Grand Duchy of Berg

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Grand Duchy of Berg
Grand-duché de Berg (French)
Großherzogtum Berg (German)
1806–1813
Flag of Berg
Flag
Coat of arms of Berg
Coat of arms
Louis I
Historical era
Abolition of the Confederation of the Rhine
1 December 1813
Area
181117,300 km2 (6,700 sq mi)
Population
• 
880,000
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Duchy of Berg
Duchy of Cleves
County of Mark
Principality of Münster
Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg

The Grand Duchy of Berg (German: Großherzogtum Berg), also known as the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves, was a territorial grand duchy established in 1806 by Napoleon after his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz (1805) on territories between the French Empire at the Rhine river and the German Kingdom of Westphalia.

History

The French annexation of the

French Revolutionary wars in 1794 had again separated the two duchies of Jülich and Berg, which since 1614 had both been ruled in personal union by the Wittelsbach dukes of Palatinate-Neuburg. In 1803, the heir of Palatinate-Neuburg, the Bavarian elector Maximilian Joseph, separated the remaining Duchy of Berg from his other Bavarian territories and granted it to his cousin William of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld-Gelnhausen
as administrator, whereby it came under the rule of a junior branch of the Wittelsbachs.

In 1806, in the reorganization of Germany occasioned by the dissolution of the

Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle
.

Murat eventually left the grand duchy in 1808 to take up his new title as

Napoleon Louis Bonaparte (1804–1831), the elder son of Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, as Grand Duke of Berg; French bureaucrats under Pierre Louis Roederer
administered the territory in his name. For nine days in July 1810, Grand Duke Napoleon Louis also ruled over the Kingdom of Holland in another personal union, but this was short-lived, and French troops moved into the kingdom and incorporated it into France.

The state was in constant economic decline ever since its formation, this is in large part due to Napoleon's failed Continental System which led to a series of revolts and uprisings. The grand duchy's short existence came to an end when the French forces pulled back in the course of the German campaign of 1813. The territory was then administered by Prussia, which officially incorporated the former grand duchy according to the Final Act of the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Berg became part of the Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, and the eastern territories of Münster and Mark were merged into the Province of Westphalia. Today, the territory is part of modern Germany.

Coats of arms

  • Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1806–1808)
    Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1806–1808)
  • Seal of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1807)
    Seal of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1807)
  • Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1809–1813)
    Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Berg (1809–1813)

References

  1. ^ Clercq, Alexandre de (1864). Recueil des traites de la France (in French). Amyot.
  • Otto von Pivka, Michael P. Roffe, Napoleon's German Allies: Westfalia and Kleve-Berg, p. 3; Google Books