Epilogue

Abstract

This brief chapter summarises the diverse experiences of monarchs in the Great War, and the impact of those experiences on their own individual reputations and the robustness of the monarchic institutions in the countries over which they ruled (symbolically or actively). It reinforces the challenge to the traditional view that monarchy was, after 1918, considered irrelevant by contemporaries by pointing to the choices of monarchical government in a number of ‘new’ post-war states, such as Jordan, Iraq and what became Yugoslavia, as well as the survival of monarchies in locations such as Bulgaria. It emphasises the extent to which individual actions and personalities, combined with pre-existing tensions and problems, brought down monarchies—notably in Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary and eventually the Ottoman Empire. But it also rejects the notion that these indicate a general weakness in the monarchical form of government, in some form or another. It also challenges scholars to revisit modern monarchies afresh, taking them seriously rather than dismissing them as irrelevant.