I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the royals in military fig. They look pretty impressive, don’t they?
An actual SAS trooper with some actual medals for actual bravery
Wow, the beret – symbol of the elite fighting man, or something. The winged logo and the colors of Charlie’s uniform are colored to somewhat resemble/imply the Special Air Service (SAS) – Britain’s most elite soldiers. Except, it’s not. It’s fun-ish to decode the various ribbons and try to see what they allegedly mean. There are people who give a shit about the royals, who do that stuff, non-ironically (I think) as though these ribbons and pipes mean something. I’m going to ‘spoiler’ a bit: they’re mostly “congratulations, you are a royal” medals.
Of course the various royals make some attempt to be seen in military situations, because it helps support their insecurities, but when they go to battle, they are surrounded by a massive screen of guards, helicopter into someplace, pose for some pictures looking tough, then go back to safety and next thing you know, they’re back in England cutting ribbons at some building dedication, or molesting kids, or whatever royals do when they’re not being closely observed.
He’s wearing the “Order of the Useless Rich Guy” and, over there, that’s the ribbon for “participated in a thing.” You do have to admit that the tailoring is spectacular.
I think the chest-load of shit he’s wearing is offensive, actually, if we’re to take military honors seriously. For example, look at the maltese cross-looking thing just to the right of the center-line – it resembles the “Pour Le Merite” – a medal that many brave soldiers have earned posthumously – but it’s not. It’s, I don’t know what, but I guarantee you if you were to somehow dig out the meaning of that medal it’s something like “drank an entire six-pack one handed” or some other typical royal accomplishment.
What do they think they are doing with this stupid display? They’re doing “hero cosplay” basically, in my opinion. They might as well (and it would be cooler) go clanking around in a suit of armor waving a Plantagenet banner, and cosplaying at being crusaders. Oh, sure it would upset the French. But, seriously, royals, what the fuck? And, English People, why aren’t you pointing at all that stupid salad and laughing your asses off? These guys are, literally, more stupid than the Qanon shaman, who also awarded himself a bunch of iconography to suit the public persona he wished to project. The royals are less honest and less full of military glory than that jackass.
Ike’s uniform is not covered in salad. He wasn’t exactly a military hero, either – his skills were largely bureaucratic – but “guy who runs the entire allied army, WWII” is a pretty impressive position, and his uniform is deliberately bland. The Germans were more fond of bling-bling but most of the commanders who wore the bling had actually earned it – it wasn’t the “born a Windsor” award.
I must say that today’s US generals wear a distressing amount of bling, too, though nothing close to what a British Royal awards themself for the military feat of being themself.
We shouldn’t really care, to be sure. We should dismiss this as pathetic egotistical cosplay. The royals would do as well to dress up like Darth Vader and stomp around with a band playing the Star Wars march. Why not? It wouldn’t be measurably more stupid.
There’s some decoding of royals’ medals [here] and I learn that the maltese cross-oid thing is: “knight commander of the Royal Victorian Order” OK, but what does that mean? Sounds like a “participation medal” for losers, frankly. Does one become the knight commander of the Royal Victorian Order by cutting one’s finger on a beer can tab, as Zonker Harris got his Purple Heart in Vietnam? Then there is the Most Venerable Order of St John Knight of Justice holy shit! Do these guys listen to themselves? Then there’s Prince Edward’s Mystery Medal [diplomatist]
For those interested, Edward is wearing the uniform of Commodore-in-Chief of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The cypher on his should-boards and the aiguillettes reflect his appointment as an ADC to the Queen
The “Royal Fleet Auxiliary” might as well be the Disney Mickey Mouse Clown Club, for all the military valor that uniform conveys. And he’s the Aide De Camp to the queen. Really? What did he do, bring her coffee, once?
These are some of the blings the royals award eachother and themselves:
- Honorary Rear Admiral, Royal Naval Reserve
- Commodore-in-Chief, Maritime Reserves
- Regimental Colonel, Honourable Artillery Company (2009–2012)
- Lord Honorary Shit Dipper, Honorable Hussars Regiment
- Royal Honorary Colonel, Honourable Artillery Company (2012–present)
- Honorary Air Commodore of RAF Benson
There’s a huge panoply of nonsensical titles, and titular (“commander if the unit actually existed”) ranks. I guess it’d be fun to make myself the knight sergeant private first class of the Royal Badger Corps, and stomp around in my black and white striped uniform, taking salutes from real soldiers, except I have some self-awareness and I appreciate pride in accomplishment. The whole premise of the royals is “wow, look how awesome you are, you got squeezed out of a very important uterus!”
What the hell are these assholes cosplaying at soldiers, for, and why aren’t they a laughingstock? What is wrong with British people – have they been bred to be helpless submissives in their DNA – that they put up with this nonsense?
All that said, then there’s princess Victoria Louisa of Prussia, who (mumble mumble something) became the titular commander of the Brunswicker “Deaths Head” Hussars – a real unit that fought not particularly spectacularly at Waterloo – I have to admit that she’s spectacular in this get-up. I’d follow her almost anywhere, but mostly out of curiousity. [wik] She was one of Victoria’s granddaughters, so she’s pursuing the family tradition of cosplaying military glory.
The reason we don’t tend to give this stuff much mind is that it’s basically just wallpaper over here. We expect the royals to wear silly costumes like that. It’s their uniform in much the same way a policeman’s blue get up with the domed helmet is his, or a milkman’s white overalls and peaked hat show him to be a milkman. We don’t actually assume it connotes military service. I don’t know whether actual military folk who do take medals and military bling seriously think it’s a bit insulting, but the general public couldn’t give a toss about any of that.
British people like dressing up, but we tend to be very aware that that’s what we’re doing – wearing a costume. We don’t tend to assume that the person underneath the costume is conferred any special respect just because they’re wearing it. It’s a bit of jolly window-dressing, not something we place huge stock by. Most of us anyway – the flag-shaggers and gammons are probably the exception.
It’s likely one of the various knightly orders, which conveniently don’t have any specific requirements. Ordinary people can earn them through merit, but the Queen can knight anyone she wants, for whatever reason she wants.
In Denmark, it’s common to give knighthoods to foreign VIPs. Elizabeth herself is a knight of the Order of the Elephant, as was Ike, incidentally. It doesn’t really mean anything (except perhaps “we like you, so here’s a thing”), but it gives you the right to wear a fancy ribbon with a cute little elephant, so there’s that.
A few things struck me as light on facts. Not wrong exactly, but needlessly sloppy, handwaved away with well-deserved snark. I thoroughly agree with your main point though.
– The beret that dummy Prince Charlie wears is that of the Parachute Regiment. As the name says. He is their Colonel-in-Chief, which means something like relic in charge of ceremonial handshakes.
– Your picture of an authentic SAS trooper actually shows an Australian. They too, have an SAS.
– Both Charlie and his father actually did serve in the military, his papa in the second world war when he actually did real sailoring in the Navy, Charlie did time in both the Air Force and the Navy. Not that it related to the amount of bling on either’s chest… but the fiction isn’t cut from the whole cloth, they probably did more in that times to be proud of than anytime after.
@ 1 cartomancer
We in Canada tend to see it as the same. The Governor-General here automatically gets a few medals, or something, as she or he are the head of a couple of orders as CinC.
@ Marcus
You are aware that Prince Charles was a regular officer in the Royal Navy and served throughout WWII and, IIRC, commanded a couple of floating somethings (corvettes perhaps?) in the Battle of the Atlantic?
I have head it suggested that he may, also, have been the last survivor of an actual battleship engagement (Cunningham’s victory at Cape Matapan).
He won a lot of that bling during WWII, serving in the Royal Navy in various actions.
It’s the Croix de Guerre, awarded in 1945.
Admittedly, the whole modern regalia of monarchy in England was basically invented in the early 20th Century. Tudor and Stuart monarchs had need of impressive court surroundings, imposing get-ups and endless rules of propriety and protocol to convince other people that they were important and should be respected. But the Hanoverians and their successors tended to be much less hands-on, and much more private in their daily lives. As monarchs became less political they receded from public view, and by the end of the 19th Century they tended to dress much like any other well to do person.
This would not do in the more media-savvy age of photography, and eventually of radio and television. To prevent the monarchy from being seen as the irrelevance it now was, the Saxe-Coburg Gotha PR people came up with fancy uniforms, gilded coaches and all kinds of posh ceremonial. Some of it links back to medieval or early modern traditions (all those orders of knighthood), but the overtly military stuff tends to be late 19th Century and no later.
Glory?
Where’s the glory in that?
As Bono of U2 fame once sang.. about something very different admittedly.
hmm, I meant no earlier.
… the Aide De Camp to the queen. Really? What did he do, bring her coffee, once?
Of course not! He brought her tea!
jrkrideau @ # 4: … Prince Charles was a regular officer in the Royal Navy and served throughout WWII …
Pretty good trick for one born in 1948. Did you mean the late barely-lamented Prince Phil?
My mistake! The Croix de Guerre is at the far right (Phil’s far left).
@ 9 Pierce R. Butler
Philip blast it. I was on my way to the grocery when I realized I had typed Charles.
That’s pretty remarkable for someone who, according to Wikipedia, was born in 1948.
I see I am late to the party. No medals for me.
Shameless Hussar.
Tell that to the families of the 48 that died on RFA Sir Galahad during the Falklands War, and many others lost during WWI and WWII.
Wow, this is some really sloppily-researched offensive shit right here. I’m shocked. I come here for quality content and almost always get it. Rob Grigjanis@15 has already expressed way better than I could the offensiveness of dissing the RFA. What else is there?
To most British people my age the beret is the symbol of the Gauloise-smoking garlic stinking Frenchman, or Frank Spencer. So few of us have direct contact with the military nowadays… which is why none of us give a monkey’s that the Royals play dress up. That’s all they do and all they’re good for – why would anyone care? (Anyone other than an actual serviceperson with a medal, that is, who may be concerned about “stolen valour”.)
They are absolutely not. The winged logo and colours of the SAS uniform are coloured to somewhat resemble/imply the paras, from whom the SAS could be said to have emerged and from whose ranks they draw many of their recruits. The resemblance is intentional but exactly backwards from what you describe. Why Brian is wearing it is a ceremonial nonsense, given that the paras are an army regiment and the army is the branch of the forces he DIDN’T serve in ever. The way I look at it, the medals he has are the ones that mean it’s him that gives out the real medals to the real soldiers.
Interesting choice. There’s exactly one living member of the Royal family who’s properly served in a real shooting war (with apologies to Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan “properly”, but I don’t count that as a war). And that was the sweatless paedo, Andy. So… no to the “massive screen of guards”, unless you could count the Falklands Task Force as his guards, but yes to the molesting kids.
That’s a big if. Perhaps you could talk about it.
Keeping the plebs amused so we don’t start knocking up tumbrils.
Ahem… “Windsor”, as I’m sure you know, being the name they changed to in order to sound less… German.
Ah, Edward. Poor, gay Edward, with his lovely
beardwife Sophie. Poor Edward, who unlike Charles, who served in two services, and Andy, who flew an actual helicopter in an actual WAR, went to train to be a Marine… and couldn’t hack the training and gave up. I have a vivid memory (which I’m almost sure is real) of him standing alone outside the camp with a kit bag waiting for his mummy to come and get him. It was a particularly funny and cruel example of the papparazi’s art. Fucking waster.For the same reason draft-dodger-Dubya landed that plane that one time with the big banner saying “Mission Accomplished”. Military posturing and unearned valour aren’t a British exclusive. Indeed, Draft dodger Dubya turning up ANYWHERE in uniform, even with no medals, is arguably more offensive than our pathetic Royals – he had REAL power over a REAL force.
It makes zero difference to our lives – why would we care? Ooh, Brian wore a medal he didn’t earn. You might as well tell me that Taylor Swift uses auto-tune or Kim Kardashian’s pictures are photoshopped – I don’t give a shit, and can’t imagine why I would. They Royals are the original reality show. To think we’d take them seriously is to misunderstand what they’re for.
Regarding the beret, I’d like to point out that it’s probably the most common piece of kit in the British armed forces after boots and before shirt comma plain. I still have two, and all I ever was was an army cadet, a group of people who arguably are cosplaying army, mainly for marketing purposes. So I wouldn’t attach much dignitiy or toughness to any beret (nothing except regimental badges). I would guess the reasons why the beret is used are that a) it’s as suprisingly comfy and warm hat b) it’s not a civilian fashion and c) it’s dirt cheap when ordered in bulk and pretty hard to ruin. (Not impossible though … or, uh, so I’m told)
jrkrideau @ # 11: Philip blast it.
It may require a bit of cultivation, but that has some potential for future profanity, in particular circles.
I had a look.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_titles_and_honours_of_Prince_Philip,_Duke_of_Edinburgh#Honorary_military_positions
Wow.
—
So, yeah — what Marcus wrote.
Just a throwaway thought… don’t worry too much about the bling. In particular, that third pic of prince Whatever (you know, the recently deceased one, fill in the name for me please cause who cares) is pretty impressive.
But what little I know about it tells me that many of these badges are relics of ancient orders, and are awarded to royals and similar wastes of space as a matter of habit and just because they exist. There are still many declinations of the knights of Malta, of the Hospitallers, the order of Calatrava is still around and so on and on. There’s even an undergrowth of agents who will fix you up with one of those for a fee, but mostly they are fake derivations of the “real” thing. An imitation of a fake if you will, Umberto Eco wrote a short note about this stuff once, after having received an offer to join one of the fake chapters of the Maltese order or sumpin’.
It’s all pointless theatre, played mainly by the participants for themselves, cause nobody gives half a hoot.
Death’s Head Hussars, eh?
Gives me a new perspective on that Mitchell and Webb sketch. Hey, Louisa, that’s a *skull* on your cap!
Cosplaying is an important part of the Royal’s job. Why would we ridicule them for doing it? Some of them definitely have been up to actually offensive shit and ought to be at least fired over it, but the cosplaying is great. If having prominent people cosplaying as military heroes around constiutes an impediment to anything coming close to the American worship of their soldiers[1], bonus.
[1] The whole “thanks for defending our freedom”-spiel is ridiculuous. There never was a defensive war were the “freedom of the US” was under threat by foreign military. As a German, I’d gladly thank anyone who fought on the Allies side in WW2 for securing my freedom. But American soldiers haven’t been fighting for oridinary Americans’ freedoms since their civil war.
I’ve read several sources, credible but not conclusive, that Hitler only wore one decoration on his uniform once he rose to power; a good conduct medal he earned in WWI. It meant something that it is the one medal an officer cannot get, and it represented the only thing he wanted from Germans, to show up and obey orders.
While Prince Phillip did serve in WWII and was entitled to wear many of his medals many more are purely decorative. There’s a story of him meeting a Brazilian officer and asking what he did to earn the medals he wore. The magnificent response was, “not for marrying my wife.”
One of my favorite episodes of Downton Abbey was the one at the beginning of The Great War where he shows up in full uniform to war office, expecting to be sent off to the front, and they kind of pat him on the back and tell him to do a bit of fund raising for them. His main contribution ends up being to let his house become a hospital.
The thing is, the aristocracy really was synonymous with the military of all the European countries for hundreds of years. I guess those memes die hard.
When I think of the Royals, there’s one word that comes to my mind and it just about sums them up alright: parasites. And if I were in a mood to elaborate on that, I’d say “parasites with sticks up their rear ends”.
@ 25
Interesting. I tend to think of them as rather unfortunate folk with dangerous and shitty jobs.
jrkrideau, huh. I wish I had the dangerous and shitty job of being born with such privilege that everyone defers to me and the funds to live a life of luxury and indolence no matter what I do.
(I’m must be weird that way)
A couple of notes I should have included in the OP:
– I was in the Army/Active Reserve from 1983-9. Back then, the US was still on the Vietnam-pattern uniforms, mostly, with updated BDUs. But the beret was still solely the domain of special forces. What happened is that, in the 90s, other branches get their feelings all wounded that only special forces got to wear berets, and suddenly everyone had them. The berets were replacing the square-top brimmed cap, which was actually much more practical than a beret, but I guess special forces are so tough they can handle sun-glare by glaring back, or something. There is a great deal of vanity in military uniforms because something something tough guys something.
– I am aware that Prince Philip was involved in actual combat in WWII. Now, the question is: did he deserve the Croix De Guerre? My answer is: no. He was brave, indeed, but was mostly doing his job which, in the engagement in question, was to shine searchlights on things. He detected an enemy ship that others hadn’t, yet, and lit it with the searchlight (doing his job) and received return fire and some injuries but, my opinion remains that he was “mentioned in dispatches” because he was a royal, and he got the medal because he was a royal – you know, similarly to how Jared Kushner earned his role as a white house advisor. They’re just waiting for someone to breathe correctly so they can pin a medal on them, “way to go, attaboy, etc.” Perhaps you may feel that he earned his medal. OK, if you do, that’s fine. So that means that most of the rest of the chopped salad are participation awards for being a royal, awarded to himself by himself, or by some family member or other, “haw haw, I make you hereby commander of the titular hussar’s regiment, haw haw!” military glory does not enter into it. In fact, if he was concerned with military glory, he’d have forgone all the other salad, which is bullshit, and worn the stuff he arguably earned. Except that would have drawn attention to how he earned it.
– I’m biased, perhaps. I remember pictures of Harry (I am pretty sure it was) “serving” in Afghanistan, with a huge security cordon around him to protect him, you know, like every other soldier gets. It’s the tradition of going to the front to hear the odd angry shot and then returning to the champagne and canapes.
arno@#22:
Cosplaying is an important part of the Royal’s job. Why would we ridicule them for doing it?
Because it’s a ridiculous job. Granted, they do it well, but – so what? I don’t think we should automatically kowtow to all the cucumber waxers or cat poop counters, either. There are some ridiculous jobs that deserve ridicule.
rblackadar@#21:
Death’s Head Hussars, eh?
Gives me a new perspective on that Mitchell and Webb sketch. Hey, Louisa, that’s a *skull* on your cap!
I’m sure she was a very nice person, all things considered, and probably never rode around sabre’ing anyone.
The “Deaths Head Hussars” were the Brunswick cavalry, and wore black with the skull for some time. I’m not sure how far back it goes, but they were spiffy as all get-out (but not thought of as particularly elite) in the Napoleonic wars:
PS – in case any of you are wondering about the weird-ass belly bands Napoleonic era hussars wore: that’s a vestigial horse-hobble that evolved into a sash.
sonofrojblake@#16:
which is why none of us give a monkey’s that the Royals play dress up.
Then why do you protest when someone mocks them for doing it? Methinks you do protest too much.