Recently I explained that "Presidents have little control over their governments." https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2025/09/28/presidents-have-little-control-over-their-governments/

The same holds for monarchs and "authoritarians." There are many examples. I will use one in front of me at this moment as I reread Harry Elmer Barnes' book, The Genesis of the World War.

World War I was planned by the French President, who wanted to recover Alsace-Lorraine, which Napoleon 3rd lost to Prussia in 1871, and the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador to France, who wanted to take from Turkey the Dardanelles Straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Their conspiracy to ignite a European war in order to achieve these goals was put in place over several years. The French president, Poincare, and the Russians, Foreign Minister Sazonov and Russian Ambassador to France Izvolski, were not confident to take on Germany and Austria-Hungary without British support. Consequently, they brought the British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey into their plot, without the awareness of the British monarch.