The Rhineland under the French

1794 - 1815 The Administration of the Rhineland in the Time of the French

The repercussions of the French Revolution reached the Rhineland earlier than other parts of Germany and Europe, and had a more lasting and formative effect on the region. From the autumn of 1794 the river Rhine formed the actual border between the left bank of the Rhine under French occupation and the rest of Germany. However, until 1797 nobody in Paris had any clear idea of what was supposed to happen to the conquered area. It remained under a régime of military occu-pation, whose primary aim was plundering the country.

After the spring and summer of 1797, when France temporarily intended to set up a formally inde-pendent republic "CisRhénanie" on the left bank of the Rhine, on the 17th  October 1797 the Peace Treaty of Campo Formio, concluded between the German Kaiser and France, marked a turning point. The recognition of the Rhine border, as agreed by the Kaiser in the peace treaty, then made it seem advisable to incorporate the entire left bank of the Rhine into the national territory of France, as had already happened to Belgium in 1795. At the beginning of November 1797 the French General Commissioner Rudler started the administrative reorganization of the country according to the French model.

The Rhineland was organized into four départements (Rur, Rhine-Moselle, Saar and Donnersberg), which in turn were subdivided into subordinate administrative levels, namely the arrondissements (boroughs) and municipalités (parishes). Gradually, all the other laws and decrees which were in force within France were also transferred to the Rhineland. Under international law, the annexation of the left bank of the Rhine was finally recognized in the Peace Treaty of Lunéville (9Feb1801).

Although as a rule the leading officials (préfets) at the département level remained French, possi-bilities developed at all subordinate levels for Germans to also take part in the political process. First and foremost this was true for the so-called "most highly taxed", who were also described as "notables". None the less, in the end the final decisions were always taken in Paris, where Na-poléon had held the reins of power since 1799 (as first Consul, from 1804 as Emperor).