The Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam refers to the transfer of power in the city of Amsterdam on 18 January 1795 to a Revolutionary Committee of the new Batavian Republic. The same day the stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, William V, Prince of Orange fled the country. Amsterdam was the first city that declared itself in the Batavian Revolution that brought about the Batavian Republic.[ clarification needed ]
Amsterdam had been a hotbed of Patriot revolutionary fervor during the Patriot Revolution of 1785–1787. After the Prussian intervention of 1787 and the subsequent Orangist repression, the city reverted to control by the ancien regime of the stadtholder. The Dutch Republic became an Anglo-Prussian client state whose foreign policy was determined in London and Berlin, while the exiled Patriots in Pas de Calais and Paris plotted its overthrow. When the revolutionary First French Republic declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic on 1 February 1793, the exiles strongly favored the inclusion of the Dutch territory.[ citation needed ] During the early Flanders Campaign, the exiles formed their own "Batavian Legion" that (like its Belgian equivalent) fought side by side with the armies of general Charles François Dumouriez under command of general Herman Willem Daendels. However, despite an incursion into North Brabant (then part of the non-self-governing Generality Lands), the attack on the Dutch Republic was unsuccessful after the French defeat at Neerwinden. [1] Dumouriez defected to Austria.
In 1794, the campaign was more successful for the French and their Batavian allies. North Brabant was again invaded by the French army under general Charles Pichegru and occupied up to the river Waal. This proved as yet too much of an obstacle for the French. Nevertheless, the French success had emboldened the Patriot partisans that had remained in Amsterdam. Despite the vigilance of the political police of the stadtholder, they had been able to form secret societies, masquerading as "reading clubs" that spread revolutionary propaganda, and prepared for insurrection by secretly amassing arms in an arsenal near Bickerseiland. Ringleaders were Alexander Gogel, Nicolaas van Staphorst and Cornelis Rudolphus Theodorus Krayenhoff, the latter acting as Military Officer of the Amsterdam Revolutionary Committee. [2]
On 14 October 1794, the stadtholder (aware that something was afoot) ordered the city council of Amsterdam to take measures to ensure that civil order would be preserved. The garrison under General Gabriel Golovkin was reinforced with 4,000 British troops from the British army of occupation. That same day, however, the Patriot insurrection began. The Patriots presented a petition to the city regents, protesting the billeting of the British troops, and this was supposed to be the signal for the revolt. This did not materialize, due to the intimidation by the garrison troops, that occupied strategic points with cannon and barricades. The petition had inadvertently provided the political police with the names and addresses of the would-be revolutionaries and these were rounded up following 17 October. Before they were ordered to appear at court on 28 October, Gogel, Van Staphorst and Krayenhoff, etc. fled the city; the latter joined the central Patriot Revolutionary Committee at the French headquarters in 's-Hertogenbosch. [3] Van Staphorst hide in Kampen at Jacobus Kantelaar; Gogol went to Bremen. [4]
During the Winter of 1794 French troops had been on the Waal river, poised to advance. Only when the river froze over, in the severe weather that started mid December, were they able to go forward. They advanced very rapidly due to the collapse of the defensive forces of the stadtholder and his British, Prussian and Austrian allies. A number of important cities fell in rapid succession. [5] On 16 January 1795 general Joseph Souham accepted the surrender of the city of Utrecht after Prussian troops under general Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn had evacuated the province of the same name, and the British occupation troops had left the city "taking with them virtually anything that could be moved." [6]
The Batavian Revolutionary Committee followed these developments with mixed feelings. Well aware of the French predilection for annexation (as their Belgian neighbors had experienced the previous year) they deemed it necessary that a big Dutch city should be taken by Dutch efforts next, so as to demonstrate that the pretensions of the committee to exercise independent authority could be validated. Amsterdam was the obvious choice. The news of the fall of Utrecht galvanized the remnants of the Amsterdam Revolutionary Committee into action on 17 January. Posters and handbills appeared on every street corner and rumors started to fly that the revolutionaries would seize power the next day. [7]
That next day, Sunday 18 January, the Revolutionary Committee met secretly in their haunt, a tavern by the name of Het Wapen van Embden ("the Emden Arms") on the Nieuwendijk street, near city hall. A substantial crowd gathered and a deputation, led by Gogel, was sent at the head of this crowd to city hall to demand arms "so as to be able to maintain public order." As in October of the previous year, burgomaster Matthijs Straalman refused to be intimidated and ordered out the garrison. However, differently than in October, General Golovkin now hesitated as he was reluctant to shed blood with the French so nearby. His mind was made up when that same evening Krayenhoff arrived in a French lieutenant's uniform, bearing a commission from the central Revolutionary Committee in Utrecht to remove the "illegal" Orangist city government. [8]
The Patriot Revolutionary Committee (with Samuel Iperusz. Wiselius and Nicolaas van Staphorst) deemed it important to liberate an important city itself, without direct French aid, to support its claims to independent authority in the Netherlands. It therefore sent Krayenhoff to Amsterdam, in a French lieutenant's uniform, to organize another insurrection. On Sunday afternoon – at Daendels' instruction – Krayenhoff came to tell Amsterdam's burgomasters that they had better resign the next day. Golovkin unexpectedly went along with this charade and in effect surrendered the city to Krayenhoff then and there. Krayenhoff next proceeded to city hall at the head of an enormous crowd and demanded the surrender of the city from Straalman. The latter tried to stall, but the crowd became threatening, and fearing for his personal safety Straalman transferred command of the garrison to Krayenhoff at midnight. Amsterdam had "fallen" to an unarmed Dutch revolutionary. [9]
The next morning, 19 January, the Amsterdam Revolutionary Committee, with Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck as its president, rode in a triumphant procession of carriages to city hall, where they proceeded to read a proclamation declaring that the incumbent city councilors had forfeited their offices. It also promised democratic elections of a new city government (the first in the history of the city, as previously it had always been governed by an oligarchy) in the near future. Meanwhile, a provisional government of 22 members was put in charge of the city. This provisional government had as its first order of business the welcome of the French (who had delayed their advance from Utrecht in happy expectation of the outcome). The first French chasseurs arrived that afternoon to general acclaim. On 19 January, the population erected a liberty tree in Dam Square in thick snow. [10] [11]
The previous night, around midnight of 18 January, stadtholder William V followed his wife Wilhelmina, who had left the previous morning, into exile, boarding a fishing vessel at the Scheveningen beach. [12] Much of the Pro-British faction of the city of Amsterdam fled along with the Prince of Orange, so there was very little opposition to the change of power. The British armies made no effort to retake Amsterdam, instead, they continued retreating towards Bremen – from which they were eventually evacuated in March 1795. [13]
The model of the transfer of power in Amsterdam was soon followed in other Dutch cities not yet occupied by the French. Revolutionary committees sprang up left and right, demanding surrender of the ruling city councils to new provisional administrations and the disarmament of the Orangist civic militias and their replacement with "Free Corps" companies from the days of the 1785–1787 Patriot Revolt. In this way Schiedam, Haarlem and Leeuwarden, to mention a few, experienced peaceful revolutions of their own. Only the Orangist stronghold of The Hague held out; its Orangist city government sought its own accommodation with the French and it was only replaced on 26 February. [14]
The Amsterdam Revolutionary Committee took the initiative to convene a constituent assembly of representatives of the cities that constituted the constituencies of the States of Holland and West Friesland on 24 January. This resulted in two days later in the abolition of those States and their replacement with the Provisional Representatives of the People of Holland. [15]
The Batavian Republic was the successor state to the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 and ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the Dutch throne. From October 1801 onward, it was known as the Batavian Commonwealth. Both names refer to the Germanic tribe of the Batavi, representing both the Dutch ancestry and their ancient quest for liberty in their nationalistic lore.
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, officially the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 and declaring their independence in 1581. It comprised Groningen, Frisia, Overijssel, Guelders, Utrecht, Holland and Zeeland.
William V was a prince of Orange and the last stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. He went into exile to London in 1795. He was furthermore ruler of the Principality of Orange-Nassau until his death in 1806. In that capacity he was succeeded by his son William.
The Patriottentijd was a period of political instability in the Dutch Republic between approximately 1780 and 1787. Its name derives from the Patriots faction who opposed the rule of the stadtholder, William V, Prince of Orange, and his supporters who were known as Orangists.
Isaac Jan Alexander Gogel was a Dutch politician, who was the first minister of finance of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of Holland. He married Catharina van Hasselt in 1800, and had three children.
Rutger Jan, Count Schimmelpenninck, Lord of Nyenhuis, Peckedam and Gellicum, was a Dutch jurist, ambassador and politician who served as Grand Pensionary of the Batavian Republic from 1805 to 1806. Historian Niek Sas called him the first Dutch liberal politician.
The Batavian Revolution was a time of political, social and cultural turmoil at the end of the 18th century that marked the end of the Dutch Republic and saw the proclamation of the Batavian Republic. The period of Dutch history that followed the revolution is referred to as the "Batavian-French era" (1795–1813) even though the time spanned was only 20 years, of which three were under French occupation under Napoleon Bonaparte.
Nicolaas van Staphorst was a Dutch banker and financier. Nicolaas and Jacob van Staphorst were involved from 1782-1794 in a total of eleven loans to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders. Van Staphorst also invested with other Dutch investment houses in a series of ventures in the U.S. that developed into the Holland Land Company.
Johan Valckenaer was a Dutch professor who specialized in Roman law. He was a passionate and combative patriot who promoted the right to bear weapons. In 1787 he went in exile in France and in 1793 he made proposals for a constitutional monarchy. After his return in 1795 he became professor in Constitutional law, a member of National Assembly, a diplomat and financial counsellor.
Wybo Fijnje was a Dutch Mennonite minister, publisher in Delft, Patriot, exile, coup perpetrator, politician and - during the Batavian Republic and Kingdom of Holland - manager of the predecessor of the Staatscourant.
Corneli(u)s Rudolphus Theodorus, Baron Krayenhoff was a physicist, artist, general, hydraulic engineer, cartographer and – against his will and for only a short time – Dutch Minister of War.
In the history of the Dutch Republic, Orangism or prinsgezindheid was a political force opposing the Staatsgezinde (pro-Republic) party. Orangists supported the Princes of Orange as Stadtholders and military commanders of the Republic, as a check on the power of the regenten. The Orangist party drew its adherents largely from traditionalists – mostly farmers, soldiers, noblemen and orthodox Protestant preachers, though its support fluctuated heavily over the course of the Republic's history and there were never clear-cut socioeconomic divisions.
The Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland was a military campaign from 27 August to 19 November 1799 during the War of the Second Coalition, in which an expeditionary force of British and Russian troops invaded the North Holland peninsula in the Batavian Republic. The campaign had two strategic objectives: to neutralize the Batavian fleet and to promote an uprising by followers of the former stadtholder William V against the Batavian government. The invasion was opposed by a slightly smaller joint Franco-Batavian army. Tactically, the Anglo-Russian forces were successful initially, defeating the defenders in the battles of Callantsoog and the Krabbendam, but subsequent battles went against the Anglo-Russian forces. Following a defeat at Castricum, the Duke of York, the British supreme commander, decided upon a strategic retreat to the original bridgehead in the extreme north of the peninsula. Subsequently, an agreement was negotiated with the supreme commander of the Franco-Batavian forces, General Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, that allowed the Anglo-Russian forces to evacuate this bridgehead unmolested. However, the expedition partly succeeded in its first objective, capturing a significant proportion of the Batavian fleet.
The Prussian invasion of Holland was a Prussian military campaign in September–October 1787 to restore the Orange stadtholderate in the Dutch Republic against the rise of the democratic Patriot movement.
The Act of Guarantee of the hereditary stadtholderate was a document from 1788, in which the seven provinces of the States General and the representative of Drenthe declared, amongst other things, that the admiralty and captain-generalship were hereditary, and together with the hereditary stadtholderate would henceforth be an integrated part of the constitution of the Dutch Republic. Moreover, members of the House of Orange-Nassau would have the exclusive privilege to hold the office. The Act was in force until the Batavian Republic was established in 1795.
The Provisional Representatives of the People of Holland was the name given to the supreme governing body of the province of Holland, instituted after the Batavian Revolution, during the period in which the Netherlands was transitioning from the constitution under the Dutch Republic to the new constitution of the Batavian Republic. After the States General of the Batavian Republic had been replaced by the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic, in 1796, the Provisional Representatives, and similar bodies, in all Dutch provinces were abolished.
The Battle of Jutphaas, also known as the Battle of the Vaart or the Battle of Vreeswijk, occurred on 9 May 1787 on the banks of the Vaartsche Rijn canal near Jutphaas and Vreeswijk between Orangists and Patriots.
The Leiden Draft is the translation used in Anglophone historiography of the Dutch-language concept Leids Ontwerp, a draft-manifesto discussed by the Holland congress of representatives of exercitiegenootschappen on 8 October 1785 in Leiden in the context of the so-called Patriot revolution of 1785 in the Dutch Republic. This draft resulted in publication of the manifesto entitled Ontwerp om de Republiek door eene heilzaame Vereeniging van Belangen van Regent en Burger van Binnen Gelukkig en van Buiten Gedugt te maaken, Leiden, aangenomen bij besluit van de Provinciale Vergadering van de Gewapende Corpsen in Holland, op 4 oktober 1785 te Leiden. It contained an exposition of the Patriot ideology and arrived at the formulation of twenty proposals of political reform in a democratic vein.
Pieter 't Hoen was a Dutch journalist, poet, and politician who played an important role during the Patriottentijd as the editor of De Post van den Neder-Rhijn.
The siege of Nijmegen occurred from 27 October to 8 November 1794 during the Flanders campaign of the War of the First Coalition. It was the last major military confrontation between the forces of the Revolutionary French First Republic and the reactionary First Coalition of European monarchs including William V, Prince of Orange, before the fall of the Dutch Republic in January 1795, which William had ruled as hereditary stadtholder since 1751. As commander-in-chief of the Dutch States Army, his indecision, several changes of mind and lack of coordination with his Anglo-Hanoverian, Hessian, Prussian and Austrian allies contributed to the eventual surrender of Nijmegen to the French revolutionaries.