Brunei to both lists) and Cambodia. And, while he was not involved in matters of policy, the devotion to the Showa Emperor was positively at the heart of this pro-monarchy mindset.

Sadly, since the end of World War II, monarchs have ceased to play an active role in foreign policy and the world stage has been dominated by republics. The relatively few monarchies that survived the disastrous Twentieth Century have become noticeably less assertive and virtually all depend on the United States to protect them against such enemies as the Soviet Union or Red China. In Europe, most have submitted to the leadership of the bureaucrats of the EU who have no time for monarchy and, one could argue, have even imperiled them by antagonistic expansion eastward, arousing the anger of a Russia desperate to prove its relevance. In these modern times, in this world setting, most monarchs have not been allowed to show any monarchist tendencies and have been raised up in an environment in which the elites of society and certainly education and media actively despise the institution. Yet, for all the criticism ardent monarchists often spout about their mostly power-less royal heads-of-state, one can still find clues that point to monarchist principles surviving in these frustratingly republican times.

While lacking the freedom and other advantages held by others on this list, one monarch who stands out today as a ‘monarchist monarch’ is none other than HM Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and territories. How can this be? Again, one must accept that grand, decisive actions are no longer possible for most monarchs, so subtle things must be looked at; the evidence is there. In areas where the Queen herself has final say, she has acted in various ways to show how monarchist she really is. One has been her treatment of royals who have lost their thrones but found a safe haven in Great Britain. The Queen has been very close and supportive of such former or would-be monarchs as King Michael I of Romania and Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia during their time in exile. Perhaps the best example is the treatment accorded to the deposed King Constantine II of Greece. It caused the British government some slight discomfort when the Greek usurpers in Athens protested so loudly at how the Queen continued to treat King Constantine II as if he were still a reigning monarch. This was most noticeable at Royal Family events in which the guests are seated by rank and at which King Constantine II was seated alongside his fellow monarchs. Yet, despite the protests from Athens, this was something the British government could do nothing about as it was a matter handled by “the Palace” and no one else.

As a devoted constitutional monarch, the Queen has certainly kept within her legal limits but within those limits she has shown herself to be as monarchist as a modern, European monarch can reasonably be. Sometimes this has been illustrated by what she has done and other times by what she had refused to do. When the Church of England started down the path of accommodation with modernity by allowing women into the clergy, the Queen stayed out of the matter but noticeably showed no disfavor toward those royals who could not stomach the changes and sacrificed their birthright by converting to Catholicism. As part of her recent Jubilee celebrations, when almost all the monarchs of the world came to congratulate her, some objected to the presence of certain African or Arab monarchs whose countries are not up to the liberal standards of human rights advocates. Yet, none were shown the door just as no British politician seemed willing to put human rights concerns ahead of good relations with republican dictators from Libya to China. However, I always thought one of the best examples of the monarchist sensibilities of Queen Elizabeth II to be something seldom remarked on, in fact, I have never heard of anyone else making the connection. That would be the funeral of King Baudouin of the Belgians.

The sudden death of who was then the longest-reigning monarch in Europe certainly came as a shock and his funeral was one of the most widely attended events for royalty from all over the world. Yet, aside from being well respected and such a familiar figure, a popular man and an accomplished monarch (his success in unifying a divided country caused King Juan Carlos of Spain to take him as his example), King Baudouin was also known as the only monarch in the post-war era to defy his politicians. A devout Catholic, King Baudouin had adamantly refused to grant his Royal Assent to a bill legalizing abortion in Belgium. Faced with a constitutional crisis, it made headlines all over the world when the government essentially deposed the King of the Belgians for one day in order to sign the bill into law without him. This made him rather unique amongst the crowned heads of Europe. And, when the King of the Belgians was called to his reward, many were rather surprised when Queen Elizabeth II appeared in Brussels for his funeral. Why was this so special you may ask?

To fully understand why this was so significant, a few things need to be kept in mind. For one thing, there had been, several decades before, some tension between the British and Belgian Royal Families. When the Queen’s own father, King George VI, had passed away, King Baudouin had refused to attend the funeral because of how his own father, King Leopold III, had been treated by the British during and immediately after World War II. Things had been improved since then of course, but still, it was there. Combine this with the fact that the Queen herself almost never attends any royal functions on the continent at all, invariably sending some other members of the British Royal Family to weddings, funerals or enthronement ceremonies. Why then did the Queen make an exception for the King of the Belgians? I cannot help but speculate that it had something to do with his willingness to defy his ministers over a cause that was just. King Baudouin was the one monarch who said “No” to the elected representatives of the people and lost his throne for a day because of it. Other monarchs would not do the same, indeed most European monarchs could not do the same, but he did and I believe that the Queen chose to break from her usual routine and attend his funeral, at least in part, as a mark of respect to this monarch who had refused to be a rubber-stamp.

In the past, monarchs had no real need to display overtly monarchist inclinations as monarchy was something so widespread as to be taken for granted. Later, when this was no longer the case, the game of power politics often meant that monarchies acted for short-term gain at the expense of the long-term strength of monarchy in general. Today, most are reduced to simply doing whatever they can to ensure that their own monarchy does not add to the tragically long list of monarchies that have fallen by staying in step with or at least out of the way of current popular ideas and political trends. What monarchists can do to help in the current situation is to be steadfastly loyal for, as kingdoms such as Thailand prove, even a monarch with little legal power can still exercise immense influence if the majority of their people faithfully support them. Real world political situations must also be taken into account to help ensure that the remaining monarchies of the world are revitalized and strengthened to the point that they are not under threat from hostile republics and not reliant on helpful or indifferent republics for their protection. If that can be accomplished, perhaps then we will see more ‘monarchist monarchs’ emerge again to help revive the cause of traditional authority around the world.