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nmgauss
Guest
Before the elected British prime minister can form a new government, he must formally be given permission by the monarchy. In that respect, the monarchy has power. In Germany under the Weimar Republic, the elected president chose the next chancellor. You might say that the election chose the next monarch.Ummm. I understand your liking the Brit monarchy, and that’s fine enough since it has no power. But Britain has swung through political extremes even more than the U.S. has. Monarchy didn’t save Britain from that. And from what moral excess has monarchy preserved the Netherlands?
And Hirohito was very much the moving agent in the start of WWII. And Louis XIV was virtually the Hitler of his time in terms of territorial aggression. Turned out well for France in the long run, but it was terrible for a lot of people during his reign. And let us not forget that if Kaiser Wilhelm had held fast to his belief that there was no good excuse for Austria’s war on Serbia, there would have been no WWI. But for the vanity of one man, it would never have happened.
In Japan, General Tojo was very much the moving agent in the aggression toward China in WWII. Hirohito was more of a rubber stamp. During the Great Depression, in the minds of the leaders, the solution to Japan’s economic problems was to invade Manchuria. Later invading central China became the policy. This was all at the behest of the militarists who used the British and French examples as models.
As for France, Napoleon was by far the greatest territorial aggressor. Louis XIV did not invade Austria, Prussia or Russia.
Your knowledge of European history is paltry. Austria-Hungary’s invasion of Serbia had no support from Kaiser Wilhelm II. It is only when Russia came to the aid of Serbia that Germany came to the aid of Austria-Hungary. Because of the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Britain), Germany felt the need to form the Central Powers. It was the complicated system of alliances that led to the bloodbath of WWI. Even here, when Germany invaded Belgium, a neutral country, Britain felt the need to come to their aid. Belgium had been chosen by Germany as the easiest route to France without regard to Belgium’s political stance. Barbara Tuchman’s book “The Guns of August” gives a detailed account of the first month of the Western Front.
If there had not been an assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, there would not have been WWI. However, the aggressive nature of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who envied the empires of Britain and France would probably have lead to some kind of conflict with those two countries. He already had established colonies overseas, which were taken away from Germany when they lost the war.