“The consequences of fixing the “royal problem” in France nearly annihilated European civilization over the following two hundred years.”
Its quite the opposite. The wars after were mostly monarchs. Crimea, the German attacks. Or maybe you mean like WWI? When the Royals of Austria and Germany, fought with their cousins in Russia and England, and the British Royals changed their family name to sound less German?
And again, please tell me about this “peaceful” Europe that the Monarchs created prior to the French Revolution. lol
I didn’t say it was peaceful
My view (and it only my opinion which I don’t expect anyone to share) on it is that the French Revolution was the precursor of Marxism, Nazism and the general collapse of European society.
The revolutionaries in France systematically pulled their society out by the roots and attempted to create a utopian replacement. Didn’t work of course though some things (such as the metric system) stuck. The destruction they did also abided. And, sadly, probably inevitably, the French Revolution led to the rapid rise of the prototypical Euro-tyrant — Napoleon.
As capable as Napoleon was, he and the Revolution set a very poor example for future generations of Europeans. On one hand social upheaval became philosophically permissible and on the other so did acceptance of dictators who possessed no claim to legitimacy other than as a preferable alternative to the anarchy the upheaval inevitably inflicted.
The gradual collapse of the old orders did not lead to social improvement. Nations of the continent would have done well to follow the British example of a constitutional monarchy.
I won’t go into the Crimean war in any detail except to point out that it was rooted primarily on the long standing conflict between the Russians and the Moslems. And to note that a quiet period followed until the rise of Prussia with its twin victories over Austria and France — and the creation of the German Empire.
Europe didn’t really need a German Empire, especially coming as late as it did in the industrial revolution. It was bad news all around.
Could a sustained, legitimate and (ideally) Constitutional Monarchy on the British model in France have prevented the creation of a German Empire? We’ll never know. But Napoleon’s nephew and his faux revival of Imperial glory certainly could not.
We all know what followed. The disastrous First World War, the sudden collapse of three Empires, the rise of Nazism and Communism, WWII, the most unfortunate collapse of the British Empire, the Cold War, global chaos and a general decline in social stability and values.
And again it’s just my view. Just ruminating, really.