Ellis Wasson. Aristocracy and the Modern World. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. viii + 296 pp. $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4039-4073-5; $89.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-4039-4072-8.

Reviewed by J. Trygve Has-Ellison (School of Arts and Humanities, University of Texas at Dallas)
Published on H-German (May, 2007)

A Baedecker of the European Aristocracy

Ellis Wasson's volume is the first attempt to provide an overview of the European aristocracies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Meant as a work of synthesis rather than a case history, it has all the strengths and weaknesses of the genre. Overall, the book's strength lies in its ability to briefly encapsulate many, if not all, of the major debates among historians of the nobility in a way that non-specialists can understand: the decline or continuation of aristocratic power, aristocrats and fascism, the feudalization of the bourgeoisie or embourgeoisification of the aristocracy. Moreover, Wasson's text is a goldmine of quotable aphorisms from various members of the aristocratic order that will undoubtedly be utilized by historians writing specific case studies. Its weakness is the natural corollary of its strength: the volume is simply too broad and anecdotal to be of utility to the specialist.

Wasson's thesis is that no great event in modern European history through World War II can be understood without addressing the participation of the aristocracy (p. 2). If, until recently, according to Wasson, the aristocracy has been included in a discussion of modern Europe it is in terms of decline, defensive modernization, or ridiculous and reactionary attempts to resist modernization. Instead, Wasson sees the aristocracies of Europe as fundamentally resilient, adaptable, and astute (p. 3). In other words, we should be interpreting the traditional European elite by what its members actually did, as opposed to what they said, or were purported to have said (p. 43). Wasson situates himself with much of the latest scholarship in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Spain, which emphasizes the continuity of aristocratic power and influence as well as its flexible response to the twentieth century. This is a story worth telling and Wasson does it with panache.

That said, I have two critiques of this book. Wasson is a specialist on the British aristocracy. His generalizations about the European aristocracy ring true in the United Kingdom, less true in France and the Low Countries, and become increasingly implausible, with a few exceptions, the further north, east, and south one travels. For example, Wasson states that the British mania for sports had spread to other aristocracies on the continent (p. 94). This assertion seems credible after World War I, but before that time sport, other than horse racing and hunting, was still considered to be in bad taste. One of the consistent issues of strife between Wilhelm II of Germany and the Crown Prince was the latter's obsession with sport. Wilhelm II was neither an Anglophobe nor anti-sport, particularly sailing, but wanted the Crown Prince to be thoroughly Prussian in his tastes. Further, most of the German nobility, as well as some of their dualist counterparts, disapproved not only of English sports but also of the Kiel week (a competitive sailing event) because they felt that obsession with sport distracted from the cultivation of Bildung absolutely necessary for a life of service. In addition, sport was expensive and few continental aristocrats could afford their own yacht, racing stables, or other accoutrements more typical of the English peerage.

If Wasson did not unquestioningly assume that the Whig interpretation of British history was correct, that the harmonious blending of peerage and middle class in a liberal plutocracy transformed the United Kingdom into the envy of the world, then he would realize that extending eastward truisms about the British peerage does not automatically lead to British or liberal conditions. What continental aristocrats admired was British wealth, power, and style, which they considered to be a byproduct of the peerage never having experienced oppression by an absolutist monarch and the accompanying bureaucracy. The British peerage was a conservative rather than a liberal ideal among such aristocrats, and David Cannadine has discredited the myth of a mixed bourgeois/peer plutocracy.[1] Many continental aristocrats were also well aware that peasant conditions, not to mention industrial relations, in the Celtic fringe of the liberal paradise of the United Kingdom did not compare favorably with many, though not all, places in Europe. Earlier in the text Wasson refers to the French Baron de Coubertin and the Olympic movement as an example of British influence on continental nobles. Although true in Coubertin's specific case, this example also points to another general issue with the classification of the aristocracy.

According to Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, whose work on French nobles before the Revolution is included in the bibliography, all aristocrats are nobles, but not all nobles are aristocrats.[2] Wasson discards this sensible dictum to include groups that should not be considered among the continental aristocracy (the Hessian Ritterschaft, Baltic nobility, the Rothschilds and other ennobled Jewish families, and so on). Wasson's first chapter, "Defining Aristocracy," does an excellent job of explaining the differences between the upper and lower nobility, but he goes on to ignore these distinctions to include individuals who would not have been considered by others or themselves as part of the aristocracy, like Coubertin. Although Wasson acknowledges that the lower nobility was different from the aristocracy, he includes many lower nobles who did something interesting, entertaining, or despicable. Wasson gains illustrations through this practice, but ends up muddying the waters he intends to clarify. This strategy also perpetuates the myth of a feudal monolithic bloc, counter to the author's stated intentions. Even more questionable is the omission in the bibliography and footnotes of Heinz Gollwitzer's magisterial work on the former Imperial Princes and Counts, the one group in central Europe that could genuinely be compared with the British peerage. Although written in 1957, Gollwitzer's work has never been duplicated nor equaled in its breadth and depth. This puzzling omission is not due to language skills, because Wasson includes other works in German in the bibliography.

At most I would consider the following groups to be true aristocrats: in the Kaiserreich, the Standesherren, the princely families created by the Hohenzollerns (Bismarck, Dohna, Eulenburg, Henckell von Donersmarck, Innhausen, Pless), and a few families of great wealth who were able to enact fideikommisse; in the Dual Monarchy, the four hundred families William Godsey considers to have been received at court, and not every branch of those families; a tiny fraction in Scandinavia (de la Gardie, Oxenstierna, Rosenberg, Stenbock, Trolle, Wedel-Jarlsberg) and the Low Countries (Arenberg, Chimay); in Russia, the non-royal princes; in Spain and Portugal, the grandees (Alba, Guzman, Medinaceli) but not the merely titled; in France, the dukes and princes (Bethune, Choiseul, St. Simon); in Italy, the wealthiest elements of the Savoyard, Milanese, Florentine, Roman, and Sicilian nobility, which constituted no more than 1-2 percent of the total nobility. Having a title was not enough--in order to be an aristocrat, an individual had to command great wealth, power, antiquity, and not least the ability to live in a grand fashion, which was symbolized by the enactment of a fideikommisse, a contract granted by a monarch that preserved lands, castles, and contents of buildings against forced sale and bankruptcy--or the fickle whims of a shiftless heir. Anything less does not constitute a true aristocrat. This limitation would not have weakened Wasson's arguments, but would rather have strengthened and clarified his larger thesis.

Overall, I would recommend this text for undergraduates as part of a modern European history course. It would make an accessible accompaniment to Peter Gay's work on the middle class. For scholars of central Europe it briefly and clearly explains in English the principal debates among specialists and defines some basic issues but is otherwise of limited utility.

Notes

[1]. David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

[2]. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-german.

Citation: J. Trygve Has-Ellison. Review of Wasson, Ellis, Aristocracy and the Modern World. H-German, H-Net Reviews. May, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13171

Copyright © 2007 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and accurate attribution to the author, web location, date of publication, originating list, and H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at hbooks@mail.h-net.org.