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The imperial election of 1792 was the final imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 5 July.
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| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline .(October 2022) |
The imperial election of 1792 was the final imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 5 July.
Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor died on 1 March 1792.
Following the Seven Years' War and its support of the United States in the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt. Its main source of income was the taille, a burdensome tax on its peasants which could not be much increased. As 1789 dawned, after years of bad harvests, it stood at the brink of a financial and social crisis.
In order to resolve the crisis, the king, Louis XVI, called the Estates General of 1789 on 24 January. The Estates General quickly became mired in disputes over the representation of the various estates. On 17 June, after months of such disputes, the Third Estate, representing the common people, declared itself the National Assembly. On 20 June the National Assembly swore not to disperse until they had established a constitution.
The dismissal of the Controller-General of Finances Jacques Necker, seen as sympathetic to the Third Estate, and the gathering of the army outside Paris led to fears that the National Assembly and its supporters among the people were soon to be crushed. In response, a bourgeois militia, the National Guard, was spontaneously established on 13 July. On 14 July the National Guard stormed the Bastille, a prison and armory, and killed its defenders. On 15 July the army outside Paris withdrew to its garrisons. The capital would never return to effective royal control. During the night of 20 June 1791 the king and his wife, Leopold's sister Marie Antoinette, fled Paris in an attempt to meet counter-revolutionary troops at Montmédy. They were recognized and arrested on 21 June at Varennes-en-Argonne.
On 27 August Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia, king of Prussia, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, calling for the release of Louis and Marie Antoinette and promising that, if his safety was threatened, and with the support of the other monarchs of Europe, they would go to war to restore him. The National Assembly interpreted the declaration as a declaration of war against the revolutionary government. On 20 April 1792 it declared war on Leopold's son Francis, his successor as king of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia.
The prince-electors called to choose Leopold's successor were:
Francis was elected. He was crowned as Francis II in Frankfurt on 14 July.
The prince-electors, pl. Kurfürsten, Czech: Kurfiřt, Latin: Princeps Elector) were the members of the electoral college that elected the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.
Leopold II was the 44th Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Archduke of Austria from 1790 to 1792, and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Queen Marie Antoinette of France, Queen Maria Carolina, Duchess Maria Amalia of Parma, and Emperor Joseph II. Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened absolutism. He granted the Academy of Georgofili his protection. Unusually for his time, he opposed the death penalty and torture and abolished it in Tuscany on 30 November 1786 during his rule there, making it the first nation in modern history to do so. This act has been commemorated since 2000 by a regional custom known as the Feast of Tuscany, held every 30 November. Despite his brief reign, he is highly regarded. The historian Paul W. Schroeder called him "one of the most shrewd and sensible monarchs ever to wear a crown".
The War of the First Coalition was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797, initially against the constitutional Kingdom of France and then the French Republic that succeeded it. They were only loosely allied and fought without much apparent coordination or agreement; each power had its eye on a different part of France it wanted to appropriate after a French defeat, which never occurred.
The French Revolution was a period in the history of France covering the years 1789 to 1799, in which republicans overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church in France perforce underwent radical restructuring. This article covers the one-year period from 1 October 1791 to September 1792, during which France was governed by the Legislative Assembly, operating under the French Constitution of 1791, between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.
The Silesian Wars were three wars fought in the mid-18th century between Prussia and Habsburg Austria for control of the Central European region of Silesia. The First (1740–1742) and Second (1744–1745) Silesian Wars formed parts of the wider War of the Austrian Succession, in which Prussia was a member of a coalition seeking territorial gain at Austria's expense. The Third Silesian War (1756–1763) was a theatre of the global Seven Years' War, in which Austria in turn led a coalition of powers aiming to seize Prussian territory.
The Declaration of Pillnitz was a statement of five sentences issued on 27 August 1791 at Pillnitz Castle near Dresden (Saxony) by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor who was Marie Antoinette's brother. It declared the joint support of the Holy Roman Empire and of Prussia for King Louis XVI of France against the French Revolution.
The War of the Bavarian Succession was a dispute between the Austrian Habsburg monarchy and an alliance of Saxony and Prussia over succession to the Electorate of Bavaria after the extinction of the Bavarian branch of the House of Wittelsbach. The Habsburgs sought to acquire Bavaria, and the alliance opposed them, favoring another branch of the Wittelsbachs. Both sides mobilized large armies, but the only fighting in the war was a few minor skirmishes. However, thousands of soldiers died from disease and starvation, earning the conflict the name Kartoffelkrieg in Prussia and Saxony; in Habsburg Austria, it was sometimes called the Zwetschgenrummel.
The Second Silesian War was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1744 to 1745 and confirmed Prussia's control of the region of Silesia. The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Bohemia, and Upper Saxony and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the second of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
The Electorate of Bavaria was a quasi-independent hereditary electorate of the Holy Roman Empire from 1623 to 1806, when it was succeeded by the Kingdom of Bavaria.
The First Silesian War was a war between Prussia and Austria that lasted from 1740 to 1742 and resulted in Prussia's seizing most of the region of Silesia from Austria. The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. It was the first of three Silesian Wars fought between Frederick the Great's Prussia and Maria Theresa's Austria in the mid-18th century, all three of which ended in Prussian control of Silesia.
From the 1680s to 1789, Germany comprised many small territories which were parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Prussia finally emerged as dominant. Meanwhile, the states developed a classical culture that found its greatest expression in the Enlightenment, with world class leaders such as philosophers Leibniz and Kant, writers such as Goethe and Schiller, and musicians Bach and Beethoven.
The Imperial Diet was the deliberative body of the Holy Roman Empire. It was not a legislative body in the contemporary sense; its members envisioned it more like a central forum where it was more important to negotiate than to decide.
Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg was an Austrian and Czech diplomat and statesman in the Habsburg monarchy. A proponent of enlightened absolutism, he held the office of State Chancellor for about four decades and was responsible for the foreign policies during the reigns of Maria Theresa, Joseph II, and Leopold II. In 1764, he was elevated to the noble rank of a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (Reichfürst).
The imperial election of 1619 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on August 28.
The imperial election of 1658 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on July 18.
The imperial election of 1711 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place on October 12.
The imperial election of 1742 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on January 24. The result was the election of Charles Albert of Bavaria, the first non-Habsburg emperor in three hundred years.
The imperial election of 1745 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on September 13.
The imperial election of 1790 was an imperial election held to select the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It took place in Frankfurt on 30 September.
