How Princess Charlotte could reconnect the Royal Family with the Armed Forces ...Middle East

The Royal Family marked the 80th anniversary of VE Day this week but, in a sign of the times, their only two surviving war veterans were absent.

For well-publicised reasons, the outcast Prince Harry, who fought on two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and, a Naval helicopter pilot in the Falklands conflict in 1982, did not attend the royal party at Westminster Abbey for a thanksgiving service on Thursday or indeed at any of the other commemorations.

In a rapidly changing world the royals aim to represent constancy but the line-up of family members at the Abbey for the climax of four days of national commemorations of the end of the Second World War in Europe perhaps illustrates the fractured, threadbare nature of Britain’s slimmed-down monarchy – and the nation’s preparedness for future conflict.

Gone are the days when the House of Windsor could boast of a Queen and her consort, Prince Philip, who had both served in uniform during the 1939-45 war and had that direct connection with other veterans, as well as other relatives such as Lord Mountbatten, who had been a senior Allied commander during a global conflict when 24 per cent of British men were mobilised. Philip, who died in 2021, had been mentioned in dispatches, notably for his actions at the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941.

Times have changed but, amid warnings that the military now needs to embark on a recruitment campaign to face a growing threat from Russia and in an era when the Army has shrunk to its smallest size since the Napoleonic wars, will future generations of royals serve and be asked to put their lives on the line?

“I certainly hope so,” said Paul Beaver, a military author and historian who spent 27 years in the Territorial Army before retiring with the rank of Colonel in the Army Air Corps. “I come from a generation that looks for leadership from the Royal Family more than from politicians, who come and go and most of them are in it for themselves.

“There’s that thing about people of privilege being prepared to get down in the muck and do all those things that you have to do in the armed forces.”

There remains, of course, a strong bond between the monarchy and the services. The King, who served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy from 1971 until 1976, is commander-in-chief, although he delegates decision-making to politicians and senior officers. Supporting the military is at the heart of the Royal Family’s mission. Many units have a royal colonel or other form of patronage.

Andrew, 65, and Harry, 40, who were absent from the Buckingham Palace balcony for an 80th anniversary flypast on Monday, both enhanced their personal reputations during their time in the services. The Duke of York flew helicopter missions evacuating casualties in the Falklands and acted as a decoy to lure Exocet missiles away from British ships. Harry worked as a forward air controller directing attacks on the Taliban and then as a highly skilled Apache helicopter pilot. It was only when they left the armed forces that their problems began.

Like other heirs to the throne, Prince William was deemed too important to be risked. To his frustration, he was prevented from going to Iraq or Afghanistan to fight on the front line. But William spent seven and a half years in the Army and then the Royal Air Force, serving as an officer in the Household Cavalry’s Blues and Royals regiment before attachments to the Navy and RAF followed by a career as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot.

He was criticised at the time for postponing his switch to becoming a full time working royal but those years have given him and the Princess of Wales a deep understanding of life as a service couple and of the courage needed in the military. “The risks of manoeuvring a helicopter into remote parts of a mountain to rescue people in a blizzard should also not be underestimated,” one royal aide said.

There are others in the family with a military record: the late Queen’s cousin the Duke of Kent, 89, spent more than 20 years as a career Army officer but was pulled out of Northern Ireland quickly because of the risk of an IRA kidnap. Princess Anne’s husband, Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence, served in the Adriatic in a UN peacekeeping operation off the coast of Bosnia during a 37-year career in the Navy.

But at a time of heightened tensions, the demographics have not been kind to the Windsors. It will be more than a decade before the next generation of young royals who are close to the throne are at the right age to serve in the military and it is by no means certain they will do so.

Two years ago, it was reported that Prince George would not be expected to serve in the military before becoming King, breaking centuries of tradition. “The rules are different now. He wouldn’t necessarily have to follow the old formula of going into the military and then royal life,” a longtime friend of Prince William was quoted saying in a Mail on Sunday story that Kensington Palace declined to discuss.

Others, however, question whether the rules really are different now, particularly in the light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the threat to much of the rest of Europe, and the increasing onus on Britain and other nations to devote more resources to defence amid Donald Trump’s threat to Nato, the Atlantic alliance that has kept the continent safe since 1945. The clarion calls for a return to national service, in one form or another, are growing and opinion polls have shown that the public expect the young royals to be called up if is brought back.

As a future King, George, who will be 12 in July, already has much of his life mapped out and, while many might understand his parents’ efforts to protect him for as long as possible from the burdens of duty that await him in adulthood, he already looks like a monarch in waiting. He appeared to really appreciate meeting Second World War veterans at a Buckingham Palace tea party on Monday and, in fact, he has shown a natural interest in all things military.

He has been mad about planes and helicopters since he was a toddler and at a Buckingham Palace garden party in May last year, William told an RAF officer that George would love to visit her base, RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, because he is a “potential pilot in the making”.

By the time he and his siblings, Princess Charlotte, 10, and Prince Louis, 7, are in their early twenties it is likely that the working members of the Royal Family will have reduced again from the current number of 11. Their branch of the family will be the heart of the monarchy and there may also be pressure on Louis and Charlotte, who was pictured in a military-style camouflage jacket for her birthday picture last week, to serve in the military.

In other European monarchies, the women are doing their military service. Norway’s 21-year-old Princess Ingrid Alexandra, the daughter of the Crown Prince and second in line to her country’s throne, has just completed 15 months in the army as a gunner on a CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle. Spain’s Princess Leonor, 19, heir to her country’s throne, is currently spending three years in the military, and her counterpart in Belgium, Oxford-educated Princess Elisabeth, has also done a stint of service in all three military services.

So could Charlotte emulate her great-grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth, who enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a mechanic during the Second World War, becoming the first female member of the Royal Family to join the armed forces full time?

“Why not? The armed forces are pretty good at equal opportunities these days,” said Beaver, pointing out that the rules for women in the forces have changed. “Girls fly, there are girls in cavalry regiments. If Charlotte wants to go and do something, the armed forces will be delighted.”

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There may even be a more junior female member of the family in the forces before her. The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh’s daughter, Lady Louise Windsor, currently a 21-year-old student at St Andrews University, is unlikely ever to be asked to undertake official engagements on behalf of the monarch but last year she joined an Army reserve unit made up of students at St Andrews and other institutions in the area and she has hinted at an interest in joining the Army.

The next generation of young royals and the public interest in them may have a role to play in helping to bring the country closer to the armed forces at a time when fewer people than ever in a much more diverse nation have a real understanding of military life.

“Our challenge is that the armed forces community is getting smaller and society is changing,” Philippa Rawlinson, director of remembrance at the Royal British Legion said, discussing how VJ Day in August will help emphasise the role that the Indian Army and other non-white Commonwealth troops played in winning the war against Japan. “So we need to make sure that we are sharing stories that are relevant to wider society.”

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