The Batavian Republic (1795-1806) was the successor of the United Provinces, founded as a protectorate republic of the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was succeeded in 1806 by Napoleon's Kingdom of Holland, ruled by Louis Bonaparte, his brother.
History[]
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded the Austrian Netherlands and in 1793 invaded the United Provinces, who were allied with the Austrians. The French defeated the Dutch by 1795 and captured Amsterdam, and they installed the Batavian Republic as a successor state. The Dutch were made into a vassal state, and the British took advantage of this, seizing South Africa from them in 1795 and taking over several other colonial territories. With Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck as Stadtholder, the Dutch Batavian Republic acted as allies of the French and in 1799 defeated a failed Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland. In 1805, the Batavian Republic passed a series of reforms that harmed French interests, and Napoleon I decided to create a client kingdom out of the increasingly disloyal Batavian Republic. He sent French troops to occupy the Netherlands, and he installed the Kingdom of Holland with his brother Louis Bonaparte as king.
