A Brief History of the House of Windsor

by Michael Paterson

  After four years, the Central Powers could no longer sustain the burden of war. The first to crack, and to seek peace talks without reference to the others, had been Austria in 1917, though nothing came of this. The following year – on 29 September 1918 – Bulgaria made a separate peace with the Allies. Turkey followed on 30 October, and then Austria–Hungary, the nation which had begun it all, on 3 November. The patriarchal emperor, Franz Joseph I, who had reigned since 1848, had died in 1916. His successor, Emperor Karl I, was young and inexperienced. Though willing to do whatever he could to keep the throne – including approaching the enemy behind the kaiser’s back – it was already too late. His armies had been defeated and his realms were disintegrating. Since the war had begun, parts of this empire, notably Hungary and the Czech lands, had been of questionable loyalty. Now that the state was heading for defeat their long-held desire for separation and independence could neither be ignored nor prevented. This was not a violent revolution after the manner of Russia’s; the imperial family merely lost their lands and possessions, and were expelled from the country. In this case George V ensured the safe conduct from Austria of Emperor Karl and his dependants by sending his personal representative, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lisle Strutt, to see them to exile in Switzerland.

  The overall peace settlement was to be founded, at America’s desire, on the notion of ‘self-determination’, which meant that subject nations would be encouraged to break away. There was no wish to see Europe clustered into power-blocks as it had been four years earlier. American animosity to the principle of monarchy was also influential. That form of government had failed to keep the peace in Europe, and indeed the rivalries and conflicting claims of the dynasties were likely to be a source of conflict in the future if they were left in positions of power. The era has been seen as one in which thrones were swept away, and of course a great many were, but it is worth remembering that not all countries lost their monarchs – Italy and Romania, for instance, did not because they had both been on the Allied side. Two countries even became monarchies in the post-war settlement: Albania and the newly formed Yugoslavia. In the volatile Balkans it was considered possible that the presence of a sovereign would bring stability by providing newly formed nations with a source of pride and national unity on which to build. In the event, neither new monarchy survived for more than a generation.

  The ‘Great War for Civilization’ – as it would be dubbed by its victors – effectively ended with Armistice in November 1918. At Buckingham Palace the wine cellars were reopened in celebration. The king drank brandy that his ancestor George IV had laid down to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon just over a century earlier. Peace was not formally signed until the following year. While German armies had held firm in the west, they could not do so for much longer. They were in retreat, giving up the cities, like Lille and Ghent, that they had occupied since 1914. Crippled by four and a half years of shortages, by the strain of fighting on several fronts and shoring up the efforts of their flagging, increasingly unreliable allies, as well as by the loss of up to four million men (the official figure of two million is thought to be hopelessly optimistic), Germany’s public as well as her armies were at breaking point. When the High Command ordered the German Fleet to sail into the North Sea for a final reckoning (actually a suicidal notion that was intended to provide a Wagnerian finale), the sailors mutinied and refused to go. A crippling series of strikes at home undermined the government, as well as military and civilian morale. The country’s working class, encouraged by what had happened in Russia, demanded an end to the conflict. All but right-wing nationalists realized that continuing to fight would merely prolong the national agony. Germany therefore sued for an Armistice through the Americans.

  It is important to remember that the country was not conceding defeat. They wished for a ceasefire, and this was agreed under certain conditions. Their government was under the impression that all sides in the conflict would be subject to the outcome of an international peace conference, that all would be disarmed and would lose their overseas colonies to international administration. The reality was, of course, very different. The German delegates were simply summoned to the conference at Versailles to be handed the resolutions agreed by the victorious powers. The massive document in which these were contained was not even translated into German, thus setting them the urgent task of first reading and comprehending it in order to sign and accept (any quibbling would result in a resumption of hostilities, they were warned). The terms were draconian in the extreme. It was only the defeated Central Powers that would lose their territories and resources, and would have their armed forces severely reduced. They were also saddled with paying reparations for the damage caused by the war, and even had their national libraries and art galleries rifled to compensate countries whose own cultural treasures had been lost in the fighting. The agreement was finalized in the Hall of Mirrors, the very room in the palace of Louis XIV in which, in January 1871, the German states had proclaimed their empire and thus created a unified nation. In the same place in which they had taken Alsace and Lorraine as part of Germany, they lost them once again to France.

  The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 – five years to the day after the assassination in Sarajevo that had set in motion the whole tragedy. In London, the royal family appeared on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and was greeted with adulation by a huge crowd, just as they would be, less than thirty years later, following another war. The king, moved as ever by the affection of his people, wrote that evening in his diary: ‘Please God the dear old Country will now settle down & work in unity.’ George’s presence, both as a man and as a symbol, had it seemed made an important contribution to victory. One civil servant, Sir Maurice Hankey, cited as the three architects of victory Prime Ministers Asquith and Lloyd George and the king, of whom he wrote that the qualities he had shown were: ‘steadfast faith, ceaseless devotion to duty and inspiring leadership’.

  In the Treaty, however, the seeds of further strife had already been sown. Germany, a great power with a high sense of mission and of its own importance, had been humiliated and reduced to penury. This was naturally going to cause resentment and the same desire to right historical wrong that the French had experienced over their lost provinces. In order to pay the huge reparations demanded of them, the German government had to devalue its currency to such an extent that the savings of millions became valueless overnight. Throughout the 1920s Germany would lurch from extreme poverty to relative stability (as foreign loans boosted her economy), and then, as global depression struck, back to poverty. The social as well as the political climate – wounded pride, resentment and economic disaster – made the country susceptible to extremism and receptive to a Messiah-figure who promised to lead them out of their difficulties. The Second World War began as a direct result of the First. The two decades between them were simply a breathing space.

  Though Britain had no interests to protect in central or eastern Europe, there was to be painful separation for the United Kingdom too. The Irish question had not gone away. In the middle of the war, at Easter 1916, separatist rebels had seized the General Post Office in Dublin and declared Ireland a republic. To prove the strength of their convictions, they had killed several policemen and officials and had holed themselves up in buildings throughout the city. As an attention-getting gesture it succeeded, but in the long term it was doomed to failure. It took two weeks, but the rebels were cleared out of their positions at a cost of some lives and considerable damage to the surrounding area. Booed in the streets, the participants were jailed. When their ringleaders were shot, however, the mood in Ireland turned to one of outrage. The creation of new martyrs fed into a long tradition of Irish heroism and struck a chord with the public. Following the aftermath of Easter 1916, the movement for separation and full independence – as opposed to the already promised Home Rule – inexorably gained momentum. Ireland promised to be one of the biggest problems to be confronted by King George�
�s post-war governments, as it had been for their predecessors.

  The war was followed by a redrawing of the map of the world. Enemy colonies were put in the care of Allied nations, not only in Africa but as far away as New Guinea. The entire Middle East had to be reorganized. While the Central Powers had been defeated – though they would return to destroy the peace of Europe again within twenty years – there was now an even greater international menace. Bolshevism had cut off the vast lands of Russia from the community of civilized nations. The social and political system that this represented was the declared enemy of religion and of capitalism – Russia was thus a neighbour with whom there could be no accommodation – and its leaders expected it to spread throughout Europe and the world. Not since the French Revolution had there been a pariah nation of this sort which, having destroyed its own government and social order, was intent on helping others do the same. It marked the beginning of a new world order that was even more dangerous than the old one.

  The conflict had, as might have been expected, led to a general desire for change. With the example of Soviet Russia suggesting that utopia was possible (it was not to be generally realized how far from the truth this notion was until the thirties) there were serious rumblings elsewhere in Europe. Hungary and Bavaria both had Bolshevik revolutions, though these were short-lived and easily crushed by right-wing forces. In defeated countries like these, social and political chaos made them ripe for such drastic change, but even in victorious Britain there was the threat of trouble too. Glasgow looked likely, for a brief moment in 1919, to produce a revolution of its own. When the British government, on the initiative of the Minister for War, Winston Churchill, wished to send troops to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks, public opinion hostile to the strangling of the Workers’ State ensured that this expedition could be no more than a token gesture. It was the same climate of animosity, already apparent while the war was still going on, that had prevented George V from showing enthusiasm for the scheme to rescue his Russian cousins and bring them to Britain.

  Labour relations became as bad as, and then worse than, they had been before the war. The immediate demobilization of a million men from the armed forces meant that widespread unemployment followed almost immediately. The climate was one of imminent class confrontation.

  The monarchy, however, was not held responsible for the nation’s political ills. The king and queen were popular. Their change of name was a gesture that the public appreciated, and the nominal leadership they had shown through the years of conflict had gained them respect. The Prince of Wales – who would become the first modern ‘media celebrity’ among royals – would acquire legions of admirers when he undertook an exhaustive series of overseas tours over the following years, and thus reflect further credit on the monarchy. George also decided that in times of economic hardship he and the other members of his family should share the climate of austerity by reducing their expenditure. His desire to cut the allowances from the Civil List on which he and his relations lived was appreciated by his subjects. He was not, in any case, an extravagant ruler, and his plain habits and lifestyle already fitted in with the austere mood of the times.

  George was a very conscientious sovereign, willing to take pains over the performance of his duties in a way that his father and his eldest son would not. One instance was the revival of the sovereign’s participation in an ancient custom. The distribution of ‘Royal Maundy’ – the ritualized annual giving of charity to the poor – (instead of clothing and foodstuffs it now took the form of specially minted money, given to as many elderly persons as there were years in the sovereign’s age) – still went on, but not since 1685 had the monarch given it out in person. The ceremony was always held at Westminster. Lawrence Tanner, the Keeper of the Muniments there, recorded that: ‘After the Maundy Service at the Abbey in 1931, Princess Marie Louise made the suggestion that the sovereign ought once again to make the distributions in person, and added that she felt sure that King George would come if he was asked. The result was that King George and Queen Mary attended the service the following year. The king did the Distribution quite charmingly, with a grave little bow and smile for each recipient. He was taken aback and quite flushed with pleasure when the old people quite spontaneously said: “God bless Your Majesty” or “Long live Your Majesty” as they received the purses.’ The Times opined that his attendance proved : ‘that the Royal Maundy still expresses the will of the sovereign to be the friend and servant of the poor among his people’.

  This was a move both populist and popular. It was not of course unique. The washing of the feet of the poor was a custom practised by, among others, the Pope. The immensely dignified Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (who reigned from 1848–1916) had performed this act every year. Nevertheless, King George’s interest in the event and his willingness to attend – increased by the warmth of the reception for his first appearance – established it as customary, and his descendants have been equally scrupulous in their support. The present queen carries out this duty, in a different cathedral somewhere in Britain, every spring.

  From our distant perspective the inter-war decades of George V’s reign seem much like those that preceded 1914 – with the same pith-helmeted Britons shooting tigers in India, the same top-hatted cabinet ministers, the same fashionable crowds strolling at Henley or Goodwood. In fact, though, this was an entirely different era. It saw the breakup of the United Kingdom as the counties of southern Ireland formed their own state and, although it was during this reign that the British Empire was to reach its maximum territorial size, it witnessed an increase in momentum toward independence for India that was ultimately to remove the lynch-pin from the Empire. It saw the consolidation of Bolshevik Russia and thus the beginnings of the Cold War polarization between East and West. It was characterized by the rise of bolshevism’s equally ugly nemesis, fascism. In a period of international upheaval and uncertainty it produced extremist, fanatical leaders – Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco – who used naked force and terror to achieve their objectives. This maelstrom of violence and bellicosity abroad must have made Britons grateful to have a gruffly amiable sovereign – a reassuring presence in a world gone mad.

  It had been during the pivotal year of 1917 that another change had occurred in the monarchy, one that was significant at the time but soon came to be taken for granted. This was the introduction of a new award that would be available to everyone in society, male or female, regardless of age or social class. Such things were known in other countries – most significantly in France, where Napoleon had established the country’s principal decoration, the Légion d’Honneur, in 1804. This was an egalitarian, rather than an exclusive, award. It was plentifully bestowed on those who had given routine service to the state rather than conferred in any spirit of elitism.

  In Britain it became apparent that there was a need for some similar honour. The Great War was an unprecedented national emergency. Heroism was displayed by women as well as men, by civilians as well as the military. Gallantry awards were naturally not appropriate for those who had organized comfort funds for troops or boosted the output of factories. There needed to be some fitting means of rewarding civilian service that was lengthy or outstandingly diligent, but specifically it was necessary to acknowledge the efforts of the Civil Service in the war effort. It was deemed inappropriate that existing Orders of knighthood should be expanded through more numerous awards, as this would devalue them. The new honour, though this too would be an Order, would confer knighthood only in its higher, and more select, grades.

  The notion was the inspiration of Lord Stamfordham, the same man whose stroke of genius had given his master a suitable new name. It had first been mooted at the start of the war, but vague discussion only became properly focused in 1917. It would be called the Order of the British Empire, so that it could be given to all citizens of British territories. There would be five classes. The highest two would confer knighthood (Knight Grand Cross and Knight Command
er). The others would be Commander, Officer and Member. Interestingly, at a time when women did not yet have the vote, they were to be able for the first time to earn a title on their own merit and not through that of their husbands. The female equivalent of a knight would be – it was decided after much discussion – a ‘dame’. To those like the Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon who had been educated at Eton, this term was taken to refer to the matron or landlady of the boys’ boarding houses (‘A housemistress!’ he exclaimed) and was thus deemed unsuitable. Nevertheless, the term came into use and was quickly accepted.

  The Order was to be restricted to civil servants until the war ended, whenever that might be. After that it would be made available to anyone who deserved it, and nominations were invited not only from organizations within Britain but from the governments of the Dominions. Not everyone was willing to cooperate in choosing recipients – some government departments or industries were so big that selecting the most deserving was simply considered too daunting a task to bother with. Nevertheless the medals began to be distributed and the OBE came to dwarf all Britain’s other Orders. The Garter had twenty-four members, the Order of Merit one hundred. The OBE was supposedly to be restricted to 1,300 recipients, but Lloyd George, the prime minister who was later to gain notoriety for selling honours, gave 22,000 of them in the first four years of the scheme.

  Though the OBE took time to become accepted, it proved to be an immense success. For the first time, ordinary people could not only be publicly recognized by the State for their work or for outstanding service to others, they could also join the Establishment. Thousands every year would be able to feel that royalty had noticed their efforts and appreciated them – even though recipients were in fact decided upon by a committee in Downing Street and not by the Crown. Because presentations were and are made at the Palace, those who receive them are able to visit the monarch’s home and receive the attention, and the thanks, of the king or queen in person – an occasion they often regard as a highlight of their life. The Order has proved to be hugely influential in winning the public over to the side of the monarchy, and periodic efforts to abolish, or even rename, it have consistently failed, for despite a name that quickly sounded outdated and uncomfortable, it was an award tailor-made for a meritocratic society and the perfect reflection of the new era in which the monarchy found itself.