Cisrhenan Republic

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Cisrhenian Republic (from Latin cis , cis ', and Rhenus , Rhine'; modern alternative spelling: Zisrhenanische Republic ) was a 1797 during the export of the French Revolution proclaimed so-called sister republic , which the French from the German Holy Roman Empire Nation occupied wanted to create areas on the left bank of the Rhine . In the end, however, it did not materialize.

With its draft constitution for a state with political freedom , civil equality in accordance with the slogan freedom, equality, brotherhood and the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and the churches , it becomes - together with the Mainz Republic - one of the early steps towards popular sovereignty in German history , to a democratic form of government .

geography

White area: Provisional Cisrhenan Republic 1797. The red lines are the boundaries of the departments and arrondissements that were created in 1798 until 1815

On April 13, 1797, as the French government , the Directory decided with three votes and two abstentions the formation of a "république sœur", a sister republic on the left bank of the Rhine . It should consist of the conquered areas on the left bank of the Rhine of the former electorates of Cologne , Mainz and Trier , the Electoral Palatinate , the duchies of Arenberg and Jülich-Berg , the principality of Simmern as well as several counties and imperial knights.

General Lazare Hoche, commander in chief of the military garrison and, in 1797, head of the Franco-German civil administration on the left bank of the Rhine

These countries "from Cleve to Speyer" had already divided the Rhine-Mosel Army and the Sambre-Maas Army into their respective zones of occupation since 1794, with the German Moselle , later the Nahe , as a division into a southern and northern area of ​​power. With the support of General Lazare Hoche , in chief , who refused annexation , the northern Rhineland was proclaimed a “Cisrhenan Republic” by republican supporters of a separation from the empire, but without attaining the status of a state with clearly defined borders.

A map of the Cisrhenan Republic is not known. It was only after 1807 that measurements of Germany on the left bank of the Rhine began.

When this area was divided into four French departments after its annexation by France in 1798 , the population counted 1,297,151.

prehistory

The spread of the revolutionary demands for political and intellectual independence and the declaration of human and civil rights for all strata of the population in 1789 had led, beyond the borders of France, to oppositional unrest against the aristocratic, electoral and clerical rulers in places on the left bank of the Rhine. "The contagious ferment of the spirit of freedom is spreading to the borders of the empire" reported a Mainz court advisor to the imperial government in Vienna in December 1789.

The end of an absolutist monarchy heralded in France , the abolition of the nobility, the revolts against a feudal lease and tax system, seduced the German manual workers to imitate with work stoppages, refusal to pay taxes and even violence against supporters of the existing order. "That happened [...] without any further objective and without the involvement of other sections of the population". In enlightened, educated sections of the population, the example of the people participating in the election of their government and the administration of the state found sympathy and approval, which was reflected in leaflets, posters and press articles.

In 1790, the government-friendly Mainzer Zeitung No. 8 commented : "[...] and even the farmer in some villages dismisses his judge or his lord because he hears that rebellion is a common custom". And the Elector of Trier, who saw himself in question, warned the clergy, "[...] with regard to the revolutionary spirit penetrating from France, to encourage the faithful to a peaceful disposition and obedience to the authorities" and tightened press censorship and spying on him Subjects.

In the late summer of 1792 an Austro-Prussian army of the Ancien Régimes , the “governments of yesterday”, began to fight the revolution in France, but initially failed. In contrast, the revolutionary troops conquered the Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine and occupied Mainz , Speyer and Worms . Instead of the militarily helpless rulers who fled in panic, civil administrations were set up. The Jacobin Club , the "Society of Friends of Freedom and Equality" was founded in Mainz . Together with the occupying power, they wanted to continue the revolution on the Rhine, prevent the return of the electoral government and break away from the state union of the Holy Roman Empire .

Established in March 1793, the so-called Mainz Republic , a freely elected "Rhenish-German Free State" independent of the German Empire, was the first attempt to found a democratic state based on the French model on the left bank of the Rhine from Bingen to Landau . It was repealed on July 31, 1793 with ordinances "on the restoration of the old order" of the Archbishop of Mainz and Elector Friedrich Karl Joseph von Erthal after the successful siege by the Prussian and Austrian troops and the withdrawal of the French. The Mainz republicans, clubists and Jacobins were prosecuted, mistreated and imprisoned, some were slain by the mob, others were able to flee into exile in France .

With the introduction of general conscription in August 1793, the Levée en masse , France was not only able to strengthen its revolutionary armies to defend its territory, but also to formulate a new foreign policy towards its neighbors. Georges Danton spoke to the National Convention : “The borders of France are formed by nature. We will reach them in all four directions: on the Rhine, on the ocean and in the Alps. "

At the end of 1794 the left bank of the Rhine, which had been split up into numerous territories of nobility and clergy, with the exception of Mainz, was under French military occupation and administration, without a political solution for the future status of the conquests in Paris. The annexation or establishment of a subsidiary republic as a buffer state along the border to the Holy Roman Empire was sometimes an option on this side of the government, sometimes on that side. After a secret peace treaty with Prussia in 1795 had already agreed the separation of its countries on the Lower Rhine, the fortunes of war between the French and Austria, which changed until 1796/97, and the prospect of the peace congress in Rastatt prevented a clear strategy. This was characterized by frequently changing responsibilities and even on the German side let the supporters of the former princely rule expect the restoration of pre-revolutionary conditions.

At the beginning of the Revolutionary Wars, the French were still seen as liberators from the rule of princes and "priests", but from 1794 initial sympathies had turned into rejection and passive resistance when the armies remained stationed in the Rhineland for economic reasons and to secure conquests . In addition to supplying the troops, French officials and administrative institutions also had to collect arbitrary amounts of money and natural produce for the war economy in the motherland - and their own pockets.

The poor administration, the indiscipline of the troops and the increasingly negative attitude of the majority of the population towards revolutionary changes left the board of directors at the beginning of 1797 the 29-year-old General Lazare Hoche, qualified by the "pacification of the Vendée" , as commander in chief of the military and civil administration for the dispatch to northern Rhineland. He reformed the previous authorities between the Meuse, Rhine and Moselle and introduced a directorate administration based on the French model.

In order to win popular support for the changes, he reinstated officials from previous governments in the newly organized offices. A popular measure has been u. a. thought about the return of the church property administration to the church and the domain administration to the district governments. From the declared opponents of the rulers who fled to the right bank of the Rhine to the sympathizers of the French revolutionary ideas - also through the lifting of press censorship - were expected to make propaganda for a Rhenish republic.

At the beginning of April 1797, General Hoche wrote to the Paris Directory: “Les habitants de la rive gauche du Rhin procliment hautement les droits de l'homme […] C'est à vous, Citoyens Directeurs, à juger de quelle utilité peut nous être un peuple libre entre l'Empire et nous “ . The majority of the board of directors, Barras , Carnot , La Révellière-Lépeaux , instructed Hoche on April 24, 1797, to do everything possible to establish a république séparée under French management.

In the summer of 1797, the republican movements "revived as a multi-layered opposition." The political uncertainty about the outcome of the Franco-Austrian negotiations between the preliminary peace of Leoben and the peace of Campo Formio left both the conservative supporters of the Ancien Régime , particularly represented north of one Aachen-Cologne line, as well as the supporters of a connection to France, especially in the Palatinate and the Saar, and the Cisrhenans striving for independence on the Middle Rhine become active. The lifting of press censorship in July 1797 gave the proponents of a new, liberal social order the opportunity to propagate their ideas and to prevent the return of the "old regime". However, they only reached a small part of the population, especially those living in cities. “The large, politically indifferent majority wanted the traditional, small-state world on the Rhine to survive.” The terrifying reports about the effects of the revolution in France and their own experiences with the military occupation between 1794 and 1796 were particularly evident in the rural areas of Eifel and Hunsrück a significant role.

In larger municipalities and cities, republican associations, also known as “people's societies”, came together to form a Cisrhenan federation “in order to give the republican idea greater resonance.” Members of the Bonn district government and lawyers from the former electoral administration were instrumental in this . In Koblenz, professors and high school students were among the active Republicans.

Proclamation of the Republic

Josef Görres, journalist and publicist of revolutionary republican writings

During the spring and summer of 1797, under the influence of the subsidiary republics established by Napoléon Bonaparte during his Italian campaign , a “Cisrhenan movement” of German republicans, such as Joseph Görres , formed to create a state based on the French model.

Probably the first proclamation of a Cisrhenan Republic took place in Rheinbach near Bonn on September 5, 1797, on September 14 in Koblenz, on September 17 in Cologne and on September 22 in Bonn. Here the Republicans were able to oust the re-installed city councils of the old days from the city administrations. The proclamations were accompanied in many places by marches, the planting of freedom trees and the raising of the green-white-red flag. Based on the French Revolutionary Calendar , 1797 wanted to be declared year 1 of the Rhenish freedom. But despite the promise of a reduction in contributions , the prospect of exemption from feudal burdens, tithing and the like. Ä., The majority of the population had not yet developed a political will independent of their old governments and vacillated between fear and disinterest in their future.

The name of the republic as a republic on this side of the Rhine alluded on the one hand to the Cisalpine Republic created in June / July 1797 in Northern Italy, whose tricolor also had the same colors as the Cisrhenan, on the other hand the geographical perspective was a French one and illustrated the close ties of the “Cisrhenans” with their protective power. The national flag was mostly shown in the vertically striped version. She was hoisted on August 28, 1797 in Cologne, on September 14 or 28 in Koblenz, on September 15 in Mainz and on September 22 in Bonn. This usually happened in the sphere of influence of the French commanding general Lazare Hoche, whose troops had occupied the Rhineland.

The number of followers of the Cisrhenan Republic is hardly quantifiable: a small archive situation and a few, often denunciating lists of names only allow an indication that is in the single-digit percentage range of the total population. A Bonn list from 1799 names 140 republicans out of 4050 inhabitants (excluding servants). The greater part of this had an academic professional background, followed by the craftsman class. These conditions can also be assumed for other Rhenish places.

Mathias Metternich, Jacobin from Mainz, called on the Rhineland to form a state union with France in 1797

Well-known representatives of the Cisrhenan Republicans were u. a. the above-mentioned journalist Joseph Görres, furthermore the newspaper publishers Johann Heinrich Gerhards and Franz Georg Joseph von Lassaulx from Koblenz, the publisher Johann Baptist Geich, the university professor Franz Gall, both from Bonn and the Binger Mathias Metternich , the author of a much-noticed "Appeal [ s] to the residents of the left bank of the Rhine “against feudal rule, for a bourgeois, free republic with or without French protection.

According to the ideas of the Rhenish republics and the French concept of subsidiary republics, the Cisrhenan Republic should find its continuation in a Transrhenan Republic on the other side of the Rhine on the right bank of the Rhine, which later could even have unified like the two predecessor republics of the Cisalpine Republic, the Cispadan Republic and the Transpadan Republic on this side or on the other side of the Po . Napoléon realized the project of the Transrhenan Republic to the extent that, together with the dissolution of the empire in 1806, he created the Grand Duchy of Berg and the Confederation of the Rhine, which was dependent on France, as a confederation of West and Central German states.

Flag of the Cisrhenan Republic
Horizontal variant of the flag

The colors of the Cisrhenan Republic can be found today in the flag of North Rhine-Westphalia .

End of the republic

In Paris, after the anti-royalist coup of the 18th Fructidor on September 4, 1797, the annexionist forces were in power. They revoked the original support for the separation of the left bank of the Rhine from the Reich and for the formation of a separate republic to General Hoche with the order "to pursue the immediate unification of the left bank of the Rhine with the French Republic". Hoche no longer achieved this instruction. On September 18, 1797, at the age of 29, he died unexpectedly of a respiratory infection at his headquarters in Wetzlar . With that the Cisrhenans lost one of their strongest supporters on the French side.

The peace of Campo Formio , concluded on October 17, 1797, brought the emperor's recognition of the Rhine border . Due to this development, the French government gave up the creation of a subsidiary republic in favor of direct integration in France, which continued the reunification policy pursued since Louis XIV . With it, Alsace and Lorraine became French in the mid-17th century. This policy had been considered for a long time; As early as 1785, the Baron Johann Baptist von Cloots from Donsbrüggen near Kleve, who came from a Dutch family, propagated the annexation of the entire left bank of the Rhine in his work Voeux d'un Gallophil ("Desires of a French friend ") in accordance with the doctrine of natural borders and with the reference on the Rhine as the "natural origin" of the Gauls. In November 1797, the administrative reorganization of the areas on the left bank of the Rhine followed the French model with the formation of the Rur , Rhine-Mosel , Saar and Donnersberg departments and the adoption of French law , at the instigation of the government commissioner François Joseph Rudler , which meant the de facto end of the planned Cisrhenan republic.

On December 17, 1797, Commissioner Rudler had the green, white and red Cisrhenan flag pulled down on the Bonn Freedom Tree and replaced by the blue, white and red tricolor . "This also made it externally visible that the illusion of the self-determination of the political future of the left bank of the Rhine was finally over."

The end of the efforts to establish an independent republic cannot be ascribed to the outcome of the peace negotiations in Campo Formio alone: ​​poor economic prerequisites for an independent existence, no serious resistance of the population to the French tutelage, the lack of a political class that would have been capable to mobilize a broad section of the population, and finally France's turning away from her revolutionary liberation ideals to power politics and the Rhine border doctrine were the main reasons for the failure of the republic. In the end, however, the Cisrhenans could boast of having prevented the old rulers from returning.

The annexation was recognized under international law in the Peace of Lunéville on February 9, 1801.

After the collapse of the Napoleonic system of rule, the Congress of Vienna decided to re- add the Rhineland to the Kingdom of Prussia , which in 1822 formed the Rhine Province from it , while the former Electoral Palatinate under the name "Rheinkreis" and from 1837 "Palatinate" returned to the Kingdom of Bavaria . Renewed French requests for annexation towards the Bavarian Palatinate and the Hessian Mainz as "compensation" for the French neutrality in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 were given up after France's defeat in the Franco-German War of 1870 .

The centrifugal political forces peculiar to the left bank of the Rhine manifested themselves as so-called “separatists” again in 1923 in a short-lived attempt to found their own Rhenish Republic after the fall of the Wilhelmine Empire at the end of the First World War .

Web links

Historical writings

  • Quelques réflexions sur l'établissement de la République cis-rhénane. Par le citoyen Dorsch, employé aux relations extérieures. Imprimerie CF Cramer, Paris, to VI de la République française 15 pp. 8 °. Memorandum by Anton Joseph Dorsch for the annexation of the left bank of the Rhine by the French Republic, against the establishment of a special Cisrhenan Republic. Contrasted with the statements of Georg Friedrich Rebmann on this subject. (1797 October c. 10), Paris.

literature

  • Joseph Hansen : Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790–1801. 4 vols., Bonn 1913-1938.
  • Hansgeorg Molitor: From subject to administrator. Franz Steiner Verlag, Wiesbaden 1980, ISBN 3-515-02972-9 . (Institute for European History, Vol. 99)
  • Rolf E. Reichardt: Frankness, but no sans-culotism. Influences of the Revolution in the Old Kingdom. In: The Blood of Freedom. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-596-60135-5 .
  • German Jacobins. Republic of Mainz and Cisrhenans 1792-1798. Exhibition Federal Archives Koblenz and City of Mainz 1981, Cat. Vol. 3.
  • Jürgen König: The Hunsrück in French times. Dissertation print , Darmstadt 1995, ISBN 3-9804416-0-1 .
  • Otto Dann: Freedom and Equality. In: Supplementary volume exhibition The name of freedom. 1288-1988. Cologne City Museum, Cologne 1988.
  • Yvonne Kafka: The turning point 1797/8: Cisrhenan Republic or annexation? [sic] Grin-Verlag for academic texts, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-640-96844-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Molitor: From subject to administré. P. 31, note 110.
  2. ↑ Bormann, Daniels: manual for the royal. Prussian Rhine provinces proclaimed laws, ordinances and government resolutions from the time of foreign rule. Vol. 6, p. 518, Cologne 1833-1843.
  3. ↑ Johannes von Müller quoted in Hansen: Sources for the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790–1801. Vol. 1, p. 507.
  4. ↑ Then: Freedom and Equality. P. 90ff.
  5. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. I, p. 531.
  6. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. I, p. 678.
  7. ↑ Mainz Intelligence Gazette No. 55. Mainz City Library 66: 4 ° / 1.
  8. ↑ German Jacobins . Exhibition catalog of the Federal Archives Koblenz and the City of Mainz, Mainz 1981, vol. 3, p. 101.
  9. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. 3, pp. 946f.
  10. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. 3, p. 1014.
  11. ^ Molitor: From subject to administré. P. 131ff.
  12. ↑ Josef Smeets: Freedom, Equality, Fraternity? Koblenz Contributions to History and Culture Vol. 5, pp. 11ff.
  13. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. 4, foreword.
  14. ^ Molitor: From subject to administré. P. 135ff.
  15. ↑ Kafka: The turning point 1797/8. P. 16.
  16. ^ Molitor: From subject to administré. P. 48ff.
  17. ^ Hansen: Sources on the history of the Rhineland in the age of the French Revolution, 1790-1801. Vol. 3, p. 1213.
  18. ↑ Rolf E. Reichardt: The blood of freedom. French Revolution and Democratic Culture. Frankfurt am Main 1998, note 170.
  19. ^ Molitor: From subject to administré. P. 141.
  20. ↑ "Overall, French rule in the Rhine-Moselle region was never endangered from within." Molitor: From subject to administration. in summary , p. 211.