Why are so many European royal families German? (Short Animated Documentary)

in 1914 all of these countries in europe were ruled by monarchs and these were ruled by monarchs of a german royal family quite a lot and given that some of these rulers could trace their houses back a thousand years and others mere decades why were so many of them german so a lot of this can be explained by one thing the late unification of germany at the turn of the 18th century the german-speaking parts of europe weren't unified like the french english or spanish-speaking parts it was divided into numerous smaller states many of which had their own monarchies and these monarchs would marry off their kids to whoever would have them a prussian princess married the prince of orange a brunswicker duchess married the king of denmark obeyed and duchess married the king of sweden and one from mecklenburg married the king of the united kingdom given that all of these monarchies only really paid lip service to their overlords the holy roman emperors there wasn't much risk in marrying them whereas marrying someone in the french royal family could cause issues with inheritance which france unlike the small german states could press and over time childless or females would mean a near relative would succeed the throne and they would be a member of their father's often german house but what about countries individually well the united kingdom's monarchy had previously been anglo-saxon french welsh and scottish after a flirt with catholicism english nobles called upon william of orange to seize the throne from james ii he did and catholics were then banned from becoming ruler william also didn't have any children and so the throne went to his sister-in-law anne she continued the streak of not having an heir and died childless and so the throne passed to her cousin's son george of hanover her closest protestant relative thereby beginning the hanoverian dynasty which would be succeeded by the sax coburg and gotha dynasty which would soon after change its name to winter when all things german suddenly became less popular in denmark throughout most of its history its monarchy was an elective one but when king christopher iii made the mistake of dying without an air the nobles had to pick somebody new as such they chose christian who was the son of the duke of sleshvig a region with a sizable german-speaking minority which denmarked a close relationship with and one it wanted to keep this began the house of oldenburg which still rains to this day and also in norway although norway chose the danish prince for their throne when it split from sweden in 1905. the german and austrian imperial families both have their origins in the holy roman empire the hoe and zollans were from zollin here and the habsburgs were unsurprisingly from habsburg here in what's now switzerland both slowly over the centuries increased their holdings and titles from counts to dukes to archdukes and kings before emperors there wasn't a lot of opportunity for outside royal houses to advance in the holy roman empire and so these families just stayed german the last major power which had a german royal family was russia peter the great was a romanov as was his daughter empress elizabeth the first she died childless and the throne passed to her nephew peter iii peter's father was the duke of holstein and thus he was a part of that house now peter and his wife catherine kept the name romanov to tie themselves to their empire and its people and that royal family stayed in power until you know a thing happened so what about all of these smaller nations well these nations all came into existence in the 19th century with the oversight of the great powers who as a result got to choose who would be king the first was greece britain france and russia all had a stake in the new country and thus they all wanted an ally on the throne as such after their first choice said no they picked prince otto of bavaria who wasn't aligned with any of them next was belgium which as a buffer state between prussia and france couldn't be aligned with either as such the british shows leopold of sax coburg and gotha husband of the king's niece to keep the two close to ensure belgium's independence romania had a german monarch after its first ruler a native romanian became somewhat despotic and was overthrown in a coup the new country had only recently broken away from the ottoman empire and so to maintain its independence its nobles picked a prince from the prussian hoen's olin royal family this essentially guaranteed their independence from russia the ottomans and the austrians next door and for bulgaria the reasons were similar at first it was ruled by the nephew of the russian emperor but he got himself overthrown after being terrible he was replaced by an austrian-backed candidate which unlike romania was fine because austria-hungary wasn't on the border with them and after this these royal families remained in place until either today or their eventual ousting in the 20th century i hope you enjoyed this episode and a special thanks to my patrons james bissonette kelly money maker skye chappelle caution wolf jerry landon jordan longley adam stalter marcus arsenault ryan hockey spencer lightfoot rod d martin words about books podcast captain cydog gustav swan marvin castle common yoon winston k wood gilly wiggly daniel to be in miss iset matthew shipley aaron the white corey turner the mcwhopper alex schwinn anthony beckett coppertone maggie patzkowski schuenin spinning three plates and charles the first

Channel: History Matters

Views: 2,512,347

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Id: 7iX_hoacyqA

Length: 4min 42sec (282 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022