Aristocracy

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ARISTOCRACY.

THE ARISTOCRACY IN 1914
THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN PERIPHERY
THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN CORE
THE ARISTOCRACY IN POST-1945 EUROPE
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Since the early 1980s historians have debated the importance and the role of the aristocracy in early-twentieth-century Europe.

This debate originated from the thesis advanced by Arno J. Mayer in a book titled The Persistence of the Old Regime (1981). Mayer argued both that aristocracy still dominated much of European political, social, and cultural life in 1914, and that this domination was a key cause of Europe's descent into war.

THE ARISTOCRACY IN 1914

Mayer's book was very useful in encouraging modern historians' attention to the aristocracy, which had hitherto been a neglected topic. Nor is his thesis without some virtue. In political terms, for instance, the Russian and Prussian aristocracies were in some ways more powerful in 1914 than a century before. Ironically, this was due to the retreat of absolute monarchy and the introduction of parliamentary institutions. Not merely did aristocrats often dominate upper houses, but the restricted franchise gave them great power in lower houses too. This allowed the aristocracy unprecedented opportunities to articulate and defend common interests, choose its own political leaders, and block legislation it disliked. Both Petr Arkadyevich Stolypin in Russia and Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg in Germany had reformist legislation wrecked by aristocratic intransigence in the years before 1914.

Mayer is also correct in pointing to the immense wealth and continuing prestige of some great magnate families, and to the continuing predominance of men of aristocratic origin in the armed forces and the diplomatic services of monarchical Europe. Nor is he wrong to argue that a sense that modernity was increasingly marginalizing the aristocracy was a source of pessimism, even cultural and political despair, for some aristocrats, and that this could sometimes feed into political radicalism (e.g., the British Conservatives' unconstitutional encouragement of Ulster rebellion from 1912 to 1914) or even into willingness to accept the "heroic remedy" of war as a solution to intractable domestic political crisis.

Nevertheless, Mayer takes his argument much too far. By 1914 landed wealth was well outstripped by financial, industrial, and commercial fortunes. To the extent that a small minority of the richest and most prestigious aristocratic families had consolidated their position at the core of the emerging European modern plutocracy, this was possible only because they had tapped into these new "industrial era" sources of wealth—always in the form of stocks and bonds, but often as owners of coal mines or urban property. Moreover even these untypical aristocratic families risked being marginalized as a mere leisure class and losing their traditional position at the core of political life as a true ruling elite. This had much to do with the increasing complexity of society and its management, which had spawned a swath of professional bureaucracies, politicians, and experts.

Even in the armed forces, in which officers of aristocratic origin remained very important, increasing professionalization greatly affected the mentalities of the military elites. As regards the decision to go to war in 1914, railway timetables and the logic of mass mobilization were at least as important as aristocratic values. Moreover, in the military context it is wrong to associate aristocracy with belligerence, and modernity with more pacific values. Young turks at the cutting edge of military modernity—Erich Ludendorff in Germany or Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Alexander Nemitz in Russia—were more wholehearted advocates of aggressive "total" war than aristocratic courtier generals desperate to sustain the traditional social order of which they were major beneficiaries.

This bears on the more general issue of aristocracy, modernity, and democracy. Particularly in the United States there is a strong tendency to automatically equate modernity with virtue, liberalism, and democracy. American identity to some extent always defined itself against an aristocratic "other" and therefore finds it easy to condemn aristocracy for the world's problems. Moreover to blame "premodern" aristocracy for many of the twentieth century's political disasters is very comforting because in the early twenty-first century aristocracy is dead, liberal democracy has triumphed, and therefore disaster is by definition a thing of the past. In reality matters were never so simple.

In Imperial Germany, for instance, the Junkers adapted very successfully to the pressures of modernity through a military professionalism that made the German army a model for the world, and by creating the world's first mass agrarian interest group, the Bund der Landwirte. There is unfortunately nothing unmodern about the latter's organizational sophistication, its ruthlessly single-minded pursuit of sectional interest, or its brilliant exploitation of popular self-interest and ethnonational prejudice. Moreover, the single most dangerous element in German foreign policy, namely the pursuit of Weltpolitik and naval power, had far more to do with new professional and industrial groups than with the aristocracy. The German naval lobby saw Junkers as an anachronism and itself as the epitome of modernity. Given the geopolitics of imperialism and the history of nineteenth-century liberalism, they had a point. Nor were these trends a merely German phenomenon. The French and American republics played an enthusiastic part in the imperialist expansion of Western power and territory. White settler democratic electorates yielded to no one in their racism or their hunger to expropriate native land. The land and culture of Algerian natives were better preserved under the military despotism of Napoleon III than under the Third Republic. In 1914 European aristocracy was not as powerful nor was its influence as baneful as Mayer argues. Nor was European modernity as virtuous. The coming of war was closely linked to the logic of imperialism, but neither the world war nor imperialism can simply be explained by the Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic politics), let alone by supposed aristocratic hegemony and wickedness.

World War I hastened the decline of the European aristocracy. Particularly in Germany and Britain, young male aristocrats suffered disproportionately heavy casualties partly because of their traditional role as officers but also perhaps because they saw the war unconsciously as a time to relegitimize their leading role in society through sacrifice for the national cause. In the less "national" and less modern Romanov and Habsburg empires, aristocratic self-sacrifice was less universal, depending much more on individual motivation and the differing traditions of military service from one aristocratic family to another.

THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN PERIPHERY

The war destroyed the Russian and part of the Austrian aristocracy. Expropriated wholly in Transylvania and to a much lesser extent in Czechoslovakia, the only place where the Habsburg aristocracy retained its prewar wealth and political influence was in the rump Hungarian state. In Hungary the aristocracy survived thanks to successful foreign (Romanian) intervention, which led to the victory of the counterrevolution in the Hungarian civil war and the overthrow of the Hungarian "Bolshevik" regime. Though the establishment of Admiral Miklós Horthy's regime was accompanied by a "white terror" against its socialist enemies, once Horthy was firmly in place the traditional aristocratic liberalism of the Hungarian elites reestablished itself.

The self-esteem and identity of the Hungarian traditional elites were linked to Hungary's ancient constitution, laws, and parliament, which the Hungarian aristocracy had defended for centuries against Habsburg absolutism. The aristocracy's role in the 1848 revolution also became part of its defining myth and added a modern twist to Hungarian elite liberalism. The Hungarian aristocracy was never democratic even by British aristocratic standards, but on the whole its traditions did distance it from the right-wing populism, anti-Semitism, and fascism that came to dominate much of eastern and central Europe in the 1930s.

Hungary can usefully be seen as part of Europe's peripheral "Second World," which stretched from Ireland and Iberia in the west, through Italy and the Balkans in the south, to the Habsburg and Romanov empires' territory in eastern Europe. Many features distinguished this periphery from Europe's "First World" core in Britain, France, Germany, and the Low Countries. For example, almost everywhere in the periphery society was poorer and more lawless, middle classes were much smaller, and property was less secure. In most countries, of all forms of wealth and property, the big estates were the most vulnerable to expropriation. In many cases traditional peasant resentment of the aristocracy had been exacerbated by the effect that market-oriented capitalism had on the way the aristocracy fenced off and exploited its forests and farms. Peasants deprived of access to common land or to the aristocracy's forests could be willing recruits for the socialist and anarchist movements that were beginning to spread their tentacles into rural areas, which the railways and growing literacy were making less inaccessible to urban "agitators."

It was therefore not unrealistic for large landowners in peripheral Europe to fear social revolution and the arrival of mass democracy in the first years of the twentieth century. Inevitably the disruption of society and radicalization of politics caused by World War I increased such fears. So too above all did the Russian Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the total expropriation of the Russian aristocracy and the death or exile of many of its members. Although the Bolsheviks ratified the expropriation of the landowners in 1917 and 1918, the peasantry had itself taken the initiative in this matter, frequently also burning down the manor houses though seldom murdering their occupants. Had democracy triumphed in Russia the Constituent Assembly would have expropriated the estates without compensation. Only successful military counterrevolution would have saved the property of the Russian aristocracy, as Admiral Horthy and General Francisco Franco subsequently did for their Hungarian and Spanish peers.

Responses to the threat of agrarian revolution differed across the European Second World. In the generation before 1914 the British government bought out most of the Anglo-Irish landowning class. This was crucial in averting social, though not national, revolution in the period from 1918 to 1923. Nevertheless the "Troubles" caused the destruction of some aristocratic houses and hastened the retreat of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy to England. Somewhat similar was the fate of the Baltic German aristocracy in newly independent Latvia and Estonia. A key justification for expropriation here was the avoidance of social revolution and the attractiveness of communism, which in 1917 and 1918 had strong support, particularly in Latvia. The key difference between the fate of the Baltic German and Anglo-Irish landlords was that the former did not have the immensely wealthy British taxpayer willing and able to buy them out on generous terms. In Romania too, the immediate postwar years saw radical land reform with minimal compensation, designed once again to remove the threat of social revolution. In terms of Barrington Moore Jr.'s famous thesis about the agrarian origins of democracy, fascism, and communism, the Baltic and Romanian land reforms are of great interest. Though these reforms were successful in undermining mass support for social revolution, they did not guarantee lasting democracy. In Romania in particular populist politics moved to the nationalist right of the political spectrum, with anti-Semitism at its core.

In Italy and Spain the landed aristocracy survived, though in both cases it did so in alliance with right-wing authoritarian regimes. In the immediate aftermath of World War I the liberal regimes of both Spain and Italy collapsed. The landowning class in northern Italy played an important role in funding and protecting fascist bands in order to terrorize increasingly rebellious agrarian labor and to save themselves (so many believed) from Russian-style social revolution. The traditional Italian elites then lived in relatively comfortable cohabitation with the fascist regime for a generation, their confidence, status, and interests being boosted by the survival of the key political institutions of the prefascist era—namely the monarchy, royal army, and diplomatic corps on the one hand, and the Vatican on the other. Fascist Italy then played an important role in ensuring Franco's victory in the Spanish civil war (1936–1939) and thereby saving the estates of the Spanish aristocracy. By 1936 it was not unrealistic for the aristocracy of, in particular, Andalusia to believe that only military counterrevolution would save its lands from expropriation. Extreme class conflict in parts of the Spanish countryside was probably not the most important reason why Spanish democracy collapsed in the 1930s, but it was a significant contributory factor.

THE ARISTOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN CORE

Ultimately, however, Europe's future and aristocracy's role within it would be decided mostly in the Continent's First World core. By 1914 the British aristocracy was much weaker than it had been in 1850. British agriculture, unprotected by tariffs, had suffered severely in the four prewar decades. The great majority of the population now lived in towns. Financial, industrial, and commercial wealth far outstripped the proceeds from agriculture. A mass socialist party had emerged by 1914, and the House of Lords had lost most of its power in 1911. The long-term trends that underlay these developments continued in the interwar years. Nevertheless the British aristocracy remained very significant in political, cultural, and social terms, and some of its members were still extremely wealthy. Victory in World War I enhanced the legitimacy of monarchy, political system, and aristocracy alike, not least because the British aristocracy's sacrifices in the war had earned it respect. The collapse of the global capitalist economy in the 1930s split the socialist movement and resulted in fourteen years of what was in essence Conservative rule (1931–1945). Though the three prime ministers of the 1930s were not aristocrats, many of their key ministers were. Most famously, Winston Churchill, a scion of one of England's greatest aristocratic families, led the country to victory in World War II.

Victory in the war ensured that the swansong of the British aristocracy continued for some time after 1945. Even in the 1960s the head of one of Scotland's leading aristocratic families could serve as Britain's prime minister. By the end of Margaret Thatcher's era (1979–1990), however, aristocrats were marginalized even in the Conservative Party. British mass culture, influenced by American values, had become much less deferential and more self-confident. Education at the elite Eton College had become a positive disadvantage in public life.

The fate of the German aristocracy was less happy. Defeat in World War I and the fall of the German monarchies weakened the prestige of traditional elites, institutions, and values. Except to some extent in territory annexed by Poland, the German aristocracy nevertheless preserved its estates. Moreover the Weimar regime was actually quite generous in the protection it offered to large-scale agriculture. The great suffering caused by the British wartime blockade had convinced many Germans that agricultural self-sufficiency might be more than just a cover for Junker selfishness. Moreover the German army and diplomatic service remained aristocratic havens. Nevertheless most of the German aristocracy despised the Weimar Republic and were not unhappy to see it replaced by the Nazis. Key members of the aristocratic political and military elite, led by Franz von Papen, were instrumental in bringing Adolf Hitler to power, believing that the perks of office would undermine the radicalism of the Nazis and that the latter would be controllable by Germany's traditional elites.

In Germany as in Italy it was only when the fascist regime was clearly losing the war that core elements in the traditional elite sought to overthrow it. The German conservatives, unlike in Italy, had no king through whom to remove the fascist leader, and many of them paid with their lives for the failure of the attempt to assassinate Hitler and assume power by coup d'état in 1944. There was symbolism in the fact that Hitler's would-be assassin was Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a member of the South German Catholic aristocracy. With few exceptions the Catholic, and above all Bavarian, aristocracy was not closely associated with fascism, unlike significant sections of the Protestant nobility. Nevertheless it is worth noting that many of the key figures in the July assassination plot came from the cream of the Prussian aristocracy and that their opposition to Hitler was deeply rooted in Christian ethics and dated back to his first moments in power. Though it is nonsense to see most of the Protestant German aristocracy as long-term enemies of Nazism, the aristocracy was certainly not more pro-Nazi than the professional middle class or indeed the mass electorate. Given contemporary ideology and the balance of political forces in early-twenty-first-century Germany, it is often convenient, however, to pretend otherwise.

THE ARISTOCRACY IN POST-1945 EUROPE

World War II hugely weakened the German and European aristocracy. Everywhere in the Soviet bloc the aristocracy was expropriated. Because the core of German aristocratic power and wealth lay in the territories that fell to communism, this in itself reduced the significance of the traditional elites in German life, even though unlike in Japan the victorious Western Allies did not expropriate the aristocracy in their German occupation zones. In addition, however, all significant sections of West German society after 1945 were determined to make a clean break with the past and had an unconditional commitment to democratic values.

Whereas the great majority of East German aristocrats fled to noncommunist parts of Germany, many Polish and Hungarian aristocrats lived on in their countries, with some individuals playing notable roles in cultural life and even in post-1989 politics. Some property was restored to aristocratic families after 1989, though this amounted to relatively little; some of the most spectacular acts of restitution occurred in the Czech Republic.

Interestingly, the postcommunist Czech Republic was more generous to its Habsburg-era aristocracy than Germany was to the former landowning class of Prussia, Saxony, and Mecklenburg, the great majority of whom were excluded from the restitution of property. Though legal (and indeed Russian) obstacles to restitution were cited, the widespread belief that the eastern aristocracy had been historical enemies of democracy and supporters of fascism facilitated this decision.

By 2000 the aristocracy was of minimal importance in Europe, though some heads of great aristocratic families were still extremely wealthy, especially in Britain, and a disproportionate number of aristocrats could still be found in the higher reaches of some European diplomatic services. The European monarchs and their families had mostly escaped from the traditional aristocratic social circle and had become part of the international world of celebrities, alternately fawned on and hounded by the paparazzi and their readership. Thus the restoration of the Bourbons in 1975 did not much enhance the role of aristocracy in Spain. Even royalty was finding it increasingly hard to compete in the European public imagination with the heroes of the screen and the sports stadium.