1794/1795. The French Revolution is in full swing, and the French have discovered that being a republic is super compatible with invading other countries to liberate them! It starts by recognizing the "will of the people", but then the French find that the people don't always want to be liberated, so you have to do it for their own good.
Quotes from Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution, a book I think iberiandoctor brought to my attention:
Some revolutionary officials were now suggesting in Belgium that, should a people lack the courage, intelligence, or maturity to be free, the French must assist them.
During these first campaigns of the war, the French were often genuinely baffled when they encountered foreigners who opposed revolutionary social or political changes or...voluntary [sic] opted for a despotic form of government.
Does this sound familiar? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Anyway, one of the countries that gets the dubious blessing of French "liberation" is the Netherlands. Reminder that they had tried overthrowing their stadtholder and instituting democracy in the mid-1780s, only the wife of the Stadtholder was FWII's sister. She asks him for help, and in 1787, he marches into the Netherlands with his Prussian army and puts her and her husband back. (selenak, do I remember correctly that Heinrich thought this was not the best way of handling the situation?)
Wikipedia on how the Prussian invasion ended:
The Prussian king had incurred great expenses that he wanted to be recompensed for. The Duke and the Princess negotiated him down from his initial demand of several million guilders, but he insisted on a "douceur" for the troops of exactly 402,018 guilders and 10 stuivers, to be paid by Amsterdam alone. But the States of Holland generously rounded this up to half-a-million guilders, to be paid by the entire province, and the king acquiesced. As invasions go, this was a bargain: the victorious revolutionary French forces in 1795 demanded an indemnity of 100 million guilders for their "liberation" of the Netherlands from the stadtholder's dictatorship.
Anyway, the French invaded in 1793 but were defeated, then tried again the next year. The Dutch attempted to use the rivers as natural defenses, but 1794/1795 was an unusually cold winter, and the rivers froze solid enough for the French armies to march straight over.
In 1795, the French set up the Netherlands as a client state called the "Batavian Republic", which lasted, like most things, until Napoleon.
Re: War of the Spanish Succession: French, Dutch, and Bavarian Backstories
Heinrich's opinion on the Dutch affair: honestly, I can't remember right now, I'd have to look it up. But [Unknown site tag] the sister in question was Wilhelmine Minor, the niece who wrote Fritz a glowing reference as a replacement Dad in her memoirs and whom he encouraged to influence her country's politics as much as she could. (Double standards? There's always the one standard: what's good for Fritz Prussia?)
The French Republic "liberating" people for their own good and being puzzled when they're not grateful: there is a movie, "Goya's Ghosts", by Milos Forman, I think, which was actually made during the (second) Iraq War and has a scene in which Napoleon, talking to his generals, is absolutely sure there will be flowers from the grateful Spaniards, because how could there not be, with their country freed from the dark ages of the Inquisition and superstition and so forth. This must have been the only time someone compared Dubya to Napoleon.
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Re: War of the Spanish Succession: French, Dutch, and Bavarian Backstories
A really cold winter can screw you over (and did for the Dutch, on another occasion).
Details?
Re: War of the Spanish Succession: French, Dutch, and Bavarian Backstories
Quotes from Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution, a book I think
Some revolutionary officials were now suggesting in Belgium that, should a people lack the courage, intelligence, or maturity to be free, the French must assist them.
During these first campaigns of the war, the French were often genuinely baffled when they encountered foreigners who opposed revolutionary social or political changes or...voluntary [sic] opted for a despotic form of government.
Does this sound familiar? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Anyway, one of the countries that gets the dubious blessing of French "liberation" is the Netherlands. Reminder that they had tried overthrowing their stadtholder and instituting democracy in the mid-1780s, only the wife of the Stadtholder was FWII's sister. She asks him for help, and in 1787, he marches into the Netherlands with his Prussian army and puts her and her husband back. (
Wikipedia on how the Prussian invasion ended:
The Prussian king had incurred great expenses that he wanted to be recompensed for. The Duke and the Princess negotiated him down from his initial demand of several million guilders, but he insisted on a "douceur" for the troops of exactly 402,018 guilders and 10 stuivers, to be paid by Amsterdam alone. But the States of Holland generously rounded this up to half-a-million guilders, to be paid by the entire province, and the king acquiesced. As invasions go, this was a bargain: the victorious revolutionary French forces in 1795 demanded an indemnity of 100 million guilders for their "liberation" of the Netherlands from the stadtholder's dictatorship.
Anyway, the French invaded in 1793 but were defeated, then tried again the next year. The Dutch attempted to use the rivers as natural defenses, but 1794/1795 was an unusually cold winter, and the rivers froze solid enough for the French armies to march straight over.
In 1795, the French set up the Netherlands as a client state called the "Batavian Republic", which lasted, like most things, until Napoleon.
Re: War of the Spanish Succession: French, Dutch, and Bavarian Backstories
FritzPrussia?)The French Republic "liberating" people for their own good and being puzzled when they're not grateful: there is a movie, "Goya's Ghosts", by Milos Forman, I think, which was actually made during the (second) Iraq War and has a scene in which Napoleon, talking to his generals, is absolutely sure there will be flowers from the grateful Spaniards, because how could there not be, with their country freed from the dark ages of the Inquisition and superstition and so forth. This must have been the only time someone compared Dubya to Napoleon.