A Brief History of the House of Windsor by Michael Paterson Page A

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 newlyformed 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 coloniesto 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