Annexation of Holland

Louis Bonaparte had reigned over Holland since 1806. Against all expectation, he learned Dutch, settled in Amsterdam, defended his subjects' interests and clashed with his brother on the two points that mattered: conscription and the blockade.

The country lived by maritime trade; closure to the English ruined it. Louis turned a blind eye to smuggling, refused to carry out seizures, even negotiated in London. For Napoleon this was the breach through which the continental system was taking water.

French troops occupied Brabant and Walcheren from the spring; in March Holland had already had to cede the left bank of the Rhine and the Waal. On 1 July Louis abdicated in favour of his son and left the country for Bohemia.

The decree of 9 July 1810 united the kingdom to the Empire. Holland was carved into nine departments, Lebrun was appointed governor-general, and Amsterdam officially became the third city of the Empire, after Paris and Rome.

With this annexation, followed in the autumn by that of the Hanseatic cities as far as Lübeck, the Empire reached its greatest extent: a hundred and thirty departments, from Hamburg to Rome and from Brest to Illyria.

The picture is misleading. This extension was not a conquest but a consequence: the coasts had to be annexed in order to hold the blockade, and the blockade cost a brother of the Emperor his throne. Holland, occupied and drained by conscription, would recover its independence as early as November 1813, before the Empire itself fell.