Edit: this hasn’t been well received. To sum up: you can’t just say “Monarchy bad. Destruction of monarchy good”. You have to look at consequences and actual effects in the world. All of the countries listed had abjectly horrific 20th centuries. Britain and the western European countries which kept their monarchies objectively had much gentler centuries.
————————-
That did not end very well for virtually any of the countries involved. Only the former Ottoman Empire really escaped any kind of widespread hell.
The former Russian Empire was under a totalitarian system for 70 years. The Austro-Hungarian empire first had to deal with the holocaust and Nazi conquest and then Soviet conquest. The Chinese had to deal with the Great Leap forward and Maoism. And the Germans had Nazism, the Holocaust, and years of turmoil in between the end of the war and the end of WWII. They also had their country split in half and the eastern part made poorer.
The British and Japanese now have a token monarchy. The same applies to most countries that still have one: the monarch is not the source of power.
What exactly was gained? Monarchical power was already on the way out. The French Revolution had clearly undercut the power of monarchs and they did not hold real power by the start of WWI. And abrupt lack of monarchy rather than gradual evolution seems to have led at minimum decades of torment in most of the places you name.
You could make an argument about ending colonialsim but WWII and Japanese conquest Of European colonies did a lot more on that front. WWI expanded several empires.
I guess that it is a matter of counterfactual history whether the Armenian genocide, or something like it, would have occurred if it were not for the disruption of the war.
And the seeds for the recent and ongoing trouble in the Middle East were sown in the division of the former Ottoman Empire immediately after the war, as described in David Fromkin's book, "A Peace to end all Peace." (best history-book title ever!)
Oh thanks. Yes I forgot about the Armenian genocide. Also I suppose the ethnic cleansing of turks in Greece and the Greeks in Turkey. Plus the middle east situation.
————————-
That did not end very well for virtually any of the countries involved. Only the former Ottoman Empire really escaped any kind of widespread hell.
The former Russian Empire was under a totalitarian system for 70 years. The Austro-Hungarian empire first had to deal with the holocaust and Nazi conquest and then Soviet conquest. The Chinese had to deal with the Great Leap forward and Maoism. And the Germans had Nazism, the Holocaust, and years of turmoil in between the end of the war and the end of WWII. They also had their country split in half and the eastern part made poorer.
The British and Japanese now have a token monarchy. The same applies to most countries that still have one: the monarch is not the source of power.
What exactly was gained? Monarchical power was already on the way out. The French Revolution had clearly undercut the power of monarchs and they did not hold real power by the start of WWI. And abrupt lack of monarchy rather than gradual evolution seems to have led at minimum decades of torment in most of the places you name.
You could make an argument about ending colonialsim but WWII and Japanese conquest Of European colonies did a lot more on that front. WWI expanded several empires.