The Belgian Army in World War I

Among the countries involved in the outbreak of the First World War, each must bear some measure of blame for the disaster. That is, all but the Kingdom of Belgium who was guilty of no more than being a victim of geography. Belgium was a neutral country and took that neutrality seriously. Caught between the feuding peoples of France and Germany, the Belgians had no reason to trust one side more than the other. The Germans may have seemed the more...

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Monarchist Monarchs, Part II

Continued from Part IAfter the Revolutions of 1848 most monarchs in Europe adopted a hyper-conservative attitude. The last thing they wanted to do was take any unnecessary risks. Those constitutional monarchies which had not undergone the same level of upheaval also became even less sympathetic towards absolute monarchies that got into trouble. Yet, there emerged a rather unlikely champion of monarchy in those days; a former revolutionary and the...

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Monarchist Monarchs, Part I

I am often asked who my favorite monarch is and my reply is always the same; I could never pick just one favorite monarch and even then, some of those who are my favorites are not necessarily always the best. However, I can say with no fear of causing undue shock that my favorite type of monarchs are the most monarchist monarchs. By that, I mean those who have taken action in various ways to support not only their own monarchy but the cause of monarchy...

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When the Mad Monarchist Thinks (it is what it sounds like)

I have been thinking a lot recently about the Renaissance. A lot of people are very negative about the Renaissance, but I love it. There was plenty of negative things going on to be sure but it was also a glorious period, a flowering of the High Middle Ages and a high point of western civilization. It had achieved the height of Christendom in the High Middle Ages, then in the Renaissance that flowered into a more total encapsulation of western civilization...

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Story of Monarchy: Romanian Rise and Fall

The Kingdom of Romania was a monarchy that experienced a meteoric rise followed by an infamous fall. The story of the Kingdom of Romania is rooted in a very long struggle for unity and independence dating back to the Middle Ages when what is now Romania was divided between the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia as well as parts of Transylvania. The whole area was conquered by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the XV Century and remained so, though...

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