Grand Duchy of Frankfurt
The Grand Duchy of Frankfurt existed from 1810 to 1813. 302,000 inhabitants with it was a (except for the exclave Wetzlar ) coherent state model of 5160 km ² within the Confederation of the Rhine. Residence was Aschaffenburg.
Development to 1810
The Grand Duchy of Frankfurt is closely connected with the name Karl Theodor von Dalberg. Dalberg was the last Archbishop of Mainz and Elector. By Reichsdeputationshauptschluss the right bank part of the archbishopric of Mainz was secularized and re-constituted as the Principality of Aschaffenburg. Together with the territories of Regensburg and Wetzlar it formed the state of the Kurerzkanzlers. The Confederation of the Rhine Treaty of 1806 this addition the imperial city of Frankfurt was awarded.
Grand Duchy
On February 19, 1810, Napoleon I signed a treaty by which the Grand Duchy was founded. The Start-up were Dalberg waiver of Regensburg, the principalities of Hanau and the former Nazi pin Fulda incorporated. The new state was enough (northern part of the country of the Grand Duchy of Hesse -Darmstadt ), the Principality of Isenburg on the north by Upper Hesse (northern part of the sea timber, Budingen, Birstein ) and to the Department Werra of the Kingdom of Westphalia, in the east part of the duchy of Saxe -Weimar- Eisenach in the east and south by the Grand Duchy of Würzburg, to the south by the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Principality of Isenburg (southern part with Offenbach and Neu-Isenburg ). In the west, the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt joined to the Duchy of Nassau. In addition, adjacent lay some possessions of the Empire France and the Principality of Lippe- Detmold. The area of the Grand Duchy was 5,160 km2, its population amounted to 302,000. With the exception of the enclave Wetzlar it was a territorially contiguous territory, which was divided into four departments, Frankfurt, Hanau, Aschaffenburg and Fulda. The residence remained Aschaffenburg.
On August 16, 1810 assembly of the estates of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt the Civil Code was adopted with the Highest Organizational patent of the Constitution of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt an oriented on the French model constitution, convened in Parliament and introduced in 1811. Dalberg proved to be a progressive ruler, among other things, serfdom and forced labor abolished in his short reign, the school and education system reformed and issued a decree for the emancipation of the Jews. Similar to the Kingdom of Westphalia and the Grand Duchy of Berg but 've been here all efforts to create an embossed by the principles of the Enlightenment model state, condemned by the burdens of the Napoleonic Wars to failure. Dalberg left the Grand Duchy on September 30, 1813 and thanked on 28 October in favor of Napoleon's stepson Eugène de Beauharnais from.
After the Battle of Leipzig and the Congress of Vienna was divided the Grand Duchy. Fulda and Hanau fell to Hesse-Kassel, Aschaffenburg in Bavaria, Wetzlar to Prussia. Frankfurt should also fall to Bavaria, but succeeded in the urban negotiators at the Congress of Vienna to enforce the recovery as Free City of Frankfurt.
Administrative Divisions (1811 )
Note: The villages Dorndiel, Mosbach and Radheim Distriktsmairie the upper castle came only in 1817 by exchange of territory from Bavaria to the Grand Duchy of Hesse ( Hesse -Darmstadt ).
Frankfurt troops in 1809
Government
- Karl Christian Ernst von Bentzel - Sternau, Finance and Minister of State