srb7677

World War 1 was devastating for European monarchies from the defeated nations. It effectively ended the monarchies of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.

But it is worth bearing in mind that many other monarchies survived, and it was actually World War 2 that ended up finishing them. Both the Romanian and Serbian/Yugoslav monarchies were effectively ended by World War 2, and the Greek and Italian monarchies did not long survive the unpopularity wrought by the war.

Cavanboy

Ww1 lead to ww2 which led to the muslimization of europe.

Brunel

Victoria was the Kaiser's grandmother.

Brunel

Ahhhh. I see what you mean now. You are referring to the Princess Royal.

Ancientgeezer

Funny old thing--all of the European Monarchies in 1914 were Constitutional Monarchies. The Kaiser and the Tsar have been portrayed as absolute despots and while they had a bit more power than, say the King of England, they were still bound by law to the ultimate will of their parliaments. Even the Sultan was a constitutional monarch. After 1918 many people were happy to be ruled by absolutists from the right and the left.

Moishe3rd

WWI effectively ended the monarchies because the various kings represented the extreme class divisions between the "nobility" and the "common people."
It seems that most people, even today, are unaware that a comparative handful of upper class nobility ruled over hundreds of millions of peasants with extreme disregard for the living conditions of the "lower classes."
By the end of WWI all of Europe was starving and destroyed while the ruling classes still lived in abundance.
Most are unaware that after the November 11th Armistice, Germany also had a Communist Revolution:
As of 4 November delegations of the sailors scattered out to all larger cities in the country. Already by 7 November the revolution had seized all larger coastal cities as well as Hanover, Brunswick, Frankfurt and Munich. In Munich a "Workers' and Soldiers' Council" forced the last King of Bavaria, Ludwig III, to abdicate. Bavaria was the first member state of the German Empire to be declared a Council Republic (German: Räterepublik), the Bavarian Soviet Republic by USPD-member Kurt Eisner. In the following days the royals of all the other German states abdicated, the last one on 23 November was Prince Günther Victor of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were almost entirely made up of SPD and USPD members. Their program was democracy, pacifism and anti-militarism.

England could have gone the same way but Liberal Party Prime Minister Lloyd George wanted to hold on to power and was closely allied with the Conservatives. As the German Empire was disintegrating, England could claim they won the war and they got to dictate the insane Treaty of Versailles which effectively proclaimed Lloyd George victorious and punished the now defunct German government.
(Plus the Easter Rising in Ireland had been brutally suppressed in 1916 and gave both the Nobility and the Common people a reason to be wary of both repression leading to revolution and revolution leading to the massacres of the peasants.)

However, England and France and the rest of Europe still all came close to the vast majority of "lower classes" rising up and seizing power.
The main reason they did not fall as Germany and Russia had was that they were immediately able to rebuild their economies and employ the "lower classes" in productive work.
This was tenuous bargain that was only finally saved from "revolution" by the massive destruction of WWII and the subsequent engine of Economic Freedom and Law of of the United States of America.

Yes, the monarchies were destroyed by WWI. Those that weren't became effectively powerless.

betgo

The Russian Duma was 10 years old, very undemocratically elected, and not very powerful.

However, I agree that these multiethnic monachical empires all seemed to be destroyed by the war, Austria, Russia, and Turkey. Agree also that what came into the void was Communism and Fascism, more absolutist, more repressive, and not ruled by traditional royalty and aristocracy.

Also, perhaps the beginning of the destruction of empires in general, followed by decolonization in the second half of the 20th century and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Kotromanic

If I recall correctly the mother and grandmother were both named Victoria.

Opinion

Don't forget, that the real-economy of Austria-Hungary surpassed not only Italian but French too. AH-Monarchy had 5M Tonne annual steel output, while Russia had only 3M Tonne France had only 4M Tonne and Italy had only 2M Tonnes annual. A-H monarhy also had the 4th largest heavy industry. The A-H coal production and consumption also was the 4th on the world.

Russians hadn't serious factories, its only weaapon manufacture was the Putilov ,which was financed and established by France. WW1 Russia needed mostly western weapons and ernomous foreign supports to keep in war. Remember, due to the lack of technology, most parts of their dreadnought-class battleships had to imported! While Austria-Hungary was perhabs the only country what have never used such weapons which were produced on foreign solil. The total production of Austro-Hungarian machine building ( focused on automotive industry power plants ecelctric industry railways ) was the forth largest of the world, Only the American German and British machine building industries were larger.

Opinion

Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as nation states? It is very strange due to their ethnic combination. They were silmilar "nation states" as the United Kingdom. (which caused the British symphaty towards the other hybrid states of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia)