Warrior Prince / Real Life

• For most of history, monarchs and other leaders directing their troops into battle was the rule rather than the exception. In an era when a leader's legitimacy was often tied to their military strength, being able to command them and gain victories was often a requirement of their job duties, and delegating that duty to someone else risked a coup down the road. The decline of warrior leaders can mostly be tied to the professionalisation of militaries and the development of a dedicated officer corps, along with the increasing scale and complexity of war and improved internal political stability.
• This trope is the reason why foot soldiers are called infantry. In the Spanish army, the heir to the throne (principe; or the "prince") commanded the cavalry while the King commanded the whole army. Those princes who were not heirs to the throne (infantes) commanded the footmen. The foot soldiers were thus called infanteria after the non-heir princes, infantes.
• Edward the Black Prince (see the page pic) fought in several battles during The Hundred Years War. He was the heir apparent to King Edward III of England, holding the title of Prince of Wales. His initial personal victories earned him the title Prince of Aquitaine as well, as he conducted a long campaign out of the former Angevin Duchy before illness forced him to retire to England.
• Alexander the Great commanded the Macedonian cavalry in his father's final battle.
• Vlad III Dracula himself was probably the most violent Warrior Prince documented. Quite certainly he directly participated in numerous battles, and most likely killed his predecessor, Vladislav II, in direct combat. Dracula himself died in an armed confrontation, and his Turkish enemies are recorded to have cut his body to pieces and sent his head to their ruler, Mehmed II, for proof of his death.
• The British Royal Family. It's a requirement that all male members serve on active duty. Those in direct line to the throne are considered too valuable to send into actual combat. As for the others:
  • Harry, youngest son of Charles and William's younger brother, actually threatened to resign his commission if he wasn't permitted to accompany the rest of his unit to Afghanistan and developed a reputation as a dedicated and highly competent small unit commander. When his presence was outed by the Aussie media, he ended up transferring and training up as an Apache pilot, on the grounds that it wouldn't matter if everyone knew where he was, because Apaches were targets as a matter of course.
  • William himself joined the RAF as a Sea King helicopter pilot, posted to a search-and-rescue squadron.
  • Andrew, Duke of York, flew in The Falklands War as, among other roles, an anti-missile decoy. That's right — he flew his helicopter as a decoy to try to draw Exocet anti-ship missiles away from the ships. He would retire as a fully served Rear Admiral.
  • Prince Philip served in WWII as a naval officer,^note Most notable commanding the searchlights on the battleship HMS Valiant. At the Battle of Cape Matapan, Valiant, Warspite, and Barham snuck up on an Italian cruiser squadron in the dark, Philip switched on the lights from the outside, and the Italians were blown out of the water and so did Queen Elizabeth II, in the Women's Auxiliary as a mechanic. Philip was a highly regarded officer, being mentioned in dispatches and well on the way to his own Admiralty on merit when he retired to marry Elizabeth. Elizabeth herself, meanwhile, was the last surviving head of state who was also a WWII veteran.
  • Subverted with Prince Edward, who dropped out of his Royal Marines training. While this isn't necessarily a rare thing as the Royal Marines have the longest basic training of any combat unit on earth and arguably the toughest entry level to the military of all, it was controversial because they'd already paid for his university fees. Certainly, his father was reportedly disgusted.
  • Even though he was at the time the heir to the throne, Prince Charles (now King Charles III) refused to take up his honorary Colonelcy of The Parachute Regiment without passing first P company, the qualifying training to be a paratrooper. So the Warrior Prince (then)heir to the throne is a Colonel Badass in one of the most elite regiments on the planet.
  • The Queen's uncle, George, Duke of Kent, was an avid pilot and served as an intelligence officer in the Royal Navy, then was commissioned into the RAF. He was killed when a Sunderland Flying Boat carrying him to Iceland got lost in fog and crashed into a Scottish mountain, making him the last British royal to die in military service.
  • The Queen's father, George VI (as Albert, Duke of York) joined the Royal Navy and eventually was assigned as a turret officer on the battleship HMS Collingwood, and fought through the Battle of Jutland.
  • Edward IV started his military career during the Wars of the Roses, aiding his father, Richard Duke of York's, rebellion. After his father's death, he took up the Yorkist cause and won the crown at The Battle of Towton, still the bloodiest battle fought on English soil.
  • The last King of England to die in combat was Richard III at Bosworth in 1485, and prior to becoming King, he served as his older brother Edward IV's right hand man in military matters. The last King of Scotland to do so was James IV at Flodden Field in 1513. The last King (of both) to lead his troops in battle personally was George II at the Battle of Dettingen in 1743.
• Wilhelm I of Prussia and his son Frederick William (later Emperor Frederick III) were among the last European rulers to personally take the field, and did reasonably well too as was appropriate given his country. His opponent the Emperor of France, though less qualified, also led in the field which was appropriate given his uncle.
• As recently as 1914, Albert I, King of the Belgians, personally led his army when Germany invaded Belgium at the start of World War I.
• In World War I, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria both commanded army groups on the Western Front.
• In the Ottoman Empire, much like in the trope in general, the exceptions are more noteworthy. Almost all of their sultans, princes, and top aristocrats were some variety of Warrior Prince, Cultured Badass, or Ambadassador.
• The above tradition carries on with Prince Hussein of Jordan. Some dads take their sons fishing or deer-hunting, and then there's King Abdullah II... Who, by the way, is rumored to have personally led a bombing raid against ISIS as revenge for the group's execution of a captured Jordanian pilot.
• Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland, was elected monarch precisely because of his accomplishments as a military commander. Those skills also came in handy after his election, too.
• Military historian John Keegan once speculated that being able to have aversions to this was a sign that a culture was more civilized. The reason was that having a lot of Warrior Princes may conceivably be a sign of their valor. But it could also be a sign that the people had no respect for law and order and any prince that stayed home would probably be assassinated. Going with this logic, he notes that while some Roman, Byzantine, and Chinese Emperors commanded in the field, others managed to stay home. While almost all Western European rulers that weren't obviously excused by incapacity were Warrior Kings.
• Enforcement of this trope is the reason that in Islamic Law a Caliph has to be in possession of all his senses. A blind man could rule, but he couldn't go to war.
  • Averted in the Christian world. King of Bohemia, John of Luxemburg (1296-1346), was both blind and went to war. His last words in the Battle of Crécy were "Far be it that the King of Bohemia should run away. Instead, take me to the place where the noise of the battle is the loudest. The Lord will be with us. Nothing to fear. Just take good care of my son.". He was fifty years old and led the most successful cavalry charge in that battle (on the French side), hitting the English right flank, where Prince Edward was positioned, and fought and died there. The English prince was so impressed that he adopted the Bohemian king's motto, Ich dien (I serve), for his own heraldic crest.
    • Note that he was a (naturalized) Czech^note  John came from the German House of Luxemburg, which as the name indicates, originated in the border region between Germany and France. His father, Holy Roman Emperore Henry VII had been born in Valenciennes. John did marry a princess from the Przemyslid dynasty, though. And he had studied in Paris when he was young. and the Hundred Years' War was fought between France and England. So Jan was fighting in a war that was not even his business as King of Bohemia!
    • John's son Charles (name changed from Wenceslas on his confirmation in honour of king Charles IV of France) also fought at Crécy. He later became the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV.
• Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. Widely considered to be one of the greatest military commanders of all time, even among some of greats themselves. Without going into his varied military and administrative achievements, he came from a country that was considered a backwater and created a Badass Army that effectively took over half of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. While heavily involved in planning and formulation of tactics and training, he often led his own cavalry charges, which eventually also led to his death.
  • The same trope as in the UK — all male members who are not direct heirs to the throne are to serve in the military — applies to Sweden as well. HRH Prince Carl Philip is an officer in the Swedish Navy.
  • Sweden has produced dozens of warrior kings: Gustavus I, Erik XIV, Duke Charles, Gustavus II Adolphus, Queen Christina (!), Charles X Gustavus, Charles XI, Charles XII, Gustavus III...
  • Some clarification might be needed. Gustavus I was a Badass Bureaucrat, with focus on Bureaucrat, and true Machiavellian, he did very little fighting. Erik XIV is mostly remembered for going insane. Charles IX is most famous for being curb-stomped by a Polish army that he outnumbered 4-1 and beating his (also outnumbered) predecessor and nephew. Queen Christina never fought in battles or led armies. Charles X Gustavus, Charles XI and Charles XII were all "real" Warrior Kings. The best that can be said of Gustavus III is that he tried. Later, this trope was subverted when the Swedish parliament brought in Jean Baptist Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's marshals, to be king so he could take back Finland from the Russians. He then joined the anti-French alliance, got Norway as the price, and led Sweden into a 200-year period of peace.
  • And that's without even accounting for all the kings and princes from the Middle Ages. Erik Segersäll who fought his nephew and the Jomsvikings at the battle of Fyrisvall, his son Olof Skötkonung who led the Swedish fleet at the battle of Svolder, Magnus Eriksson who led a crusade into Russia, etc.
• In Tsarist Russia, the word "prince" had a more broad meaning than "son of the king" (it was a top-level noble rank, equivalent to duke), and there were several princes who were military leaders. Two of the most famous are Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, who with Kuzma Minin threw off the Polish occupation, and Prince Pyotr Bagration, who fought and died in The Napoleonic Wars, as depicted in War and Peace. This is the reason why the word "принц" ("printz") is now used in Russian specifically for the son of the king (or tsar). "Knyaz" is the word with the broad meaning. In fact, the title of the ruler of the original Rus'ian state (Kievan Rus', the predecessor of modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine) was Grand Prince.
• Thutmose III established the largest empire Ancient Egypt had or has ever seen. He led 17 campaigns over a period of 20 years.
• Roman society demanded this trope from the higher classes, and until the Marian reforms their army was based on such a militia. Politicians, though not royalty, were expected to be military leaders, and martial prowess was ideally indistinguishable from political prowess. A surefire way to get a respected and high post in the government was to get a triumph, which required winning a war. (Sometimes winning a major battle could be enough if you played your cards right.)
  • A good example of this was Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was by far the richest man in Rome (indeed, one of the richest men in all of history) but whose political career was hindered by his limited military record. Then came the slave revolt of Spartacus and Crassus seized the opportunity by buying his own army to command against the rebel slaves. This victory allowed him to rise all the way to the rank of Consul, the highest office of the Republic.
• The first King of Portugal, D. Afonso Henriques, was quite fond of "taking care" of Arabs.
• The Danish Royal Family has had its share of badass warriors, going back to the Viking Era when legends like Sveyn Forkbeard and Harald Bluetooth would personally lead their berserkers into battle — most notably when Sveyn started the invasion of England that would later land his son, Canute the Great, on its throne, with himself in the vanguard. Later on, notable examples includes Christian IV, who personally led the Danish fleet into the Torstenson War where he lost an eye to a cannonball — and immediately got back to his feet to continue commanding the fleet to victory. Even today, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark is a fully-trained member of Frømandskorpset, the Danish equivalent of the Navy SEALS (an area that the Danish military is unsurprisingly strong in, considering its nautical history and location). And when he finished THAT training, he went ahead and became a Colonel in the Air Force as well, just for kicks.
  • It's important to remember though, that for a Warrior Prince, Christian IV wasn't much of a Warrior. He failed to reconquer Sweden in the Kalmar War, his intervention in the 30 Years War ended up seeing Jutland conquered and plundered and finally he lost the Torstenson War wich cemented Sweden as the dominant power in the north.
• Heinrich Prinz von und zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and Egmont Prinz zu Lippe-Weissenfeld, dubbed as Princes of the night. Two Luftwaffe fighter aces who had 83 and 51 nocturnal aerial victories.^note And in Wittgenstein's case, very closely related to the British Royal Family for this to be an issue; cue torrents of jokes about how inspiring it is to see a Royal doing their bit for the war effort and being decorated for bravery and for shooting down enemy aircraft... what do you mean, he got the Iron Cross?
• Napoleon's Imperial nobility included princes, and all save two (Talleyrand and Lucien Bonaparte) were generals or Marshals. Four of them actually bore titles reminiscent of their victories: Davout, Prince of Eckmühl; Berthier, Prince of Wagram; Massena, Prince of Essling; and Ney, Prince of the Moskova.
• The members of the House of Savoy had an habit of fighting in battle, both before and after becoming the royal house of Italy. Among their many warriors, the ones to stand out are the prince Eugene (greatest commander of the Austrian army in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.^note  Awesome enough that Austria named warships after him even at times when the House of Savoy was an enemy, e. g. in 1862. But then Prince Eugene came from a cadet branch of the House of Savoy, while e. g. during the War of the Spanish succession the main branch had allied itself with Austria's — and thus Eugene's — enemies. Eugene in fact has the distinction of four different nations naming warships after him: Austria, Italy, Germany and Britain.), king Victor Emmanuel II (first King of Sardinia and later of Italy, he personally led his troops in battle against the Austrian army during the infamously bloody Battle of Solferino in the Second Italian War of Independence), and Prince Emanuele Filiberto, the Undefeated Duke of Aosta (he fought in World War I, and his army was just that, undefeated. He also trained the guy who took over the supreme command after the Second Army was crushed at Caporetto and ultimately won the war on the Italian front).
  • Carlo Emmanuhel III was sort of the Frederick of Sardinia. Not only did he win notable victory against Spain, France and Austria, but he had the political acumen to turn his tactical victories into strategic ones. His crowning achievement was the Battle of Assietta. 7,000 Sardinians fought 40,000 Frenchmen and suffered between 77 and 230 casualties compared to 5,300 French casualties. France didn't invade Italy again until Napoleon a half a century later. For his victories, the French had a saying: Piedmont is the burial place of the French.
• In an interesting zig-zag, the nobility in Europe often had less dominance over warfare than in many cases around the world. There were a number of instances of burghers and peasants and even clergy turning out to be formidable warriors. Some were so successful that they were indistinguishable from proper princes. While that was not unknown in other places the pugnaciousness of non-noble Europeans is worthy of comment. Indeed places like Venice or the Hanseatic League had a number of warrior Merchant Princes.
• A clan chief in Scotland and indeed any place with a similar system almost always had to be a Warrior Prince simply because those were such tough places.
• Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who became a cavalry commander for the Royalists in the English Civil War, of whom it was said "his charge was irresistible, but he always returned to find his camp captured by the enemy".
• Gao Changgong, Prince of Lanling, was one of the greatest generals of ancient China—he was from the Northern and Southern Dynasties era, to be precise. His feats included repelling a Göktürk invasion and rescuing a besieged city. The latter battle was especially impressive because he fought his way through the much larger besieging army with only five hundred cavalrymen.