Federal monarchy

A federal monarchy is a federation of states with a single monarch as over-all head of the federation, but retaining different monarchs, or a non-monarchical system of government, in the various states joined to the federation.

The term was introduced into English political and historical discourse by Edward Augustus Freeman, in his History of Federal Government (1863). Freeman himself thought a federal monarchy only possible in the abstract.

Historically an important example of a federal monarchy is the German Empire of 1871–1918. The head of state of the federation was a monarch, the German Emperor, who was also head of state of the largest constituent part to the federation as King of Prussia, while other constituent kingdoms, such as the Kingdom of Bavaria, Kingdom of Saxony or Kingdom of Württemberg, retained their own monarchs and armies. Besides the altogether 23 monarchies federated to the empire there were three republican city-states, namely Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, and Alsace-Lorraine, a semi-autonomous republic since 1912.

The concept played a role in political debates in Italy and Austria-Hungary in the nineteenth century and in Yugoslavia in the twentieth century, but it was not put into effect in any of the cases. For example, Italy was not a country before 1861, including several small kingdoms, duchies, republics, etc. Austria had historically been one country, but the large number of ethnic groups in the country a federal monarchy was suggested. Yugoslavia was much like Italy, but territory had previously been occupied by Austria and the Ottoman Empire.

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