1807   


In 1804 General Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the French Republic, and President of the Italian Republic, created himself Emperor of the French and King of Italy. After he made himself a monarch he sought to put his relatives on the thrones of France's dependent states. In 1805 the blind and infirm Pensionary of the Council of the Batavian Republic was done away with and Louis Napoleon, brother of the Emperor became Louis I, King of Holland. The city of Middelburg on the island of Walcheren was annexed by France. The new King ruled Holland surprisingly independent of his brother's wishes and the brothers became embroiled. Louis was hesitant to enforce the Continental system, which sought to isolate Britain from trade with continental Europe.

Prussia and Austria partook in the Third coalition against France in 1807. They lost and Prussia was decimated at the cost of even more states ruled by Napoleon relatives. The Kingdom of Westphalia was erected for Napoleons brother Jerome, while the Grand duchy of Berg was erected for the little Crown Prince of Holland. Smaller states that had sided against Napoleon were also included in these new states. Hesse Cassel became the core of Jerome's Westphalian Kingdom, while Orange-Nassau, owned by the son of the last Dutch Stadtholder was ceded to the Grand duchy of Berg. The Fulda territory, given to the Prince of Orange in compensation of the rights he had lost in the Netherlands, was now added to the Grand duchy of Frankfurt, given to Napoleons stepson Eugene de Beauharnais, a son of the Empress Josephine from her first marriage, and brother of Holland’s Queen Hortense.

The Principality of East Frisia that had close ecclesiastical and ethnic ties with neighbouring Holland, and used the Dutch language in ecclesiastical matters was added to the Kingdom of Holland, when it was taken from Prussia. The County of Inn and Kniphaussen with the seaside resort of Varel and the Lordship of Jever were added. Jever was a possession of the Russian Emperor Paul that he had ceded to Oldenburg, itself a gift from the Emperor Paul to his Holstein-Gottorp cousin, Peter I. In 1810 Napoleon took the south of the Kingdom of Holland and annexed it to France, to teach his wayward brother a lesson. The serrated blue line on the map represents the new border. Finally in the same year Napoleon forced his brother to abdicate. He abdicated in favour of his little son who acceded as King Louis II. Napoleon ignored this succession however and annexed the Kingdom to France.