List of the departments in the Kingdom of Westphalia

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Map of the Kingdom of Westphalia by Friedrich Wilhelm Streit (1808, Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg )
Contemporary Chart of the Kingdom of 1809
The kingdom between 1807 and 1810

The Kingdom of Westphalia was structured in accordance with Article 34 of its Constitution of 15 November 1807 departments; in their original form they were formed by royal decree, which ordered the division of the kingdom into eight departments. It consisted of eight departments from 1807 to 1810, twelve in 1810 and eight from 1811 to 1813.

The kingdom was originally divided into eight departments by decree of December 24, 1807. These were the department of the same (with Office Calvörde ), department of Fulda , Department of the resin , the department of the leash , the department of the Oker , the department of the Saale , the department of the Werra and the Department of the Weser , with a total of nearly two million people.

Westphalen received the first increase through a Saxon assignment in the tract of March 19, 1808. The County of Barby , the Gommern Office and most of the Saxon part of the County of Mansfeld (excluding Artern , Voigtstedt and Bornstedt ) and the Saxon part of the Ganerbschaft Treffurt and the Bailiwick of Dorla (together about 30,000 inhabitants). By decree of March 27, 1808 the ceded Mansfeld was connected with the department of the Saale , Barby and Gommern with the department of the Elbe.

Outline around 1811

On March 1, 1810, a treaty concluded on January 14, 1810 in Paris for the incorporation of the rest of Hanover came into force. Only about 15,000 residents in Lauenburg were excluded, an area that the emperor reserved at his own disposal. The Principality of Calenberg , the Principality of Lüneburg , the Duchies of Bremen and Verden , the Counties of Hoya and Diepholz , the Land of Hadeln , the Dominion Spiegelberg and the Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg were integrated .

Now the kingdom comprised around 2.6 million subjects, making it the second largest country in the Rhine Confederation. Among several changes in the older departments, the department of the north, the department of the Nieder-Elbe and the department of the Aller were added. On September 1st, the official duties of the governance commission in Hanover cease, on this day the new territorial division comes into effect.

To enforce the continental blockade against England, the Kingdom of Westphalia loses large areas with at least 500,000 inhabitants. By resolution of the Senate of December 13, 1810, the areas north of a line from the mouth of the Lippe to Lauenburg were incorporated into the French Empire . The kingdom lost all of Osnabrück, the counties of Hoya and Diepholz, the Duchy of Bremen , the Principality of Verden , a third of the Principality of Lüneburg , half of the Principality of Minden and the Duchy of Lauenburg to the three Hanseatic departments . With that, the North department, except for a very small part, a third of the Nieder-Elbe department and a quarter of the Aller department and almost the entire Weser department was lost. On March 5, 1811 Jerome released the subjects of the oath of allegiance he had lost. The Kingdom of Westphalia fell back to third place among the Rheinbund states.

At the end of October 1813, the kingdom collapsed. On October 28, a military government took over the administration of the former Prussian possessions . On November 10, 1813, General von Borstell took possession of the Principality of Paderborn. The other areas also returned to their old owners.

Name of the department Capital Inhabitants
1807
District (arrondissement, sub-prefecture) Inhabitants
1807
Department of the Elbe (1807–1813 / 14)
( Elbe department for shortor Elb (e) department , French: Département de l'Elbe )
Magdeburg 252.507 Magdeburg district 103.375
Neuhaldensleben district 49,634
Salzwedel District 48,699
Stendal district 50,799
Department of the Fulda (1807-1813 / 14)
(short Fulda-Department or Fuldadepartement , French Département de la Fulde )
Cassel (Kassel) 254.845 Cassel District 123.002
Höxter district 65,973
Paderborn district 65,870
Department of the Harz (1807–1813/14)
(French: Département du Harz )
Heiligenstadt 202.891 Heiligenstadt district 69,494
Duderstadt district 44,946
Nordhausen district 45,884
Osterode district 42,567
Department of the Leine (1807–1813 / 14)
(short Leine-Department or Leine Department , French Département de la Leine )
Goettingen 144,350 Göttingen district 75.025
Einbeck District 69,325
Rinteln district from 1811
Department of Oker (1807-1813 / 14)
(short Oker department or Okerdepartement , fr. Département de l'ocher )
Braunschweig 270.486 Braunschweig district 101.163
Helmstedt district 48,035
Hildesheim district 70,764
Goslar district 50,524
Department of Saale (1807-1813 / 14)
(short Saale department or Saale Department , fr. Département de la Saale )
Halberstadt 240.195 Halberstadt district 79,443
Blankenburg district 53,294
Halle district 107,458
Department of the Werra (1807–1813 / 14)
(in short Werra-Department or Werradepartement , French Département de la Werra )
Marburg 255.237 Eschwege district 83.157
District of Hersfeld 93,353
District of Marburg 78,727
Department of the Weser (1807-1810)
(short Weser-Department or Weserdepartement , French Département du Weser )
Osnabrück 330.213 Bielefeld district 91,802
Minden District 77.012
Osnabrück District 124,435
Rinteln District 36,964
Departement der Aller (1810–1813 / 14)
(short Aller-Department or Allerdepartement , French Département de l'Aller )
Hanover   Hanover District  
District of Celle  
Nienburg District  
District of Uelzen  
Department of the Elbe and Weser Estuaries (only 1810) Stade District of Stade
Bremervörde district
Verden district
Departement der Niederelbe (only 1810)
(in short Niederelbe-Departement or Niederelb (e) department , French Département de l'Elbe-Inférieure )
Luneburg District of Lüneburg
Harburg District
Salzwedel District

literature

  • (78) Royal decree of July 19, 1810, which decreed the composition of the three departments formed from the former Hanoverian provinces and the unification of certain other parts of the kingdom with them. (79) ..determines the point in time ... [As of September 1, 1810]
  • Handbook about the Kingdom of Westphalia. bey Hemmerde and Schwedtschke, Halle 1808
  • (12) Royal decree of January 26, 1811 containing the division of the cantons of Rinteln and Oldenburg (Leine Department).
  • Court and State Handbook of the Kingdom of Westphalia. at the Hahn brothers, Hanover 1811
  • Pölitz, HHL: Handbook of the history of the sovereign states of the Rhine Confederation. Waidmannische Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1811, p. 467ff.
  • Special atlas of the Kingdom of Westphalia consisting of eight departmental and one general chart on the highest royal level. Order by official sources. Verlag des Geographisches Institut, Weimar 1811. [Scale approx. 1: 280,000]
  • Hassel and Murhard: Westphalen under Hieronymus Napoleon. Friederich Vieweg, Braunschweig 1812. Also contains the new decrees (3 months).
  • Venturini, Dr. Karl: History of our time. Volume 2, 1810, EF Steinacker, Leipzig 1813
  • Havemann, Dr. Wilhelm: History of the state of Braunschweig. 2. Volume, Verlag von Herold and Wahlstab, Lüneburg 1838. Fourth chapter: The Kingdom of Westphalia 1808–1813.
  • Peter Adolph Winkopp : The Rheinische Bund, a magazine historical-political-static-geographical content. Mohr, Frankfurt a. M. 1810, different years. - With many interesting remarks.
  • FJ Bartuch: General Geographical Ephemeris. written by a society of scholars, Weimar, various years. - Volume 36: Hassel, Georg: Statistical inventory of the Kingdom of Westphalia. 1811. - In the same volume of the Almanac Royal de Westpahlie, 1811 : “These editions differ in an often striking way from the information on the leprosy.” But it is more about the information about the population of the cantons.

Web links