People of the Revolution and the USSR

Monarchy and royalism 1735–1806 ✕ Died of wounds from Auerstedt

Commander of the Austro-Prussian army who issued the Brunswick Manifesto

On 25 July 1792 at Koblenz he issued a manifesto in his name warning that Paris and its people would face severe reprisals if the French royal family were harmed.

Ruling prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, a nephew of Frederick the Great and a Prussian field marshal, he took command of the combined Austrian and Prussian armies when war began in 1792. On 25 July he issued the Brunswick Manifesto at Koblenz; it bore his name, but the text is generally attributed to émigré circles. Meant to protect the king, the threat instead hardened feeling against the monarchy in Paris. He took Longwy and Verdun, then halted at Valmy on 20 September and withdrew from France. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Auerstedt in 1806.

Monarchy and royalism 1744–1797 ○ Died at Potsdam while reigning

King of Prussia who signed the Declaration of Pillnitz and campaigned against France

In August 1791 he co-signed the Declaration of Pillnitz with Leopold II in support of the French king, and in 1792 he joined in person the campaign led by the Duke of Brunswick.

He succeeded his uncle Frederick II as King of Prussia in 1786 and, at home, turned away from his predecessor’s enlightened style towards tighter censorship and religious control. In reaction to the French Revolution he set aside the old rivalry with Austria: in August 1791 he joined Leopold II in the Declaration of Pillnitz, and a formal alliance followed in February 1792. He took part in person in the 1792 and 1793 campaigns against France, but was held back by lack of money while his advisers looked more to the partitions of Poland. He signed a separate peace with France at Basel in 1795 and died in 1797.

Monarchy and royalism 1747–1792 ○ Died of illness in Vienna while reigning

Holy Roman Emperor who co-signed the Declaration of Pillnitz

On 27 August 1791 he and the King of Prussia signed the Declaration of Pillnitz, saying they would act together for the French king if the other powers joined them.

A son of Maria Theresa and brother of Marie Antoinette, he ruled Tuscany as a reforming grand duke from 1765 and abolished the death penalty and torture there in 1786. He succeeded his brother Joseph II as emperor in 1790. In August 1791 at Pillnitz he and Frederick William II declared that they would intervene in France only if the other powers joined them. Historians have called it a formality, since Leopold knew Russia and Britain would not act, but it contributed to the radicalisation of the revolutionary movement in France. He died of pneumonia in Vienna on 1 March 1792, shortly before France declared war.

French monarchy Monarchy and royalism 1754–1794 ✕ Executed

Author of the Le Chapelier Law banning guilds and workers’ combinations

On 14 June 1791 the law he moved was adopted, banning guilds and forbidding workers or employers of the same trade to combine for their common interests.

A lawyer from Rennes, he was elected to the Estates-General for the Third Estate in 1789, helped found the Breton Club, and as president of the Constituent Assembly in August 1789 presided over the night session of 4 August that abolished feudalism. On the constitutional committee he drafted much of the 1791 Constitution. The law bearing his name, adopted on 14 June 1791, banned guilds and workers’ combinations, a prohibition that lasted until 1864. In September 1791 he also presented a law restricting concerted political action by popular societies. Suspected during the Terror for his Feuillant ties, he was guillotined on 22 April 1794.

Feuillants Monarchy and royalism 1759–1798

Feuillant politician and advocate of judicial reform

One third of the triumvirate of which the Assembly said, “What Duport thinks, Barnave says, Lameth does”, he led the 1791 Feuillant split, arguing the Revolution was over and the constitutional order should be stabilised.

A magistrate and National Assembly deputy, Duport promoted jury trial and criminal-justice reform. He formed the “triumvirate” with Barnave and Lameth and helped organize the Feuillants in 1791. After the monarchy fell in 1792 he went into exile and died in Switzerland.

Feuillants Monarchy and royalism 1761–1793 ✕ Executed

Leading Feuillant orator who sought to preserve constitutional monarchy

On 15 July 1791 he defended the king’s inviolability: “Are we going to end the Revolution, or begin it again?” One step further, he warned, would destroy the monarchy, and one step further toward equality would destroy property.

A Third Estate deputy and leading National Assembly orator, he formed the “triumvirate” with Duport and Lameth. After the Flight to Varennes he helped lead the Feuillants in defence of constitutional monarchy and secretly advised the royal family. Papers revealing those contacts contributed to his conviction and execution.

French First Republic state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1761–1804 Found dead in prison; suicide or murder disputed

French Revolutionary Wars general, royalist conspirator

In February 1794 he took command of the Army of the North and fought at Fleurus; crossing the frozen rivers in the winter of December 1794–January 1795, he entered Utrecht and Amsterdam, while French hussars captured the Dutch fleet over the ice.

French general of the Revolutionary Wars. In the Flanders campaign he overran the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, then fought on the Rhine front; he later adopted Royalist positions, was deported to Cayenne after the Coup of 18 Fructidor (1797), escaped to exile in London and served on Korsakov's staff in 1799. He returned to France, was arrested in the royalist conspiracy against Napoleon, and was found dead in prison in April 1804.

Hungary Monarchy and royalism 1846–1933 ○ Natural causes

Aristocratic statesman who led Hungary’s delegation to the Paris peace talks in 1920 and pleaded for revising Trianon at the League

A count born in Vienna, he entered parliament in 1877 and was a leading orator for half a century. As education minister in 1906–1910 he drafted the Apponyi laws of 1907, which imposed Hungarian-language teaching on non-Hungarian schools. He led the Hungarian delegation at the Paris peace talks in January 1920 and spoke on 16 January, without changing the terms, and in March lost the regency vote to Horthy. Thereafter, as a legitimist opposition deputy and Hungary’s representative at the League of Nations, he denounced the injustice of the Trianon borders. He died in Geneva in 1933, where he had come for the Disarmament Conference.

Beiyang government and warlords Monarchy and royalism 1859–1916 ○ Illness

The Beiyang strongman who took over the 1911 revolution and tried to make himself emperor

Recalled after the 1911 Wuchang Uprising, he pressed both the Qing court and the revolutionaries, winning the emperor's abdication and the provisional presidency in 1912. He proclaimed a monarchy in December 1915, abdicated in March 1916, and died that June.

A soldier-official who built the Beiyang New Army in the late Qing. When the 1911 revolution broke out he pressed both the court and the revolutionaries, securing the Qing emperor’s abdication and his own installation as provisional president of the Republic in 1912. He then hollowed out parliament, dissolved the Kuomintang and, in late 1915, proclaimed himself emperor; provincial revolts forced him to cancel the monarchy in 1916, and he died months later. His death fractured the Beiyang army and opened the warlord era.

Germany state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1859–1941 → Died in exile

Last German Emperor, who backed Austria-Hungary in the July Crisis and abdicated and fled in 1918

The son of the Prussian crown prince and Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, he became emperor in 1888 and dismissed Bismarck in 1890. In 1900 he urged the troops sent against the Boxers to fight like Huns, and his naval build-up and Moroccan interventions isolated Germany. In the July Crisis of 1914 he assured Austria-Hungary of military support. In the war he left decisions largely to the Supreme Army Command, leading to the de facto military dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. When his abdication was announced on 9 November 1918 he went into exile in the Netherlands, which refused to extradite him as the Treaty of Versailles provided. He died at Doorn in 1941.

Austria state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1863–1914 ✕ Assassinated in Sarajevo

Heir presumptive of Austria-Hungary whose assassination in Sarajevo in 1914 was the immediate cause of the First World War

Born in Graz, the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph, he became heir presumptive after Crown Prince Rudolf’s suicide in 1889 and his father’s death in 1896. His morganatic marriage to Sophie Chotek was allowed only after he renounced his descendants’ rights to the throne. He exerted great influence over the armed forces and in 1913 became their inspector general. Clericalism, anti-democratic views and anti-Hungarianism were the cornerstones of his politics; he advocated more autonomy for the empire’s Slav peoples, but urged caution towards Serbia for fear of conflict with Russia. On 28 June 1914 he and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, setting off the July Crisis and the war.

Monarchy and royalism 1869–1924 ○ Natural death

The Tibetan-born reincarnate lama enthroned as the last great khan of Mongolia

'The princes feared him, the common people loved him.'

Born in Lhasa, Tibet, the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu was, after the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, the highest living incarnation in Mongolian Buddhism. When the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, Mongol nobles enthroned him on 29 December as the 'Bogd Khan' ('Holy Ruler') of a new theocratic state. Stripped of power when China abolished autonomy in 1919, he was reinstated as a limited monarch after the 1921 revolution and died of throat cancer on 20 May 1924, ending the monarchy. The first and last great khan of Outer Mongolia since the late 17th century, he held Mongols together amid upheaval through his religious charisma.

Italy state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1869–1947 → Died

A monarch caught between constitutional authority and responsibility for Fascism

On 25 July 1943, he dismissed Mussolini, had him arrested, and appointed Badoglio to head a new government.

As king of Italy, he presided over the decline of liberal constitutionalism, the consolidation of the Fascist state, and two world wars. He approved Mussolini's seizure of power, colonial wars, the racial laws, and entry into the Second World War, making the monarchy a participant in Fascist rule. In July 1943 he dismissed Mussolini and appointed Pietro Badoglio, using the crown's constitutional powers to open a legal route for governmental change, but his flight from Rome after the armistice left the armed forces and state in disarray. He abdicated in 1946 after the monarchy failed to recover its legitimacy.

Greece state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1883–1955 ○ Natural causes

The Greek field marshal who staked the war on the Albanian front

When German forces invaded across the northern frontier, the main Greek army was still tied down on the Albanian front.

Alexandros Papagos was a career officer loyal to the Greek monarchy and the Metaxas dictatorship, and the commander of the Hellenic Army during the Second World War. In 1940 he coordinated the defence against Italy's invasion from Albania and the Greek counteroffensive, but kept the army's main strength on the Albanian front as German intervention approached, weakening the defence of the Metaxas Line. During the occupation he helped form a resistance organization, was arrested and imprisoned by the Germans, and later commanded government forces in the Greek Civil War before becoming prime minister.

Austria state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1887–1922 → Died in exile

Last Habsburg monarch, Emperor Charles I of Austria and King Charles IV of Hungary, who twice tried to regain the Hungarian throne in 1921

In November 1916 he succeeded his grand-uncle Franz Joseph as Emperor of Austria (as Charles I) and King of Hungary (as Charles IV). His secret peace negotiations with the Allies failed, and in the autumn of 1918 the empire fell apart. On 11 November in Austria and on 13 November in Hungary he renounced participation in affairs of state, carefully avoiding the word abdication. After going into exile in Switzerland in 1919, he twice tried to regain the Hungarian throne, in March and October 1921, but failed in the face of opposition from Regent Horthy. Arrested after the second attempt, he was exiled to the Portuguese island of Madeira, where he died of respiratory failure in 1922. The Catholic Church beatified him in 2004.

Greece state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1890–1947 ○ Natural causes

Patron of the restored monarchy and Metaxas dictatorship

On 4 August 1936, George II gave royal authorization to Metaxas as he suspended parliament and established the dictatorship.

George II was the Greek king who pursued the restoration and survival of the monarchy through successive political crises. After returning to the throne in 1935, he authorized Ioannis Metaxas's rise and the dictatorship established on 4 August 1936, joining royal authority to military authoritarianism. He maintained Greece's alignment with Britain during the war and opposed the Italian and German invasions, but his exiled government and post-liberation campaign for a royal return placed him in conflict with the resistance forces and left a contested political legacy. He died soon after returning to the throne in 1946.

Monarchy and royalism 1892–1975 ○ Died in exile in Vienna

Archbishop of Esztergom and cardinal sentenced to life in a 1949 show trial, who sheltered in the US embassy in Budapest from 1956

Born at Csehimindszent in Vas County into a family with a German surname, he was ordained in 1915 and in 1919 was arrested by the Károlyi and then the Kun government. He later took the name Mindszenty from his home village. Consecrated Bishop of Veszprém in March 1944, he was arrested by the Arrow Cross government in November and released in April 1945. Appointed Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate in 1945 and made a cardinal in 1946, he resisted the Communists, notably over church schools. Arrested in December 1948 and beaten until he confessed, he was sentenced to life imprisonment at a show trial in February 1949. Freed during the 1956 revolution, he took refuge in the US embassy when the Soviets invaded and stayed there fifteen years. Allowed to leave in 1971, he settled in Vienna; in February 1974 Paul VI declared the see of Esztergom vacant, and he died in Vienna in 1975.

Yugoslavia Monarchy and royalism 1893–1976 → Died

A regent pressed toward the Axis while trying to keep Yugoslavia out of war

Two days after Yugoslavia joined the Tripartite Pact on 25 March 1941, a military coup removed him from the regency.

Paul Karađorđević was the prince regent who governed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia for the minor Peter II after the assassination of Alexander I. He sought to soften the legacy of centralised rule and reconcile the state with the Croatian national movement, culminating in the 1939 Cvetković-Maček Agreement and the creation of the Banovina of Croatia. As war spread and British and French guarantees weakened, his attempt to preserve neutrality shifted toward concessions under German pressure, and Yugoslavia’s 1941 accession to the Tripartite Pact triggered a military coup that removed him. He lived in exile after the war, died in 1976, and was rehabilitated by a Serbian court in 2011.

Japan state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1901–1989 ○ Natural causes

The emperor who carried Japan through war and constitutional transformation

“Enduring the unendurable”, a phrase from his 1945 rescript announcing Japan’s surrender

Hirohito was Japan’s 124th emperor from 1926 to 1989, occupying both the sovereign position of the imperial constitution and the symbolic role defined by the postwar constitution. He stood at the apex of the state that authorized Japan’s aggression and Pacific War, while the extent of his responsibility for the war and its crimes remains contested. After Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Soviet entry into the war left the Supreme Council deadlocked, he intervened to accept the Potsdam terms and announced the surrender by radio. After the war he renounced imperial divinity and remained a symbolic head of state, while continuing his research in marine biology.

Qing dynasty Monarchy and royalism 1906–1967 ↓ Abdicated 1912 · natural causes

Last emperor of the Qing, puppet emperor of Manchukuo, and a “remoulded” citizen of the People’s Republic

Crowned China's last emperor before he was seven, he lost the throne to the 1911 revolution and was restored once in 1917. Through Manchukuo's chief executive and emperor to Soviet captivity in 1945, he was amnestied in 1959 and shown as a model of reeducation.

Enthroned at three as the Xuantong Emperor, he abdicated in the 1911 revolution. Expelled from the Forbidden City in 1924, he went to the Japanese concession in Tianjin and in 1932 became chief executive, then emperor, of Japan’s puppet state Manchukuo. Captured by the Soviets in 1945 and returned to China in 1950, he was “remoulded” at the Fushun war criminals’ prison and pardoned in 1959. He lived as a gardener and later a political-consultative delegate in Beijing and died of illness in 1967, early in the Cultural Revolution.