Danton's rhetoric was spread throughout the occupied territories by the representatives of the Convention and the local supporters of the French, in order to prepare and justify the annexation of the territories. Even so, the French were beaten at the Battle of Neerwinden on March 18, 1793, and were forced to leave Belgium. The decisive French victory at the Battle of Fleurus in July 1794 and the founding of the Batavian Republic in January 1795 confirmed the French occupation of Belgium. Prussia started the negotiations that finished with the first treaty of Basel, signed April 5, 1795, by which Prussia ceded to France its territories on the left bank of the Rhine.