Started yesterday to read Churchill's "The Gathering Storm", where he describes the follies of the victors after the first world war:

"Wise policy would have crowned and fortified the Weimar Republic with a constitutional sovereign in the form of an infant grandson of the Kaiser, under a Council of Regency. Instead a gaping void was opened in the national life of the German people. All the strong elements, military and feudal, which might have rallied to a constitutional monarchy and for its sake respected and sustained the new democratic and Parliamentary processes were for the time unhinged."

I will not quote further but in essence he speculates that in a still young Germany, a monarch could have provided the stability that it came to lack, and which in time lead to the fall of its young democracy. A monarch may not be the right answer always, but sometimes it may very well be.

Having a king didn’t help Italy too much. However Churchill probably had a point conservatives and monarchists weren’t really ever wholeheartedly committed to the survival of the Weimar republic. They might not had been as keen to undermine at every opportunity had it been ruled by a monarch. Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).

> Then again , the nazis might just have turned the emperor into an impotent figurehead (as happened in Japan and Italy).

I bet that is exactly would have happened. The reality is that the advance of science and technology and general literacy was quickly eroding the traditional notion of the monarch having the consent of God or heaven.

By the turn of the 20th century this was almost complete, and largely irreversible. From that point on, the only value left in the monarch in industrialized societies was as a symbol of a national ethnic identity for societies that defined themselves in those terms.

Today, only the most extreme religious movements around the world see a return to monarchical society as a goal. Even the neo-fascists would prefer a dictator drawn from their ilk, not a king.

There is an observation, though, that most European monarchies that turned into republics or dictatorships in the 20th century did so after losing a major war.

Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy.

Prior to the military conflagrations that started in 1914, vast majority of Europeans lived in monarchies, even though the democratization and personal emancipation process was well underway. The only republican countries in Europe at the outbreak of WWI were France, Switzerland and (very recently) Portugal. Well, and San Marino, yes.

> Monarchist countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK ... that either stayed out of the war mess or ended up on the winning side were more likely to keep their monarchy.

If I'm not mistaken, those are also countries that had already significantly diminished the actual power of their monarchs prior to WWI. The UK in particular arguably started that process centuries earlier with Magna Carta. On the other hand, places where the monarch retained the most power, like Russia, saw their monarchs assassinated pretty early in the industrial period.

Since Norway became independent from Sweden as late as 1905, they voted on whether the country should be a monarchy or not that year (80% voted for monarchy). But as you say, the process of limiting the power of the Swedish king was quite important during the 1800's.

Today, 80% are still supporting monarchy [1], also among the young [2]

[1] https://www.nrk.no/norge/8-av-10-vil-beholde-kongehuset_-sto...

[2] https://www.nrk.no/norge/3-av-4-unge-stottar-opp-om-monarkie...

It was a little sooner, but the first stable French Republic was created after losing the war against Prussia in 1870. Curiously, royalists had the majority in the first parliament but didn't manage to agree on a king, they lose the next election and then monarchists rapidly disappeared from France politics. So 3 revolutions (1789/1830/1848) fail to create a republic but losing a war manage to do it.

Does he go on to discuss Hindenburg?

The problem for his argument, obviously, is that Hindenburg was the president of the Wiemar republic for the ten or so years that were the meat of the Nazi's rise to power, and he was far more of a hero to the 'strong elements' (far right / conservatives) than the monarchy ever were.

(Obviously, there's a second problem, which is that it's unclear to me if a lack of respect for 'democratic and Parliamentary processes' was the problem with the Nazis. They were voted in, and elections were suspended during wartime, which is normal in a democracy, and were by all accounts very popular throughout the war and after[0]. They also did not substantially alter or suspend the constitution: rather, they used emergency provisions and broadly interpreted resources that were already there).

[0]: Notably, many of the laws they authored, many of the companies and people they elevated or created, went on to successful post-war careers.

Comments like this irritate me to no end. The OP hand waves away centuries of good, bad and indifferent history, in many countries, with a single pithy comment, and people act like that's insightful.

It's barely even worth acknowledging. Don't encourage sassy reddit one liners.

I, the OP, understand why you could be irritated.

In fairness to myself, as someone who holds to individual sovereign autonomy as the only morally acceptable governing principle, I was being consistent!

I don't accept the assumed right of government or of kings to rule over another, or me specifically. Our deferral to people we are taught are our betters, whose pronouncements we unreflectively accept as akin to the word of God, has always been the problem. The solution is individual autonomy.

You may disagree with my view of course, but my one line 'sassy' comment was earnest and in keeping with my position!

There are many low-quality populist websites which will be more receptive to your cringe one-liners. Someone already mentioned the R word, also suggest you try T.

The royal warrant system in the UK was very successful at promoting national business and culture, and I remember looking into tracking down some of these other european royals to stand up something similar for craftsmanship. The other use is they have convening power, where if they call, people answer, and toward peace and creating value, that's a huge benefit. That convening role has been taken up somewhat by celebrities, but celebrities don't offer dignity to people the same way nobility can. I can't defend the behaviour of any of them, but there is value in the roles they occupy.

The point of nobility is to be able to take risks for principles, and having royals around provides a basis for that. Another is what can only be described as our modern managerialists seem to offer everything to people except dignity, and royals can wield that. I'm all for republics when you can keep them, but I think setting royals up as symbols just to militate against is a bit coarse. They can provide a source of stability and continuity, legitimate convening power, and dignity for people who have earned recognition. Having nobles and royals around is more useful than I think most people realize.

In a world where one can be "famous for being famous", where pretenders to titles and thrones can spend half a century pursuing Diplomacy as a semi-professional hobby, and where high-ranking government officials are often out of office within a few years, well-prepared pretenders can occasionally prove quite useful.

And when they're not needed - it's not like they're being paid anything, to keep waiting in the wings.

I don’t know if they offered nothing. But European monarchism is a government structure situated in the past. It arose out of the material conditions and culture of a certain place and time, that no longer exist. Further, it’s ideological justification, the Mandate of Heaven, would be strongly contested by contemporary people.

So I don’t think it’s rational to transpose the historical benefits or flaws (if it’s even possible to disentangle the causal relationship between government structure and societal outcomes) into the political discourse and assume they would remain the same. One salient massive societal change has been the de-mystification of the aristocracy due to increased transparency. Instead of reverence, commoners view these people with contempt or even pity.

Speaking generally, I think way too much emphasis is being placed on the importance of government structure on outcomes. I understand why programmer types would be drawn to this analysis. But there are more salient dimensions: societal trust, peoples sense of stake in outcomes, the integrity of institutions, and material conditions.

I am from Brazil...

The monarchs here been very useful:

1. Pedro I declared our independence, and later helped Portugal with some crap and became known there as Pedro the Liberator.

2. Pedro II believed in technology, half of all railways in Brazil was built during his reign, he installed the second telephone in the world in Brazil (the first was obviously, Graham Bell`s one), built a research centre in the same place that produced awesome results (it is not heavily celebrated as launching rockets but most of the food production from Brazil, including exported things, are stuff developed by them at some point) and heavily defended that the education level should rise as whole. Also he, ironically, strengthened a lot Brazillian democracy, he himself believed monarchy to be useless and left basically voluntarily.

Brazil immediately after the coup derailed, the first republic was basically a crappy military dictatorship disguised as republic, it ended with another guy stealing the "throne" and becoming dictator himself, then a period of actual republic voting but with lots of instability and flirting with both fascists and communists, then another dictatorship, and now we have a republic where there were more failed to finish the rule than successes (1 president died, before taking power even, 2 were deposed, and only 2 actually got elected and finished their time in power)

The reason monarhy works, in principle, is because the monarch has to think long term, he can't fuck up the country or his heirs will be screwed. Of course there are always someone that go off rails but this apply to any system of government.

The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...

EDIT: I realized I should explain why Pedro I became Pedro the Liberator: Portugal was basically conquered by someone wanting to return Portugal to absolute rule, with the monarch having all the power. Pedro I despite starting with a heavy disvantage managed to free Portugal from the absolutists and put in power a Liberal government.

> The advantage of democracy, in theory, is that there is less violence to choose who is the next ruler... That said our current president was stabbed during elections, a former president was in prison for a while, and politicians here have a knack of having very weird deaths in inopportune moments...

I think you wanna say “the advantage of a republic” because a monarchy doesn’t mean lack of democracy. Many europeans countries are a monarchy and a democracy.

Monarchy and Republic are one thing. Democracy and Dictatorship is another thing.

Btw, great explanation about Dom Pedro II, many scholars call him “the magnanimous” and one of the best imperator of the modern times.

No, they meant democracy. You are conflating the terms "ruler" and "head of state" if you think their comment is about monarchy vs republic. It's not as if no president has ever been assassinated either: people kill for power, not so much for ceremonial titles.

Going a bit on a tangent here, but it is for that reason that I personally prefer the European monarchies over the directly-elected presidencies of e.g. France and the USA: it's very hard to have a meaningful pluriform democratic society when national elections break down into a single-winner-takes-all outcome. I much prefer the democratic structures of e.g. The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, where the election outcomes (and, importantly, the media narrative surrounding the elections) are focused on the composition of the legislature, and the subsequent ruler is determined by negotiations between the winning political parties.

Of course, Germany is a good example of how to run a republic and still have a pluriform democracy, and the UK is a good example of how even a constitutional democracy can devolve into winner-takes-all outcomes (namely, by allowing a few large parties to monopolize the entire political landscape). But in general, I'd say that the countries that do not directly elect their head of state are much healthier democracies than the ones that do.

(yes, I'm aware that most countries that elect their head of state also have separate elections for their legislative bodies. But going by the media coverage of US presidential elections and the recent re-election of Macron in France, that seems an afterthought compared to the democratic processes in more representational democracies).

They are not really monarchies, they are democracies with a small amount of monarchic elements.

Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch.

The Monarchs in most EU countries do not rule, through some have some restricted political influence.

I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule. But that might be a misconception of mine.

> I think the UK might be an exception, where as far as I remember the royalty still theoretically holds pretty much all the power just politely decide to pretend they don't know they still rule.

I would say that it is the rest of the country politely pretending that the Queen actually holds the enormous power she is legally entitled to. It is the law that is a polite fiction.

In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. As such, the British Monarchy can be abolished by an Act of Parliament. It is the popular will of the people that prevents that happening.

That the British people should choose to maintain the monarchy, or that Canada and Australia should choose to have the Queen as their Head of State, confuses outsiders (particularly Americans) no end.

> They are not really monarchies, they are democracies with a small amount of monarchic elements.

The king is the head of state, so how this is not a monarchy?

> Monarchy in my understanding implies the rule of the monarch.

There are two types of monarchies:

- constitucional, like belgium, netherlands, norway and japan

- absolute: saudi arabia and the vatican city.

The someone was Pedro's brother Miguel. After losing the war, he was banished and his descendents removed from the succession line, but they now claim to be heirs to the throne of Portugal (which nobody really cares about).

This all happened after the royal family escaped the French invasions to Brazil and Rio de Janeiro became the capital of Portugal. The story of Pedro, the independence of Brazil and the Portuguese liberal wars is really interesting.

Make that hugely amusing. The absolutist king, Miguel, had the common people's support. The liberals were basically a bourgeois minority.

It took a foreign invasion - Pedro travelled around in English ships, and his troops had a mercenary backbone - to "liberate" Portugal.

The more it changes, the more it's the same.

I feel like people are about to learn a "Chesterton's fence" lesson on national scales.

You may want to remember the moment when the King of Spain successfully preserved the democracy of the country by shutting down a military coup just 40 years ago.

"[...]the King of Spain appeared live on television, wearing the uniform of the Captain General of the Armed Forces (Capitán General de los Ejércitos), the highest Spanish military rank, to oppose the coup and its instigators, defend the Spanish Constitution and disavow the authority of Milans del Bosch. He declared: I address the Spanish people with brevity and concision: In the face of these exceptional circumstances, I ask for your serenity and trust, and I hereby inform you that I have given the Captains General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force the following order: Given the events taking place in the Palace of Congress, and to avoid any possible confusion, I hereby confirm that I have ordered the Civil Authorities and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to take any and all necessary measures to uphold constitutional order within the limits of the law. Should any measure of a military nature need to be taken, it must be approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the nation, will not tolerate, in any degree whatsoever, the actions or behavior of anyone attempting, through use of force, to interrupt the democratic process of the Constitution, which the Spanish People approved by vote in referendum. From that moment on, the coup was understood to be a failure[...]"

Monarchs still have the same function they always had. The represent a direct connection between the nation and the people, and in times of crisis they can stabilize the nation or put an end to political brinkmanship, even if they only hold symbolic functions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Spanish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

They also can to the opposite, i.e. actively destabilizing the country, preventing needed reforms, call for coups etc. In difference to politicians you can't as simply remove their authority on misbehavior because royalty is not something you are elected to.

The fundamental flaw of monarchies is that they raise or fall with the character and competency of a single person (or very small group). (This also applies to system where a single person hold a lot of power mostly unchecked, like e.g. a democratically elected president with way to much power).

Anyway the role they still play differs hugely depending on country. In some it's close to none, in some they still have a bit of old money in some they still have some political influence.

In the end Spain 1981 was lucky, lucky in that the King respected the choice of the people which had removed most of his families power from them. If the King instead would have wanted to reestablish royal power things probably would have ended pretty bad.

I mean things did end pretty bad for the King.

And before that ? When Franco was in power ? What did he do ?

The failed coup attempt was in 1981. Franco died in '75. Is history really this hard for some people?

If there's anything HN threads that deal with history tells us it's - yes, yes it is. Nevertheless people will weigh in with their incredibly strong opinions they have based off of (I presume) hollywood movies. Maybe a lot of people just got finished watching that one where Leonardo di Caprio was Louis XIV, or maybe it was Braveheart.

Clearly the person you responded to wasn't asking what Franco did for that particular coup. Having ceded that one king did one useful thing, they pointed out that another was...perhaps less helpful.

Spain had been a republic for almost 10 years when Franco took power. For most of the years when Franco was in power the king had no real powers even though Spain was again formerly a monarchy. Once Juan Carlos was named heir to the throne, he publicly supported Franco while secretly planning the return of exiled politicians and resumption of democracy. He was pretty badass overall.

Maybe you're confusing it with Italy?

I was using "king" as a catch-all term for rule by a single individual. Probably lazy in a discussion about actual aristocracy, but in my defense any sole person in charge of a nation could claim to represent a direct connection between the nation and the people.

> Is history really this hard for some people?

No harder than civility is for others.

He met secretly with exiled politicians and planned their return.

The same monarchy who supported the Franco fascist coup against the Republic, starting the civil war? Yes, very democratic.

Also note the King of Denmark's role in opposing the Nazi occupation.

And even in England, in A Man Called Intrepid, William Stevenson notes that it was important that the secret services swore their oath to the king rather than the prime minister. That way, if Germany had conquered England and replaced the prime minister, the secret services could have continued fighting without feeling like traitors.

But couldn't Germany replace the king as well? Maybe with the abdicated Edward VIII, who was known to be sympathetic to them.

Replacing a king is much harder than replacing a prime minister, especially if the old king is still alive and disagrees.

Public officials can be easily replaced against their will – the system is designed for that. A king, on the other hand, remains a king until they die or abdicate. When that happens, the throne passes on according to an established line of succession. Any other king installed by a conqueror would be an illegitimate pretender. The conqueror could in principle force the parliament to alter the line of succession. But because the UK is a common law state without a written constitution, it's far from obvious if the parliament can actually do that under such circumstances without consent from the monarch and their heirs.

> They had nothing to offer in previous centuries...

Are you kidding? They had the tremendous value of "do what I say or I will draw this very long knife and push it into you."

They literally offered the gift of life.