hereditary monarchy a liability?

One great failing of hereditary monarchy -- or nepotism in government or corporations -- is that the next generation does not necessarily have the same charisma, leadership potential and strength of character as the  previous generation, or the original warrior king from which they descended.

When King Charles I failed to heed the will of the people he ruled Civil War broke out in 1642, and he was executed in 1649. Cromwell assumed the role of warrior king as Protector of the Commonwealth, and the new king, Charles II, had to agree to defer power to Parliament before he was allowed to commence his reign in 1660. Since then, England's constitutional monarchy has worked well because real power lies with the warrior kings in Parliament, not the royal family, but it was a lesson that the other European royal families failed to learn.

That the French would accept Napoleon -- a humble Corsican soldier -- as their emperor after the effete French monarchy had been abolished after the revolution of 1789 attests to the fact that every nation needs a strong leader, a warrior king. Similarly, when the effete Romanov monarchy was abolished after the revolution of 1917 the Russians were happy to accept a brutal dictator like Stalin.

Finally, it was Germany's turn after the crazy Wilhelm II -- King of Prussia and Queen Victoria's grandson -- plunged Europe into WWI and his nation into poverty, starvation and oblivion. By then the eugenics movement -- championed by Hitler and the German Third Reich and much touted in the USA -- proved without a doubt that interbreeding leads to weak progeny. The royal families of Europe -- who were, by then, well and truly ravaged by the curses of interbreeding -- came under negative scrutiny.

Hitler had little respect for the dissolute and interbred German and Austrian royals who had caused the downfall of Germany in WWI and was determined to champion a pure Germanic race of warriors -- even though he, himself, had none of the qualities of a warrior king nor the looks and physique of a Teuton. That he plunged his nation into another world war, and more misery, attests to that fact.

After two great wars, Europe's royal ruling families were forced into taking constitutional roles or they were deposed or voted out of existence (as in Italy). The lesson of history had at last been learnt -- hereditary and interbreeding ruling families in control of a nation are a liability rather than an asset.