A King and Two Emperors Brought World War I?

Randy Dotinga reviews Catrine Clay's King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War.

The overall impression one can get from the review is that George V, Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II were to blame for the Great War.

I guess it is fashionable to blame it all on the monarchs. It is especially amazing when it comes to His Britannic Majesty, who at the time hardly can be said to have wielded enough power to bring the nation to war, or to stop it, if that was what the politicos wanted.

It is probably true that the monarchs of the time could have done more to prevent the outbreak of war. They certainly should have. However, what tends to be a feature of monarchs is that they take responsibility. They don't tend as easily as the politicos to pass the buck. One should consider the role of others though, such as Parliaments. What did they do to prevent war? It is possible that the book touches such issues. The review does not.

To those who complain about the too extensive powers of monarchs it is fitting to ask the following question: Should the monarchs have had and exercised more or less power? Which is it?

Mr. Dotinga concludes his review with:

Then again, "King, Kaiser, Tsar" makes it clear that close family ties offer no immunity from war. Ultimately, the cousins were more interested in preserving their crowns than one another. The world is still paying the price for their hubris.

It is perhaps their hubris we are paying the price for. We are at least still paying the price for the Great War, and part of that price is the modern democracy that emerged after the war.

One could get the impression from the review that this war was some sort of family feud. Even Winston Churchill – in his The Second World War – noted that World War I was a war of peoples, not of governments. This made things considerably worse.