Conflicts that Impacted the Cause of Monarchy

It is a simple fact of the human condition that the most major changes in the world often coincide with the most major conflicts. The history of monarchy is no different. While it does not benefit to dwell on it, most monarchists are aware of the obvious fact that the institution has been on the decline in the recent eras of history. Since monarchy was the natural form of government that developed spontaneously all around the world, this is really no surprise. Where do you go from ‘up’? For most of human history, monarchy was not something that most people fought about. It was something that was accepted and monarchies fought each other for various reasons but rarely fought over the issue of monarchy itself. However, there have been some conflicts that have proven critical to the success or failure of monarchy as an institution, as a form of government. Some of these I have considered will be obvious and expected but others are probably less well known. There have also been some conflicts which many have assumed have had a great impact on monarchy but which, in fact, have actually had a negligible impact on the cause of kings.

One which had an impact far out of proportion to its scope was the English Civil Wars. Even though the republican dictatorship of Cromwell ultimately failed and the monarchy was restored, the English Civil Wars did lasting damage to the monarchist cause. For one thing, political realities pushed most of the monarchies of Europe into recognizing the Cromwellian regime and so set the precedent for monarchies at least making peace with if not actively allying with a regicidal, anti-monarchial republic. The republican victory also provided an example that was taken up by others in the world, most significantly numerous of the “Founding Fathers” of the United States of America. Even though the republican dictatorship of Cromwell failed, the fact that his Roundheads were victorious on the battlefield was immensely significant. Because of this, even after the restoration of King Charles II, the anti-monarchy crowd never felt themselves beaten, never accepted defeat and so continued to hold the horrific image of the fate that befell Charles I before the eyes of his sons until Britain went through the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 when the nature of the monarchy was so fundamentally changed that the legacy continues to this day. It set a precedent, by events it set into motion, for the supremacy of parliaments over the Crown in fact even if not always in name.

As for the so-called “American Revolution” (more correctly the American War for Independence), the effects of it on the cause of monarchy has been considerable but probably not as significant as most think. Its importance tends to be exaggerated for two reasons; American hyper-patriots who like to think that the world revolves around the United States and everyone follows their example and longs to be just like America and, ironically, the anti-American crowd that has the same mentality but viewed negatively rather than positively. They also tend to look at how powerful the United States eventually became and so simply assume that so powerful a country must have had a great deal of influence on the rest of the world. It certainly did have some impact, even if for no other reason than that it made a new generation of people view republicanism as a viable possibility. It also aided in, indirectly, bringing about the more consequential French Revolution though it was certainly not the determining factor. Americans were more influenced by fashionable liberal thought in Europe than Europeans were by anything that came out of America.

For all of early American history, the United States simply did not matter that much on the world stage. The British also learned lessons from it that enabled monarchy to survive much longer in more diverse parts of the world than might otherwise have been the case. It certainly did not have much of an impact on its own neighbors. Canada staunchly refused to follow the American example and as for Latin America, it would take at least forty years for them to join in declaring independence from Europe and none of them adopted very American-style governments. Their independence came about mostly due to political disputes in Spain and the most significant powers among them, Mexico and Brazil, first became independent as monarchies. Eventually, the success of America would have an impact on others around the world without doubt but it is just as obvious that the revolutionaries who took to the streets in places as diverse as Russia or China shouted out verses of “La Marseillaise” and not “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. Most republics in the world have adopted the European model of parliamentary republicanism rather than the American presidential model.

Obviously, the French Revolution was a conflict that had enormous impact on the cause of monarchy worldwide. The Americas, Africa, Russia, even Southeast Asia have been impacted by the French Revolution in their republican movements. For example, the aforementioned political divisions in Spain that spurred the Latin American wars for independence were a direct result of the spread of the values of the French Revolution to Spain and eventually a new French-imposed regime on the ‘Land of the Setting Sun’. The civil wars that plagued Spain for so long afterward and which led to the loss of the empire were all based on political disputes that were born out of the French Revolution. Even the ultimate Allied victory in the Napoleonic Wars sometimes benefited the republican cause in certain cases depending on which changes, caused by the Revolution, were reversed and which were kept in place. It may not have been immediate but tensions remained that would ultimately prove detrimental to the monarchist cause. In both republics and monarchies the conflict coincided with an increase in nationalism across Europe. This did no harm, and in some cases even helped, monarchies which managed to make themselves the champion of nationalist causes but it proved very harmful to those who set themselves against it as people who were forced to choose between their monarch or their fellow countrymen tended to choose their countrymen.

France, it goes without saying, suffered the most from the French Revolution in terms of its effect on monarchy. Even though the monarchy was ultimately restored, as was the case in Britain, unlike the British the French never managed to come to a consensus that allowed the monarchy to survive. Efforts to reconcile the principles of the Revolution with the traditional values of the ancien regime never succeeded. Had the royalists of France been able to unite there would undoubtedly still be a Kingdom of France today but the rift in the Royal Family, caused by the Revolution, prevented this and ultimately republicanism prevailed, in the words of Adolphe Thiers because the republic was, “the form of government that divides France least”. The Revolution, by destroying the traditional Kingdom of France, also deprived the monarchist cause of what had previously been one of its sharpest swords. For conservative, Catholic France, which had once sent knights all over Europe, establishing monarchial states and spreading Christian monarchy, to become a secular, left-leaning republic had a huge impact on all sections of society and on countries and nations very far removed from Western Europe.

The French were also involved in the conflict that, I think, had a far greater impact on the monarchist cause than most realize which was the Franco-Mexican War of the 1860’s. It can, of course, be hard to be definitive and is very easy to romanticize “what might have been” but, having given that period of Mexican history no small amount of study over the years, I very much believe that it was one of the most pivotal struggles in the contest between republicanism and monarchy that the world has seen. I do believe that the subsequent history of not only Mexico but much of Latin America would have been changed dramatically for the better if the Second Mexican Empire had endured. I also tend to think that it would have had a beneficial impact on the institution of monarchy in Europe as well. Had Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlota persevered on the Mexican throne, putting all of their plans into effect, and had Napoleon III carried on with his own further aspirations for the region, I see no reason why the Mexican Empire could not have become a monarchial power just as successful as the United States went on to become. Of course, the United States (or at least the northern half of it) is more responsible than anyone for the ultimate victory of Juarez and the defeat of Maximilian so that, one could say that the American Civil War was a pivotal conflict for the cause of monarchy as the victory of the free states over the slave states in that conflict doomed the cause of Maximilian and absolutely ensured the victory of Juarez and the republicans. Though, that may, perhaps, be the reason many monarchists do not wish to dwell on it.

Had Maximilian prevailed, the United States might today be the odd-man-out in an American hemisphere predominately consisting of monarchies. Maximilian envisioned the Americas with three primary powers; the United States in the north, the Empire of Brazil in the south (Maximilian loved Brazil) and the Empire of Mexico in the center. It may be stretching things a bit, perhaps even more than a bit, but it just might have had a beneficial effect on Europe as well. Suppose Napoleon had been more concerned with his “Kingdom of the Andes” project (perhaps working with President Gabriel Garcia Moreno of Ecuador who was a Catholic monarchist at heart) and his Panama Canal idea and these distracted him from falling into the trap set by Bismarck that provoked the Franco-Prussian War. It might have delayed German unification but, without the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, perhaps it may have prevented an Austro-Serb conflict from spreading into the First World War. Admittedly, that is quite a stretch but I do firmly believe that the loss of the monarchist enterprise in Mexico was much more far-reaching than most anyone today realizes. Under the sort of monarchy Maximilian endeavored to create, there really would have been no reason why Imperial Mexico could not have become just as successful as the United States. It would have had a diverse and growing population (they wished to encourage more European immigration just as America later had), it had plenty of natural resources and it would have had a monarch that believed in the same principles of economic freedom and private property rights that allowed the United States to overtake Britain as the world’s leading economy in the 1870’s. All the necessary ingredients would have been in place and the Maximilian-style monarchy could very easily have become an example to others in the region to start a new trend favoring monarchy throughout Latin America and, perhaps, beyond.

Another example which most will surely be expecting is the First World War. There is no doubt that World War I had a very negative impact on the monarchist cause, beyond simply the loss of the monarchies in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and eventually Turkey. The war itself really did not have much of an immediate impact on the wider cause of monarchy beyond these countries but the events which the war set into motion certainly did. One area in which I differ from many monarchists I know is my belief that the war itself was the problem, not which side happened to win. I do not take the view that everything would have been uniformly better if the Central Powers had emerged victorious, though certainly in several cases that would have been true. Once started, I see no reasonably probable way in which it could have failed to end in disaster for both the winners and the losers. A negotiated peace, a “peace without victors” may have been better but given how much both sides had lost, I just don’t see that as being likely. The more one loses the more one is going to demand in order to justify such tremendous sacrifices. I also tend to think that, even if the United States had stayed out of the last year of the war, the Allies would still have won. The British blockade had been too successful, the advent of tanks would have broken the deadlock and the non-German Central Powers were already on the verge of collapse or in the process of collapsing before the United States made any significant contribution at all.

Two events which had an even bigger impact on the monarchist cause were the Russian Revolution and World War II but, of course, both of these were a direct result of the First World War and, in my view, would not have happened without it. They still, possibly, could have been avoided or minimized had different decisions been made but had it not been for the First World War the problems that caused them would not have surfaced in the first place. Poland and Czechoslovakia would never have been republics were it not for the First World War and in those cases it did matter that the Central Powers lost for sure. However, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania would all have remained monarchies were it not for the actions of the Soviet Union in World War II which only came about because of the Russian Revolution which could have been avoided or minimized had it not been for World War I. Of course, had the Axis powers won World War II, there would have been huge loss of monarchy in Western and Northern Europe (what would have happened in the east is harder to speculate about) but every ill-effect for the monarchies of Eastern Europe in World War II as it happened (Allied victory) was a direct result of World War I by way of the Russian Revolution. The fall of monarchies from Ethiopia to Indochina because of communist revolutionaries, backed by the Soviet Union can all be traced directly back to  the Russian Revolution and World War I.

Where the Second World War does stand alone, at least somewhat, as a conflict directly impacting the cause of monarchy was in the East Asian theater of the war. In this case, the outcome of the war does matter as much as the war itself in that the war upset the existing, mostly pro-monarchy status quo but another, also mostly pro-monarchy state of affairs could have emerged but only if the Empire of Japan had been victorious. The problem with that, of course, is that Japan never had a prayer of winning the war and so some will doubtless be bitter about Japan upsetting the existing state of affairs with the succession of attacks across Southeast Asia in late 1941 and early 1942. For the most part, the impact was in the fact that the dominant power in East Asia would have been a monarchy (the Empire of Japan) if Japan had won the war rather than republican powers like China and the United States when Japan lost. Other than that, not a great deal would have been different on a country-by-country basis except that Manchuria and, perhaps, Inner Mongolia, would have been monarchies after the war was over. China, the Philippines, Burma, India and Indonesia would have become republics no matter who won the war. Laos and Cambodia did remain monarchies but Vietnam did not and, if Japan had won, it is probable that the Empire of Vietnam that the Japanese belatedly established, would have endured with Japanese support.

However, when it comes to conflicts which had at least a regional impact on multiple monarchies, two or three stand out in my mind. The first was the 1911 revolution in China. The impact of this should be obvious as China has traditionally been the powerhouse of East Asia and the Qing Empire consisted of more than just one country. The republican victory spelled the end for monarchy in Manchuria, Mongolia and Tibet as well as giving moral and material support to republican copycat groups in other countries, particularly Vietnam whether with the communist VietMinh or the VNQDD which was effectively a Vietnamese version of the Chinese Kuomintang. Furthermore, if not for the fall of the Qing Empire, there might have been no Japanese intervention on the mainland beyond Korea and thus no World War II in Asia and no consequent collapse of monarchies with the end the colonial establishment in places like Indochina, Indonesia, Burma or possibly even India though the case of India is debatable. The other examples, and why I say “two or three” are the revolutions in Egypt and Iran because they have, effectively, handed off the role of bedeviling the cause of monarchy in their region.

The overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 is often credited with awakening Arab nationalism but, in fact, that had already been done during World War I with the British-backed Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks. However, that led to a succession of almost uniformly Arab monarchies emerging, the sole exceptions being Syria and Lebanon (thanks to France). However, the Egyptian Revolution led to specifically republican, anti-traditional and largely secular nationalist revolutions or attempts at such throughout several areas of Africa and the Middle East. It provided the inspiration for the 1958 overthrow of the monarchy in Iraq and from 1962 to 1970 Egypt provided the most support for the republican rebels in the civil war in the Kingdom of Yemen with Saudi Arabia backing the royalists. The Nasser vision of authoritarian socialist republicanism was also taken up by rebels in Oman where royalist forces and republican forces clashed with sympathetic regimes backing each; Great Britain, Imperial Iran, Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia backing the Oman monarchy and China, Soviet Russia and East Germany among those backing the rebels.

Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 that country has become the primary antagonist of the Arab monarchies in the Middle East with the Ayatollah vowing to “export our revolution to the whole world”. An early attempt to reach out to the Islamic Republic by Saudi Arabia was slapped away by the Ayatollah, referring to Sunni Muslims as heretics and the regime stated openly that there was ‘no room’ for monarchies in Islam. It severed diplomatic relations with the distant Kingdom of Morocco simply for having allowed the exiled Shah of Iran to visit the country. However, more significant than its support for anti-monarchist groups throughout the region, the example of the Iranian regime has inspired religious radicals to rise up against existing monarchies just as the Egyptian revolution once inspired nationalist radicals to do the same. Over the years, Iran has pursued a very erratic foreign policy, originally dominated by rigid adherence to their brand of religion but later becoming much more unprincipled, in some cases (such as several involving China and Russia) taking the side of non-Muslims against fellow believers, even Shiites and people of Iranian ancestry. However, their opposition to monarchy has remained fairly consistent and the closer it is to Iran, whether in faith or in geography, the more they tend to oppose it. The revolution set into motion a new trend that spread even to Sunni countries which cast virtually all existing monarchies in the region as being insufficiently fervent in their religion and setting the example that a properly zealous cleric should rule in place of a monarch.

Today, there are not really any major conflicts that exist or seem eminent which would pose a threat to monarchy in general. Unfortunately, that is not quite as good as it sounds. The institution has been so greatly reduced that, though some fervent monarchists may not believe it, most major powers no longer consider it worthy of much consideration. Other priorities have taken precedence and various regimes may oppose or tolerate existing monarchies depending on their own national interest. It also means that the greatest threat to existing monarchies is almost entirely internal and that can be harder to deal with than external enemies. From what I have seen, there also seems to be a fairly radical breach between some people in existing monarchies and their governments (transcending parties and administrations) as to who exactly constitutes a threat to their continued existence. Many countries also like to maintain the appearance of cordiality, pretending to be friendly with practically everyone, even regimes that most everyone knows they thoroughly despise, that every individual has cover to pick and choose their own ‘state of the world’ as best pleases their existing views.

However, the best we can do is look to the past and try to gain the best benefit from experience as we can, being careful to avoid making justifications that would prompt us making the same mistakes again. On the largest scale, it would seem hard to overstate the impact of the French Revolution and the First World War on the monarchist cause around the world. Others, such as the English Civil Wars and the Franco-Mexican War would certainly not rise to that level but, nonetheless, have had much more far reaching consequences than I think most realize. These events can never be made not to have happened (which would be wonderful) but by recognizing what they caused and why, we can, perhaps, work to undo as much of the damage that they did as possible.

When Is A Country Not A Country? (usually when it's a republic)

Being a pan-monarchist can be extremely frustrating. At least one reason, but a major one, for my frustration at least is the extent to which the proven viability of monarchy is so blatantly self-evident around the world and some republicans will even acknowledge it but yet none seem able to make the simple connection that the monarchy is the one common factor and thus should be something to take seriously. The biggest issue in the news lately has been the problems in the Middle East. Everyone can see that the monarchies have been the most stable regimes there and when it comes to confronting the ISIS terrorist gang, no world leader has won more praise than the King of Jordan. The growing concern about Iran obtaining nuclear weapons should also drive home the fact, long known by monarchists, that the overthrow of the Shah was the birthday of the modern terrorist movement. Yemen is in chaos and it all stems back to a war between royalists and republicans, each backed by regional monarchies and republics, which the royalists lost and we see the result. Iraq is another example of how bad things become when a monarchy falls while the monarchies that remain, whether one likes them or not, have at least been stable.

Likewise, in Asia, monarchies have a record of providing a sense of calm and order even when social or political problems have caused chaos. Not a few foreign observers remarked how even when Japan was going through a rapid turnover in governments (even by Japanese standards) there was no loss of confidence and no panic on the part of the public or foreign investors. Even an American commentator on Chinese state television had to admit that the Emperor played a vital part in explaining this. His presence reassured people that, no matter how many governments and politicians would come and go, everything would be okay; Japan as a country remained stable. Recently, there has probably been no better example of this than the Kingdom of Thailand which has often had a chaotic political history. In fact, chaos in the government of Thailand can seem to be the norm rather than the exception. Recently there was another military takeover of the Thai government, something far from unprecedented in Thai history, which came about due to rampant political corruption and finally acts of terrorism by the faction previously in power. However, in spite of all this turmoil, Thailand, as a country, is perfectly stable. Life is going on as normal and undoubtedly the King’s endorsement of the military administration has played a part in that. In the past, aside from being a powerful symbol, the King has been relied on to intervene in politics in times of crisis to bring about calm, reconciliation and a return to normalcy.

Perhaps it is due to the situation being hard to put into words that more people do not see what is right in front of their eyes. The unusual thing about life in Thailand, for example, is that there is nothing unusual about it. To the south, in the Kingdom of Malaysia there has been, relatively recently, a great deal of trouble but, again, it has not brought about any crisis of confidence among the Malaysian people or foreigners. A monarch, by their very nature, and the living link with history that a monarchy provides gives a country that intangible, hard-to-describe “something” that helps people keep things in perspective. It is a stabilizing force, even when taking no action at all, and just by being there can keep things within a traditional framework that allows for change to happen without getting out of control. Moreover, in a way that is also frustratingly hard to put in to words, it represents a means of organic growth for countries as opposed to harsh, artificial regimes that destroy countries by trying to re-make them according to some utopian ideology.

One of the largest examples today of a place where this, sadly, did not happen is China. As a country, a culture, a people, China existed for thousands of years. There were good times and bad times but the “national spirit” for lack of a better word, was preserved. Even when China was conquered and ruled by non-Han peoples such as the Mongol Yuan Dynasty or the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it was in accordance with the traditional way that change happened in China and, as a result, even the conquerors became “conquered” themselves by the Chinese culture. Then, there were the events of 1911 when, for the first time, totally foreign ideas, institutions and values were forced upon China in an attempt to re-make the country into something totally different from what it had been for thousands of years. The Mongols and Manchus came to China and adopted Chinese ways. China changed them far more than they changed China. However, with the birth of the Republic of China, the new rulers of the country tried to change China based on totally foreign concepts. Ultimately, this led to the importation of political divisions from abroad, a gruesome civil war and a new regime based on the utopian ideology of a 19th-Century German-Jew that ultimately resulted in the Cultural Revolution that declared war on all things traditionally and fundamentally Chinese.

So, China was a country, a culture and a people but suddenly became something artificial. It became, not a country but an ideology. Eventually, after millions died of starvation, disease and poverty, this ideology was proven to be moronic and so, while never officially renouncing it, China became what it is today; essentially a business. It is even run like a business, with one all-powerful CEO chosen by a board of directors known to the public as the Chinese Communist Party. And, unfortunately, China is far from unique. A similar story can be told in a multitude of countries all around the world. Numerous other Asian countries fit the pattern, most African countries fit the pattern, Russia, even South America where, without any direct foreign intervention, countries broke away from Spain and tried to set up their artificial countries based on theories that seemed to work elsewhere but which were ultimately shown to be unworkable in Latin America. What about the United States? It is easy to misunderstand the United States and many have. It is an artificial country but, although plenty of Americans would not want to admit this, aside from a great deal of plain good luck, much of the success of America has been due to the fact that the “American Revolution” was not really a revolution. They didn’t try to remake society, they didn’t really change much at all but basically just took the existing British model of government that was natural to them and tweaked it a little bit to suit their republican sentiments. It was not a jarring break and (unless you were a loyalist) life went on pretty much the same as before.

This stands in stark contrast to, for example, Mexico which, not by sheer coincidence, has not been so successful a country. When Mexico first became independent, as a monarchy, in 1821 there was no official constitution (the Plan of Iguala serving) and the law was not drastically different from what it had been during the Spanish era. In fact, one thing that prompted conservative Mexicans to go along with independence were the changes being made in the “constitution” of Spain. We will never know how that would have worked out as it was not given a chance, as we know, with the first emperor, Iturbide, being deposed and later shot. The first official Mexican constitution was the Constitution of 1824. This was a very federalist constitution that was heavily influenced by that of the United States, granting considerable powers to the states. However, not surprisingly, what worked for British-Americans in the United States did not work so well in Mexico and it was soon reduced to a dead-letter by a succession of dictators.

Next, came the Constitution of 1857, most associated with the tenure of President Benito Juarez. Though power was more centralized, in some ways it was even more like that of the United States than the 1824 version. However, it further broke with Mexican culture and traditions by being so anti-clerical. It was the first constitution to make Mexico a secular country and to place restrictions on the Catholic Church. Thus it became a bone of contention, leading to civil war and ultimately the restoration of the monarchy under Emperor Maximilian. Juarez himself violated the terms of the 1857 constitution on numerous occasions and finally it was found to be unacceptable after the country fell back into dictatorship. It was then that Mexico adopted its current constitution, the Constitution of 1917. Even more restrictive of religion, very leftist in character, it did bring an end to the era of dictatorships in Mexico but replaced it with the era of ideological tyranny with decades of effective one-party rule under the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party). Oddly enough, to show how widespread this problem is, this constitution which was not even compatible with Mexico, ended up being the inspiration for those of the Weimar Republic and the first post-Tsarist constitution in Russia. And, of course, we remember what resounding “successes” those regimes were.

Contrarily, those countries which have retained their monarchies have a far different record. They change and evolve of course and fare good or bad depending on the decisions they make just as republics do. However, as long as the overall structure of the monarchy remains, so that these changes and decisions occur within a traditional framework, moderation remains more prevalent than fanaticism and bad decisions are more easily, and perhaps even more importantly, more peacefully able to be corrected. And unless anyone thinks that other institutions, besides the monarchy, are the real determining factor, there are two easy examples to disprove those who think all depends on the constitution. The United Kingdom, as most know, has no official, written constitution and yet has been a more stable and prosperous country, historically, than most countries that do. The monarchy has served to smooth out the difficulties that in other lands would have led to armed revolts or coups. Somewhat similarly, the State of Japan has a constitution which represents a rather drastic break with their national traditions and political culture, made a time when calm and impartial decisions were hardly possible. Yet, though I personally think Japan would be well served to discard it and have another or revise it significantly, Japan under that constitution rose from ruin and defeat to be the second most wealthy country in the world. Even the most ardent republicans have had to admit that this was due in large part to the retention of the Emperor.

France is, on the other hand, an example of a country that was torn, violently, from its traditional roots and while seemingly a fairly prosperous country, had really never recovered from that. The Kingdom of France existed for about a thousand years and while there were certainly good times and bad times the overall structure of the country was maintained and even when things became really bad (be it religious wars or English domination), France always bounced back to attain new heights. Since the revolution, however, France has had the restored monarchy, a popular monarchy, two empires, a pseudo-fascistic state and five republics. Add to that the fact that most did not go peacefully into that dark night and consider how divided France still is today. More to the point, of the problems France has today, virtually all of them can be traced back to the revolution and the, so-far, failed efforts by the French to come to terms with it. Much of the recent internal turmoil has been due to issues involving French Muslims. How did this come about? For one thing, the French Revolution shattered the place of Christianity in France and it has never really fully come back and taken root, secularism became acceptable and so an alien religion like Islam has little competition. More broadly, the very ideals of the French Revolution have made it very hard for France to combat disloyal and even terrorist elements in their midst without looking like hypocrites. And this is nothing new as the speed with which France replaced the First Republic with the First Empire and the numerous republics and monarchies since has plainly shown that the ideals of the French Revolution were recognized to be unworkable, utopian nonsense fairly early on.

This is all the more tragic because, at the time of the revolution, King Louis XVI was in the process of making needed changes on his own which were making use of existing, traditional French institutions (some of which had fallen into disuse) and which, I at least certainly have no doubt, would have had a lasting and positive influence on the country. Of course, as with anything, there is no simple solution that will negate the fallibility of mankind or make one immune from the effects of bad decisions. However, when considering the overall success of Scandinavia, the Low Countries and the Anglosphere it seems that what detrimental changes have occurred, have been forced to happen rather slowly, incrementally, over time and the structures remain in place to (we hope) see these problems corrected. In these countries, the institutions that have grown up naturally, paramount being the monarchy, are generally accepted as a permanent fixture of the political landscape. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for every monarchy, such as Spain, where there was a jarring break with the past and a persistence on the part of many to desire a return to republicanism for a third time, despite the objective failure of the first two attempts (the second being quite gruesome as well).

Some may disagree, and this is only opinion, but when considering the subject it does seem to me that there is a distinct, if hard to precisely put into words, difference between a radical, violent change, as with a revolution, and natural changes that have occurred within a traditional framework. Additionally, it seems that countries which have taken this route have the greater record of success behind them. Even when things have gone to the extent of, for example, the so-called Glorious Revolution or American Revolution, these things were really not all that revolutionary. There was nothing like the September Massacres or “New Soviet Man” or the Cultural Revolution that came out of those (to my mind) unfortunate events. Countries that attempt to deny themselves, their own past, their own nature, never seem to truly prosper and, as is the case with so many today, they become republics which are not really “countries” at all anymore but simply an ideological camp, a massive social or public works network or simply a big business, not, what has been considered a natural, organic nation as understood through most of human history.

The Monarchist Vietnam War

Thai military unit given honors by US forces

The war against communism in Vietnam, and more broadly across Indochina, is almost universally considered an “American war”. This is not due to America shouldering the largest burden in the fight against communism in Indochina but more because of a sort of obsession with the United States by the hyper-patriot “Yankee Doodle” types on one hand and the anti-American hysterics on the other, both of whom see the United States as the center of the world and the driving force behind everything that happens in it. However, it may surprise some to know that the United States was not the only country involved in fighting the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia and, more to our point, of the coalition of countries that were involved fully half of them were monarchies. It is rather unfortunate that their contribution and their sacrifices are often forgotten (though some seem to prefer it that way) because, while their contribution in numbers was not immense, they played a critical part in several key areas of the conflict. If one were to look at the war more broadly, in the larger sense of the struggle against the communist domination of Southeast Asia, monarchies played a still larger part.

British SAS in the Malaya Emergency

As in Europe, the roots of the Cold War go back to World War II with foreign invasions upsetting the political status quo and giving rise to the first internal conflicts between pro- and anti-communist forces. This was seen in Malaysia where largely communist dominated Chinese guerilla groups formed to fight the Japanese occupation. Likewise, in Vietnam, the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh organized the Vietminh to oppose the Japanese and the short-lived Japanese-sponsored Empire of Vietnam as well as the return of French colonial rule. The Allies, because of the war situation, gave support to such groups but they became extremely problematic as soon as the war was over. From 1948 to 1960 an all-monarchist war against communism raged in Malaysia between the forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth Realms against a communist insurgency backed by China, Indonesia and the Soviet Union. It was a much more small-scale conflict than that in Indochina, but no less intense and ultimately it was the monarchist side that prevailed which is why the monarchial federation of Malaysia exists today as a prosperous, independent Commonwealth country. If things had gone the other way, if the communists had prevailed, all the Malaysian monarchies would have been lost.

In Indochina, it was thanks to the forces of the British Empire that the communists did not seize control of the whole of Vietnam in the August Revolution of 1945. They took power in the north and central thirds of the country but in the south the British refused to allow this and even re-armed the surrendered Japanese forces to prevent a communist takeover before the French authorities could resume control. This was all the more controversial considering that, in other parts of the country, some Japanese had joined with the Vietnamese communists, perhaps out of shared support for communism or, as is more likely, simply out of a racist desire to fight non-Asians no matter what the underlying political cause. It was also controversial as the United States, under President Roosevelt, had made no secret of the fact that it opposed the restoration of French colonial rule in Indochina. That attitude, however, changed with the communist victory in China and the oncoming tidal wave of communist aggression from Korea to Malaysia. It is also worth noting that the areas of Indochina where the communists were the least successful were those areas where monarchist sentiment was strongest such as in Laos and Cambodia.

Emp. Bao Dai with French General de Lattre

The First Indochina War, seen by most as simply a clash between the French Republic on one side and the Vietnamese communists on the other, was actually a monarchist war as well. The non-communist Vietnamese were organized into the State of Vietnam which was not officially a republic but not a traditional monarchy either. It was rather like Francoist Spain prior to 1947 or Manchukuo from 1932-1934. Officially it was simply a “State” but the Chief of State was the legitimate monarch and it was effectively a monarchy. We know from history that the French defeat doomed the Vietnamese former-Emperor turned “Chief of State” Bao Dai but what is less well known is that it would have doomed the monarchies of Laos and Cambodia as well had not other factors intervened. Both countries had communist revolutionary movements and both had originally been established under the guidance of the Vietnamese communist leaders. In fact, when the United States first began to take the situation in Indochina seriously, the greatest concern was not South Vietnam where President Ngo Dinh Diem seemed to be holding his own but rather the Kingdom of Laos which was more fractured and seemed less stable and in greater peril than any other country in the region.

On the Lao front there were basically two warring factions and one faction which tried to remain above the fray. The Royal Lao Army of King Sisavang Vatthana, wanted more than anything to keep the Cold War from spreading to Laos, then there were the communists who fought a vicious guerilla war to gain power for themselves and the anti-communist forces that opposed them which consisted to a large extent of Hmong warriors backed, not-so-secretly, by the United States. The Kingdom of Thailand also played a critical part in the war in Laos as many Thai mercenaries fought on behalf of the anti-communist forces with the, again, not-so-secret blessing of the Thai royal government. The United States sent considerable military assistance to the Kingdom of Laos to aid in combating the communist Pathet-Lao and, at the time, the Kingdom of Laos received more U.S. foreign aid than any other country. Fellow monarchies such as Japan, Thailand and Australia also provided valuable assistance to the struggling royalists of Laos. The Pathet Lao had mostly Vietnamese advisors along with a few Soviet and a number of Chinese who were hoping that Laos could be secured, its monarchy abolished and made into a puppet-state through which China would have an open road to attack the Kingdom of Thailand.

King Savang Vatthana of Laos

For more than a decade the hard fighting Hmong, Thai and Lao royalists backed up by American air support fought a grueling and heroic struggle against communist domination for the preservation of the Kingdom of Laos. American President Kennedy landed a force of US Marines in Thailand to stand ready to intervene in Laos if the communists gained the upper hand. However, he quickly agreed to a proposal by the Soviets to withdraw forces and keep Laos neutral. Despite having ignored a similar, previous agreement, Kennedy went along and pulled the Marines out of Thailand and ordered the US ambassador to back the neutral faction. Meanwhile, the Soviets had no intention of doing the same and merely channeled their support through North Vietnam so that large sections of Laos effectively came under the control of the communist Vietnamese. The war in Laos went on but cooled from a boil to a simmer as both sides seemed to realize that all would depend on the fate of Vietnam.

In the war in Vietnam, while the South Vietnamese and United States obviously supplied the vast majority of the fighting forces, monarchist participants on the side of South Vietnam included Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Laos. Monarchies not directly involved but which were supportive of the South Vietnamese struggle included Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Empire of Iran. During the course of the war more than 60,000 Australians served in the war in Vietnam losing 521 killed and over 3,000 wounded. They gave heroic service in numerous operations, one of the most famous being the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy where 108 Australians defeated about 2,000 North Vietnamese regular army troops. Likewise, 3,500 New Zealanders served in the Vietnam War with losses of 37 killed and 187 wounded. The Kingdom of Thailand, as well as supplying troops to the war for Laos, dispatched the “Queen’s Cobra” battalion to South Vietnam where it served from 1965 to 1971. Thailand also supplied bases for American air forces and support centers for American and other allied personnel. The Australians had a particularly good combat record and more than a few have commented since that the American high command could have profited by adopted Australian methods of counter-insurgency operations.

Troops of the Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam

For the monarchist cause in each of the Indochinese countries each had a unique set of circumstances and must be dealt with separately. Starting with Vietnam, it had the disadvantage of losing its monarchy first when the August Revolution brought down the Japanese-backed Empire of Vietnam in 1945. That was really the end of the traditional Vietnamese monarchy. However, with the creation of the French-backed State of Vietnam (also recognized by the US, UK & others as the legitimate Vietnamese government) there was hope that a more modern sort of monarchy could survive. That it did not was due to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu after which France washed its hands of Vietnam and left the anti-communist cause in Indochina in the hands of the United States. The biggest blow to the monarchy-in-all-but-name State of Vietnam, at least as far as the monarchy was concerned, came after the appointment of the American-backed Catholic nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister. He set about breaking up the system of patronage that the former Emperor Bao Dai ruled through and so aroused the opposition of many.

The best chance for removing Diem was probably the attempted coup launched by General Nguyen Van Hinh, a Bao Dai loyalist, but Diem stood firm and Bao Dai blinked, recalling General Hinh who left for France and never saw Vietnam again. When Bao Dai finally summoned Diem to France to dismiss him it was too late and Diem organized a referendum in 1955 that saw the State of Vietnam become the Republic of Vietnam with Diem as president. Most regard that as the effective end of all monarchist hopes in Vietnam, however, that may not be the case. Ngo Dinh Diem had, as a young mandarin, been hand-picked by Emperor Bao Dai and promoted rapidly in government. He was known as a monarchist as well as a nationalist and came from a Catholic family that was close to the imperial court. His father, Nguyen Van Kha, had been a high-ranking official under Emperor Thanh Thai and had left public service in protest when the French deposed Thanh Thai. Diem had been aided in his career and had family ties with the staunch monarchist Nguyen Huu Bai, probably the most prominent Catholic in the imperial government at the time. His famous sister-in-law, best known as Madame Nhu, was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Dong Khanh, grandfather of the last Emperor Bao Dai. So the ties between Ngo Dinh Diem and the monarchy were numerous and far reaching.

President Ngo Dinh Diem

As such, and considering that Diem acted against the former Emperor only when his own position was under threat, it may have been possible to have effected a restoration of the monarchy under Diem. When the administration of President Kennedy turned against Diem, if they had been more realistic and far-sighted, they could have arranged a sort of compromise that, under the circumstances, Diem may well have accepted. The proposal could have been for a restoration of the Emperor or perhaps even the elevation of the Prince Imperiale Bao Long for a fresh start, with Diem reverting back to a more limited role as prime minister or perhaps stepping down completely on the understanding that he could come back at some point when the situation had changed. It is speculative but given the personal history of Diem and his family, I cannot help but think that there was some glimmer of hope for a monarchist revival up until Diem was assassinated in 1963. There were still many members of the Imperial Family in the country, the Emperor’s mother still lived in the Forbidden City in fact but after the death of Diem there would never be anyone in power in Saigon with such a monarchist past or so many connections again.

In Laos, it is strange considering how widely criticized Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai was for his cooperation with the French, that the leaders of the royal house did not face the same situation despite being even more pro-French than Bao Dai was. During World War II both King Sisavang Vong and the Crown Prince refused to collaborate with the Japanese and remained supportive of France. Prince Phetsarath led the Japanese-allied pro-independence forces and gained widespread public adoration but that never put him at odds with the rest of the family and the King was eventually reconciled with him. If there was one man who probably could have saved Laos from all of the troubles it was to endure in the course of the Second Indochina War it was Prince Phetsarath. Even decades of communist oppression has not managed to destroy his popularity amongst the Lao people. Unfortunately, Prince Phetsarath died in 1959 of a brain hemorrhage and the country soon began to fracture as discussed above.

Prince Sihanouk at Khmer Rouge rally

The Kingdom of Cambodia easily represents the most difficult case and it will always be one that few, if any, monarchists can look at without being troubled. Unlike Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia entered the era of the Vietnam War in probably better shape than any other Indochinese country. King Norodom Sihanouk had successfully navigated the French and the Japanese, cooperating with both, turning on both and escaping with his throne intact and independence for his country. An especially bountiful crop at the right time caused his popularity to soar to near godlike status and Cambodia under King Sihanouk seemed more united, prosperous and happy than any other country in the region. Unfortunately, the cancer that was the communist Khmer Rouge was in place, waiting for an opportunity to exploit.

King Sihanouk proclaimed neutrality in the Cold War but seemed to enjoy ‘dancing along the Demilitarized Zone’ as it were. He looked the other way as the communist terrorist group, the Viet Cong, established bases in Cambodia from which to attack South Vietnam, refusing offers of American support to remove them. The anti-communist forces became increasingly frustrated with Sihanouk and when he left on a friendship tour to Communist China, North Korea and the Soviet Union it was taken by everyone as a clear indication of where he stood (though in all probability it was likely an effort at playing both sides of the fence, hedging his bets as it were). While he was out of the country, in 1970 there was a military coup led by General Lon Nol, a man known as a right-wing monarchist but also a staunch anti-communist who was eager to take action against the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. Lon Nol declared Prince Sihanouk deposed and himself President of the new Khmer Republic. Today, the most widely repeated story is that the coup was backed by the American CIA to get rid of King Sihanouk with Lon Nol as the willing traitor. However, though widely assumed, there has never been any actual evidence of CIA involvement and Lon Nol was actually extremely reluctant to remove Sihanouk as Head of State. In fact, he finally did so only at actual gunpoint.

President Lon Nol

However, big plans to drive out the Vietnamese communists and wipe out the native red elements proved unsuccessful. Lon Nol suffered a stroke the following year and while the Americans and South Vietnamese took care of the Vietnamese communist strongholds in the border areas, the deposed Sihanouk threw his considerable prestige behind the Khmer Rouge, urging people to flee to the jungle and join the guerillas. So Cambodia presented the world with an odd picture: a republic led by a monarchist which was struggling for survival against a communist insurgency that was notoriously anti-monarchist being backed by the former monarch. Even when acting under duress, Lon Nol felt so terrible about what he done to Prince Sihanouk that he bowed down in tears before the Queen Mother Kossamak to beg her forgiveness. For his part, Sihanouk lived in a palace in North Korea until the end of the Vietnam War when American support for the Khmer Republic was cut off and the Khmer Rouge seized power. He returned to Cambodia but was held prisoner by the fanatical communist regime and was only allowed to leave in order to argue the case of Democratic Kampuchea against Vietnam after which, rather than return, he relocated to China and North Korea until the eventual UN referendum saw him restored in a more limited constitutional monarchy.

That was a phenomenon that was unique and has never been repeated. For monarchists in Cambodia, there simply were no ideal options after 1970. Those who followed the King into the future dominated by Pol Pot came to regret it as the Khmer Rouge not only tossed aside the King after coming to power but went on to massacre about a third of the entire population in their drive to create a “pure” communist state. So, odd as it may seem, the best thing to do would have been to support Lon Nol and his republic. Given the depth of his attachment to the monarchy, I have no doubt that King Sihanouk could have easily returned to the throne, especially after Lon Nol was able to rid himself of the arch-republican Son Ngoc Thanh in 1972. There may have even been a restoration of the monarchy without Sihanouk if the republic had survived as the other major backer of the regime was Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak (a cousin of Sihanouk though opposed to him) who reportedly harbored hopes of his son becoming King of Cambodia. As it turned out, after the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 Lon Nol fled the country and Sirik Matak was executed.

Last of the King & Queen of Laos

So, all in all, a great deal hung in the balance for monarchists in the Vietnam War. The fate of the Kingdom of Laos was decided by the conflict, in almost any other case that of Cambodia would have been and even in Vietnam itself there remained at least room for hope prior to the communist takeover in 1975. The elderly Phan Khac Suu was briefly President of South Vietnam in 1964-65 (during the chaotic years after the assassination of Diem and before the administration of Nguyen Van Thieu) and he had, in the past, been known as a supporter of Emperor Bao Dai and was a member of the strange Cao Dai sect which had been supportive of the monarchy. If he had gained a greater following there may have been some chance for a restoration with the former Emperor still in France, ready to be restored if asked (and if he wished). What is important to remember is that the cause that those monarchists in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam who fought against the communist takeover and those of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand who helped them in that struggle, was a noble one and one worth fighting for. It is unfortunate that it has come to be seen solely as an “American war” and thus something to oppose and condemn by those who follow the fashionable chattering class in being against absolutely anything the United States is for. It does a disservice to all those brave military forces of the Queen of Australia and New Zealand, the King of Thailand and the local monarchs who sacrificed a great deal to stand against the tide of communist expansion in Southeast Asia.

Today in Pan-Monarchist History

It was on this day in 1921 that the pan-monarchist army of White Russian General Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (MM blog mascot) drove out the Chinese republican forces from the Mongolian holy city of Urga to restore the Bogd Khan ('Holy King') to his rightful throne. Sure, most consider him a murderous lunatic but he probably saved Mongolia from total extermination by his action. It was supposed to be the first step in an anti-communist, pan-monarchist crusade by the Baron, and a fine first step it was, but the ultimate goal was not to be achieved. At least not yet...

A Helpful Illustration

If anyone is inclined to wonder why a pan-monarchist, such as myself, tends to get rather irate on the issue of defending the existing monarchies of the world, even those that might be (gasp) less than entirely perfect, I present the following illustration to explain: (no, not every last speck may be correct -this was done by myself and not a professional cartographer but I think it gets the point across)

Monarchies of the world in 1900

Monarchies of the world in 1914

Monarchies of the world in 1921

Monarchies of the world in 1939

Monarchies of the world today.

Get the picture?

Monarchist Cooperation - Why Not?

Although certainly never as often as I would like, there have been numerous episodes throughout post-revolutionary history on the part of monarchies to work together in mutual support against the shared threat of radical republicanism. In 1792 the crowned heads of Europe began to come together in support of the beleaguered King Louis XVI, first by the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Toward the end of the year, when King Louis was martyred, monarchist reaction was more swift and widespread and resulted in the War of the First Coalition with the Austrian Empire (still nominally the Holy Roman Empire at that stage), the Kingdom of Prussia, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily and even the Ottoman Empire joining in the struggle against the bloody First French Republic. Originally the aim was to safeguard the Royal Family and restore to the King his rightful powers, later it was to avenge his death and restore the legitimate French monarchy. This was, of course, only the first in a series of wars against revolutionary and later Napoleonic France to restore the monarchial order. It would come to quite a sight to have Britons, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Germans and Russians all fighting side by side, even alongside French royalists.

League of the Three Emperors

In 1823 when Spanish liberals rose in revolt against King Fernando VII, King Louis XVIII of France sent an army across the Pyrenees to aid Spanish royalists in restoring the authority of the legitimate monarch which was accomplished after the Franco-Spanish royalist victory at the Battle of Trocadero. This had such far-reaching effects that it prompted the United States to issue the Monroe Doctrine for fear that the monarchies of Europe would come together to restore royal rule over their lost colonies in central and South America. In 1848, when the Austrian Empire was beset by rebellions and revolutionary forces on every side, Emperor Francis Joseph called on Tsar Nicholas I of Russia for help and the “Iron Czar”, also known as the “Gendarme of Europe” responded by sending a Russian army to crush the rebels of Hungary and restore Hapsburg authority there. He also gave moral support to the King of Prussia to oppose rebels in northern Germany and offered to send Russian troops to other countries to suppress the revolutionary movement. Unfortunately, as the Nineteenth Century rolled on and certainly into the Twentieth Century, this sort of monarchial solidarity became less and less common. In 1864 the French Second Empire aided Mexican monarchists in restoring the Empire of Mexico and there was some support given by the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Belgium but such aid was limited and quickly withdrawn in the face of American pressure.

Japanese-Manchu friendship

World War I saw some monarchies supporting each other but also saw republics fighting alongside monarchies and monarchies giving aid to radical revolutionaries. The Central Powers were solidly monarchist at least in that all members were monarchies but as staunchly monarchist as the German Empire was, it was not above giving aid to republicans if it served to undermine their enemies. Republican France found itself on the same side as Imperial Russia and in the end those monarchies which emerged victorious on the Allied side did not insist, as their ancestors had, on the restoration or preservation of monarchies which had been in the enemy camp. Between the wars, the Empire of Japan intervened against the Republic of China to restore the Manchu Emperor to his legitimate throne but World War II saw much the same political opportunism as seen in the First World War. Monarchist Britain was the odd man out amongst the other major Allies nations of France, America, China and Russia all of which were republican. They supported the restoration of monarchies which had been overthrown by the Axis powers (Norway, the Netherlands, Ethiopia) but were also willing to sell out other monarchies that had gone the same way such as in Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. Among the Axis Powers it was Nazi Germany that was the odd man out amongst monarchies like Italy and Japan as well as lesser partners like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary (nominally at least), Thailand and the restored Manchuria. They varied between monarchist and simply pragmatic in their policies save for Nazi Germany which barely tolerated monarchies under the best of circumstances. The best that can be said of them was that they were not so staunchly anti-monarchy as the Soviets were.

In the aftermath of World War II, there were precious few monarchies left in the world to cooperate on anything and those that did survive had little ability to support one another. There also, frankly, seemed little willingness as monarchy seemed to stop being seen as important, even in monarchies. Whereas the United States defined itself based on its system of democratic republicanism and prided itself on its republican values, monarchies tended to promote much the same while simply ignoring the monarchial aspect of their system of government and their entire histories. Of course, it was in the aftermath of two world wars, almost every monarchy on earth had been devastated by them and the two emerging super-powers were the Soviet Union and the United States, both staunchly republican so, we should perhaps try to be understanding (difficult though it may be) of how so many monarchies seemed to simply give up and take the attitude that, “If you can’t beat them, join them”. Although, in not a few cases they didn’t even try to beat them first. However, that was then, this is now. No one is recovering from a world war anymore, in fact, if one believes the big shots in Brussels, the future of Europe is so bright they have to wear shades.

Now, one thing that has always irritated me, just slightly, is how easily and zealously some monarchists take to anti-Americanism. In some cases it irritates me just as someone who spent years and a great deal of money learning history from some of the finest professorial minds of the east and the west. All too often they grossly exaggerate the influence and/or culpability of the United States in world affairs, especially prior to World War II as well as ignoring the responsibility of those other countries which urged, in some cases all but dragged, America out of her original policy of, more-or-less, isolationism to take a more active part in world affairs. However, the most aggravating part for me is those who take to anti-Americanism because of the record of the United States regarding monarchy around the world. My simple statement, time and again has been: the United States is a republic, in fact the oldest and most successful significant republic in the world -of course they are going to promote republicanism. The United States has to take at least a nominally negative view of monarchy, otherwise the whole justification for the creation of the country in the first place would evaporate and that is asking too much of a people. My question is this: why don’t monarchies show the same pride and zeal in promoting monarchy as America does in promoting republicanism? Instead of bashing America, why not beat them at their own game?

That is the question here: why not? Set aside the past and start with the world as it is now. The United States has organizations, think-tanks and lobby groups, such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that promote democratic republicanism around the world; where is the monarchist equivalent? They don’t even have to give up their beloved liberal ideals but could simply make the case that democracy works most smoothly within a constitutional monarchy. They do not necessarily have to give up their current alliances but simply give an emphasis to supporting other monarchies and promoting the restoration of past monarchies. There were numerous monarchies which took part in the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the partial involvement in Libya. They don’t even have to commit themselves to direct action just to simply make the case for monarchy. Why not, aside from the network of alliances and agreements that already exist, can't monarchies of a particular region like New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan stand together to promote the form of government they all share? While the United States makes no secret of its desire for Iran to become a democratic, secular republic, why do the monarchies of the world not make the same case for the restoration of the monarchy?

Many if not most monarchies today, no matter how indebted they may be thanks to their socialist spending programs, give away a great deal of money in foreign aid and overseas charity projects. Why not limit that to fellow monarchies in need or at least give less to those that do not share your form of government than to those which do? It doesn’t have to be gun-boat diplomacy or nation-building, simply send the message that we are willing to be your friend in any event but we would be even friendlier if you would restore your old monarchy in some fashion. I’m doing my best not to make this difficult but I know the initial response to the question of “why not” will be that most of the monarchies of the world no longer believe in monarchy the way republics believe in republicanism. When an American is asked why they are proud of their country, they will say because of the values it represents; the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, equality and justice for all. They believe it is the best system for organizing human endeavor that the world has ever seen. Ask a Canadian why they are proud of their country and they will say something about human rights, social justice and maybe inventing the zipper, in other words, nothing that has to do with the Canadian form of government or Canadian history. Monarchists living under republican rule know what their task is: to restore the monarchy. This, I would say, is the great task for monarchists who have the benefit of living under a monarchy already: restore national pride in your history and form of government. Work on making your countrymen as proud of their country, in its entirety, as Americans or other republicans are of their own. The world can only benefit from the effort.

After all, “why not?”

Restoring Monarchy - What It Takes

I have been asked many times by many different people in various parts of the world, what exactly a frustrated monarchist can do to advance the cause, to restore a fallen monarchy or defend an existing one. The persistence of these questions gives me the impression that many find my answers unsatisfying. That is understandable. We live in a world which has fallen so far from traditional values that there are few satisfying answers to be had. Of course, as I have mentioned before, there are little things anyone can and should do in their daily lives to support the monarchist cause. Display your loyalty proudly, refute revolutionary lies with royalist truth, do not let a distortion go unanswered, point out the hypocrisy of the republican activists, mark important occasions and never allow anyone to cause you to think of yourself as the one with strange views (particularly if you are a subject of a monarch), start with your family and friends and stand together with like-minded individuals. In many cases, religious institutions can be a good focal point as well. However, the wider “war” is a more difficult matter and it is on that front that I fear too many have given up or simply fail to give battle because of a desire for someone else to do the hard work for them or on their behalf. This is what I want to address today.

On numerous occasions I have said that what is required is a conversion of the modern culture. That is a difficult task and requires a different sort of commitment than that of someone fighting for king and country in a military struggle. It calls for dedication, patience and resilience. It is a long, tiresome competition that rewards endurance more than decisive action. Sadly, far too many prefer not to try even attempting so daunting a task with a final goal that is so far out of sight. This causes not a few monarchists to, almost subconsciously, switch priorities and demand that their monarch (if they have one) stand as their champion rather than acting as the champion of their monarch. They look at society and wonder why the monarch does not do something to make it all better. This often leads to disenchantment and frustration and then anger. They begin to actively blame their monarch for the ills of modern society and effectively become republicans by either abandoning their allegiance outright or backing some ideal era from the past or a rival royal line from history that is not involved in modern society, has never been involved and so cannot be blamed for anything but upheld as a pristine, imaginary alternative. Although they could never bring themselves to call themselves republicans, they become effectively that by joining the side of those who wish to see the remaining monarchies of the world pulled down.

I have personally seen this pattern of behavior more often than I would like and some fly through the stages faster than others. Some have even ended up becoming republicans outright after they realize that their idealistic, imaginary sort of monarchism gets them nowhere and often involves a falling out with their handful of on-line confederates who each tend to think that their way is the only way. The real problem though, is the one they fail to address and shirked from in the first place; the conversion of the culture. A monarch cannot change society when that society does not even take their monarch seriously. They can do scarcely little for a people who have forgotten what true loyalty really is. Too many today have no conception of real loyalty, too many have no conception of what a monarch really is, their place in a country or nation and, increasingly, many have forgotten what even a nation is or why it is important. They have allowed themselves to become small, focused only on their whims and appetites, relativistic in their thinking and while patting themselves on the back for being so broad-minded they feel a false pride while they themselves, their society, even their nation willingly allows itself to shuffle toward extinction.

It is important to keep priorities in order and not to stand on the sinking deck of the Titanic arguing over whether the captain was properly certified or not. As stated at the outset, that does not mean letting everything else slide and just trying to wage some sort of a moral campaign but it does mean that the problem of the republican mindset is not simply a political one. This sort of thinking is, in itself, a product of the post-revolutionary, ideological world. We have been taught to think in ideological ways and that everything will be perfect if we can just find and implement that perfect political formula that always seems so elusive. The problem is that there is no one, rigid, ideology that would well serve everyone in the world. Peoples and cultures are too different for that, even in these modern, globalist times when it sounds like everyone is repeating the same talking points peppered with popular phrases like “equality”, “sustainability” and “social justice”. Some countries have different priorities than others, some are much more regulated than others, some are much more monolithic than others and what works in one place might not work in another. So, the arguments and the tactics for trying to restore the monarchy in a country like Portugal is going to be vastly different from the arguments for restoring the monarchy in a country like Russia. What might be the best approach in Italy may not be the best approach in Nepal.

What is common to all is the fact that each republic represents a people who have (often violently) cut themselves off from their own history. It is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, many European monarchies (and Commonwealth Realms like Australia and Canada) have tried to deemphasize their own history in an effort to encourage and facilitate multiculturalism. Some monarchists in these countries do not see that as a bad thing and are proud of the ability of their monarchs to unite various people from various religious and cultural backgrounds. However, even if one regards that as a positive thing, the same circumstances do not apply to republics. Where monarchies remain, their monarchs have presided over the change in their countries toward multiculturalism and so everything was done under the “umbrella” of the existing monarchy. In republics, on the other hand, this attitude would not be possible as the new populations of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants really have no connection with the former monarchy, most of which have not existed in the lifetime of anyone still above ground. For countries like this, it would be extremely difficult for the public to ever even open their mind to the idea of restoring the monarchy without getting in touch again with their own history, the unique story of their people in which monarchs invariably played a large part.

Every revolutionary republic is like a country cutting off its own head and expecting a new one to grow in its place. It doesn’t happen, so they flail around trying to find a replacement, constantly trying to reinvent themselves until they reach the point that they don’t know who they are because they have forgotten who they were in the first place. That is why I cover a great many historical subjects and figures (I’m also just interested in the subject on my own) because people must be awakened to their own history -and the TRUTH of history so that they begin to feel a real connection with the past. Even the largely ceremonial monarchs that are most common today are still historical figures in that, even while not impacting policy and world events as in the past, they are a living link with the history of their country and their people. They embody history and the history of themselves and their family is the history of their countries and peoples as a whole. If, for example, one is a citizen of the Czech Republic, the history of your country as it is today only goes back as far as 1993. Prior to that, it was a part of Czechoslovakia and even then, the Czechoslovakia of the post communist era was a totally different thing than the Czechoslovakia of the communist era which was totally different from the original Czechoslovakia which was still a very young country. Yet, if you are a Czech aware of your history, you know a land and a people that stretched back to the Moravian Empire and which had been part of the Austrian Empire which was a successor state of the Holy Roman Empire which was a revival or an attempted revival of the classic Roman Empire that goes back to the beginnings of western and European civilization under a monarchy that was, indirectly, a continuation, in some way at least, of those original Roman Emperors.

Far too many people are ignorant of their own history, their own national story. Even those which seem to be obsessed with the subject are often only fixated on holding on to past grudges rather than having a full understanding of where they come from. Not long ago I had a verbal altercation with a Korean woman who was, as usual, accusing the Japanese of denying history. Yet, she was totally unaware that the last Crown Princess of Korea was Japanese and left Japan to spend the rest of her life in Korea, caring for the most vulnerable of the population. She said she had never been taught this in school and I have no doubt that is true. She could detail every real or imagined injustice Korea ever suffered during the rather brief period of Japanese colonial rule but that is not a true understanding of Korean history, just a determination to hold a grudge against Japan and claim victim status. A true understanding would not reduce Korea to being known simply as a battlefield of the Cold War and a Japanese colony but would cover vast centuries of trials, triumphs and accomplishments from King Munmu of Silla to the grandest heights of Sejong the Great. That is also another byproduct of the “small thinking” of modern times that so many people today seem to want to be pitied rather than admired or respected. It is sadly not at all uncommon, particularly in formerly colonial countries that have been less than a roaring success.

No matter if one is from China, Turkey or Ethiopia, although they have very few similarities, a proper understanding of history will awaken people to the fact that the end of the era of monarchy was a break with the natural history of their land and people that included some bad times certainly but also their proudest moments of national greatness and achievement. Sure, modern mainland China may have shot some junk into space and have nuclear weapons, but they have never built anything to rival the Ming architecture of the Forbidden City or produced any philosophers anywhere close to being on the same level as Confucius nor had any national leader as revered as the KangXi Emperor. Modern Iran has a history limited to the life of the Ayatollah Khomeini while Imperial Iran had a lineage that went back to the likes of Cyrus the Great, and, I might add, the last Shah made a point of trying to acquaint his people with the entirety of their cultural legacy, not just on the post-Islamic period, but back to ancient times when Persia was a world super-power.

My point is that for monarchy to be revived, attitudes and values must be changed. People must be convinced of the truth of ancient wisdom, which some would call common sense because it has to be in order to last long enough to become ancient. They must be brought to a more traditional way of thinking, with a proper respect for tradition itself, for religion and things like national myths and folklore. They must also be made aware of their history. These are not easy things to accomplish, which is probably why so many ignore them and simply damn their constitutional monarchs for not snapping their fingers and changing the world by magic. However, we can influence them in a million different ways, often by things that seem inconsequential. It may seem like a little thing, but it makes a difference which can be seen by how the communist Chinese government has reacted to the hanfu movement (mentioned here not long ago) which simply seeks to revive traditional Han Chinese dress and customs. You can do it by doing something like that, wear something that attracts attention, fly a flag, wear a ribbon on your lapel, put a royal portrait in your cubicle at work -anything that will encourage someone to ask you a question and thus give you an opportunity to explain to them, first that monarchy is important to you, and later, in time, why it should be important to them. Most of all, remember that in a struggle such as this, the thing that pays off the most is simple persistence.