Peace of Basel

For other uses, seeTreaty of Basel.

Peace of Basel

Map shows Central Europe after the Peace of Basel and theTreaty of Campo Formio.
Context	End of theWar of the First Coalitionbetween France and Prussia, France and Spain, France and Hesse-Kassel
Signed	1795
Location	Basel,Old Swiss Confederation
Signatories	French First Republic Kingdom of Prussia Kingdom of Spain Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel

ThePeace ofBaselof 1795 consists of three peace treaties involving France during theFrench Revolution(represented byFrançois de Barthélemy).

• The first was withPrussia(represented byKarl August von Hardenberg) on 5 April;
• The second was withSpain(represented byDomingo d'Yriarte) on 22 July, ending theWar of the Pyrenees;and
• The third was with theLandgraviate of Hesse-Kassel(represented by Friedrich Sigismund Waitz von Eschen) on 28 August, concluding the stage of theFrench Revolutionary Warsagainst theFirst Coalition.

With great diplomatic cunning, the treaties enabled France to placate and divide its enemies of the First Coalition, one by one. Thereafter,Revolutionary Franceemerged as a major European power.

Treaty between France and Prussia

The first treaty, on 5 April 1795 between France and Prussia, had been under discussion since 1794. Prussia withdrew from the coalition that had been working on the impending partition of Poland and, when it was appropriate, withdrew its troops aligned against Austria and Russia. (See also theFrench Revolutionary Warsand theNapoleonic Wars.) In secret, Prussia recognised the French control of the west bank of theRhinepending a cession by theImperial Diet.France returned all of the lands east of the Rhine captured during the war. On the night of 6 April, the document was signed by the representatives of France and Prussia: François de Barthélemy and Karl August von Hardenberg. They were not face to face, each was in his own accommodation in Rosshof or theMarkgräflerhof,and the papers were passed around by a courier. The treaty that ceded the left bank of the Rhine was in a secret article, along with the promise that of indemnifying the right bank if the left bank of the Rhine was covered in a final general peace in France.Peter Ochsdrew up the treaty and served as a mediator for a significant proportion of these financial statements.

Prussia stuck to the agreement of the Treaty of Basel until 1806, when it joined the Fourth Coalition.

Treaty between France and Spain

In the second treaty, on 22 July, Spain ceded the eastern two thirds of the island ofHispaniolato France in exchange for keepingGipuzkoa.The French also came at night to sign the peace treaty between France and Spain in which Spain was represented by Domingo d'Yriarte, who signed the treaty in the mansion of Ochs, the Holsteinerhof. Spain wouldrecapture the areain 1808/1809 and maintain it undera light colonial controluntil 1822. Following theHaitian Revolutionthe French claim to what is now theDominican Republicwould bede factoinherited by Haiti whichoccupied the areafrom 1822 to 1844. France would cede itsde jureclaim over the eastern part of the island to Spain in the 1814Treaty of Paris.Owing partially to that, France refused to recognize any Haitian claim to the territory when it negotiated theHaiti Independence Debtandde jurerecognition of Haiti's independence in 1825.

These treaties with Prussia and Spain had the effect of breaking the alliance between the French Republic's two main opponents of the First Coalition.

Other provisions and treaty partners

On 28 August 1795, the third treaty was completed, a peace between France and theLandgraviate of Hesse-Kassel,signed by Friedrich Sigismund Waitz von Eschen.

There was also an agreement to exchange the Austrian troops who had been captured inBelgium.

See also

• Campaigns of 1795 in the French Revolutionary Wars
• Cisrhenian Republic
• List of treaties

References

• Engels, Ernst August Richard (1936).Friedrich Nicolais "Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek" und der Friede von Basel 1795.Würzburg, Buchdruckerei R. Mayr.
• Furet, Francois; Ozouf, Mona (1989).A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution.
• Jorio, Marco (2002)."Basel, Frieden von (1795)"(in German) (Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS), Version vom 01.05.2002 ed.).Retrieved6 July2022.

Further reading

• Hargreaves-Mawdsley, W. N. "Conclusive Peace-Treaty between His Catholic Majesty and the French Republic, signed at Basel 1795." inSpain under the Bourbons, 1700–1833(Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1968) pp. 175–176.

External links

• Media related toPeace of Baselat Wikimedia Commons