Whenever British royals visit the United States you can count on two things happening; proletarian preaching from the Yankee Doodle dandies about the glories of republicanism and how absurd having royals is (have fun counting down until someone says, “We fought a war to get away from this sort of thing” -someone says it every single time and still thinks they’re oh-so-clever) and then, in reaction to this, you have the other side retaliating with tirades of anti-Americanism, ranting about how the United States is the most terrible country in the world and the greatest plague to the monarchist cause ever. All the while, of course, the royals themselves invariably behave in the most well-mannered and friendly way possible and while the American leadership tries to be good hosts (though certainly not always succeeding). This issue has been brought to my attention more than usual lately and, as I usually do, thinking about it long enough has caused me to consider the side opposite that I would normally take. Is the strident anti-Americanism of so many monarchists really justified? Has the United States really been that bad for monarchy around the world?
The USA problem
In the first place, I would have to say that even while agreeing with much of the content of anti-American complaining from monarchists, I have never, ever been fond of it. Even when it is entirely accurate, it still seems petty and hypocritical. It is, in a way, stooping to the level of the basest American republicans that so many monarchists despise. After all, what that imported Englishman Thomas Paine penned his famous tract, “Common Sense”, he appealed to emotion rather than reason and, lacking any rational, factual justification for their rebellion, the American patriots had no other recourse but to heap blame and point fingers at King George III. Furthermore, as has been pointed out here often enough, the United States would not exist as it is today without the support of monarchies. The Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain were of the most direct assistance, while the Kingdom of Morocco boasts of being the first foreign power to recognize the United States. The Kingdom of Sweden claims to be the first nation to recognize the United States which was not engaged in the conflict that bore it out. Empress Catherine the Great of Russia said that she would sooner commit suicide that recognize American independence if she were King George III but, as she was not, the Russian Empire also made haste to recognize the new republic. King Frederick the Great of Prussia even sent George Washington a ceremonial sword as gift (perhaps he heard that some American monarchists speculated about making his brother King of America).
The strident anti-American would then have to condemn those monarchies which not only helped give birth to the United States but without whose support American independence could not have been won (much as the Yankee Doodle dandies hate to admit it). One should also keep in mind that, for all the radical rhetoric, the so-called American Revolution was hardly revolutionary at all. The firebrand republicans like Thomas Paine were useful to whip up the masses and make the rebellion seem justified but when it came to actual leadership, such rabble-rousers were kept far from the halls of power. Even the most radical of the “Founding Fathers”, Thomas Jefferson, kept in his “Hall of Heroes” at Monticello portraits of King Louis XVI of France and the self-made Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. There were Founding Fathers who were monarchists themselves at heart, the most notable being Alexander Hamilton. Men like George Washington and John Adams, once the war was won, could not hide their lingering attachment to the United Kingdom they had broken away from. The war deprived the British monarch of territory but not of his throne and there was no attempt to remake society in the way of the French or Russian revolutions.
Loyalists had to go of course (and almost all did) but those who were the elite before the war remained the elite after it was over. Also, unlike the French Revolution, there was no immediate urge to export the “American Revolution” abroad. There were those who sympathized with the French Revolution that broke out soon after and those who wanted to renew the war against Great Britain in solidarity with the French republicans but, as we know, that did not happen. In fact, America stopped payment of its debts to France on the grounds that the debt was owed to the King who had aided America and not the French Republic (while simultaneously making a trade agreement with Britain). The resulting French revolutionary outrage sparked The Undeclared War with France on the part of the United States. Clashes did not cease until the French Republic succumbed to the more realistic rule of Napoleon (who was also kind enough to give the USA a good deal on Louisiana). In 1812 there was the totally condemnable effort to conquer Canada but, after a good drubbing, the United States seemed to have learned its lesson even while telling themselves that they had not really lost.
Where America at least seemed to have the most impact on the replacement of monarchial government with republican ones was in Latin America. There was, after all, the Monroe Doctrine and the involvement of American officials (often Freemasons) in conspiracies to bring down the Spanish Crown in the New World. However, as reprehensible as these things are, the simple fact is that the United States did not have the strength to back up one word of the Monroe Doctrine and no amount of republican fervor from US envoys in Latin American countries could have accomplished anything were it not for the republican, revolutionary elements already there. The British Empire supported the Monroe Doctrine and had the Royal Navy to enforce it. Aside from native, revolutionary elements the success of republicanism in Latin America largely came down to official and unofficial support from the British Empire as well as, most significantly, chaos in Spain itself. The royalists had won in Mexico but the rising liberalism in Spain pushed Mexican conservatives into the pro-independence camp. The outbreak of the Carlist Wars also prevented the Spanish from being able to focus their strength on serious efforts to retake colonies that had been lost with the support of Britain which was anxious to break up the Spanish monopoly on trade with Latin America.
The United States was quick to recognize the independence of the Empire of Brazil but was certainly the decisive factor in the failure of the Second Mexican Empire. Yet, that situations presents anti-American monarchists with a unique problem. The rapidly growing power of the United States made it extremely difficult for any one European monarchy to oppose them outright but the one thing that would have broken up that power and saved the Empire of Mexico would have been the victory of the Confederate States of America. Support for the Confederacy is not unknown in monarchist circles but with the “Lost Cause” of Dixie so associated with slavery today, I have rarely seen any monarchists willing to say that Britain and France should have recognized the slave-holding southern states and helped the Confederacy win independence. As we can see, even when America has been wrong, it was rarely alone and seemed to have a way of exploiting situations so that an American triumph would be hard to condemn because so many would see the alternative as being worse or at least necessitating some very unpopular and even distasteful alliances. But, of course, distasteful alliances is what geopolitics tends to be made of. The United States has certainly made more than a few but then so has virtually every monarchy.
After clashing with Britain in 1812, America did not fight a monarchy again until the Spanish-American War. Many European countries did not like this and the German Kaiser even urged concerted action to, more or less, put the Americans in their place. However, none did so because, again, the British Empire decided it was wiser to support America rather than Spain which, still struggling with seemingly endless Carlist Wars, was a rapidly declining power. Around the same time there was also the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy by American interests and that is something that Hawaiians certainly have a right to be upset about. Not too many do though as it is a very liberal state and has come to depend on the largesse of the government in Washington. Hawaiians are also a tiny minority in the state and in any democratic decision on the matter would be easily outvoted.
The next time the United States went to war with a monarchy (or monarchies) was in 1917 when America entered the First World War. This is a rather complex situation as President Woodrow Wilson (certainly one of the worst presidents in American history, whether one is a monarchist or not) is a perfect bogey man and many have heaped blame on him and America as a whole for ruining the Europe that was dominated by traditional monarchies prior to 1914. Unfortunately, this is also the beginning of what has become an obsession with the United States by many people beyond its borders. They make common cause with the Yankee Doodle dandies in at least one way; both like to portray the United States as the pivotal world power upon whom everything depends, one side just thinks that this has been good and the other thinks it has been bad. Sadly, I must disappoint both sides and say that the United States, certainly in 1917, was just not that important. In the first place, America was involved only in the last few months of the war and the primary rival to President Wilson in domestic politics, former President Teddy Roosevelt, would not have remained neutral but would have taken America into the conflict much sooner. Moreover, it was France and especially Great Britain which worked the hardest to get the United States involved in the war, helped just across the finish line by Germany with that ludicrous Zimmermann Telegram which no country in the world would have ignored. But, what about America and the monarchies of World War I?
As much fun as many have blaming the loss of every monarchy toppled in 1918 on America, the simple fact is that the USA had practically nothing to do with it. America did not declare war until late in 1917, after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, and by that time Austria-Hungary was already doomed. Britain and France had already made the agreements with the other powers and the ethnic minorities for the carve-up of Austria-Hungary before America was ever part of the picture. The same goes for the Ottoman Empire. In Bulgaria, the monarchy survived and in Germany it was the outbreak of leftist rebellions combined with the Social Democrats seizing the opportunity that brought down the Kaiser. Not one American or other Allied soldier had set foot on German soil when that happened and the greatest pressure put on Imperial Germany by the Allies was the Royal Navy blockade which had been going on since the start of the war. As for what happened at the Versailles Conference, Wilson certainly did his part to help make it the disaster it was but he was only one man among many and the other Allied leaders were perfectly happy to ignore his lofty, unrealistic preaching when it suited them. The Germans actually preferred to make peace based on his “Fourteen Points” but the Allies brushed most of them aside. The United States, lest we forget, was the only major Allied power that neither sought nor was given any territorial concessions and also the only one that did NOT endorse the Versailles Treaty. The idiotic Wilson thought it was swell but, thankfully, the United States Senate did not and refused to ratify it and America made a separate peace with the Central Powers later.
The United States, despite gaining no territory, certainly emerged from the war in a very enviable position. Having stayed out until the very end, it made a great deal of money selling all sorts of necessities to the warring powers and almost all of the Allies were so desperate for American money that they all indebted themselves heavily to the United States. For the British Empire, this situation reached critical mass during World War II. Those who decry how the United States surpassed the British Empire as the preeminent world power must face the fact that it was Britain which put itself in this position by mortgaging the empire to fight a war it could not win on its own. It is not a pleasant thing to ponder but the fact is that the British Empire could, possibly, have survived the First World War but not the Second. As it happened, the British government made the decision that destroying Nazi Germany was worth placing the Empire entirely at the mercy of the United States and President Franklin D. Roosevelt made no secret of his desire to see the British Empire come to an end.