Batavian Republic
바타비아 공화국
French sister republic established in 1795 as the successor to the Dutch Republic of the Seven United Provinces, produced by the French revolutionary invasion together with revolution inside the Netherlands. It was renamed the Batavian Commonwealth by the constitution of October 1801, and in 1805 executive power passed to a one-man Grand Pensionary before the Kingdom of Holland replaced it in June 1806. The name, taken from the Germanic Batavi, invoked Dutch descent and an ancient tradition of liberty.
In depth
Establishment
In the severe cold of 1794–95, French forces under Pichegru crossed the frozen rivers and invaded the Netherlands. In many cities revolution broke out before the French arrived, with revolutionary committees seizing the city governments. Stadtholder William V fled to England by fishing boat on 18 January 1795. The new republic was the product of a genuine popular revolution enjoying broad support among the Dutch people, yet it was established with the armed backing of the French revolutionary armies, making it the first of the "sister republics" and a client state that later became part of Napoleonic France. Sources differ on the proclamation date: 19 January 1795 (English and Korean Wikipedia) and 20 January (Dutch National Archives), and Dutch historiography notes that the republic was never officially proclaimed as a state.
Relations with France and Internal Conflict
Under the harsh Treaty of The Hague of 16 May 1795, the republic had to concede territory, pay a huge indemnity and maintain a French army of 25,000. The Netherlands passed from being a client of Britain and Prussia to a client of France, whose government shaped its foreign and military policy. France backed three coups to put in power the faction matching its own stage of political development, but until Napoleon imposed Louis Bonaparte as monarch, the process of writing constitutions was driven mainly by internal political factors.
Reforms
The central domestic reform was replacing the old federal structure with a unitary state. The constitution of 1798 was the first in Dutch history to be genuinely democratic and was approved in a referendum on 23 April 1798 by 153,913 votes to 11,587. It abolished hereditary offices and sinecures, made officials accountable, and adopted economic liberalism, including the removal of guild and internal barriers to trade. The coup of 1801, however, was counter-revolutionary in character: it deleted the words liberty, equality and fraternity, narrowed the franchise, and established the Staatsbewind with strengthened executive powers. Under the constitution of 1801 the republic also came to be known as the Batavian Commonwealth.
War and Dissolution
The republic won international recognition, including from Britain, in the Peace of Amiens of 1802, but when war resumed in 1803 it was mobilized for Napoleon's preparations to invade England, supplying fleets and transports and carrying the burden of economic warfare. From 1803 Napoleon's economic war against Britain squeezed Dutch trade. When the French commander Marmont demanded in late 1804 the right to police cargoes in Dutch ports, the Staatsbewind resisted on 23 November 1804 by forbidding Dutch officials to obey French orders, which brought another Batavian regime to an end. On 10 May 1805 Schimmelpenninck took office as Grand Pensionary in a one-man executive, and in his short rule more reforms were achieved than in the previous ten years of government (Gogel's general tax plan of June 1805, the local government law of July 1805, the school law of 1806). Schimmelpenninck resigned on 4 June 1806, and the next day Louis Bonaparte accepted the crown of "Holland", ending the Batavian Republic. In July 1810 the Netherlands was annexed to the French Empire.
Significance
The reforms that replaced the old federal structure with a unitary state and introduced the democratic constitution of 1798 and cabinet government anticipated several features of the modern centralized Dutch state, including the constitutional revision of Johan Rudolf Thorbecke in 1848. Though a French client state, Batavian governments sought to defend Dutch interests even where these clashed with those of France.